DanOliver

Yeah, I need the BBC on my case. I don't think I'd consider the Genesis controller just on principle. Have to draw the line some place and I don't think I can afford to limit my market.

I did run into a few web sites that documented these to a degree. And I'll be reading as much code here as I can. I've got tons more to learn. Funny, that was one of the pluses of programming the VCS, there was hardly anything to learn. We had a small pamphlet about the the VCS and like a hundred 6502 instructions. Took a few hours to start writing code.

If I can it will certainly be a long time from now. I have at least 6 months on my current project and I've been saying 6 months for a very long time. But that gives me time to research and think of a game. But thanks for the support.

The border thing is kind of weird. Never really saw my games at the same time as I have the past few days. I'm starting to make a list of things to do and not do in my next game. Melody would allow a game to use the whole screen. I wouldn't have to fill dead space with score panels. Maybe do away with using digits as scoring and use something like sand filling something. Then at the end display a digital score so players could compare results. Something different anyways. The target audience would be really experienced with other games but also joystick, paddle use. So maybe really hard bits, but don't make them go back to the beginning. Maybe you could get around hard bits or go thru.

I just Googled ".byte $2C" and dang if it didn't pop up. Yeah you're absolutely right. Thanks. Never heard of such things. It does make sense to use these ops now. And in Wozniak's case the CPU and code would have stayed together so why not.

You know my buttons.

Looks like most of the info I'm looking for is in the headers. That'll have to wait until/if I set up a development system. Cool as heck though. I'm just going to approach this as if I took a short break (30 yrs) from programming the VCS while the hardware world marched on...because that's what happened. I hope I can find some time, but I have some products I'm working on now and can't get distracted so I'm going to have to leave VCS development for now. Amazing stuff. Thanks for all the info.

SpiceWare, I'm reading the Harmony DPC+ programming thread you posted. Good info, thanks. So batari changes ARM code to change how DPC+ works, bus-shuffing and who knows what else. Seems like the 6502 code is almost being interpreted by the ARM. The 6502 starts to execute an instruction and the ARM steps in and decides to do something else, changes the instruction/data and the 6502 finishes doing something entirely different. Like microcode? That's why you guys are discussing bus-stuffing driver specs? You're tring to figure out how best the feature should work and btari implements it in the ARM? This Harmony thing is freaky. And supported by Stella too! You guys are doing some amazing work. Not just technical, but in everyone working together. That's really rare. Keep seeing ".byte $2c". Maybe I have to go back and check links you already posted. Looking to start further back in time.

Just to let you know where I am on the curve...WTF...you're using what I would have called invalid opcodes which I just Googled and found are just happenstance opcodes that we never would have used for obvious reason but you all can use because chances of Atari changing the CPU is kind of low. DCP I have figured out, but ".byte $2C"? No assembler mnemonic? It's a BIT I assume with no operand? Any Red Dwarf fans? I feel like Lister and you all are Cat.

I was of course drawn to Stella. We'd have gladly given Larry Minor's left nut for one. But Melody features like using the ARM and bus -stuffing I assume Stella can't emulate? At first I was just thinking, yeah one more VCS game for the road, sounds like fun. But this Melody thing and Wickeycolumbus overclocking has me thinking differently. And I just wrote this to Andrew, you've doing something really different in all of gamedom. All game systems I'm aware of are very balanced, very symmetrical. If it has 8 bit color 640x320 bit map graphics it has a matching CPU. Doesn't do any good to have more bits than the CPU could ever push around or more CPU than you need. They always buy the appropriate sized CPU because even the next size up CPU is going to be hugely expensive. You guys are making something very asymmetrical. Yeah you're able to maybe double the graphic power of the VCS, but you're still pretty constrained. Yet you still have a ton of horse power. The only use I can see for that unused horse power is game logic. That's different. That's like the Galapagos Islands. To compete I think your developers will be forced to use that unused CPU power. That could generate a whole new kind of game. I think developers would be forced to. Like putting a Cray chip into an Apple II. I don't know what you're going to get out of that but it sure is going to be something different. So anyways, that's where my head is right now. I'm kind of looking at what you have as a new platform, a modern platform. Does anyone have an idea how much the Melody ARM can do? Like some bench mark per vblank?

I know a guy in South America...

