philipj
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Everything posted by philipj
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Ok... Here's something on how Tim Follin composed his music on the "Spectrum ZX" using a series of clicks from square waves.
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Whatever dude... SMH
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That's not the one although that's not a bad ST demo in it's own right... It could've been I saw it on my Facebook feed...? I did have my cellphone at the time I saw it; Anyways... The one I'm referring too emulated the TG16 synth chip with all six channels playing along with the ST native sound chip with a scrolling sprite background. I thought it was pretty impressive; I think the ST would've benefited quite considerably if that had been out back in the day with better sound capabilities. It reminds the "Rikki & Vikki" game for the Atari 7800 using the extra sound chip on the cartridge... It also reminds me of the "SPL or Sound Programming Library/Language?" for the Atari Lynx that I read about a while back; it was some sort of sound engine "by musicians for musicians" for the Lynx sound chip. I don't spend hours researching, just whenever I get the time to do so and it usually pays off for me.
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He's right... Check "Chronos" music composed by "Tim Follin." He programmed the Spectrum buzzer to produce 1bit synth music through a serious of clicks the ZX sound chip would naturally produce, which I thought was pretty brilliant. He took basic synth theory used in the more analog machines like the "Hammond Organ" and applied to the buzzer on the Spectrum. My first introduction to Tim Follin's work was "Wolverine" for the NES and then "Magic Johnson's Fast Break", which both games sort sucked, but the music extraordinary for an 8-bit machine; It wouldn't be until later I would find out about him and his brother "Geof Follin's" work on the Commodore and Amiga machines. The synthesizer I used on the PC called "Jaytrax Sequencer" originally started out as synthesizer on the Amiga computer using the 68000 processor. Also I ran into a demo on YouTube where someone was able to make a working synthesizer on the "Atari ST" emulating the "Turbo Graphics 16" sound chip with all 6 channels working with graphics floating around in the ST demo. I can't find the demo on YouTube anywhere, but I bet someone here knows about it.
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The topic is skewing a little bit, but I can think of a few arcade machines that came out in the 90s that used the 286 boards very decently; the article only confirmed what I always thought concerning the 68000 in so many arcade machine particularly the early systems like the "Atari System 1" where the cost factor played huge role with IBM charging an arm and a leg for their Jr. computers in the early 80s. I spotted an article in an old "Byte Magazine" from the late 70s that seems to debut the "Motorola 68000" that had a big "splash cover"of a "monolith" just like in the "2010 Movie" with the words "LISP" written on the bottom right, which was known for AI language at that time; very interesting article on the 68K. It seemingly highlighted some features that was favorable toward simulation task, which I found pretty promising or it could've just been a lot of hype to sell the product for that time. lol As far the graphic goes with the Motorola, a few weeks ago I was looking a some comparison between versions of "Wolfenstien 3D" for the "Atari ST" and for the "Sega Genesis" help get a picture between how both display the pseudo 3D with the Geny using its sprite based graphics chip and the ST using the graphics Shifter. Another thing to consider was the ram in both systems can make the difference, but I understand the ST works very differently than the Sega Genesis with the ST's chip-set all glued together using ICs compared to the Geny graphics chip being very sprite based from a hardware standpoint... It's basically a System 16 arcade shrunk down for home use.
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Well that much is pretty obvious if you want to go into details about the arcade hardware; it will always have the upper hand in the graphics and sound department; the machine costed a few hundreds in comparison to an ST hardware performance so it shouldn't be all of that surprising. I've always admired Sega's early arcade machine particularly the "Sega VCO Object Hardware" and how it handled scaling sprites... Back in 80 and 81 they didn't even call them sprites, rather they were called stamps, but still has a very interesting history; Sega always had a good handle on graphics that scaled and rotated... They say the scaling hardware was a very primitive form of scaling or "zooming (Buck Rogers: Planet Of Zoom)" that was used in Television effects prior. I hope to one day master that genera of programming, pseudo 3D will be my thing one day, but that's for another topic.
