Jump to content

starfighter1314

Members
  • Posts

    39
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by starfighter1314

  1. Uploaded a ton of new pics. The machine is serial number 58!
  2. Hello, I have a used PAT 9000 that I am ready to sell. I figured I would put it here first before ebay or Craigslist. It was tested and working back in the late 1990s (by Dunis in Portland, OR), but has sat unused for years. It powers up, but I have no way to test it. The XY monitor was tested back then and was not working - diagnosed as a flyback issue. It comes with a mess of plugs, the PAT 9000 manual, some assorted game manuals, and at least 2 Ampliphone deflection boards - untested, condition unknown. Everything is being sold AS-IS. DM me with your best offer. Sorry, I can't ship this - way too heavy! I live in the San Jose, CA area. Own a unique piece of Atari history!! https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1-tqG-7dPjIVDedUjWnIIDimyQfmEnBJM
  3. **file removed** ThomasJ solved my playfield shifting problem! I haven't heard any interest on taking the game further, so please consider this the final release. -s
  4. Hello, I posted this in the Hacks forum, but haven't heard anything. Maybe someone in here can help. I am having a timing problem in my Combat hack. When all 4 paddles are rotated counter-clockwise, the whole playfield shifts downward a couple of scanlines. I haven't been able to pinpoint the problem, but it only happens when all 4 paddles are in that zone. Any ideas? thanks in advance, -s
  5. **file removed** Hello, I finished the beta of Quadratank. I think it is pretty fun, please let me know what you think. It is a 4-player, 2 tank game based on Combat. One paddle controls the tank, one controls the turret (per side). Each paddle is split into 3 roughly-equal zones. The middle zone is neutral (no movement). The right zone is rotate clockwise; the left zone is rotate counterclockwise. One button controls forward movement, the other is fire control. The first thing you may notice is that the tank ROM is non-optimal (aka, it sucks). Unfortunately, I am no graphic artist. If anyone wants to try their hand at designing something better, please do so - you'll get the credit for it (I am attaching the source file). I found it very hard to differentiate 16 tank positions by 16 turret positions using the original graphics. NOTE: There is a slight bug I can't seem to fix. When 3 of the paddles are in the left turn zone and then the 4th enters that zone, the entire picture moves downward slightly. If you can find the error in the code, please let me know. PS If people like this game, I would like to take it a step further and add a center power-up for the following: a user-controlled shield, super zap (shoot the wall and if the opposite player is touching the wall, they are destroyed), and faster speed for the tank. I would need help adding the ball object, new mazes, and utilizing bank-switching (the ROM is full). Please let me know if you are interested and can help with these areas. Have Fun! -s1314
  6. OK. Unfortunately for me, there is no bright side. I need to make 256 (16 tank positions x 16 turret positions) objects. I could really use a graphic editor to speed this up. As for the 1s, maybe its just me, but the Xs seem to stand out more. With that many objects, the 0s and 1s start to blend in. Or maybe that's just my brain turning into tapioca. Thanks, -s
  7. Thanks for the reply! My bad, I meant vertical flipping. Maybe I was unclear, but I wanted to know if there was a way to generate the data without this flipping applied. I am hacking Combat and the ROM images of the player characters are not flipped in the source code. I want to alter these images. I know that REFP0 and REFP1 can be used to flip the players, but I don't want to use them as I will have asymetric characters. I would, however, like to apply the flip to a graphic that I made and then generate the data based on the flip. That way, I can flip the graphic and then make a minor change to it (making it asymetric) rather than reclicking all of the bits in a graphic that is very close to its flipped image. As "part of the code", I mean something like this (taken from Combat). The graphic gets commented out in each line: .byte $00 ; | | .byte $FC ; |XXXXXX | .byte $FC ; |XXXXXX | .byte $38 ; | XXX | .byte $3F ; | XXXXXX| .byte $38 ; | XXX | .byte $FC ; |XXXXXX | .byte $FC ; |XXXXXX | Does bBASIC do this? I only tried PlayerPal so far and it does not. Thanks! -s
  8. That PlayerPal page is really cool, but is there a way to make it so that it doesn't flip the data horizontally? I made an image and clicked generate data and it outputs the hex value for the last line first and so on. Also, it would really be cool if there is a utility that outputs a picture as part of the code (ie the ROM pictures in combat) and can auto flip the data/picture on the X or Y axis. Does the bBasic IDE do either of these?
