starfighter

Fantastic job of the authors, many thanks to them for making a real game! Runs flawlessly on my 130XE (PAL) with Side2 and with Ultimate1MB as well. This is really something to show off on the Atari. Graphics like this could have been a game changer in the 80s...

This should be added as a new title screen ?

I have replaced all my Atari PSU internals with the Meanwell EPS-15-5. It‘s cheap (about 8 Euros), easy to install and small, so I could use the old cases. I also replaced the 5V lines of the C64/Plus 4, which fail a lot. There‘s a similar video by the same guy, I believe. The cases are a bit tighter there, but it works. In total I replaced about 8 PSU‘s I believe. I used them for months now and never experienced any issues.

I have played that game on the Spectrum and the C64. It looks and plays great on both platform. Maybe a port of the spectrum version would make more sense, graphics wise. I have seen great modern Spectrum ports on the Atari lately.

My father use to have a Telex Machine in the 80‘s for his office. I believe, it was a Siemens T1000. Quite a beast. I wish, he would still have it. There are many rolls of NOS punched paper tape in his basement though. I am gonna save them, because you never know when you might need them ?

Thanks for your answer. I have switched off the the prove mode (the red sign) and switched on the midi sign. I can hear the tones played by my virtual keyboard in RMT, e.g. on midi channel 2 for pokey track/channel 1, but nothing is ever recorded on the track. Any other settings I need to consider?

Hello, is anyone using a midi device (virtual or real) to enter notes in Raster Music Tracker? I experimented a bit with this and I was able to hear the tones in RMT for a selected instrument that were played by another MIDI software, but I did not managed to edit a song, i.e. so that the played notes were written to a track. Also I was able to switch between the tracks by selecting channels 2-5 and according to the documentation I understood that by selecting channel 1, it should be switched to EDIT mode in RMT. However, the only thing that happened was that RMT got muted. I was able to connect other MIDI software successfully, but I guess there is some configuration issue with RMT. Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks and kind regards, starfighter

Ah okay, cool, I am on the same route, although I do not have much assembly background. I think Mad Pascal is the best high level language plus the speed which is very close to pure assembly. Regarding the rainbow colors: It always amazes me how easy you can put colors on the screen on the Atari! Such a great and flexible design!

Not sure what you are trying to achive? It is looping very quickly through the color palette of the Atari, hence the flickering. If you want some sort of gradient effect (i.e. many colors at once), you need to work with DLIs, etc. In any way, Mad Pascal is perfectly capable of providing the required execution speed.

No need to poke. SDMCTL := value; will store the value into the location $22F

Seems to be soon

VBXE provides 15khz RGB output which you can connect via SCART to a CRT TV.

Sure, why not? However, I wouldn‘t use AtariBasic anymore , but rather TurboBasic or the new FastBasic. If it doesn‘t have to be Basic, I can highly recommend MadPascal.

Ah, interesting approach, but makes perfectly sense if you code for multiple platforms. Both machines share the same CPU after all. Wow, 1000 enemies at once! I would not have imagined that! Really cool ?

Nothing to forgive about! I think it’s great that you will continue working on it and thanks for your contribution to the contest! Are you planning on releasing the source code? Might help to motivate others to do similar games. What language did you code in? Assembly, C, MadPascal or something else? I would think MadPascal should be very suitable for such a game genre.

Hi Popmilo, it sounds like you hadn't enough time to implement all your planned features due to the tight deadline. Are you planning to further feature enhance the game after the Abbuc competition?

RTS on the Atari and then a Zombie theme! That looks very promising, can’t wait to check it out!

I have in the past successfully replaced PSU capacitors in other retro computers and completely replaced the external Atari 8-Bit PSUs by modern equivalents. So while replacing PSU capacitors (or the complete PSU for that matter) might always be a good idea in general, I would be reluctant to replace other capacitors in a perfectly working Atari 8-Bit computer. There is always a risk that afterwards things might be worse than before. I understand that Atari used very high quality capacitors back then and a very experienced Atari repairman told me not long ago that he would yet have to see an Atari 8-Bit computer that failed due to an aging capacitor. Of course, it might happen eventually, but before that, probably other components, like RAM chips, etc are more likely to fail.

For sports, I also tried myself at a Rastaconverter conversion of the Bruce Lee title screen. However, after 500K of iterations I gave up. Here is my latest result: output.xex I am pretty much a Rastaconverter newbie (this is my second image ever), so anyone feel free to either post-process (if that is even possible?) or try to convert it any further. There are several flaws in the picture, but I would be happy if my effort might be helpful to someone more expert. Also, please note that I reduced the source pic by 1 color (the background grey) and I also altered the palette a bit. Attached you will find all the Generator files and my details mask. Also, here are my Rastaconverter settings: /h=200, /pal=altirra, /details=bruceC64_mask.png /details_val=5 /init=smart /s=10000 /distance=ciede Generator - Bruce Lee.zip

I have no idea how the underlying technology works, but it sounds cool and I can confirm that it plays perfectly well under following configuration (to whom it may concern): 130XE + U1MB (latest FJC firmware) + Side2

Yea, I agree. It really looks like a Deluxe Paint picture from the Amiga. The same quality of color shading, which perfectly catches the mood of the picture. With the Atari being my first and the Amiga my second computer, I love both machines and still have them until today. Both are very elegant machines and fun to use.

Thanks for the hint! Seems like a perfect picture for Rastaconverter. ?

Amazingly colorful picture! On real hardware in front of a CRT, I feel like looking at my Amiga screen (except for the lower screen resolution maybe).

During my further researching today , I found this very nice lightweight DOS, which just seems to do what I want: LiteDOS http://www.mr-atari.com/Mr.Atari/LiteDOS/ By just renaming the file extension to AU0, AU1, etc. files will autoboot in the specified order according to the numbering in the extension name. A first check seemed to work just fine with the title exe and my main program exe Very cool indeed. ?

Yea, a timer would probably even better, otherwise I guess, I would have to include a text remark in the pic and recalculate it again, so the user is aware of it ? I am pretty sure that this is the most stupid question now, but how exactly am I going to do this: 30 years ago in Atari Basic, I would have just included an ENTER or RUN "D1:..." at the end of the first program, but with all this new technology nowadays and a fading memory, I need to learn/re-learn things ?