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I never really owned an ST back in the day so I never really played the ST version... But it's not surprising the game would be ported to the ST considering most of the arcades of that time used the "Motorola 68000". I have an "Atari 520 STM" on my hands today I got of ebay a while back so I'll definitely be tinkering with it soon enough at some point in time. Home-brewing for it has been on the back of my mind for a minute now, but I have to say the sound chip for the old 16-bit suck something awful IMO plus the ST community seem a little quite theses days/not too active (I could be wrong); I'm not really sure if anyone is interested in anything new for the old computer as far as new games is concerned. Also I'm still getting to know the hardware from some old "Abbacus" books I hard copied, but despite whatever, I still optimistic and have big plans for the ST computer. To get back on topic, I like the way "Cisco Heat" performs on the ST; the real arcade cabinet used 2 Motorola 68000 cpu's to pull off its graphics so the way the ST handles the pseudo 3D graphics in comparison to the arcade version is very promising, not to mention the music is pretty decent on the ST with the drum samples playing while the native sound chip do the music; sometimes I wish Atari had used a Pokey along side the YM sound chip for add sound channels. It shows me that the 68000 can handle both graphics and sound with samples fairly decent; something I'll remember when I tackle the Atari Jaguar.
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Ok... I was just looking at the "Not OutRun" demo for the Jaguar and immediately my mind went to an arcade game I use to play at a hotdog joint called "Continental Circus by Taito". The arcade machine to that game used a Motorola 68000 to pull off its graphical contents; I'm pretty sure the sprites for the vehicles were probably divided among smaller sprites to make up one vehicle. Something very badazz about that game that's very appealing; I'd love to see a Sega style racer for the Jaguar.
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Great memories with "Indy 500" playing it on the "Atari Jr" like it was going out of style... It was like playing "Combat" tank game only much faster and without the shooting. It was my go-to game after school along with "Space Chase, Solaris, Missile Command," and others that I can't seem to remember (it's been a long time), but definitely great memories with those games. I also use to like "Dragster" for the 2600, but that game is best played with two players.
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I'm going to post some old-school here... I just want to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy new year. The YouTube's that I have posted are from an old Christmas album that use to be out in the very early 90s called "Electronic Computer Christmas Music". The thing that caught my attention to this album back in 91 or 92 was the "Electronic Computer" part; believe it or not, I remember getting this album at a time when I didn't really own a computer let alone was into music composition via computer sequencing. Believe it or not this album inspired me to get into computer music down the road so nearly 25 years later I get the CD online to relive those nostalgic moments. Luckily someone has already posted the music on YouTube, which I've posted some of my favorite tracks. For a playlist just click the following link here ------> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrZTFrXK7qTDAz5901qfSPdgfNXSbjyBm -
I got this at my front door Monday and I'm super happy about it... It's the "Roland DJ 808 Controller" and it looks fantastic... It's something for me to play with from time to time.
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Yea... Have you heard of the new "Roland 707 Groovebox"...? Someone had suggested getting this one, but I'd already made plans for the "DJ-808 Controller", but it looks very cool. I remember reading about the "Groovebox" back in college around 98 or 99. Always wanted one but never really got one; I was just getting into software based music in 98 using a mod tracker style program to put all of the sounds together. It was a lot of fun doing it that way... It felt like I'd discovered a new way to make music. lol
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I was in college when Native was being made... In fact I would get online on the campus to see how game would progress where at that time I didn't have Internet until some months later. At that time I was still into drawing comic art and was just getting into music composition on the side. Those were some nostalgic times.
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I'm probably dating myself a little bit, but "Native" was one of the reasons I got into the Jag scene... It's a great looking game and it displayed what was possible for the Jaguar back in the late 90s. The PS1 was at its highest thus the dev kit cost for it was too high; the Jaguar, however was readily available... Native and other games were being made for it thus the system at that time showed, then very decent 3D capabilities, but not PS1 kind of capabilities, but that was OK thus the potential was there and was good enough for me; lol Great memories. It's too bad the Jaguar architecture was so bottleneck and riddled with all kind of bugs; seem like everyone wanted to tame the big cat to do what the PS1 or Sega Saturn could do, but the Jaguar is a great 2D system for sprite based graphics... In fact it's a monster with 2D graphics, but a little unconventional with 3D stuff. Games like Native got me to look hard at the Jaguar inner workings because it was a bit of a mystery when I first got into the scene. I certainly have a much better understanding of the system than I did way back when; the question remained "What do I do with what I know?"... I'm gonna use it of course.😎
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Now that the AMY chip has been found, is there any chance of putting the old sound chip to the test...? You might can use the sound card as inspiration for a cartridge release for the Atari 8bit computers or better yet, the Atari ST.
