CharlieChaplin

Interested in the cart version. And since Last Squadron will be SSCX02, what will be SSCX01 ?!?

Did not know that the A8 has full HD resolution... "Manic Miner Atari XL/XE final release (1080, 50fps)"

You can't always get what you want... (The Rolling Stones) a) good video without flicker => impossible, my old digital camera shooting/filming an even older crt tv, there is always flicker (e.g. PAL flicker) b) good video without shaking hands => my old Kodak camera does not have any kind of stabilizer and I also do not have a stand/tripod, so I had to use my old + shaking hands (not comfortable, when holding the camera for 23 minutes) c) good video, high resolution => uploads are restricted to approx. 50MB here, but a video with 23 minutes and e.g. 320x240 pixels low resolution already requires more than 100MB, so I had to downsize to approx. 160x120 I already can hear you say "I can get no satisfaction", but that awful and flickery video was the best I could do for drpeter_3_1 artefacting test. Note: This is an AVI video using XVID compression (original format was Apple .MOV, but I converted it into AVI). Beware, the video is boring as hell and does NOT include any pron. drpeter_Test_3_1_PAL_23mins.avi

I think several Adventure International games did this...

Does "Panther" make use of NTSC artifacting (lower panel) ?!? Several Compute! type-in listings seem to use artifacting (not absolutely sure, since I only have PAL computers).

Errrm, afaik the creator+seller of the Sophia 2 is from Poland and Poland = EU. Contact to Simius should be available thru AA forum or pm via AA. Quoting Simius from this topic (post #368) "The second batch is not over yet. There are still a couple dozen left. If someone would like to buy, let me know on a PM." But if you are looking for a seller from Germany, you may contact tf_hh, quite often he has some third-party A8 hardware available (not only his own hardware). Simply write him an E-Mail and ask him if he has Sophia-2 or U1MB, SIDE-3 available at the moment. If Juergen does not have this A8 hardware available, you can simply order a U1MB and SIDE-3 from Lotharek's webshop. Here are some direct links: https://www.lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=246 https://www.lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=143 Allthough the Abbuc webpage is down, the club is still alive and kicking with 550+ members. You can always contact the Abbuc boss Sascha Kriegel, if you have some A8 related questions or contact the Abbuc Rechnerservice (that's tf_hh).

Good to hear, that at least one copy program is working for you and your setup. The program you are using is Diskcopy from TurboDOS XL/XE by M.Reitershan, it supports normalspeed/slowspeed, Happy, Speedy, Turbo and XF551 and also mixed floppy drives / floppy speeders. But this program is limited to 360K (DS/DD/40T) max. and Pokey divisor 5 or 6 (if you set your SIO2SD to Pokey divisor 0-4 it will not work anymore). It is always hard to find a copy program that supports normalspeed or ultraspeed and XF551 highspeed. Most XF551 copy programs support only XF highspeed and do not work with other drives then (many of these XF sectorcopy programs do not even work with standard/normal/slow drives).

And here is the last test, DGF Init after 12 hours, 9 minutes - progress 0%, so I give up here. Maybe this bug/feature only works with "cheap" XE/XEGS computers ?!?

Some more tests for drpeter... 1) Test 1a after 15 minutes: 2) Test 1a after 17 minutes: 3) Test 1a after 20 minutes: 4) Test 1a after 23 minutes: So for Test 1a the two black lines appeared in this order: row 1, row 3, row 2, row 4. After that I switched the A8 off for one hour, then I did run Artefact test 2. Result after 23 minutes looked like this: Enough for tonight (1:30 am here in Germany). Now I am running the DGF init over night, let's wait and see what happens after 8, 10 or 12 hours...

Too late, Germany got only 3 points in Eurovision song contest and scored second-last place. But I guess (and hope) another run of the Mega Speedy does not depend on this. Alternatively one can order a Mini Speedy or a Mini Super Speedy from tf_hh.

Same here, after running 90 minutes on real Atari with AVG cart. the DGF init program still showed 0%, so I gave up. Maybe the program should run over night, until the next morning (approx. 12 hours) ?!?

Alright, did the Artifact 1 test (from post #3191) and all four colour stripes (nr. 1-4 from left to right) showed one black line at the start. After eight minutes stripe nr. 4 showed two black lines, after nine minutes stripe nr. 2 showed two black lines, after twelve minutes stripe nr 1 showed two black lines and after fifteen minutes stripe nr. 3 showed two black lines - so after 15 minutes all four stripes showed two black lines. (But I only took three pictures, after 9, 12 and 15 minutes.) After that I switched off the A8 for thirty minutes to cool down, then I did Artifact Test 3_1. After three minutes the first stripes began to disappear and then every minute something happened and several stripes disappeared - after 17 minutes all stripes had disappeared. In this test the stripes of row nr. 1 disappeared first, then the stripes of rows nr. 2 and 4 disappeared and at the end the stripes of row nr. 3 disappeared. (I only took one picture, 17 minutes after the start, when all stripes had disappeared, maybe I should do a video?) Will do Artifact test 1a and Artifact test 2 next...

