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CharlieChaplin

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Posts posted by CharlieChaplin

  2. Posted

    Hmm,

    alas I cannot comment on the 1088k upgrades, since I merely have a 576k upgrade... Well, 512k XRAM means that the selftest and built-in Basic are still there and there is no need to worry about them... So, maybe it would be good to support the following upgrades (assuming OS is on and Basic is off):

     

    - 48k or better 64k based machines (800/XL/XE),

    - 128k computers (like 130XE) with banks E3,E7,EB,EF;

    - 192k computers with banks A3,A7,AB,AF,E3,E7,EB,EF;

    - 256k computers with banks A3,A7,AB,AF,C3,C7,CB,CF,E3,E7,Eb,EF;

     

    - 320k computers with banks 83,87,8B,8F,A3,A7,AB,AF,C3,C7,CB,CF, E3,E7,EB,EF; (Newell, TOMS, Atari mag., Buchholz, Rambo, etc.)

     

    - 320k computers with banks 23,27,2B,2F,63,67,6B,6F, A3,A7,AB,AF, E3, E7,EB, EF; (Compyshop XL, Compyshop XE, Megaram 1, 2 and 3)

     

    These six settings would be more than enough. Keep in mind how long it takes to load a 200k sound from disk... and it requires a DSDD drive; thus 320k total memory and 360k disk density would be more than enough for me... It looks like the Compyshop (and Megaram) RAM upgrades are the most common here in Germany, whereas Newell (TOMS and Rambo) are the most common upgrades elsewhere... -Andreas.

  4. Posted

    Alas,

    it looks like all your disks are manipulated (or corrupt) in some way. When booting the disk, one will not notice it, the program loads, stops after a while and then plays the PCM/WAV sound. but when trying to copy the files to another disk you get an error 164. When fixed with diskfix, you soon find out, that the soundfile has a length of 580-600 single sectors... well, I did this fix, so now you can load the whole sound and/or copy it to another disk...

     

    Next question, how about programming a universal PCM/WAV player ?!? Meaning with input/load routine, a directory option and of course a playback routine (and maybe also a quit to menu / dir. function and a exit to DOS/DUP function)... That would be very nice. A similar program, called "The sound Utility" by Tom Hunt already exists, but it works only bug-free under sparta or Bewe-DOS (and has many bugs under DOS 2). Last not least it is only 4bit playback... -Andreas.

  5. Posted

    Hello folks,

    this year ABBUC is also doing a hardware contest. And here are the rules... -Andreas.

     

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     

    ABBUC e. V. “Hardware Contest 2005”

     

    Name of Participant: _____________________________________________________

     

    Street, Nr.: _____________________________________________________

     

    Zip-Code, City: _____________________________________________________

     

    Country: _____________________________________________________

     

    Phone Number: _____________________________________________________

     

    Email: _____________________________________________________

     

     

    Hardware description: _____________________________________________________

    (brief & short)

    _____________________________________________________

     

    _____________________________________________________

     

    _____________________________________________________

     

    _____________________________________________________

     

    My hardware should be registered for the following contest (please mark):

     

    • ”best Hardware 2005”

    • ”best Hardware in development”

     

    By signing the registration sheet, permission is given to publish the delivered documents for the purpose of distribution to all clubmembers (in the clubmagazine). The participant declares his acceptance, that his name, his adress and all belonging hardware documents and files of the contest will be released club internally for non-commercial purposes. He declares hereby, that no rights of third parties (of the contents), the delivered product respectively will be violated in any way. Any offence leads to the exclusion of the contest. The participant sets the organizer (ABBUC e.V.) free from any juridical claims of possible copyright violations. With this sign, the participant confirms to have read and understood the following contest rules. Furthermore, the participant accepts the following contest rules and verifies his notification for the contest:

     

    Date/Sign: _________________ / _______________________________________________

     

    Please print this contest sheet and send it (filled-in and signed) via mail or fax to:

     

    ABBUC e. V.