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I pumped quite a few quarters in "Alien Syndrome" arcade version back in the late 80s... Great memories with that one.
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It was based of work done by "Bell Laboratories" so not too surprising... But still very exciting stuff. The Casio keyboards in the mid to late 80s used PCM and Phase Distortion technology for their CZ synthesizer and shelf keyboards, but the AMY seems like it was way ahead of its time. Someone would've figured out how to put an attack and decay the speech synthesis over time before Casio came out with their stuff. I contemplated a CZ emulator on a fast 8bit micro-controller, but the "AMY" is probably well suited for wave sound manipulation via speech synthesis. It's too bad Atari used the chip for anything; I know it wind up in the hands of another company who got it working where Atari sued them and scared the daylights out them. I hope the chip manifest like the "Pokey One" chip did; I'd love to take a stab at it with a sequencer... Maybe make a 5200 game and stick the sound chip on a cartridge perhaps. Or better yet put it on an Atari ST cartridge for Cubase sequencer.
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To me I think "Defender 2000" sets a better example of what "Trevor McFur" could've been only with the CGI style they were using with some nice parallax effects and psuedo 3D here and there with better music. The box art on Trevor was phenomenal if you didn't know the game play; even though it's got the CGI, the game itself feels flat with no substantial presentation to really make that game pop like it should've. I think Defender 2000 sets a good example of what could've been for Trevor to help drive the story with better sound and music, but I think Atari was to blame for the game winding up the way it did.
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I just updated my "Cover Photo" for the first time with a picture of my "Roland JD-XA Synthesizer"... The keyboard functions much cooler than it looks please believe that; it was worth every dime.
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Quote
Another synth lover!
Lol... Yea it does kind of feel like I'm collecting synthesizers these days. I use to be a comic book collector, but looks like I've swap one thing for another now. 😄 My first vintage synth was the "Casio CZ"; since then I've acquired a few more synth like the "Roland JX-8P", the "Roland System 8", the "Roland FA-08 Workstation", the "Korg MR1" module, the Yamaha PSR 500, and a some "Yamaha DX" derivative module I can't think of the name of... Trying to build a dream studio for myself.
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My complete hardware synth list is:
Roland:
JX-3P
Alpha Juno-1
HS-80 (Alpha Juno-2 but the keys are busted, works via MIDI)
JV-2080
TB-3
Waldorf:
Blofeld module (black)
Yamaha:
TX-81z
DX9 (doesn't really work anymore but the TX-81z can do everything it can better)
PSS-140 (toy keyboard with some nasty (in a good way) preset FM sounds.
OPL3 (Sound Blaster 2.0... old OPL3 which uses two OPL2 chips) I count this as it is a synth and I can use Adlib Tracker 2 on DOS to make music with it.
E-MU:
ESI-2000 (sampler)
Proteus/1
Kawai:
K1r (nasty 8 bit digital synth but I love it) Has the best one of the best digital choir sounds out of any synth. Used heavily by Warp Records artists (like LFO)
I also have three Casio keyboards:
MT-60
MT-18
MT-140
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Checkered Flag ROM Compilation and source tweaks
philipj replied to Sporadic's topic in Atari Jaguar Programming
I'm already on top of it thanks to my HP printer... I'm hoping to learn 3D programming in Assembly with the Motorola 68000. Still it would be a great to revisit the old source code again to study how they got it all going on the Jaguar. CF seems to cover a broader range 3D realestate visually even more so than Cybermorph. It's the only game that manages to do so other than DOOM and that's not really real 3D in the traditional sense, but pulls off fake 3D quite nicely. It's clear they (Rebellion) had to pull a few tricks to fit so much 3D into their game; it seems very modular the way the 3D is being rendered where the game is using copies of the same 3D model in certain place while other places, it using low poly buildings and such once the car gets to a certain points... The affect makes for a very convincing huge 3D world despite the sluggish frame rate. Even I couldn't really do anything with the source code, there's still a lot of knowledge that can be gained; might can come up with something better. -
Checkered Flag ROM Compilation and source tweaks
philipj replied to Sporadic's topic in Atari Jaguar Programming
Battlewheels was nearly a selling point for me... I remember seeing the box art in game magazines back in the day, but I'd already had a Sega CD and an SNES console. Had I not gotten those, I certainly would've put my money on the Jaguar just to peep out Battlewheels. Why do you say that? The goal is to learn from the source code and come up with something better... Where there's a will, there's a way. -
The game looks great and is very promising for what can be done on the Jag... Very 16bit like, but very workable from an artistic standpoint using those blocky sprites. I learned a few things about using 4x4 pixel blocks to create a dithering affect when I was using MS Paint for Win 3.1 with only 16 colors back in 96 (never forgot those lessons)... I plan on taking those lessons to the next level next go round artistically; much cleaner art pieces for sprites. It reminds me of the multi-color feature on the "Texas Instrument TI-99/4A" computer where sprites can only use a few colors 8x8 at a time (something to that effect), but is great for fast graphics even though the image is very dithered like with artifacts all things considering? Well I learned how to simulate other color shades with only 4 different colors using a 4x4 paintbrush. Once I get the programming thing down, I'm definitely making something to take advantage of low color depth image for high speed display; i'll need it when I get into the 3D stuff (down the road of course). BTW sorry for the long paragraph, but my mind is always brainstorming ideas when I see anything pertaining to graphics for these retro consoles especially the Jaguar.
