Nebulon

Actually, I really like the original sounds. That and as thanatos mentioned, the use of the original interface it great.

I think at least some of it is real. I still have that old .exe for the XT that says, "Help! I'm stuck inside the computer."

The cartridge games really leave a bad impression for many people (except maybe a few like Downland and Daggorath). However, the disk library is a different story. Lots of really good titles there, including: Time Bandit Lunchtime Cashman Cyrstle/Ice Castles Shock Trooper Tut's Tomb Dragon Slayer Buzzard Bait Calixto Island Trekboer Dallas Quest Galagon Rommel 3D Gantelet 1 and 2 Color Car Gold Runner (Tom Mix) Hall of the King series Speed Racer Marble Maze Qiks (Spectral) Rogue Phantom Slayer Sailor Man Sam Diamond Varloc Trapfall Pooyan F-16 (Diecom) Whirlybird Run Pitstop 2 Lunar-Rover Patrol Maui Vice Brew Master 3D Brickaway Plus the various Sierra Quest games. Aside from the Sierra stuff (and maybe Carmen Sandiego), the Color Computer's games have a really different 'feel' to them. It doesn't tread on the C64's territory much at all. They're very unique from one-another. http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco/Disks/Games/

Wasn't sure where to put this since it isn't Tandy-specific. That and it's retro, yet new at the same time: In other news, here's a working link for Windows port of the original 1982 version: https://www.blitter.com/~nebulous/otherworld/DoD.zip

That's a good point. You're right. 800x600 24-bit is sufficient for those old 14 and 15" CRTs. And as for why they didn't release it.... "But the company did start work on a huge revamp of the Amiga chipset in 1988 called the Advanced Amiga Architecture, or AAA. AAA was a bold step forward for the Amiga, but it did not fare well in the hands of Ali’s cost-cutting." https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/01/a-history-of-the-amiga-part-10-the-downfall-of-commodore/ AAA 1993 DevCon notes: http://www.thule.no/haynie/research/nyx/docs/AAA.pdf More info: http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/amigaaaa.html

The Amiga 4000 productivity modes were fine for the time, although not quite enough desktop colors for my taste and non-interlaced resolutions were a bit low. I got by fine with flicker-free 640x480 but would have preferred something higher. I think if Commodore had let the hardware guys just release the AAA chipset that they presented in 1993 it would have bought the Amiga some time. After all, it did offer 1024x768 24-bit color without flicker, VRAM, a blitter that was up to 9 times faster in some modes, chunky-pixel handling, as well as 16-bit 8-channel audio at a max sample rate of 50kHz. For me, 1024x768 24-bit will always be the base productivity requirement.

We all know about OctaMED's 8-channels and how StarDust takes two channels and mux's them together to make a total of 6-note polyphony. However, here's a novel way to get a 5th audio channel out of the Amiga by making good use of the (until now) useless composite port: http://jmp.no/blog/a-5th-audio-channel-on-the-amiga Additionally, I was doing some reading on the Amiga's audio circuitry and it's pretty interesting. Here's some of the neat things you do: - Make your own waveforms by drawing them using Audiomaster or some other tracker app. - Feed raw data into Paula to generate crazy waveforms. - Play two waveforms over one another to sum them to a single channel. - Modulate one audio channel with another. - Use DMA to handle the audio or switch it off and let the CPU take direct control. - Append one waveform with another in code. - Overlay all of the channels to create a 14-bit stereo sample playback unit. - Do AM and FM synthesis with an app like OctaMED. - Make use of Paula's four included state machines (and send data to them via the CPU or Agnus). - Increase the sample rate to 57.7 KHz if you have a SuperDenise chip. It's too bad they didn't up this same design to 16-bit for the release of the AGA machines. As 8-bit audio chips go though, the sound quality is pretty awesome. A good example of this is the real-time monitoring mode of the DSS8+ cartridge on a machine with a 68030. It almost sounds like a 16-bit stereo sampler.