    Ressort Hardware

    c/o Andreas Mischka

    Pfarrstr. 7

    D-89165 Dietenheim

    GERMANY

    E-Mail: [email protected]

     

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     

    1.1 Contest:

     

    To promote the development of new hardware for the Atari 8Bit systems, ABBUC e.V. organizes a hardware contest. The rules and conditions for an unconditional german capitulation, err, for the participation at the contest are fixed in the following points:

     

    1.2 Awards/Prizes: (Emmies, Grammies, Oscars & Golden Globes)

     

    The following prizes will be given at the annual ABBUC meeting (JHV) 2005:

     

     main prize "best hardware 2005"

     extra prize "best hardware 2005 in development"

     

    1.3 Contest Rules:

     

    1.3.1 Quality check:

    The hardware which should participate at the contest must be given to the hardware ressort leader to make some pre-tests for admission to the contest. The tests will check the documented quality of the hardware that is ready for production. The sending of at least one fully-functional product must take place after an agreement with the leader of the hardware ressort. After the contest / the annual ABBUC meeting (JHV) in October, the hardware will be returned to its owner.

     

    1.3.2 Preliminary Conditions:

    Allowed for the contest is/are only hardware/upgrades for the Atari 8Bit computer family (600XL, 800XL, 65XE, 130XE). We do allow a) any hardware/upgrades for the computers and b) independant hardware peripherals. Modifications of already existent (hardware-) developments are excluded from participation. Furthermore, the participant must guarantee, that special software (operating systems, computer languages, applications ) is not absolutely required to use the hardware, except that the software is included with the contest hardware and free of any rights of third parties.

     

    In special cases the leader of the hardware ressort (in collaboration with the chief of the club) will decide of an admission or exclusion.

     

    1.4 Notification / Admission conditions:

     

    • sending of a fully-functional hardware / upgrade and complete documents, schematics, manuals, etc. for admittance to ”best hardware 2005” (see also 1.5 deadline!)

    • sending of complete schematics and documents and manuals, etc. (e.g. a prototype) for admittance to ”best hardware 2005 in development”.

    • readable + understandable documentation and manual of the hardware in german or english.

    • min.3 photos in digital form (with a min. resolution of 1024*768dpi, 24Bit color - a little bit more than the Atari 8Bit can do...)

    • The delivered hardware (respectively software) must be free of any rights of third parties. Any sendings, where a violation of copyright can not be excluded without doubt, will NOT take part at the contest.

     

    The (hardware-) models that are allowed for participating will be shown to the club members with a functional description and photos in the ABBUC magazine.

     

    1.5 Deadline:

     

    The participating contest hardware and/or schematics, documentations, manuals, etc. for both categories (“best hardware” and “best hardware in development”) must be sent in to the leader of the pack, err, the leader of the hardware ressort until August 15th, 2005 for testing / checking. Any hardware and/or schematics, documents, manuals, etc. that has/have been sent too late for testing / checking will NOT take part in the hardware contest.

     

    1.6 Presentation of the Hardware:

     

    The hardware / upgrades will be presented at the annual ABBUC meeting (JHV) in October by its author/developer or a representative. If the author/developer is absent at this meeting and did not name any representative, then the leader of the hardware ressort will present the hardware instead.

     

    1.7 Publication of Winners:

     

    The winners will be found (out) at the annual ABBUC meeting (JHV) in October. The voting will be made with a voting sheet. It is also possible to vote via post/snail-mail. The voting sheet will be given to every club member with the ABBUC magazine that is published one month before the annual meeting. The Deadline for the voting via post/snail-mail has been set to October 20th, 2005.

     

    1.8 Prizes:

     

    The prize for the ”best hardware 2005” has been set to EURO 500,00 (five-hundred). The special prize for the ”best hardware 2005 in development” has been set to EURO 100,00 (one-hundred).

     

    1.9 Final Conditions:

     

    Any juridical way is excluded. A right of the participant(s) to perform the contest does not exist. Should one category not get a prize, then the prize will go back to ABBUC e.V. Alterations and Errors reserved or better: All rights reserved !

