_Fandal_

Nice work! Congratulations! I'm just curious from which demo was taken rotating female face... F.

Hi! New issue of Flop magazine No. 52 is available for download from flop.atari.org. F.

Hi all! I finally found some time to record video from Xenophobe. First two stages can be found . Quality is rather poor but it's better than nothing. All animations are clean and smooth on A8... F.

I'm ABBUC member as well... And I really don't see what's is going on here. I don't agree with Kaz in many questions but that is not a reason for me to critize him. ABBUC is a Atari club with paid membership. And what? ABBUC is releasing professionaly printed magazine and it's organizing great HW a SW compos with big money prices. It's amazing that ABBUC club still exist. It has hundreds of members who decided to support 8-bit Atari by paying membership. Most of members are not active but that's normal. Most of AA members are not "active" as well! They don't create anything new but what? They just love A8 and that's it... F.

I use RSDIS. It's Raster's PHP cross-platform (and very powerful) disassembler. F.

Thanks for the attempt _Fandal_. Would you be more motivated if somebody sent you a 5200 and a controller? I'm not even sure if you could use it because of the PAL/NTSC issue. Also of course you would need an eprom burner at the very least for trying out new versions. I'm sure I could spare a 5200, a controller, and a power supply. The shipping would probably kill but I'm have no idea until I try. Allan You're so kind! But Galactic Chase was just a try. Just for fun. I'm able to create a source code of any A8 program and post it here if there would be any interest but don't want to switch to 5200 scene from A8 one. I'm pretty busy with my A8 projects, my Jag and my 7800. I can't afford to split my free time to another Atari platform... It would be fine if somebody with real HW could finish Galactic Chase conversion. I would like to know what is wrong with it. Definitely. F.

I applaud the effort! Since you're really close, why not post the source? Some of the other experts can probably identify the problems and finish it up. -Jeff With pleasure. F. gch.zip

I played about a half dozen games using the 5200 flash cart. It seems to play properly. I tried the Pause and Reset during game play to no result. I also tried 1 - 0, again with no discernible result. By pressing either the star or pound keys results in the ongoing game locking up. Selecting Start began a new game. Shortly afterwards the same bug as before made it's appearance, with the ship moving to the right and staying there. I could not fire either. The game kept running and once the ship was destroyed I could move it on the subsequent life. A couple minutes later the bug took effect again. I turned off the power to the console and started anew. Games played after that played fine but I did not press any of the keys. I did notice that before a new game is started that pressing the star key selected a two player option. Having only one functional controller I didn't test the second player playability. By pressing the pound key I noticed an asterisk would appear next to the highest board achieved count that is retained for the high score. Is there an actual function to this? I could not discern any difference. I also tried both the new bin and the original cassette image using Atari800Win and both seemed comparable in speed and gameplay to the game running on the actual hardware. I hope this helps and thanks for the work you are doing. This game is rather enjoyable. Thanks a lot for testing! Reset or Pause keys should do nothing. That's OK. Star and pound keys select one/two player(s) mode and difficulty. Higher difficulty is noticed by asterisk. The game should stop when you press star or pound but you should be able to start a new game by pressing start key. Unfortunately I have no idea why there's still a bug with ship control... Well, it seems Galactic Chase is my first and the last try to convert anything from A8 to 5200. It a real pain to convert something as I don't have real HW and behavior of AtariWin PLus emulator is so different from real thing... F.

OK. Another try. Please test it on real HW. Hopefully it will work much better than previous version. F. GalacticChase.zip

It seems this is my problem on real HW. I'm not familiar with 5200 so I didn't know I must set SKCTL and CONSOLR registers... Thanks a lot! F.

Oh my, damned 5200 controllers. It's weird. I took joystick position detection routine from another 5200 game. I use this piece of code: read_joystick txa ; X = player 0 or 1 asl @ tax lda ZP_11,x sec sbc #$70 bcs joystick_right eor #$FF adc #$01 cmp #$10 bcc no_movement jmp L_3286 ; joystick left no_movement jmp L_32A2 joystick_right cmp #$10 bcc no_movement jmp L_3260 ; joystick right What's wrong with this? I can post source code of the game here, if anobody with more 5200 experiences can fix it. F.

