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fultonbot

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Posts posted by fultonbot

  3. Posted

    Please excuse my excitement, and ignore this post with your utmost prejudice of you don't care.
    After 38 years, I bought a fresh copy of River Raid off Ebay, opened it up, plugged it into my 7800, got a real CX-40 Joystick, and proceeded to obliterate my old high score from Christmas 1982 by nearly 15,000 points.    I could never play well on any of the retro collections, or emulators because the feel of the joystick was just not right.  But with an actual CX-40 in my hand on real (okay a 7800, but still), all the nuances were correct and I was able to score higher than I ever thought possible as a kid, 33450 points.  I don't care if this is not really a record or anything, it's my record and it took 38 years to do it.


    unbox2.thumb.png.f03c17ff6e18ba9e5a5db5c62d674471.png

     

    riverraid2.thumb.jpg.7649a029b65cf9c843f074cae8e9401f.jpg

     

    riverraid3.thumb.jpg.84b190df3722104622d0b67b9ffd2bb7.jpg

     

    riveraid4.thumb.jpg.b66209e9828cc99d913560c3ff085061.jpg

     

     

     

    • Like 12

  12. Posted

    6 minutes ago, Shawn said:

    Pretty fun so far and I'm a total sucker for Xmas themed games. You are onto something here for sure. Any chance the enemy's will get color or are they using that greyscale look cause you prefer it? Do you plan on restricting the playfield movement so the ground can't be flown threw? Can't wait to try your next updated release of this :) :thumbsup:

     

    Playfield will be restricted yeah.  As for colors, probably, yeah.  Must look nightmarish though....

    • Like 1

  16. Posted · Edited by fultonbot

     

     

    This is a demo of the 7800 game for Xmas named "7800 Xmas : Santa Vs. The Nightmares".  
    The pokey music player is done, and the basic game allows you to fly the sleigh and shoot the nightmares with Christmas bulbs from Rudolph's nose.

    Nothing is complete.   
     

    TBD

    -lose reindeer when hit

    -fewer reindeer mean you can only fly a limited height

    -Collect presents to gain back reindeer

     

    JS7800: Atari 7800 Emulator (raz0red.github.io)

     

    xmas78000.thumb.png.867e42f6990be7a21c6cf19a4acb7e37.png

    xmas78002.thumb.png.67424f709b4049fa16a2c6e6dba63533.png

     

     

    xmas78001.png

     

    7800xmas.bas.a78

    • Like 16

  17. Posted · Edited by fultonbot

    15 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

     

    And before anyone screams that the 2600, 5200, 7800, A8s, or STs were just a bunch of cobbled-together off-the-shelf parts that didn't have hardware distinguishable from any other device on the market, I'd like to mention the following ASICs that those machines incorporated:

     

    TIA, RIOT, POKEY, ANTIC, CTIA/GTIA, SARA, FREDDY, PIA, Shifter, Blitter, Tom, Jerry, and others I can't recall off of the top of my head.

     

    The Ataribollocks(tm) has what, exactly, that makes its hardware unique amongst x64 systems?

    When you get down to it, those custom chips are really the things that create the unique nuances I remember best (sounds, timing, glitches, artifacts, etc.)  It's hard to get unique nuances from generic hardware. 

    • Like 4

  20. Posted

    21 minutes ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

    On that latest video, Atari responded, thanking the guy for his feedback and basically claiming that backers are their QA testers for the retail launch in early 2021.

     

    I totally recall being a QA tester as a part of the original VCS pitches, was definitely a PERK

    ...but did he get his $10 back?  Don't tell me they paid him in Atari Token?.  $10 would buy just about the lot of it.

  21. Posted

    2 hours ago, godslabrat said:

    Well... you might be kidding, but name a worse one? A hyperscan is more appealing rn.

     

    Misguided and grossly underpowered as it was,  at least Hyperscan had a fresh thought and it was released on-time. 

    • Like 4

  23. Posted · Edited by fultonbot

    I don't know if this is useful to anyone else, but I built a tool to help me figure out what pokey sounds on the 7800

    It lets me test out sound mixing on all four channels at the same time.

     

    Controls:
    -Joystick/arrow keys select the value to change (orange)
    -Left button increases value, right button decreases value

    - F = Frequency

    -W =Waveform

    -V = Volume (needs to be > 0 to hear anything)

    -D = Duration (how many frames to play the sound)

    -S = Silence  (amount of time between plays to keep channel silent)

    -T = Type  (C)onstant (play at same volume), (A)attack (play from volume 0 to 15, (D)ecay (play from volume 15 to 0) 

     

    This is s the first version. Suggestions much appreciated.  

     

    link: JS7800: Atari 7800 Emulator (raz0red.github.io)

    pokeyplayer1.thumb.png.6bbb501b21cad9bfea536369ca8015da.png

     

    There may well already be a tool like this, but this is mine.  I used to help me understand the pokey chip and what it can do.

     

    I think I probably made something similar to this in Atari 8-bit BASIC back in the 1984 or 1985 for the same purpose.

     

     

     

     

    pokeyplayer2.bas.a78 pokeyplayer2.bas.bin

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 1

  25. Posted

    18 hours ago, bhall408 said:

    On the Atari 8 bit line, it was common to have music playing handled in a vertical blank routine.

     

    I haven't tried 7800 programming (yet), but I do have a macro assembler library adapted from an old issue of Compute you are welcome to try adapting if you want. It is in ca65 syntax, but it probably wouldn't be too much work to change it for DASM (which is what the studio you are using uses?). I've used it in all my Atari 800 games.

     

    The way this library works is you point it at a data table of the music (or sound effect), which supports commands for setting tone and volume (pokey), and sets of duration+note data (for 1-4 voices, and you can switch as needed to save memory).

     

    For example, here is a "Whoosh" sound effect

     

    Whoosh:
        .BYTE ST,NU,1
        .BYTE TV,14,1,14
        .BYTE TV,12,1,12
        .BYTE TV,10,1,10
        .BYTE TV,8,1,8
        .BYTE TV,6,1,6
        .BYTE TV,2,1,2
        .BYTE TV,0,3,0
        .BYTE ST,EN
     

     

     

    This is cool!  Yeah, I've already kind of made my own version of this in 7800 basic now:

     

    sdata song_rudolph = a  
             2,0,A4,10,0,15,DFRAMES,P_ATTACK,1,100,4,12,3,2,P_CONSTANT,
             1,0,B4,10,0,15,DFRAMES,P_ATTACK,
             2,0,B4,0,0,0,DFRAMES,P_CONSTANT,1,100,4,12,3,2,P_CONSTANT,
             1,0,A4,10,0,15,DFRAMES,P_ATTACK,
             2,0,FS4,10,0,15,DFRAMES,P_ATTACK,1,100,4,12,3,2,P_CONSTANT,
             1,0,0,0,0,0,DFRAMES,P_CONSTANT,
     

     

    You can specify number of channels to read, Note (freq), beginning and ending volume, duration, and and attack/decay/constant for the tone.

    Here is what my current work sounds like:

    (4) Atari 7800 Xmas Demo #1: Title Screen With Transcribed Pokey Music. - YouTube

     


      

    • Like 1
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