Keatah

Classic99.exe is not a valid Win32 application.

I find my direction in the hobby is turning more toward software. The variety, the variants, the versions. All the flavors.. Letting the software be a guide necessitates a practical working knowledge and interest in many platforms. Not all games are available on all platforms. And certain games are literal technological tour'de'force showcases for certain platforms. On NES, Gyruss suXors to the max. It doesn't even exist on the Apple II. Yet it is very good on the C64. I don't recall I'Robot ever being done on a home console either. So! If I want to play.. Raid on Bungeling Bay, it'll happen on a C64. BallBlazer or Defender, it'll happen on Atari 400/800 Bandits and StarBlazer - Apple II Technical utilities and disk drive experiments - again, Apple II Modem & telecom stuff - Apple II and PC 16-bit flight simulators and early Sim City games - on the Amiga and PC Gyruss? Back to the C64 or the arcade Lunar Lander games? anywhere I can find them! Shamus, Star Raiders, on the Atari 400/800 F/A-18 Interceptor - Amiga Doom & Raptor & early 3D games - PC. Xevious? Now were into the PlayStation 1. RPG and text adventure - Apple II Art, graphics, paint, Amiga + PC Tempest, Assault, I'Robot (and many arcade games), the obvious choice is M.A.M.E. Anything fast-action? VCS.. no doubt about that. And more! The list is really endless. No one platform excels at everything. Having taken the emulation route, learning the ins and outs and idiosyncrasies of each, fine-tuning them, and setting them up just right.. has made exploring the software so much more enjoyable and practical. If I was to have real hardware I'd end up in a hoarder's situation. And having done that at one time I'd rather not do it again.

When getting bored of one platform, move to the next, then come back. And round and round it goes. Nothing says you have to be loyal to one brand. These days we all can afford several classic computers. And the enhancements available make them easier than ever to use. Having explored and played with all the classics it's only natural to find interest in other similar machines. Maybe I'll have an A500 or TRS-80 Model III sitting on my desk next year. Who knows? Apple II will always be my base system, because I had it when I was a kid. All other machines are welcome to visit.

No Win XP support?

Building VCS binaries is a new thing, not sure I'm doing it right, I get these errors. Do I need a later version of DASM? I'm using 2.20.11 C:\test>dasm barnstorming.asm -f3 barnstorming.asm (293): error: Unknown Mnemonic 'NO_GEESE'. barnstorming.asm (301): error: EQU: Value mismatch. old value: $0000 new value: $0001 barnstorming.asm (302): error: EQU: Value mismatch. old value: $0000 new value: $0002 barnstorming.asm (303): error: EQU: Value mismatch. old value: $0000 new value: $0004 *** 118 BYTES OF RAM USED 10 BYTES FREE *** 282 BYTES OF ROM FREE Unrecoverable error(s) in pass, aborting assembly!

Now that the thread has run its course, the political bullshit begins. Then it gets locked.

I read that as Van Halen tacos!

No kid I know of, either, is interested in atari or the nonsensical products surrounding the brand. If they know of it at all. And us old fart gassers, we have our emulators and fpgas, our 40 year old hardware, and fading memories. I read that paragraph of a reply.. They want other to believe that an updated website is coming, and that it'll have new information. And we're supposed to get excited?

Some computers just don't think the way I do.

Can you post a rom so that we may try what you're trying? The 16 year old link in the other thread isn't doing too well!

But FPGA is so versatile it can become anything you want!

Both micros are so awesome the harmony exists in emulation too!

I tend to feel Altirra has long left the station. To recall it for cross compiling would be a massive undertaking. We'd likely have to troubleshoot everything from the beginning. I'd much rather see that time spent on new features and refinements. Learning a whole new environment and tool set would certainly take time away from the ongoing refinements & improvements we're enjoying today. I found the suggestion of suddenly dropping support for Windows disheartening. I know many people that use Altirra on a monthly basis to enjoy their childhood computers and vintage software in a modern convenient way. If Windows support was to somehow suddenly vanish, the next most practical solution would be a low-cost dedicated NUC running the required OS. And in reverse, Linux users could do the same. Give up the fanboi'ism and use whatever tool gets the job done. Am I a winderz fanboi? Maybe. Maybe not. I don't really care what I'm labeled as. It's just a label. All I remember is that Win 3.1 was available on my first 486, and that it "rescued" me from the chaotic 8/16 bit standards & incompatibilities of the day. It got the job done. And I just happened to get into that ecosphere. I could have gone the same way with MAC or Xenix.

My bad, a browser cache coherency issue.

That's why I used a TV antenna amplifier. And I used it exactly for that reason, to overpower the bleed and harmonics and cross-talk caused by WFLD TV Ch.32. Apple II -> Modulator -> Speaker Wire -> Antenna Amplifier -> Speaker Wire -> Switch Box -> TV.