I didn't really notice any decrease in download speed at all when clicking additional files. The Amiga Hardware Reference Manual has a pretty good blurb regarding the UART situation with Paula supporting up to 1 million bits per second (without error-correction) and 250,000 bps with error-correction. That coupled with either a 68030 or 68040 yielded good serial port performance and management while leaving room for balancing the rest of the machine's functions. On the Mac, were you by chance using an internal modem? If so, that might have added to the stress on the CPU. https://computerarchive.org/files/computer/manufacturers/computers/Commodore/books/amiga/Amiga_Hardware_Reference_Manual_3rd_Edition.pdf

Visually, downloading looked very much like it does today (where you have a bunch of floating 'windows' each with its own file listed and a progress bar to tell you how much of it has been downloaded). It doesn't make downloading any faster -- of course. But it does let you move on to the next file on the server that you're interested in. Then, as with today, you could turn your attention to other tasks while you waited for the numerous downloads to complete.

It's worth mentioning that AmigaDOS 2 (1990) and 3 (1992) were very significant operating systems prior to 1995. They offered luxuries that were unavailable in Windows 3.0 and 3.1. - Autoconfig (plug-and-play) - Good download/upload handling while supporting multitasking for other simultaneous tasks like decompressing files and prepping disks for file storage. - Ability to print color photos using thousands of colors instead of just hundreds. - Ability to view and manipulate all files within the desktop GUI, without the need of icon files, file manager, or using the command line. A routine activity on my Amiga 4000/030 was to have 30 simultaneous downloads taking place while formatting two diskettes at a time (destined to receive the downloaded files from the hard drives), an image editor running in the background, a music player also running in the background, and multiple command lines decompressing batches of archived files. The interface was quick and responsive and even moreso on an A4000/040. And a note about SCSI. Yes, people have mentioned that SCSI cost more. However, you get what you pay for (more flexibility, faster available throughput, more devices per controller). And it wasn't like IDE wasn't available on the Amiga (with the A4000 including an IDE controller on the mo-bo).

Ah yes. Great game. And it even has a cameo by the alien from Space Fury.

Well, since you're going that route... https://www.youtube.com/user/nebby6/videos

Mr Do - Arcade Soul Calibur IV - 360 Dirt 3 - 360

It looks like the ColecoVision version of Mr. Do fits somewhere in-between the arcade prototype (Yukidaruma) version of Mr. Do! and the final arcade release version of the game. Here are some observations of the differences in play mechanics for the three versions of the game: Names of characters from ColecoVision manual: Mr. Do Badguy Alpha-Monster Digger Blue Chomper Power Ball Apples Cherries Treat E-X-T-R-A Path --- Mr. Do! 'prototype' (Yukidaruma): - Grabbing a treat does not result in blue chompers and it only spawns an alphamonster. - Alphamonsters do not turn into apples when shot. - Alphamonsters do not aggressively seek you out and do not eat apples that are in their way. Again, the blue chompers do not exist in this version of the game. - Enemy action stops when diamond appears. Mr. Do! final arcade release: - Grabbing a treat will spawn both an alphamonster and blue chompers regardless of the status of the letter at the time. - Alphamonsters turn into apples when shot. - Alphamonsters aggressively seek you out and can eat apples that are in their way. - Blue chompers cannot dig. - Enemy action continues when diamond appears (you have to fight your way to the diamond). - Alphamonster appears every 5,000 points. ColecoVision: - In-game music is the same as Yukidaruma. - Treat music is the same as Yukidaruma when you grab the treat when a letter is already filled in. - In-game behavior is the same as Yukidaruma when you grab the center treat when a letter is already filled in (with the exception that the alphamonster doesn't appear at all in this case -- only the enemies freeze). - In-game behavior is the same as the Mr. Do arcade version when you grab the treat when the letter is not already filled in. - Alphamonster does not turn into an apple when shot. - Alphamonster does not seek you out. However, blue chompers do. - Alphamonster cannot eat apples, even if dropped on him. - Blue chompers can dig. - Alphamonster appears every 10,000 points. - Enemy action continues when diamond appears.

All of the following games are really good on the ColecoVision: Mr. Do Mr. Do's Castle Frogger Defender Centipede Q*Bert Popeye Bump'n'Jump Gyruss Time Pilot Frenzy Mouse Trap Tutankahm Burgertime Donkey Kong Jr. Jungle Hunt Frontline Roc'n Rope Venture Spy Hunter

And that's one thing that actually scares the crap out of me. I'm tired of seeing garbage versions of classic games (whether it be on phones of on modern consoles). Yes I hope these will be better, but so far history has shown that modern programmers don't seem to have the rigor required to play-test the crap out of relatively simple games like they did back in the day. I suppose it depends on how serious the entity that today calls itself 'Atari' is about reviewing and providing feedback to developers.