  9. Hello, I am looking for a simple utility that will output the hex codes for a player object that I will create. I want to be able to select check boxes in an 8x8 grid to make the player object. The utility should show me the hex code for each line so I can put it into my source code. I downloaded this type of utility a long time ago but can't find it anymore. Thanks, s
  10. Thanks Weston! Actually, I have been travelling so I just got to your posting. That's funny, I forgot that the joystick fire button still works if you have one plugged in. (I have been using Stella for most of the emulation). I'll probably make most of the games be non-guided missile ones, but leave in a couple for fun. I am hoping someone can run this on real hardware to see if the paddle zones are roughly even (each zone should be about a third of the paddle range). I loaded it onto my Supercharger, but my paddles are very old and the pots are somewhat defective. Maybe someone viewing this thread could comment on this if they know. If I finish the firing control, could this game be sold or are there copyright issues with Atari? How much of the original needs to be modified? -s1314 BTW Is Trotter on another world tour? I am in the Portland Oregon area for the next few weeks but will be going back to sunny Honolulu then. If Trotter is in the area and is up for another Hawaiian getaway, please let me know! Trotter Rocks!
  11. Phase I is complete. Have a look! Navigation for the two tanks works using paddle 0 and paddle 2. The fire button now functions as forward, so this is a pretty peaceful game for the time being. Fire control will be present on the other paddles. Now I have to work on turret control. I think I will take the non-flicker approach and put all combinations of turrent angle/tank angle in the ROM. Otherwise, I would have to draw the turrets on every other frame. Sound reasonable? If anyone knows how I can fix the attract mode craziness, please let me know. Thanks!
  12. Thanks for all the feedback! I think I will take others advice and try to convert Combat into a 2-player paddle game before going forward. I like the idea of using a three-zone paddle to find the center point easier. Hopefully the shortage of RAM won't kill the project off. Luckily I have a modded Supercharger/mp3 player combo to test out results on my heavy-sixer. As for this question: will the cannons be positioned independently of the tanks? For example, if the cannon is pointing east and the tank is heading north, if the tank turns west will the cannon then be pointing north? Or will it still be pointing east? This is a good consideration. I think I do not want independent positioning even though it will probably require more programming effort (therefore the cannon would point north). I think having the cannon move according to tank direction is more lifelike and could make the game more strategic.
  13. Since I haven't received much interest in programming for the VSM, I might try my hand at hacking a game (if I can get college credit for it). Let me know if you think this idea is worthwhile/possible: I want to make Combat a 4-player (but still 2 tank), paddle-controlled game. I would eliminate all of the existing airplane games and only have tank games. The tank games would be modified as follows: custom mazes (maybe have a contest) one paddle would control the tank cannon while the other controlled tank movement; flip roles after each score the tank movement paddle would use the fire button to move forward the tank cannon paddle button would be pressed to fire or held down to activate the shield (2 hits strong) the cannons for both tanks would be drawn in alternating frames (will this cause untolerable flicker?); probably use 22.5 degree increments for cannon rotation even though I am typically against them, I would try to incorporate cumulative power-ups (shudder). The ball graphic object would be used. Possible power ups include (in no particular order): shield recharge, faster tank movement, faster missle speed, missle duplication, shock effect (if your shot hits a wall and the opposing tank is touching any wall, he is destoyed or his shield is lessened if activated), power shot (destroys shield in one shot). Plow into the power up-object with your shield on and you lose all power-ups, including your shield. difficulty setting on = after each score, player returns to no power ups difficulty setting off = after each score, player retains all power ups Maybe someone with Combat-hacking experience can let me know if there are enough cycles for the added gameplay and offer an opinion regarding if this project is too ambitious for a first-time game hacker. Thanks!
