gdement
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Posts posted by gdement
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It's tempting to think that games back then were made by only 1-2 people, but that's really not true. For games for something like the Commodore 64, obviously games being made entirely by 1 person was the norm since real artists weren't generally necessary and the games were less complex. But for NES games, it seems as though full-scale productions were the norm with teams generally having at least 10 people.
The NES probably did push the industry towards bigger teams, since games for that system had to compete in a crowded market. The technology was also good enough that having real artists was useful.
But while there's lots of people in the credits for most NES games, I'm skeptical whether many of them really worked on it full time. The artists probably didn't have to invest nearly as many hours per game as the people doing the coding. Graphics and sound weren't advanced enough to take that much time, but I could be wrong about that.
... on those Batman credits - they have 5 "designers" and no graphic artists? I don't get that. What do you need 5 designers for?
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I don't know what the actual costs were, but there's been a big shift in how the cost is distributed. Used to be that it cost less to develop the game, but cartridge production was expensive. Now it's the other way around.
In the 80's, since the up front cost was lower, you could make money on a less popular niche game.
So it was easier to get funding, and you didn't need many people's help to write it either.
But if it turned out to be popular, there might be shortages of the game when it comes out (because cart production was expensive and had limited capacity).
The smaller development teams also contributed to more creativity IMO. The game design you get from 1 person is less predictable than what you'll get from a bigger group.
Nowadays, the up front development cost is high so it would be difficult to get funding for an unusual project. Every game has to appeal to everyone, and one flop could sink a company.
But once the game is finished, it's cheap to print an excess number of copies. They don't have significant shortages on new games anymore.
The upside is that (neglecting dev cost which is already spent) older games can now be sold profitably for $20. In fact that's so common that I really don't think anyone should complain about paying $50 for a game anymore - you *know* it will be $20 if you just wait a while.
Cart games never got that cheap without being discontinued.
Mainly thinking about NES games, i was thinking it would cost around £80,000 to create a game from scratch.It would be interesting to get some numbers from somebody who was involved with making games back then.
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I'd be very pissed about the damage to the van, not as much about the loss of the Atari. But either way, thieves suck.
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So apparently you can order popcorn by mail at the "Popcorn Revolution". Already popped in olive oil.
And they were successful enough to have 2 retail locations.
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Interesting observation. From what you describe, it sounds like a BIOS bug. They surely didn't mean for it to work that way.
I'm surprised if nobody has ever tried disabling the Atari logo before now. I never have.
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Any RTS game. Take Age games. I can go through them pretty easy on easy and normal, but hard, forget it. Thing is, I can set up my people, put them out mining gold/food/wood as fast as I can, and by the time I hit my first big advancement to level up, the computer is alreaddy sending max level stuff my way....granted, on all but the hardest setting, it's doing it slowly....but damn, there is NO FUCKING WAY to get leveled up that fast. I'm talking within two minutes of starting a game here, like I said, where any human would just be coming into their first level advancements. Age of empires: Mythology is my favorite game, but I still can't get anywhere on the hardest setting. I just haven't figured out the secret yet. Normal's the most fun, but like I said, the computer maxes out to fast...annd how does it keep supplied in money and food? It'll have tons of farms and such when you get over there, but it will have like one peeon working the crops (and for me, i have to have one person per farm to get anything from it)
Actually, that's how I useually win the game, I may not have a huge army, but I'll have over a third of my population working on food, and nearly another third working wood and money (empires lets you trade for money, really cool)
Anyhow, it's just one example, but almost every RTS I've come across does the exact same thing. Even the final level of Warlocked for the Gameboy Advance does this (though it's just that the computer keeps building people for free till you destroy some farms)
I'm not sure about Mythology, but I know that Age of Kings plays fair on Hard level. On hardest it cheats by giving itself +500 of each resource every 15 minutes.
This is on Standard/Conquest type games. If you play King of the Hill or some other variants I think it starts cheating on hard instead of hardest.