Well, there is a chance that I could be a bit delusional. You see, I have this hope that maybe -- just maybe -- the indie games that are developed for this system will take on some of the character of the old-school Atari games that we love so much. I guess it's sort of a platform culture thing. And yes, I realize that Sony and M$ have a pretty strong indie dev presence (especially Sony). However, I feel that a lot of new game development gets too wrapped up in flashy graphics and fail to spend enough time on refining gameplay. I suppose I'm looking for new and emerging developers to take the open sandbox approach really seriously this time and actually crank out a sh*t-ton of good content (including stuff that makes good use of that simple retro-Atari joystick). And I'm also coming at this from the angle that (I hope) their plan is to make effective use of retailers after it launches. Oh, and I was dazzled by the retro interface for their game-selection screen (M$ could learn a few things from that). Sorry, I'm still pissed about those stupid XB360 bubble-headed avatars. Yes, old grudges die slowly. Anyway, I admit that this whole thing could just end up fizzling out. But I'm actually kind of enjoying the retro wave. Like many of you, I don't need one of these. I've secured pretty much all the retro content I'll ever need and I have many different systems and interfaces to play them on. But the rest of the world (by that I mean the less tech-savvy people out there) are looking for a way in to the 'scene' that we're already steeped in. If they want to throw their money at the new Atari console as a way to get there, then why not let them. In conclusion, I'm not convinced that this will be a success. However, I am hopeful. That and I'm much too lazy to put together my own Linux box.

Unless this campaign is to prove that there is interest so that they can present that to major retailers...

I think the main problem with the Ouya is that the controls were sloppy and the games (based on what I tried) sucked.

Even if they don't beef up the specs, I don't think it'll be a problem in the context of this system. It's more about gameplay and the philosophy of what Atari means to people than it is about being the top polygon-pusher out there. Again, consider what Nintendo's done with relatively low-powered consoles and handhelds. Personally, my intent on eventually getting one of these machines won't be to play the next Call of Duty on it. It'll be games like Tempest 4000, and simple indie titles that'll keep me interested.

After reading through this, I have to say... it actually looks like this could be pretty darned good: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/atari-vcs-game-stream-connect-like-never-before-computers-pc#/ The industry's in a bit of a rut right now, so maybe this will inject some life into it and further push the indie game market.

Solved! There were two problems at the same time. 1) The rebooting was because the GoTek didn't like the first USB stick. I switched to an 8GB stick and it stopped restarting. 2) The mouse was enabled on the port that FlashFloppy was expecting a joystick (hence the white bar scrolling up or down the screen). That locked out any keypresses. Switched to joystick and now it's fine. Very cool. And actually pretty simple to flash the unit. With version 0.9.19A, I didn't even have to run the File Manager since the required flash file is already included with the latest FlashFloppy archive. The only program I needed to run was the Demo flasher app.

- Amiga 500 - FlashFloppy v. 0.9.19A - GoTek jumper set to drive zero with GoTek connected internally - 1 GB USB stick formatted FAT32 Tried both the front buttons and all the keys on the Amiga keyboard. The menu's kind of stuck in an infinite loop. Rebooted and power-cycled numerous times with the same result. Is the white bar that moves up and down the selection highlight for the FlashFloppy menu system?

Update: Just for the heck of it, I decided to reverse the data cable. Now it boots to the menu and it shows a list of ADF files. However, after about five or ten seconds it almost looks like it reboots and then goes back to the list again. And sometimes a white line moves up or down the screen. It almost looks like a selection line. When I try using the front buttons to scroll through the items, nothing happens. Thoughts?

That is very cool. I managed to get FlashFloppy written to the GoTek drive successfully. It shows FF when it boots up. However, after that, nothing happens. The USB stick has HXCSDFE.CFG and the Amiga version of AUTOBOOT.HFE in the root directory and also a few ADFs. How did you prep your USB stick so that it worked on your Amiga? In my case it's an old 1 GB USB stick that was formatted in Windows XP and then files were copied to it using Windows Explorer.