OK, thanks. I understand the bus-stuffing thing, at least what I could do in software...the hardware end - no clue. What does it mean to work on a driver? The Melody can do bus-stuffing hardware wise but needs a driver? How hard does that look to be? Bus stuffing can't be done today? Or you're going to write a tweaked driver? Every time I learn something new about the Melody it amazes me. It does tear me a bit. The bus stuffing really changes 2600 programming a lot, the kernel is almost gone. On the other hand it would still be nice to kick Demon Attack's butt.

I wanted to absorb a bit before looking at these games, so I'd have an idea of what I'm seeing. Space Rocks and Frantic look really great. Especially Space Rocks. Sound, graphics, movement, really nice. I'm so itching to play them. Have to get a 2600. Thanks for posting all the info, really helped me.

Thanks. Always wondered.

Pretty funny to me. I would have killed to have a game banned in Germany. The guys at Digital Pictures told me that having Night Trap in the Congressional hearings and banned from stores put that game on the map. I got to port it because of the infamy. No such thing as bad publicity. When I was at Any River they had a game being done outside, an aliens on earth theme that was about to come out when the alien autopsy was still hot in the press. They started getting questions from the press about whether the game was based on the alien autopsy and they had a meeting to discuss what could be done. I was like "Hell yes! The game is absolutely all about the alien coverup. Aliens are real...we need to do a commercial showing how the alien was killed...in our game...yada yada yada Hire some lobbist to make sure the CEO is called before congress". And they were worried about negative press...Are you freakin kidding me! First company I ever worked at where the venture capitalists shutdown the company before the money ran out. Biggest train wreck ever.

I also see now what you all are talking about icon vs text. I see a video on YouTube from Poland with the icons and AtariProto has text. And all the 5200 screen shots have text. My boxed computer version has text on the box's screen shots. I assume there were 3 versions sent to production. 1. Computer with text. 2. Computer with icon to international production. 3. 5200 with text. I must have had a reason why they weren't all icon because they all went out on basically the same day and all icons would have been easier. My guess is selecting the 4 screens Nav, Sea-to-Air, Torpedo, Sae-to-Land could be done in one joy stick move. The icons were too large for the N-S-E-W layout so had to be a horizontal layout requiring more joy stick moves. I remember really liking the one move selection. , I see "The Legacy" a lot. I only remember "Legacy". That's what I wrote on my focus test cart and is on the splash screen. So I don't know where "The Legacy" came from. Can't say I like "The Legacy" either. Never liked "The" in a title.

I was looking around to see if I had put any German cities in Final Legacy...didn't know the Germans were so sensitive. And I saw this screen shot on Atraiprotos. Not really an easter egg, but Kendall is a tiny town in Upstate NY where I grew up. Forgot about that.

Douglas Neubauer's name seems really familiar too, but probably I just heard his name a lot. I was searching around and he did the POKEY chip AND Star Raider so I think if I'd met him I would have remembered. And I do keep seeing Solaris at the top of people's lists. That way impressive to me. I wish Chris could have gotten him into the group. That would have really been something. I've been confusing Douglas Neubauer's name with Dave Getreu who I worked with on the ST. Don't ask me why I confused those two names.

That's completely bizarre on so many levels. Sure never knew this came out in Germany.

I was just looking around your database, Atarimania, and saw Last Starfighter for the 5200, and also AtariProtos. Gary Stark's name seem really familiar, so does the opening screen. I thought our group was involved with Last Starfighter. Do you know what group he was in? I don't remember seeing the game play which I just looked at on YouTube. Looks like a great game. Multiple explosions on the big ship is cool, never seen that before. Great idea.

Don't recall that. I remember we'd put stuff for copyright, but that would be small. And it doesn't sound like my style. Don't generally like junk in my code. If I put it in I used it. What did you find?