It's a good system I think. The AI plays it's best possible game on Hard, and if that's not enough to challenge you, you can let it cheat by using Hardest.
I can't keep up with it on hard either, but it's not cheating, it's just faster than I am.
A long time ago I started writing an AI script for that game, and it was slightly faster than the stock AI, without using any cheats. At the time, when I was writing the script, I was able to grow almost as fast because I had the script in my head. I can't do it anymore though.
The one thing I don't like about these games is that it depends a lot on how fast you are at clicking and hitting hotkeys and other such busywork. In that sense the AI "cheats" because it doesn't have to use a mouse or a keyboard.
The stock AI depends a lot on market trading, probably the same in Mythology. That can make it seem to get too much of a particular resource. If you want to watch the AI play a game, it might be possible to have the computer control your player. You can do that in Kings, but I don't remember Mythology as well.
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I'm more interested in figuring out why they never bothered to connect the RIOT's interrupt line to the IRQ line of the Sally in the 7800 (although this was probably due to timing issues).
Yeah, that's a good question too. Very frustrating not to have that feature.
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Sometime way back I asked why it wasn't designed with the 2MHz version in the first place.
I'm not sure it ever got a solid answer but one theory was that maybe the 2MHz version would be unstable at 1.2MHz (for 2600 games). Apparently some old NMOS chips don't like running slow.
But it might also just be because they already had 1MHz chips and didn't want to spend money on new ones. Seems strange to do something that cheesy when designing a new console, but it wouldn't entirely surprise me. If that's the reason then maybe the 2MHz would work fine.
It wouldn't accomplish anything as a retrofit though. The Maria slows down the clock rate when the RIOT addresses are in use, so plugging in a 2MHz RIOT won't actually make it go any faster.
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Maybe I just suck at them, but it seems a lot of eletronic card games cheat also....no way I can lose ten hands of strip poker or Texas Hold Em online in a row.
If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend "Smoke 'Em Poker". It's an old Windows freeware. I love the AI in that game, which of course is what makes poker fun to play.
I don't know if it technically cheats, but I think it doesn't. Bluffing works when it's done well, and not if you overdo it. It feels very realistic.
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I think the worst cheating AI would have to be the yellow car in RC Pro Am.
And another, not really a cheat but on a tangent:
There was a cute gambling game you could play with somebody in a bar in Ultima 6 - it was rigged by design. The character explains the rules, and you play a few times, until you figure out that it's a scam. I think he even lets you win sometimes.
Or you can go for their latest game Nascar Racing 2003. It's still the most realistic Nascar game out there.
Looks like it might be good... that's just a bunch of crashes though.
It seems like those crashes should have caused more damage, but whatever.I had NASCAR 2 but didn't like it quite as much. I attributed the differences to Sierra taking over Papyrus, and didn't pay much attention to later sequels.
I rented some version of NASCAR 200? for the PS2 once, but the controls were unplayable.
2003 on the PC might be good though. The biggest hurdle against me trying it is I'd have to buy a new USB controller, as my CH Flightstick is a 15-pin. Controls good enough for a racing game are expensive.
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There have been countless racing games where the AI drivers are perfect motorists. They never screw up on corners, bump into each other, etc. At least with Gran Turismo 4 the cars get into accidents, but won't dodge you if you leave your car just standing there.
I think the problem is limited CPU time for physics on the other drivers. Or at least, that would have been the excuse back in the 90's. Nowadays I guess they just don't care to improve.
My favorite racing game ever is NASCAR Racing by Papyrus from 1995. But as realistic as that game is, the AI is still rigged. It's apparent that the AI doesn't have as much physics as the player, and mostly glide around the track, although they will try to dodge hitting you. They will have solo crashes on occasion, but it appears to be an arbitrary event. You'll be behind a car and it will suddenly spin out mid corner, because it lost the random number lottery.
That game is very realistic for the player though, much better than Gran Turismo in my opinion. It ran well on a higher end 486. Early Pentiums were the dream machine at the time.
