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Still work in progress Paul, but new level editor changes should make it happen a lot more quickly.

Just a quick demo showing how fast it is to change colors with the DLI editor. Day quickly becomes night. Hats off to Fantomas!

Level Editor Release has moved from the Alpha stage to Beta version 0.1.0 Fantomas has been hard at work on the level editor while I was out of town. Level editor now includes a font/character editor, a way to add or remove DLI's, the DLI's are editable, and you can now add maps from bitmap images. Release available on Sourceforge. I encourage people to try it out. Lots of fun.

In this case it's not the cable. As PLM said these little black units need the composite sync signal. Some ST's have the composite sync circuitry and some do not. Quoting PLM from above: Hence why the VCANDO worked after the composite circuit was added in my 1040ST.

And a few minutes later I tested..... WOW!!! :) This was the best picture I could capture on my phone. No Jail bars - It's clean, clear, and very crisp, almost perfect. For the amount of money this upgrade is totally worth it. I couldn't be happier with this simple upgrade. Best part is I can connect all of my ST's to this one converter and use a TV - no more special monitors!!! I really want to say thanks to PLM, this was a very cheap and easy upgrade!

Alright. First I evacuated the motherboard..... A few minutes later I had the components soldered in......

I should have paid more attention to the schematic. All the values match the silk screen. :) I have to wait until Friday to try it out

Had this photo sent of where the RF Modulator would have been. Right away I noticed a highly suspect area(Encircled in red) - Room for 2 diodes, 3 resistors, an a single transistor. It looks very promising. I'll have to wait until I get back in town to test it out with my multi-meter. but I'm almost sure this has got to be the area.

Yes, looks like the final resistor value is 150. I can't wait to try it when I get back. Thanks for your help. I'll keep you guys posted with my findings.

I'm not sure. I'm actually out of town and won't be able to check for another week. I'm really excited though, I love the idea of being able to use the video converter for all my ST's. I think my motherboard is a C070789 and IIRC I wasn't able to find schematics for it. I suppose I could trace everything back from the J4 monitor connection?

It looks like that circuit would be really easy to add. 2 diodes, 3 resistors, and a transistor? Edit: I'm going to look at my 1040 and see if I can add that circuit. I can't quite make out the resistor values, 10K, 100, can't tell what the other is. Two diodes 1N916? One transistor 2N9304?

I have this exact same setup for my ST's.(VCANDO SCART to HDMI Converter + Kabelheinz cable ) Picture is flawless on my UK STE. The picture on my US 520STFM I get the 'Jail Bars' but picture still is still acceptable. It doesn't work at all for my US 1040ST It's been discussed here before but it doesn't seem to work on ST's with out a modulator - At least US models. But 2 out 3 aint bad....

Thanks, guys. I'm actually out of town for a couple of weeks, so there won't be any updates for a while.

Latest update. Now supports full color screen editing. Drop down shows DLI colors being used. Source and Binary for editor uploaded to Sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/p/bruce-lee-aa/git/ci/master/tree/ EDIT: Colors were based on NTSC screens

Level Editor Version 0.0.2 is available at Sourceforge. Fixes temporary extra byte hack and RLE re-encoding issues.

I would like to echo what Mclaneinc has said, big thanks to everyone who has pitched in. And don't forget Fantomas - He has done A LOT of disassembly and we've been working on the level editor together

Just tried it out. It's great!

It's written in C#, very similar to Java. A direct translation would be challenging. You would be ok memory wise, but displaying everything on screen would be the challenge. ANTIC mode 4 might be they way to go since they maps would only take have the screen and you could utilize the other half for character tiles, color sets, DLI info, etc. As far as actual implementation, editing it natively would offer the advantage of loading native character sets and screen resolutions. Definitely possible, but a lot would be from scratch.

Here is Level Editor beta 0.0.1 Found an issue last night with levels 4,5,7,10,13,17,18. I put a hack fix in for most of the levels. The only one not editable at this point are 5 and 17(Fantomas' map5.rle and map17.rle) Technically 5 and 17 are editable they just wont assemble correctly. Working as much as I can on this right now, but you know.......life. Release001.zip

Thanks Paul.

And here is my own example of a quick, half-assed attempt at creating a level from scratch.

Screen editor is almost done. I’ll be posting it later today/tomorrow. Some limitations: For now you must load character sets and maps one at a time. You must edit the individual map files and because it doesn’t load executables yet. You must put the generated files back in to the assembly file and re-assemble the game. There are bugs I’m sure, they’ll be fixed as found or reported. There are some planned fixes for the next version: Display DLI colors on the screen Fix tile graphics to display properly Load the executable file and edit it directly A tile editor with color so we can actually make our own tiles. And of course bug fixes Right now there is a lot of hard coded stuff but that will get changed once the executable is loading properly. However there is a problem with editing the executable directly and I’ve mentioned it before: If you make or edit a screen whose final RLE is larger than the original the program will not run properly. Also since the source code is not completely relocatable for now, this will also be a problem for editing the individual files. If the RLE is smaller no problem, the file can be padded out with zeros. If the RLE is larger then the original, then it won’t compile. Once code is all relocatable or at least certain portions, that problem will go away. Thanks for your patience and enjoy. Edit: Forgot to mention - Use the files in Fantomas' incbin.zip for loading the fonts and maps.

Level editor progress

I'm working on a level editor right now. I'm about 2/3 done. I can decompress files just fine, my re-encoder is off a few bytes - just need to tweak it to get it running. My ideas for the editor: Load in our version of the game. Un-compress all levels. Have a drop down to select a level. Once the level has been selected load DLI lines, DLI color changes, and tile set associated with that room. Be able to select tiles with the mouse. Once a tile is selected draw it on the screen where ever needed. Re-compress file and save it back to the game file. Screen shots attached. The first was an attempt to display the first character set. The second is my new work in progress.

The maps are stored with the lamps already drawn. First attachment - Code on the left is uncompressed level, code on right is screen dump from altirra with no lamps gather. Screens are identical. Second attachment - Code on left is still the uncompressed level, screen on the right is after collecting 5 of 6 lamps. So I think you're exactly right, RLE screens are stored with lamps already drawn. Edit: Forgot to attach files.