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Checkered Flag ROM Compilation and source tweaks
philipj replied to Sporadic's topic in Atari Jaguar Programming
I remember "Battlewheels" being advertised for the Jaguar... What if you made the vehicles in CF apocalyptic and reduce some of the 3D models in the levels...? I'd like to see something like that on the Jag using CF engine. Just throwing ideas out there for the duration; I'm doing it a little old-school here, it's probably more YouTube stuff than I need to be posting; I draw inspiration from other great ideas. I can't really tell how many ideas come to mind when I first got my hands on the source code sometime back. I hadn't look codes until recently... Lots of 3D coordinates for object in Assembly, the rest is stuff I hope to pick up along the way at some point. -
The Jag was originally suppose to compete with the 3DO as well as the 16bit consoles (Genesis & SNES)... I don't think there's too much of a comparison considering the GPU, the Blitter, and Object Processor although I do have to admit the Amiga did have better graphics and sound than the Atari ST 520. The "Hold And Modify or HAM" is something unique to the Amiga machines only, which uniquely set those machines apart from others in a good way (RIP Jay Miner). I guess in a way the Jag kind-of has it's own version of HAM on it and it's basically the GPU not able to make jumps to main memory without a work-around. lol All jokes aside, it's kind of interesting how I ran into the phrase "Hold And Modify"... Back in the late mid 90s I had a program called "Impulse Imagine 3D" for MS-DOS which was a wire-frame modeler and raytracer; it came as a 2 diskette set with a book called "3D Modelling Lab by Phillip Shaddock". It had a rendering feature that supported images being rendered as Bit Map, TIFF, TGA, using a Native or "HAM" to render the image, which was something I'd never heard of until I looked it up and found out what it was. If the Jaguar supports HAM, I think it can fairly be compared to an Amiga... The Jag architecturally is an animal unto itself.
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Checkered Flag ROM Compilation and source tweaks
philipj replied to Sporadic's topic in Atari Jaguar Programming
Gremlin... Isn't that the company who made that DOS game "Whiplash"...? The moves Atari was making back then; you know some decisions you can kind of see the logic and justifications, but Atari must have really been desperate the decisions they were making. All in all Checkered Flag really is a good first effort game for a start up company, unfortunately people don't see regard first efforts, they look at the end results, but Rebellion did make AVP which was a system seller so it's pretty evident that their vision was pretty broad at that time. Still I was very happy when CF source code first got released some years back so I certainly understand anyone who'd want to take a good look at it; it's just a lot to it I didn't understand at first, but man talk about a game that has a large 3D world to it that's almost comparable to Virtual Racing... If only CF ran as smooth as it does on an emulator. -
Checkered Flag ROM Compilation and source tweaks
philipj replied to Sporadic's topic in Atari Jaguar Programming
The source code does seem like a bit of cluster screw when going through it... I'm still thinking the Motorola has something to do the the slow down, although I can't really prove it. A real shame in a way... Sega was able to port Virtua Racing to the Genesis and get a very decent frame rate, but Rebellion couldn't get their game to do the same. Still it's good to have the source code available to take a good look at.
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