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Everything posted by freewheel
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Oh, and in case no one else has tested this - I saw the comment about column 160 with the STIC1A and the possibility that this affects collision detection. I tested this out, and not as far as I can tell. Even though the original STIC doesn't draw at 160, collision detection does in fact work there. I had to look at $0022-0027 to spot the 1A. But you probably already figured that out, if you've looked that closely at my stuff
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Very very cool. I have a dozen or so consoles but nothing from 1988 onwards, so I can't test this myself. It *should* work on Lathe26's mostly-Tutorvision too. Maybe we'll find a few more in the wild this way. From what I can tell, we just need to hack Tutorvision ROMs and we can sneak the WBEXEC in that way. Not sure if that's what you're referring to, but it at least gives non-technical folks a way to play Tutorvision games. I'm really hoping someone makes some new ones, given what we've got at our disposal (and the likelihood that we can find a few dozen INTV88s over time).
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Tutorvision games - Interest check
freewheel replied to Alex.Pace's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
Sweet dude. I've already got some encouraging news but I need to make one small tweak to the ROM to make it work on a TutorPro (which I just call an INTV88 motherboard; stealing from others here). If this checks out on a few more consoles, I think we have a one-step TutorPro/Tutorvision detection ROM tv_check_fixed.zip -
Quite possibly. If not, we just need to keep programmers in the loop on the EXEC hack. While there's not a huge practical need to do what I'm going, there IS the possibility of developing games for the INTV88 boards, if there are enough of them around. From what I've seen, someone could simply code for the Tutorvision and jam the WBEXEC onto the resulting ROM, but it'd still be nice to be able to test against both. Very cool that you've got a workaround in the meantime, much appreciated! Also appreciated is the level of detail you've put into analyzing this so far. We'll have to get Sir Nanochess to chime in on the PAL/NTSC detection. I've already pointed out a bug in the latest IntyBASIC, so if he's fixing that, he may want to fix this at the same time. I have no idea what kinds of side effects these changes could have, but I'm happy to muck up my own prologue.asm and see what happens. One thing though - on your INTV88, my program also detected the Tutorvision EXEC. Is that actually true, or did I mess something up? I wasn't aware of a "full" TutorPro being found yet.
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Intellivision Controller Observation for 2018
freewheel replied to Denicio's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
Correct, but not quite in the way you think -
Cross-posting this as it's likely that some of the lurkers here have one. I've whipped up a program to test the various chips in a console, and try to help determine if you have a Tutorvision (or part-Tutorvision, sometimes referred to as an INTV88 motherboard with a standard EXEC ROM). I'd be curious if this actually works on real hardware, as I only have standard consoles to test it on tv_check.zip
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Intellivision Controller Observation for 2018
freewheel replied to Denicio's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
Not quite - and this is the single biggest difference/complaint: a good D-pad has a tactile direction indication. The cross in the middle. You can easily feel which way is "up". Sega's Master System had a D-pad that was close to the INTV disc (it did have some raised bits, but they were very shallow) and it suffered for it. Everyone got on board with Nintendo's raised cross idea because it's so intuitive to use. Not crapping on it. It was a different time and this was a level of innovation unseen for many years. It's just too bad that so many games of the era played better with discrete/obvious directional controls. The 16-way disc, along with the ability to easily rotate your thumb around it, could have led to some amazing ideas. We really didn't have that level of fine control until analog thumbsticks nearly 20 years later. -
Intellivision Controller Observation for 2018
freewheel replied to Denicio's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
I totally understand. But I'm coming at it from the opposite direction: while I played Intellivision BITD, I never owned one and by the time I got heavily into playing it, I'd already owned various smartphones for years. So for me, picking up an INTV controller feels like picking up a smartphone very much. The disc is the home button, the side buttons are thumb/fingers... yeah, the parallels are definitely there! -
So, I'm not sure when it was added, but I can't believe no one took the whiskey. Nor that it made it across the border, lol. Personally, I took a few cool things out of there, including a broken Triple Challenge cart that I'm going to try to resurrect (not sure if it's just a dead solder joint or what). I tried to add some good stuff without just dumping extra Night Stalkers, so I hope it's appreciated by the last couple of people. But yeah, we kinda cleared it out. It's really too bad that shipping has gotten so out of hand, because I like the idea of seeing a bunch of CIB+loose games, and adding/upgrading to my collection - it's just not practical to ship 20 lbs every time. Ah well. Perhaps we should co-ordinate cross-border shipping at PRGE. It takes 3 years to move this thing around anyway, so we certainly can cross a few countries that way.