I just checked the 1st level's 4 initial waves of enemy ships. It matches the arcade. If you start the game over or start a 2nd game, they no longer match. The 1st level's 4 initial waves of enemy ships are in a different pattern. It's like the game doesn't reset correctly. Or there's a problem in emulation. The 5200 version is consistent after starting a 2nd game, whereas the computer version isn't. The computer version starts with a whole new set of patterns after you begin your second game. . I have not done a comparo against all levels or all waves of the computer vs 5200 vs the arcade. And likely won't because of time.

Just might make me get off my fat ass and learn some up-to-date programming!

Gosh yes. I remember televisions in the house going wonky and having sawtooth background noise. I think it even leaked over into the neighbor's house IIRC. It didn't help that my setup and bedroom was high up in the attic for most of the times. Near the antenna, and at the right height to transmit across the street. And I didn't know any better either, I made an extension cable so I could play the the computer in bed or on the floor and have the TV still on the stand. And it was unshielded speaker wire. I often played with the cover off so I could see the circuits and try to imagine what was going on in them. I even had an antenna amplifier in attempt to boost the signal and get a clearer picture. At the time I was using the same logic as if a toy took 6 volts and worked at this speed. Then 9 volts would make it go even faster. This applied to electronics and computers too. An infantile & unworkable overclock. Later, I made an antenna to transmit to my buddy's bedroom for real. About 50ft away. Basically some wire done up in a square and a triangle I taped to the wall. And we'd play text adventures via walkie-talkie. He could monitor the signal on his TV and just radio in ideas about what to do. I had two modulators going. One for VHF 2-3, and one for UHF 33 or 34. Sup'R'Mod brand.

Anyone notice the patterns of the enemy ships on the 8-bit computer version of Gyruss? The pattern is the same as the arcade (or close to it) when you first start the game. But after playing through 1 game, then starting the second game, the patterns are all different. They should be the same, why the change? This doesn't seem to happen on the 5200 version though. Thoughts and ideas? Is there a correct working version out there?

I was rather surprised that no one ever did (much anyway) context shifting. Where the CPU would load some data, then run the user's program, and go back and forth. Thus simulating simultaneous disk access and running a program. I seem to recall some game's title page that kept the drive running and scrolled new data onto the screen, bottom-to-top, as it came in from the drive. Maybe this wasn't explored as it was then believed that total rotational life of a floppy disk was 40 cumulative hours. And the friction generated heat if the head stayed in one position. So..? --- But it did confuse my childhood mind why Atari and Commodore needed a big-ass transformer and all that complex circuitry to do what the Apple II did with 12 simplistic TTL chips. Atari 810 had 17 chips, some of which were LSI and far more complex than 74LS series gates. 1541 had a whopping 36 chips! Essentially a complete computer in there with a 6502 processor. Vic20 + 1540 = Slow C64 + 1541 = Slower Slower on purpose so that the drive didn't interfere with video chip timings or something like that! https://ilesj.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/1541-why-so-complicated/

I never did like serial disk drives or any storage device that transferred serially. Not until USB 2.0 got underway with Windows 98se and Windows XP. That's something like 25 years later! I'm thinking it was the development of low-cost analog signal processing for the paired TX/RX lines in the specification that made it suddenly practical. I guess the bulk and slowness of Atari/Commodore drives were a turn off to me. The extra weight, the extra complexity, not for me. The advantage was a simpler physical connection which was more consumer friendly than the 1978 Apple Disk II. One mistake with that connector and poof! I also believe the reasoning behind the short cables for the Apple II would be that no signal processing is done, and the lines are parallel, thus you can only go so far before the adjacent lines generate interference that overpowers the original signal. With serial it's less of a problem, you deal with only one problem, and that's the signal weakening, no self-induced interference. In some cases, on an "RF-quiet" night and good grounding and clean contacts I could string together two extension cables (arranged flat and just so) on a Disk II, and get something like almost 2 meters length. It was a fun experiment. But I wouldn't consider it reliable.

Yes. I don't know all the specifics of MiST or details of the revisions of hardware and cores. I don't own one. But generically speaking of the big picture.. As new hardware comes online, new 4k and 8k displays, new interface standards.. We're going to have to be more creative with scaling and output options and rates and be prepared to leave the older standards behind. We're going to have to have the emulation/simulation/whatever be ready to paint the image on whatever displays are currently available and through whatever interfaces (currently HDMI) are available. After all, that's a key goal of emulation/simulation, to get the old systems running on new & contemporary hardware! I don't think we're going to achieve that unless we leave the old specification behind. As long as we output to old specification we're going to have issues that may require old hardware to remedy. And that goes against the key goal. Displays, scaling, and refresh rates have always been a tedious thorn. Unfortunately I see it taking another 2 or 3 years before emulation/simulation authors fully and completely address this. PCs are making some headway with LCDs that offer programmable refresh rates down to the fraction of a second. It's all new and still costly "because gamers". Anything "gamer" is an excuse to artificially raise prices.

Second thought I think the author was indeed imagining Asteroids. He just didn't didn't get the game mechanics 100% correct. We're probably going to have to let it go at that.