  14. Not sure if there is still interest in this project now that the AtariVox is out. But if you want to make your own voice synthesis module, I posted some instructions on my Web site (http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ncook/vsm.pdf). It will probably cost about $30 in parts. I will program the ISD chip for anyone at no cost - I just need the sound files and chip. Have Fun!
  15. Not sure if there is still interest in this project now that the AtariVox is out. But if you want to make your own voice synthesis module, I posted some instructions on my Web site (http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ncook/vsm.pdf). It will probably cost about $30 in parts. I will program the ISD chip for anyone at no cost - I just need the sound files and chip. Have Fun!
  16. Excellent question. Hope this helps: Last night I doubled up the 4K Haunted House .bin. I burned that into a 2764 and put it into a 2600 8K PCB I bought from the AA store awhile back. This PCB is the older one (it is yellow in color, not red) and I specified the EPROM to be 8K when ordering. It worked fine!! I would assume quadrupling 2K .bins would also work, but I ran out of 2764s to test that. Once I test that, I will report back. Maybe you only will have to buy only one PCB to run 2K, 4K, and 8K games?! If someone has this PCB and has it set for 32K EPROMs, I can go buy a couple EPROMs (27256s?) and try burning 2, 4, 8, and 16K games and send them to them to test out. Having only to buy 1 PCB to run all of those games would be sweeeeeet. -s
  17. OK, I got the Adventure VSM hack up on the website. You can view it at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ncook/vsm_adv.mpg but I must apologize in advance. The video is VERY poor quality because I had to video record the television. I could have used the video outs on my TV, but then I couldn't utilize the camcorder microphone. Much mahalo to Nukey for helping me out with the victory sequence - that guy knows this game like the back of his hand! Hope you enjoy this version of Adventure, or should I say "Impossible Adventure".... -s
  18. Thanks for the kind words and encouragement guys! Yes, I do live in Hawaii, but luckily I am making the long trek to CGE this year. I can't wait! As for making and selling these, right now I am in the "gauging interest" stage. I kinda don't think there would be enough interest to go through the trouble of finding someone to make a PCB for it - I'm no EE! (my soldering job in the casing is all kinds of scary). If that turns out to be the case, I will just post the diagrams and if someone wants to build one they can. For someone who is experienced in soldering, it would probably be easy to do (only 2 chips!) My apologies for the rushed demo; I see there was some confusion over it. The speech samples are under FULL software control. My demo only shows sounds being tied to joystick movement and on cartridge startup. It is just as easy to play a sound when a collision occurs, the score or level advances, etc. I hope to hack Adventure ("when all else fails, hack Adventure") with some voice samples this weekend to show a better demo. If I finish it, I'll try to bring it to CGE. If someone wants to see it there, let me know. Joe, the Emic Text-to-Speech Module is a way cool device! Can it do different voices too? This would really make for a cool project with the joystick port - no limitations on recording sizes. I didn't go the text to speech route mainly because of cost. As it stands, I can make one of these modules now for about $25, not including the joystick housing. (Of course, I try not to cannibalize working joysticks!) This includes the sound chip which can be reprogrammed. Thanks for looking, s BTW Thanks for the comments on my webpage. I fixed the first image and I will leave the close-up image until UH complains.
  19. Hi All, Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but I just completed a prototype voice module for the VCS. If interested, please check it out at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ncook/ Thanks! s
  20. Hi, Nope, it is a much-too-small pic of Buck Rogers (http://www.buck-rogers.com). Kudos on your utility! I am programming a test cart using it.
×
×
  • Create New...