Obviously with today's hardware they could run that game with full physics on all drivers and an AI that drives based on those physics. But that would be hard to program and there'd be less time for graphics.
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I'd order them from Jameco, but there's also probably other places.
This will give you their SRAM section:
Click on "configuration" and select either 32Kx8 (for an 8-bit 32KB chip) or 128Kx8 (for a 128KB chip). I'm not sure what you use when building a 48K cart.
Note that there aren't any 64KB chips. For whatever reason SRAM is only made in multiples of 4.
Make sure anything you look at is DIP (DIP-28 means DIP package with 28 pins).
For the 32KB chips, part number 62256 should work. Jameco is selling 62256LP but I think that just means it's "low power", which shouldn't hurt anything. I don't know how much speed is required but 120ns should be plenty fast enough:
Note that the package is marked as "DIP-28" - for any chips you look at make sure it's a DIP package. Those are by far the easiest to solder by hand, are what Atari used, and are probably what you had in mind. I'd also download the datasheet for whatever you order to confirm the pinout matches what you need, and that it runs on 5V.
There's probably 62256 chips available lots of places, Jameco is just a place I'm used to ordering from.
I've never built a RAM cart, so I could be mistaken about the 62256, but I think it's what Atari used.
For 128KB chips, it looks like they only have 2 in DIP-32 that run on 5V:
Those are part 628128LP. I don't know if those work or not, but I assume they would. Definitely check the pinout first.
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as far as modding the console, a PAL system is easiest as you just drop in the new eprom, but I guess that if you can build the dev cart then a few wires for modding an NTSC console will be any problem
This reminds me of something I was wondering about.
PAL 7800's have a socketed Maria, don't they? And they have a socketed boot ROM.
So suppose you were to plug in an NTSC Maria in a PAL console. Would that make it usable with NTSC?
They sell Maria chips at Best Electronics.
Depending how much needs to be done with the supporting video circuitry, then I wonder if it might be easier than modding a socket-less NTSC console.
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If the PAL version is anything like the NTSC version, then there's some tradeoff between the 2600 and 7800 color adjustments. If you're only going to use your 7800 for 7800 games, and you don't care about the image quality with 2600, then you might get a better picture by turning the 2600 color pot to max impedance (essentially shutting it off).
There's some interference between the 2600 and 7800 color circuits, and those knobs are used to control the tradeoff between the signal strength of each. So blocking off the 2600 signal might help a bit with the 7800 image.
I've never tried doing this though, so I have no idea how much difference it would make.
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I think it's important to point out that "model 1" Genesis really just refers to the plastic shell.
There's several different mainboard revisions in those things, some better than others. I do believe that mid-life revisions of the model 1 are probably very good. Although if you get to the late model-1, then those have sound quality problems.
Mine, which started having problems at only 1-2 yrs old, was an earlier revision (VA3). I've only owned one personally but from photos online I think other VA3's are just like mine. It doesn't look like good build quality to me:
The VA3 apparently didn't even work right as designed - Sega did rework on them, including soldering parts to places where no proper solder pad exists. One is literally soldered into a hole that was dug in the PCB, there's a cap on the back of the board, another soldered to the CD edge connector, etc.
I find it odd that it seems not to have through-hole vias, and they instead soldered the components separately on the top and bottom of the board. Maybe this was normal at the time, I have no idea.
My board had 1 very bad solder joint, which would be obvious to anybody who looked at it.
They also used Chhsi capacitors, which is a notoriously bad/cheap brand. I don't know if this was known in the 80's though, and those caps didn't cause a major problem on my Genesis until just a few years ago.
Basically, I think this board was hung together with bailing wire and shipped to meet early demand. That's not an uncommon problem with new consoles. Later revisions are probably a lot better.
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Those RAM chips are in SOJ packaging. I've never built a RAM cart but I assume you would want DIP style, not surface mount.