     

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  6. Posted

    Well,

    the game "The Brundles" was a great Lemmings clone by KE-Soft in 1994 with 100 levels (and 3 ED disk sides). Afaik, there exist several Lemmings demos, made by Datri, HMC and probably K-Soft. It is very nice to see that the final version is now available. More Lemmings clones ?!? Grab the game Tommingi (file version by Tomek Boriego or so; uses only grayscales, but original PC levels!) and Lemmingi (a boot disc with approx. 20-25 levels) made by some demo coders... And er, just as a good joke, with some fantasy, the Mastertronic game "One Man and his droid" can also be counted as a kind of extremely simple Lemmings clone... -Andreas.

  7. Posted

    Alas,

    YAKF does not work on a real Atari !! tested it on a 320k and a 576k Atari and it always crashed while loading... looks like this version merely works on an emulator... oh well...

     

    IK+ is dead. The authors are no longer coding that game (ripping the gfx was easy, but implementing the AI was not, so they gave up)... -Andreas.

  8. Posted

    Heya,

    this sounds great. Once upon along ago there already was a *.WAV player by Tom Hunt (called The Sound Utility). but it was made especially for Sparta DOS and did not work well under DOS 2.x types. Next one had (and still has) to convert 16bit Wav`s into 8Bit (otherwise the program would not load them) and when listening to them on the A8 they were played with only 4Bit of course...

     

    So, I am gonna test your program at home and see if it works better and easier for me. By the way, Tom`s program supported up to 1088k RAM, yours too ?!? greetings - Andreas.

  13. Posted

    Well,

    at least SCRAM is also available as a german version by Atari Deutschland. When Atari was situated in Hamburg they also released many other A8 games, which are well known here in Germany but almost unknown in other countries (games like Karriere, Schloss des Grauens, Olympia Lexicon, etc.). Looks like Atari France just did the same... -Andreas.

  14. Posted

    Well,

    sorry if I sound a little negative - but we already have some games of this genre (games with the same gameplay). As far as I can remember they are: Jump!, Spaceball, Hyperball, Boing (all Public Domain) and last not least Boing 2 (commercial)...

     

    Looks like Atari programmers always do the same kind of games... the 1k mini compo featured micro-dash, lets see how many boulder dash games and clones I already have in my collection. Maybe your next game will be a clone of Pong, Break Out, Pacman, Boulder Dash, Tetris, Dynakillers / Dynablasters or some other game we already have dozens of clones and conversions of... -Andreas.

     

    P.S.: As of yet there has not been any conversion of Space Harrier, so Sheddy was/is really doing something new on the A8... the ABBUC software contest 2005 (and 2006, 2007, ...) is waiting for you Sheddy...

  15. Posted

    Well,

    in the last couple of days I played:

    - Fort Apocalypse

    - Bruce Lee

    - Conan

    - Zybex

    - Montezumas Revenge

    (and its polish counterpart Deimos)

     

    Maybe instead of a Top 5 / Top 10 we should also do a kind of Flop 5 / Flop 10 (the 5 or 10 worst A8 games)... My vote for the Flop 5 would be:

     

    - Amauroute by Mastertronic (what a bad gameplay!)

    - Frenesis by Mastertronic (is it really a game?!?)

    - Colony by Mastertronic (oh how boring!)

    - Nightmares by Mastertronic (ouch!)

    - that Alien... game by Mastertronic (a really bad Who Dares Wins or Commando clone)

     

    Nough said - Andreas.

  16. Posted

    Well,

    believe it or not the XEGS is not fully XL/XE compatible. Thats due to the new XE (or better XEGS) OS used in these machines. So, quite some XL/XE disks which do not require the translator disk and work fine on XL/XE computers will not work on the XEGS. Alas, I cannot give many examples, since I sold my XEGS long ago. The only programs I remember now are "Muad Dib" by Hurek (a demo, that crashes right after the start) and "Fast PAcker" by SRU (the screen is partially filled with lines of the Fast PAcker program and lines of the built-in XEGS Missile Command game)... I also found out that some carts did not work ok with the XEGS but I do not remember which ones..., well after some bad experiences with this thingy I sold it... -Andreas.