My pleasure. All the history you all have preserved have brought back a lot of memories I'd about lost. So I thank you all. Hope some historian documents the Harmony project. Hint, hint. I'd never expect that to ever change. I think the same stuff goes on in Hollywood. Happened with Painters back in the renaissance where each painter would mix their paints in secret. Creative endeavors seem to always have the highest paranoia. Just part of the fun. I kind of hate to call both what we did back in the 80's and what they do today as both being "games". So different. I went back to games in 94 and did some larger games at Digital Pictures and Any River Entertainment, but I didn't really enjoy those kinds of games at all. The programming was great fun. I also interviewed a few years back at Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment to write tools for Stargate Worlds out here in Phoenix. Huge project. Gigabytes flying everwhere. More artists than I've ever seen. They had a full size Stargate in the lobby and the typical hot are they of age babe receptionists. Seemed like the old days, except everyone was working on the same game. All I could think of is "why is this all in Phoenix?" Tons of people, sharp engineers, and I love Stargate so I thought that was a super license. They really seemed to know their stuff in every way. I would have liked making tools for them but the headhunter made a total mess of it plus the offer was pretty low which told me why they were in Phoenix. Looking for cheap labor. That's a red flag to me so I passed. I've ridden a lot of companies into the beach, I can almost smell death being right around the corner. Companies like Digital Pictures got it. Boss would pop his head in "need anything?" "yeah bigger monitor" 20 minutes later "where do you want it". Meals every night, anything you wanted. Anything that would take you away from programming they eliminated. And we loved that. Really great game designers, great management, wrong medium. Which I guess is a management fault. Loved working there. That was my style, throw a lot of different stuff in and hope something sticks. When I started at Apollo I'd never seen an Atari game and they had me play some and I noticed some of the boxes had "30 different games!" and they were just changing the background color. I thought that seems to be important and Space Cavern had some absurd number of "games". That kind of "lots of stuff" stuck with me. A crutch though. I checked out some videos...not for me. Doom with great graphics. It's amazing stuff, just not for me. I liked FreeCell and would play it 12, 15 hours at a time. FreeCell! That's not healthy. I had to block it from my browser. So Catch-22, if I liked a game I'd have to stop playing it. I go out of my way to not play games for fear of addiction. I won't play golf or try Altoids either. My addiction to programming at least pays the rent...some months. Typing in forums is another addiction I have a problem with, obviously. I don't even have my 2600 any more. Sold it like 10 years ago at a yard sale. The guy who bought it really lit up seeing the 2600, Brought back memories for him. His wife didn't seem as thrilled. I had what I thought was a high price, maybe $50, because I just as soon keep it. I probably should have told him I programmed games for it, maybe he would have paid full price. Got rid of all my Apples probably. I had a Woz machine, might still have that. Trying to be more of minimalist. If I kept everything I'd worked on I'd be buried.

Oh, I see. I thought you had to bring up the TIA speed. That's way cool. Would sure make changing all sprites on every scanline easy. And you have a ton more CPU time for game logic because to me 3x wouldn't do it justice. Because say on a regular machine maybe 50% of your CPU time is doing required housekeeping; collision detection, scoring, setting up sprites for the next frame. Stuff you always just have to do. So maybe your left with 50%, maybe 20% for logic, how the sprites should move, etc. At 3x you wouldn't have just 3x more logic time but 300-600% more. Because it sounds like graphics could be improved but it doesn't sound like that would consume that much more CPU time than it does on a normal machine. At least no time consuming tricks come to mind. But logic bandwidth improvement could make a very different type of VCS game. Do you think Melody would have any trouble?

Cool, Curt and Marty are doing Atari Corp. - Business Is War. That will really be interesting to me. Find out what really was going on and what happened after I left.

No way. That's not how the Tramiels operated. They sold everything. Warner yeah, they didn't seem to have a clue. The Tramiels were serious business people. That's good and bad. You also need to create great products. I have to read that. I was so at the tail end. I saw only a little bit of the old Atari. The best stories I ever heard were from Dave Staugas. He had some beauties. Funny as hell. A month or two, I think, post Tramiel some of us at Atari were called into a fancy conference room where a game console was set and I think they told us the specs which were impressive. I assume they wanted Atari to port games to it. We were just asked real fast what we thought and no one was excited. The mushroom clouds were just starting to dissipate, we were surrounded by abandoned office buildings. "Why would anyone want to put out a new platform?" was the thinking. I don't know but I think that machine was NES. Looked like it. At that time the Tramiels had kept a dozen or so programmers specifically to do games, but word was he was charging them rent on their cubes, phones, etc. They were kept separate from the ST project, I never even met them. I don't know why the Tramiels did that. I was surprised when Atari got back into games. They'd called me do some debugging work on the 7800 Desert Falcon after I left. Bitch of a bug. Locked up after running in demo mode for like 10 hours. I got it down to running for 40 hours but never found the bug. But I wasn't really that interested either. Don't know who the original programmer was or why them didn't finish it. Not even sure I had the source code.