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The big one in my mind is the crappy audio on anything but the first model Genesis. Glad that can be fixed with a mod these days though.
How are the capacitors in these things by the way? Are they generally in need of replacement?
My early Genesis hasn't really worked right since it was about 1-2yrs old.
Recently I fixed a video problem, which turned out to be caused by bad caps.
The bad caps are Chhsi, which are a notoriously bad brand. Every single one I removed tested way out of spec, while the other brands in the same Genesis were still good.
If you see a Genesis with Chhsi caps in it, you can assume they're bad.
They're also a pain to remove properly. I'm not sure if the board even has a through-hole via or if it's just 2 separate solder pads on top/bottom. I suspect the latter because Sega soldered the tops separately.
I had a hard time not damaging them. It's much easier to do the same job on modern PC motherboards.
I also noticed a very bad solder joint under one of the video RAM chips.
The remaining issues are lockups/sound glitches (Z80 problem?) and controller glitches. I noticed a particular component that triggers instability when I nudge it, so maybe I've found the problem.
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Am I missing something? At a casual glance it looks more like someone who would rather destroy the entire lot for dimes rather than take quarters for them and let someone else potentially resell/reuse them.I think what you're missing is what will he realistically sell in a 60 day period? 1000 units? 2000 units?
So let's say he sells 4000 units in 60 days. He has to deal with packing and shipping them, etc. A lot of bother for $2000 dollars additional profit on a $250,000 order. Just selling everything off to the scrap dealer is a clean and easy transaction. What happens if in those 60 days the scrap dealer changes his mind? Or the price of gold goes down? Then he's gambling a quarter of a million dollars on the hope that he can make an extra two grand. It just doesn't make sense.
Bill
Unless I'm mistaken, he started with something like 2-3M carts, so he sold quite a large number before raising the price. Selling another few 100K isn't out of the question.
I agree that small orders shouldn't be worth the time, that's why I'm mystified by their marketing strategy. They've been doing this for years. He makes no effort to encourage big orders, no quantity pricing on his site, and people who called to ask for it were flatly refused.
If he doesn't want the bother of handling small orders, then I don't understand why he specifically targeted those type of orders for so long. He jumped from $5/cart to scrap, without trying anything else in between.
At $1 in large quantities, he'd get a surge of business from resellers, and at least a couple thousand more from homebrew converters.
At minimum, he should have offered deals on case quantities, which are something like 72 games already packed. Just slap a label on it and ship. Any normal distributor would offer a steep discount on those. Very steep if they were overstocked and anxious to unload them.
The only thing that makes sense to me is if he got panicked about the price of gold. That explains his recent decision, but not why he went for years without quantity pricing.
the fact that they held back the carts that have a little more value to the collector's market tells me that they did a bit of research before they closed the deal.They apparently didn't know what hardware was in the carts until they were told by people asking about them.
It's nice that the POKEY chips will be saved for a while longer, but they won't sell at the prices he expects.
The Jinks carts just have an 8KB SRAM in them. That's nothing special but maybe he'll get a better price on them from a recycler that can desolder the chips. I doubt there's much value in those chips though.
If they were trying to hold back stock that they can sell to collectors, they should have kept a small amount of each title, in proportion to their past sell rate. Not 40k each of just 2 of them. So I assume they'll be recycled in a separate deal.
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I guess I'm preaching to the choir here, but:
It's funny to me that they jumped from selling singles @ $5/each, to selling 1M carts as scrap.
I wonder why he never offered quantity pricing on larger lots, especially on cases that wouldn't need to be repacked. His whole marketing approach was geared towards selling singles, like some retail store. Totally backwards from what he needed to be doing.
From what others have said, apparently there was a time he sold them for <$1 each, but changed his mind when people were buying large lots and reselling them for profit. With the volume he had on hand, he should have been openly working with resellers, not hating them. Did he think that everyone in the world looking for Atari carts was going to find and buy them through his obscure web site? Resellers would have helped him sell more carts.