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Tutorvision games - Interest check
freewheel replied to Alex.Pace's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
Anyone wanna guinea pig something for me? Especially *cough* Lathe *cough* as I'm curious what his system says with this ROM. I whipped up something that in theory tests all of the various chips that make a Tutorvision (or a TutorPro). I can't actually test for Lathe's system (it has the motherboard but not the EXEC, which can't currently be tested in an emulator) so I'm really interested if I got this right. This'll also detect anyone with a SuperPro or INTV III, that has the INTV 2. At least I think so. Those are out there, so it's worth knowing in case you want to play Donkey Kong and just can't. If someone could try this on a full-blown Tutorvision that'd be swell! tv_check.zip -
Appreciate the help! You've basically confirmed my thinking - we have a very small number of possible ROMs here, so I don't think checksumming is crucial (besides, we already have an excellent checksum utility to detect some weird new variant or corrupted ROM or something). I've figured out how to detect each of the individual components that make an INTV88 board; no idea if any consoles exist that don't have all 4 extensions (RAM, STIC1A, GRAM, WBGROM) but you never know. I think it'd be neat to be explicit about each just in case. And yeah, detecting the WBEXEC should be trivial. Especially as there's no possible conflict with the ECS, because they can't be used in tandem. Lathe has a proven INTV88 board with a non-WBEXEC, so yeah, it's definitely a thing worth looking for. With a simple ROM merge he was able to get the known Tutorvision games playing on it just fine, which is cool as all hell. Who knows, there may be INTV88 boards out there with standard GROM, and a lot of people have had false negatives if they just checked for that. Edit: I don't think I can actually properly test for an INTV88 board in jzintv, can I? If I don't use the WBEXEC, it won't set up the other stuff (STIC1A, etc). If I do, well then it's a full-blown Tutorvision.
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Keyboard Component Owners Manual pdf
freewheel replied to Steve Jones's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
Wow, I've never seen these before! Has the KBC manual ever been posted publicly? Lots of interesting stuff in there that I didn't know about - like the dual volume controls. And the included microphone! Was it Mattel branded at all? -
Tutorvision games - Interest check
freewheel replied to Alex.Pace's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
Since we're bringing back old posts... You get O2 on an INTV2 EXEC as well. Which is kinda interesting that your TutorPro gives the same result. I guess it's seeing stuff loaded at $2000 and just going with it. -
Tutorvision games - Interest check
freewheel replied to Alex.Pace's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
Bootup menu. I'm willing to bet that there are more TutorPros out there than Tutorvisions -
I've played "Tackle Fun" - OMG what a great game! So, the extra GROM characters (like the copyright symbol) are actually stored in the WBEXEC. Interesting. I didn't catch onto that from the big doc.
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- Tutorvision
- Map Mazes
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Tutorvision games - Interest check
freewheel replied to Alex.Pace's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
Right. I was thinking of the expanded system RAM, not GRAM. And I goofed anyway - $400 gets used by the Inty 2 EXEC. Not sure what the behaviour is there, if you try what I suggested -
Have you tested those frankengames on a regular console? Do they blend?
- 38 replies
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- Tutorvision
- Map Mazes
- (and 4 more)
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Tutorvision games - Interest check
freewheel replied to Alex.Pace's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
Checking for the extra GRAM *should* be as simple as writing to the expanded RAM, and seeing if the value persists. Try a POKE to $400, then a PEEK. See what you get -
In case I wasn't clear about why I'm asking about this - I'm trying to figure out an easy way, in IntyBASIC, to determine which model of console a program is running on. I think it should be as simple as looking at the EXEC address space ($1000-$1FFF) and checking a few specific addresses that will differ between the 3 major EXECs. And then doing some further checks for the Tutorvision. There are stories of consoles with the "wrong" EXEC in them (Super Pros with INTV2 EXECS kinda thing) - I think it would be neat to allow people to detect this easily, without running through the "try this cart, now try this cart, etc, now look up in this matrix based on known behaviours" like I saw when people were trying to find Tutorvisions.
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Yeah, this is part of what's confusing me. The INTV2 EXEC that I've had forever, works just fine in jzintv. And yet when you look at it in hex, it's entirely different than the original EXEC. I'd expect a few bytes here and there changed - Mattel with their attempt to lock out 3rd parties - but it's drastically different. With a little research, I stumbled upon comments similar to yours. How is it working in jzintv if I haven't converted it? The INTV1 vs Sears EXECs are very obviously different, and only in a couple of spots. Exactly what you'd expect as the only difference that I'm aware of is on the titlescreen. Interestingly, the Tutorvision EXEC is byte-for-byte identical to the original EXEC, at least for the first $1000 bytes. I thought for sure there'd be something changed in there, but nope - they merely extended the original EXEC ROM as needed.
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In the very same Wishbook you could buy a 16KB TI-99/4A for $99. The entire computer, including the RAM, was only $20 more than the INTV RAM alone. 64KB computers were $250 at that point. An INTV+ECS+16KB RAM was $280. Not exactly a good deal for 1/4 of the computer (RAM-wise... in other areas I'm being generous by only going that low). Hell, you could get a 48KB Sinclair for $180 - although the only advantage that had was RAM; graphically it was dogpoo.
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Not sure where to look for this. I want to inspect a few things within the various EXEC versions. I know of at least 4 at this point: the model 1, 2, Sears, and Tutorvision. Are there more? And where the heck would one get their hands on all of them? Also, how do you read the contents? (I'm thinking from IntyBASIC). Do I just look at the memory addresses for each ($1000 or $2000)? Is it that simple?