Cafeman

I'd have trouble doing pong because I have no real interest in it. It has to be an idea that really sets me on fire. you aren't the first to suggest Pong, though. With the recent PC/PSX version of Pong by Hasbro/Atari, I guess I have little desire on that particular game. Hey, but thanks for idea, and keep 'em coming. Who knows, in time, I might come back and do a Pong -- it would certainly be easy. But with those 5200 sticks ... ugh!

I had a problem of some sort and atari800.win wouldn't run any of my 5200 .bin's. However, I haven't had time to figure it out yet. But I've been meaning to ask (or state) -- with all due respect to the VSS DOS emulator -- playing the games via this emu method is NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING like actually seeing and playing them on the 5200 system itself, at least on my work's PIII set at a high resolution. The graphics, on the computer monitor, look more lifeless and simple than they do when output from the 5200 to the TV screen. Is this how emulation is? Or is it just the vSS emu? I've played the PSX and Sega Saturn emu Atari and Williams games -- they are arcade perfect on my TV. I guess I expected that playing old systems emulated on my PC, that the look & feel would be closer to the 5200 on a tv look & feel. Is this (what I've described here) the same on the coleco and 2600 and genesis emulators too? I haven't tried these yet. I'm getting a new PC, probably it will be delivered today or tomorrow, and I'd like to have a library of emu games. Up till now, I've ignored this aspect of gaming. Again, all due respect the the VSS emu and the work that went into it. I'm using it as my development machine!

How similar / dissimilar are Zelda and Space Dungeon? If I made a Space Dungeon game, but with some puzzles and only 2-way firing...?

One step at a time for me. My first goal is just to make a good .bin file. But if I (we) get a good enough game (s), of course I'd be all for dumping them to carts. I know there are people who do this, but I am unsure of the method, cost, and contacts one needs. Thinking some more, I think that the last thing the 5200 needs is another mindless action game. But personally, I wouldn't mind another good maze chase or a good DK-style platformer. But I'm really starting to like the idea of an Adventure-style game. Funny though, that I have NEVER played Adventure other than trying it out at stores! Back then, it wasn't my 'thing'. Personally, I don't really care if my first efforts look primitive by 5200 standards; what do people expect? But with refinement and experience will come better visuals. If I can master the DLI and/or Kernel ideas to get lots of colors and players on the screen, that will be one obstacle toppled. I think Matt's game looks pretty interesting. I also thought Qb was interesting (saw it at Philly), and it has puzzle aspects. One more thing -- now that I'm learning about coding the 5200 -- I have a lot more respect for certain 5200 games I see!

I'm torn on ideas. My first 'real game' will probably be that mazechase. think about it -- No scrolling and easy collision detection, my kinda first game. Due to making these recent demos, I started to toy with the idea of an Airwolf game. I made one in Basic yrs ago, it was just kind of a gag game for a buddy who loved the show. It's just an idea at this point. I'd like to make an adventure game, too. Something like Adventure, which honestly I never played much of. Or something like Pitfall, with the screen flips. I figure if David Crane could make a game like Pitfall on the 2600, I could make something kind of similar on the more powerful 5200. I think a super hero game would be cool. Problem is, what kind of game would it be? Lots of those early 80's licensed character games were just reused Pacman engines and crap like that. Anybody else got some ideas? I patiently wait...

Hi folks. I am currently attempting to refresh my memory of Atari 8bit computer programming, and apply my knowledge to creating some new 5200 games in Assembly language. Now, before anybody gets excited or anything, my disclaimer -- I just started last month! I am working in conjunction with the efforts of a few other folks with similar interest in coding for the Supersystem (check the programming forum), but it will be a while before I'm 'good enough' at coding for the system to make a real, playable game. I'm starting off slowly! Still, I'm looking to the future, and I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts -- what kind of game would you like to see? Wouldn't it have been neat to have, say, an Airwolf game? Or a superhero game, like Superman on the 2600? Or a 5200 version of 2600 adventure (or something similar)? throw me some ideas. For now, I'm just coding demo's. My first attempt at a real, playable game will no doubt be a mazechase game in the vein of PacMan. Something simple to 'get my feet wet' -- but once I get the skills, I'd like to try something more aggressive. Wouldn't it be cool if we do create something and get Sean to put it on his multicart someday? Hey, you never know! Thanks, Cafeman PS -- I've posted this here, at DP, and AGH, to try to catch all the 5200 fans with opinions!

Well then stop your yapping, man! And tell me where to find it! It will be interesting to compare it to VSS!

Are you saying those Atari 8bit emulators work for 5200 roms? Because the 5200 uses different memory addresses... maybe the emulator accounts for that?

HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW! Yep, that's what it'd look like! I want to see Sonic the Hedgehog.

I just spent 15 minutes searching for info on this game. Here is my conclusions -- I played both the 2600 ET and the 8bit ET phones home and my memory 'mixed them' into one game. I remember falling in those holes, that must have been the 2600 version. I also remember the computer version, picking up pieces of the communicator or whatever. Nevermind!

I don't think so, I think it was E.T. the Extra-terrestrial -- like the 2600 game with better graphics.

I had the Atari 8bit version. What were the differences, if you know? I only remember falling into those holes and trying to get out; in fact, on my 1200XL, I think the game crashed a lot, if my memory serves me.

I didn't know there was a programming board. Okay, let's continue this there, and clog up that board. Poor DEBRO will take 10 minutes just to load up this thread now, only to discover we have left!