Raising the price on singles doesn't seem unreasonable, given the time spent on an order like that. But if he had offered case quantities at $1/game, they'd probably have all been sold by now. Even I'd be interested at that price, and I don't have any immediate use for them.
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This is disappointing. It would have been nice to be able to get like 1000 copies of something for homebrew conversion, if and when the need arises. It sounds like 2 board types will still be available, but they probably won't be cheap enough to be worth using.
I can see some potential use for clean/unused C100339 boards, but that one apparently won't survive. That's a pretty common board though.
339 boards are no real loss as the 565 board with SRAM on them are a better donor board anyhow. Jinks is a mix of 339 and 565 actually.
True. The only special/interesting thing to me about the 339 is that it has a solder point connected to the Maria HALT pin. A long time ago somebody (I think supercat) mentioned the idea of using that for separate graphics/code banks. The 565 doesn't have a point connected to this.
The benefit would be that this way, you essentially double the addressable range.
While Maria is active, it could address 32KB of all graphics, but when the 6502 takes over it lands in a different address space.
This would only be useful if 64KB EPROMs are 28-pins... I think they are. 128KB and above won't fit though.
I assume the 339 Jinks carts are older builds, and that the later production that O'Sheas has are probably all 565's. I've never actually bought any of them though.
As you probably know, the 339 had some issues with RAM so I think in later production it was only used for non-RAM games.
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This is disappointing. It would have been nice to be able to get like 1000 copies of something for homebrew conversion, if and when the need arises. It sounds like 2 board types will still be available, but they probably won't be cheap enough to be worth using.
I can see some potential use for clean/unused C100339 boards, but that one apparently won't survive. That's a pretty common board though.
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Or perhaps he really IS going to melt them down... Most, but not all of them. As a result, the value of the remaining games would increase significantly, maybe instead of lowering his prices to the actual value, he is trying to raise the value of the games to the level of his prices.
Which, in my opinion, would be a scheme as corrupt as it is effective.
These games aren't rare. Even if they all melted down I don't think it would be a big deal. The utility of these cartridges is reflected by their market value - which isn't very high.
I'd like to have a cheap supply of homebrew PCBs but frankly a custom board would be easier to work with. Retrofitting an Atari board is only worthwhile if they're cheap. The POKEY would be nice but that board has other limitations.
These games have yet to enter circulation. Even if most of them get scrapped, I don't think it would affect near term value or his ability to sell what's left. They'd continue to sell at about the same rate as they do now. Scrapping the excess just removes carts that won't move in the next several years anyway.
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Sorry. I think I was one of the first people to mention the POKEY carts in this thread. I should have PM'd it or not brought it up.
So now they're worth $15/each? Where does he get these prices from? I guess he wants to ship singles for the next 100 years.
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Of course, now all of my games start up, but in replacing the connector, I uncovered another problem. There is a huge delay between pressing something on the controller and having say Mario jump or move on the screen. Either I broke something else, or uncovered another problem. Happens with both controllers. Oh well.. at least I have a new connector the next time I see a blinking unit at a thrift.
Try a different TV.
What you're describing sounds like "input lag" or "output lag" or whatever people prefer to call it. Most modern TVs don't display the image as soon as it's received, it goes through some buffering first. Some TVs have a more noticeable lag than others. Sometimes you can make it better by turning off some image enhancement settings on the TV.
A traditional CRT won't have lag, it displays what's received instantly.
I didn't notice the lag on an LCD I was using with my NES, except I discovered I suddenly was very bad at the SMB2 slot machine bonus game. I think it must have been very slight lag throwing off my timing. But next time I hook it up to a CRT I may find out my reflexes are just lousy.
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Something else I'm working on
in Atari 7800
Posted
Looks like the DLL isn't initialized in the unused screen area. Should be an easy fix.
Prosystem (maybe also MESS) defaults the memory to all 00s so that type of glitch won't show up in the emulator.