  19. Posted

    Yep,

    anyone can add the programs to his collection and/or homepage. Besides, I have also added SAP player XE and Neo-Tracker 1.4 (ABBUC edition). note that the Neo-tracker is not quite easy to use - read the docs if you have problems. the SAP XE player requires more than 128k RAM (tested on a 130XE and it did not work), so forget what the doc. is saying...

     

    (I have attached only a few NEO files, that are extremely short - because I wanted to have as many Neo sounds as possible working on a 128k machine... I also attached only a few SAP sounds, since this player has no DIRectory option and requires more than 128k RAM...) greetings from ABBUC - Andreas Magenheimer.

  20. Posted

    Well,

    here is the simple + old (german) type-in listing of Battlestar Galactica (which is called Kampfstern Galaktika in german language). The gameplay is easy, maneuver to a planet, shoot all invaders and if you did, press a key (SPACE if I remember correctly) to go to the next level... have fun... -andreas.

  21. Posted

    Hello folks,

    due to request, here are the programs of the ABBUC software contest 2003. Yes, only 3 programs, two other programs have been disqualified, since they did not work (or better: the leader of the ABBUC software Ressort did not get them to work until the deadline). If you are also interested in the disqualified programs (they were Neo-Tracker XE, a MOD player and Converter and SAP-XE, a SAP player for the XL/XE computers), let me know and I will upload them here...

     

    Last not least, I will upload the programs of the contest 2004 later... greetings, Andreas.

  22. Posted

    Hello folks,

    ABBUC has decided to do another software contest for 2005. Anyone willing to participate please register at the ABBUC homepage or send me the software ( software at abbuc . de ) and/or details about the program(s) and I will register it for you. For all other information, please read the official rules printed below... -Andreas.

     

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     

    Rules for the ABBUC-Software-Contest 2005:

     

    1) General Rules:

     

    The Deadline for the software-contest has been set to 31.August 2005 (until midnight). ABBUC will therefore spend the following Prices:

    1st Place: 500 Euro

    2nd Place: 250 Euro

    3rd Place: 125 Euro

    4th Place: 75 Euro

    5th Place: 50 Euro

    For all registered contest programs, ABBUC will get the right to release them on its magazine, while the Copyright will still remain by the author, who can use his program freely after the contest. The presentation of the programs will take place at the Unconventional fair in September and on the ABBUC magazines, whereas the decision and pricing will take place at

    the annual ABBUC meeting in October. There is no need for the author to be present at any of these events, the price will still be send to the author’s postal adress or his bank account, provided that ABBUC has these adresses...

     

    2) Program Types & Size:

     

    The contest programs must be one of the following program-types:

    a) Game/s, b) Application/s (also Tools, Utilities, etc.) and c) Operating Systems (DOS). Not allowed are any kinds of demos or intros, also not allowed are any beta- or pre-versions (meaning the contest programs must be finished). For compatibility reasons one must make sure, that the programs work at least on Atari XL or XE computers, which means standard 64k or 128k machines. Additional or extra hardware can be supported, but it must not be a requirement to own this extra hardware to load the program. Believe it or not, the ABBUC Software Ressort, as well as all ABBUC members, will do a “Quality” and “Compatibility” check of all registered contest programs...

     

    3) Format and Languages:

     

    The software-contest programs can be send as 5,25” Atari disk(s) or as ATR-image(s), but they must use Single (90k) or Enhanced (130k) density. Furthermore, the program must have a short documentation, this can be included in the program (internally) or as a separate text-file (externally). It is therefore important, that one uses german or at least english language (and explains shortly how the program has to be loaded), so that everyone can handle the program. All Atari 8Bit compatible languages are allowed as programming languages, but all

    of them have to be compiled in the end, so that one can load the program without having to own a certain programming language. The only exceptions here are Atari Basic and Turbo Basic XL source listings, since every Atari user owns these languages. Lastly one needn’t supply any source-codes for the contest programs, the finished loadable or executable program is enough...

     

    Happy programming wishes the ABBUC Software Ressort !!

    (CharlieChaplin / Andreas Magenheimer)

     

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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