Can you convert that file to a .bin? That way I can load it onto my Atarimax flashcart and try it out on an actual 5200. This a .bin file (8192 bytes). Just rename it if you need it. F.

Thank you very much for your help guys! It seems I've done it! Please check it on real HW as I don't have it... F. GalacticChase.zip

Hi all! I'm trying to convert Galactic Chase from A8 to 5200 as you might know... Everything was going pretty fine. I created source code of A8 version, changed HW registers for GTIA and Pokey, set up new DLI a VBI vectors, changed shadow registers for Antic, fixed joystick control and couple of another problems. The game plays fine now (under emulator) but I got stuck on keypad controls. This is my very first A8->5200 conversion and I need your help now!! I have no idea how to check keys properly. I'm only able to check if some key was pressed but I need to know if no key is pressed as well. How to do that?! Why am I asking? I'm checking if "start" key was pressed and then I start the game. But KBCODE still holds last pressed key and the game starts again and again and again and again... I'm lost! Please help! F.

Holy crap! I got Fandal! I think I wet myself. This was my wish list. I once decompiled Thrax Lair because it looked convertible. According to the 1982 manual it runs on 16k. It plays like Caverns of Mars in reverse, plus you get to shoot lasers out of a bat's eyes. Bad ass! Maybe somebody has a better (16k) game suggestion? People should be jumping all over this - but it's the weekend. On a side note: Curt Vendel posted the Galaxian Source Code awhile back. Galaga anyone? And what about Galactic Chase? It seems to be a very good starting point for some hacking. Or has been this game hacked already? F.

Hi all! A8 to 5200 conversion is not too difficult IMHO. Very very good point!! I think that almost all games designed for 48k could be converted. Usually, most of code is static as well as most of data so it can be stored in cartridge area. 16k of RAM should be enough in most cases. But yes, doublebuffering is a problem... Yes, 5200 has its limitations but all consoles have some... Yes, that's a problem. Why should I care about 5200? I don't have it as there is not PAL version available and it's basically A8 computer with very limited game base... Well, I think that mission is possible. Ghostbusters is a 48k game. I don't have its source code (yet) but I have the tools. May be I'm too self-confident but I think I can handle it. It should be matter of one weekend. I always dreamed of convering something from 5200 to A8 and yes, I was successful and the game will be released to the public next month. Now I should try to convert something from A8 to 5200. You know, just for fun. But I'm not sure if Ghostbusters is THE game needed by 5200 freaks... And to be honest, I would like to start with something a little bit easier. Ghostbusters is too much for the very first try IMHO... Any ideas what should be my first target? F.

Hi all! I spent a lot of time with Boulder Dash Construction Kit as a child and I always wonder how to create executable file with my own caves. Is there any tool or all those file versions flying around (e.g. Bandit Boulderdash XY) were done "by hand"? Thanks a lot for any help! F.

Yeah! I wonder what's next on his list, maybe Krtek? Krtek has been done years ago. Choose another one...

It's always fun to see typical Czech fairy-tale characters drawn by genuine Englishman. Keep up the good work! F.

I'm not sure if I have all demos from Homesoft's disk but I guess that my collection is bigger than Homesoft's one. F.

http://atari.fandal.cz/detail.php?files_id=519 F.

Hi all! Source codes can be created very easily. We have the tools. But finishing game is a very different story. BTW, what is not finished on this game? F.

I like it! F.

OK. You want some comments... You guys are doing absolutely great job!! Your projects are awesome and I really admire your effort as I know what it takes to create something on little Atari. Unfortunately it is typical for A8 community that authors are often not getting the credit they deserve. Please, don't expect too much support or encouragement... May be you could consider another way of development of your project. I prefer this one: I always keep all my projects in secret and W.I.P. versions are distributed only to a little group of my close friends. They usually offer some worthwile improvements in my projects and I'm always really satisfied with final product as I know that it was tested on humas who have something to say... Please, don't give it up!! F.

Hi all I'm going to sell Extremist Pack #1, #2, #3, #4 plus Commemorative Pack as well. Anybody interested before I try eBay? F.