Updated the RAM and System test programs a little bit (see attachment). On an XL/XE the disk / ATR boots DOS 2.5 with Basic enabled, programs named *.BAS can be started from Atari Basic then; programs named *.COM will disable Basic automatically (except one *.COM program that requires Basic on side B); programs named *.TUR must be loaded from TB XL (and programs named *.OBJ and *.DAT cannot be loaded and belong to another program). If you cannot return to DOS from a program, then try Reset for a coldstart - alas, some programs are reset-proof. Patched and shortened the "Pagefind.BAS" program a bit, it will no longer search in a MyDOS subdir for additional files, but load files from maindir D1: instead; it will also no longer try to configure your XRAM for the TK Macro Assembler which is not there anyways. (This utility was originally taken from the TK Macro Assembler disk, which uses MyDOS and was therefore placed in a MyDOS subdir.) SYSTEST.zip

Quoted from post #7 here... according to Google, Bahrain uses PAL standard. Ooops, Somacast was faster...

Hmmm, could it be that you (re-)discovered DGF...?!? Besides, one of my Atari 800XL computers (PAL, XL-OS Rev 2) showed your GTIA temp monitor pict. (from post #3258) and displayed 15 degrees when loaded, then after about ten minutes it displayed 35 degrees, thirty seconds later it displayed 25 degrees and one minute later 45 degrees...?!? EDIT: Three minutes later 55 degrees appeared... and all other temperatures were still shown and all of them were stable after a few seconds (they started with flicker, but in less than ten seconds flicker disappeared). So the total running time was approx. 14 minutes 30 seconds.

Hey now, hey now now, sing show this corrosion to me Hey now, hey now now, sing show this corrosion to me Hey now, hey now now, sing show this corrosion to me (The Sisters of Mercy - This Corrosion)

Was so evil to cut the slideshow into two halves and put the files onto two 130k ATR images for those that would like to use them on real floppy drives or floppy drive emulation... Beetbro.zip

Available as COM/XEX at dozens of places... - Fandal - Homesoft - atarionline.pl - pigwa ... Would be nice to get a patched version of the Extirpator, where the collision detection fully works (including the walls), the ship is smaller and faster and the shots are faster, so we can play it like a real shoot-em-up.

Well, I do not own a SIDE-3 cart, but afaik most (all?) A8 bootdisk programs that use their own (custom) SIO routines (and absolutely rely on SIO) will not work with SIDE-3. You want names? Hmmm, there are only a few programs (that I have heard) that use custom SIO loading, e.g.: - Alternate Reality (The City, The Dungeon; unsure if one or both; CAR versions available, but afaik not fully working yet) - Seven Cities of Gold (Electronic Arts) - one or two Lucasfilm games (most likely Koronis Rift or Eidolon or both; luckily available in CAR format) - a few demos (a bootdisk demo from Copy Service Stuttgart, some polish bootdisk demos) - maybe the Big Demo by HTT? (original version worked alright with 1050 drives, but not on the XF551; HTT made a patch available and after I used it, the patched version would work on the XF but not on the 1050 anymore; curious if it works on other/3rd party drives, from harddisks, from carts, etc.) - programs that were (are) coded intentionally (on purpose) not to work with U1MB by XXL, in case you are using SIDE-3 together with U1MB For me it is hard to tell (notice), since I am using real floppy drives, SIO2PC, AVG with SIO cable and SIO2SD and I do not own a U1MB. If the mentioned programs are ultra important for you or not, you have to decide yourself.

Well, believe it or not, the "issue" with the wall was done intentionally! Quoting the author G. Rimmer from the above mentioned youtube page: "Hi, I was the author of this game. Lots of people have said about the poor collision detection. This was programed into the game for the wall. The detection for the wall was randomly accepted as a hit or not a hit so destruction was not certain. This was to make the game harder." Pure evil I would say. And errrmm, I also read the sentence "this was done to make the game harder" in several other A8 programs - most of them do also contain some unfair elements/enemies/whatever. Time to change that, e.g. give the Extirpator a proper + fully working collision detection, including the walls.

In my opinion, the ship should be smaller and somewhat faster. I still do not understand, why this looks like a typical shoot-em-up type game, when we in fact should avoid shooting and our main goal is simply to escape (would have prefered to shoot everything with quick lasers, photon torpedoes or whatever).

Some Bomb Jack alike versions for the A8: - Gun Powder Charlie by Atari User mag. - Bomb Squad by Antic mag. - Little Devil by Red Rat, later Byte Back - Bomb Fusion by Mastertronic They all work on 48k / 64k machines, but errmmm, they are... let's say "not so good". And there is Bomb Jack by TeBe, Vega, Tezz and Miker from 2008 which is very good, but requires a minimum of 320k RAM for the disk/fileversion (the rare and expensive cart. version Bomb Jake comes with its own RAM and therefore works on 64k machines). I would happily welcome a 64k Bomb Jack version...

Find attached some CX85 drivers and test programs collected from various sources. Have not tested them, since I do not own a CX85. Also attached the two ZONG diskettes, the one from 7+8/1994 contains a CX85 driver, but on the one from 7+8/1995 I could not find the CX85 keycode driver (maybe it is missing, maybe I simply did not see it)... CX85.zip ZONG_CX85.zip

We do not have enough Bomb Jack versions yet And if there is another one that works with 64k, then all is fine. (But I personally think that we already have enough Boulder Dash and Robbo versions.)

Always 800XL. Don't like the XE and the XEGS. But if you hold a pistol at my head and ask XE or XEGS, I would reply with XE.