Oh yeah, when I used to program in Basic, I also referred to those Atari graphics modes, but now that I'm using ASM, it's too confusing for me to use both, so I just use the Antic mode number. Antic mode 8 = $48, Antic Mode 2 = $42, easy! Another thing about your saying 'mode 8 graphics' was that I knew it only offered one color -- and that example is clearly NOT in that mode! I understand what you were saying now.

I thought that the Armadillo was a Melbourne House symbol (Infogrames Melbourne House) -- is it the official Inforames symbol as well? Melbourne House is an Australian dev team that made the fantastic Test Drive: Le Mans on Dreamcast, released last fall. THe main man there used to frequent the Dreamcast TEchnical Pages, he answered all our questions about the game's incredible engine which allows 20 detailed cars onscreen, no slowdown, with great weather and lighting and smoke FX and a fast sense of speed. This last paragraph FYI.

Infogrames bought Hasbro which owned Atari. Infogrames -- I actually like the company. They are like an Activision now, they buy up smaller dev teams & companies, like, errr, Hasbro and Atari!

One more thing is that it seems to me that Antic mode A is a good one to use for good graphics -- twice the resolution as Mode 8 it seems, with 4 colors. Sure it eats up twice the memory, but we have a whopping 16K!

You mean Antic mode 8, right? That's the mode of Dan Boris' example. What's so tough about that?

I've never heard of Bliss. Thanks for the info, is it just another 5200 emulator, perhaps a windows based one?

As far as the boring part, I'm not concerned with that yet. I'm trying to just get the technical skills for now. once I feel more confident, I'll start my real first game. I have a number of ideas I'm throwing around, but right now all are too ambitious for me to accomplish. One game idea I'm mulling over: Did you read the recent Crichton book, Timeline? Scientists travel in time to the middle ages, where (as in Jurassic Park) things are not exactly as we thought, much more dangerous with the extremely strong and huge knights and archers ...). Well, I thought about warping in and out of different times, trying to avoid arrows, running from fast knights on horseback, crossing rivers and bridges.

I'm not sure yet, myself. My next goal is to alter the vertical movement of my player,then I'll move on to Joystik control. on the Atari 8-bits, you checked the value of stuff such as "strig(0)", etc. if it read some weird value like 11, for example, it was a press UP on the stick. I know I read all that stuff about the 5200, but I don't have my folder right now. What would be great is if we could start saving parts of our code as little includes/subroutines, such as one which read the joystick values and changed the position of a character in screen RAM. I have a question, and I'll use Joust to illustrate it. 1. The stone clouds in Joust are probably bg graphics, right? Draw bit by bit across the screen from top to bottom? 2. So then, are the ostrich , stork, pterries,and buzzards all players? How in the world are so many sprites able to be put on-screen at once, in a nutshell? I mean, sometimes they blink a bit, but only when the screen is very full. 3. Are eggs considered players too, or missiles? Guess , I know you guys never programmed this game. I guess what I'm trying to gather is a series of methods one could use to get all those sprites on screen, since there are only a limited number of players and missiles the 5200/8bit hardware actually knows about.

I've turned off the loading Atari screen temporarily, so I suppose it's a good thing that Dan had the zeroing code in there. I didn't realize it was done by the boot-up routine. Lots to learn...

I'm not ready to mix Graphics modes yet. I'm sticking with Dan Boris' demo example and learning how to do the basics, then I'll get fancy. Is the following correct? The PM demo is in Antic Mode 8. That means there are 8 scan lines per mode line. It also means there are 40 pixels on each line. the dlist starts with $70, $70, $70 which means 24 blank lines. I assume that somehow $70 means 8 blank lines then. Why? Then the dlist has .byte $48,$00, $18 which means Antic mode 8 and Load Memory Scan (LMS) of $1800. It then has 23 $08's, for a total of 24 Mode 8 lines on the screen, which make up those colored bars. Okay, if I wanted to make a display list in Antic Mode A, which has 4 colors (like Antic Mode but 4 scan lines per mode line and 80 pixels per line (double Mode 8's pixels). If I used this mode, 1. Would I still (regardless) start my dlist with .byte $70,$70,$70 ? 2. Would the next line be: .byte $4A,$00,$18 (I'm assuming if $48 is Antic mode 8, then $4A is ANtic Mode A) ? Starting at screen memory location of $1800 again, simply for the reason that I'm mimicking Boris's example. 3. Since I have 4 scan lines per mode line, if I divide 4 into 192 scan lines I get a total of 48 Mode Lines available in Antic Mode A. Correct? 4. The pm in the Boris example (Antic Mode is 8 by 8. Is that because there are 8 scan lines per mode line? If so, would my pm's in Antic mode A have to be 4 by 8? or 4 by 4? or what? I'll stop with my questions there. I'd appreciate if Tempest or Debro could try to offer a few answers to these!

If you again click the link to my 5200 development page above, you'll see what I accomplished last night. I was able to change the coffee cup into a right and left arrow, changing it before each loop which moved it horizontally back & forth. I also fooled around with the shape of the three color bars in the background and made them look more like columns. A few things I couldn't figure out: 1. Is the arrow (which was a face in Dan's original example) a Player or a missile. Or is it called a Player Missile? 2. How do I move the arrow vertically? I see that HPOSP0 controls horizontal plotting. I messed around with the base address of the PM, with the SIZEP0 value (which never seemed to have any effect on the demo, no matter what I made it!). Any thoughts on that?

Is there any way to save a screen picture while running these things via DOS? I tried the usual ALT+PrintScrn but it kept giving me memory errors -- and I have tons of RAM. Any suggestions? It's be great to be able to show some pictures as we develop!