Jetboot Jack

Glad to see Plastron on that list :wink: sTeVE

Cafeman, When you say 4 screens - that clearly cannot be all set up as 32K of space... I assume you have 8K of screen RAM set aside and some data to plop onto it from the cart space? Having seen your game I assume you're setting up objects and then just drawing the components for a level on the screen rather than holding 4 complete bitmaps of 8K each... sTeVE

Given that a 16K 8bit machine can see 16K of RAM and the 8K Basic ROM - which on a 48K machine overwites RAM, and on an 800 2 carts (left and right) occupy 2 8K blocks... The 800 architecture must have a 16K external ROM size limit without switching data into those blocks somehow or can a BIG cart simply overwrite more RAM image - this I don't know, but I would doubt since the BIG XE carts require 64K - I guess they are dumping lots of data into RAM? I'd say the largest ROM size the 5200 could handle without going into a complex bankswitching cart is 32K (32ROM + 16KRAM = 48K - all the address space)... Most of the 16K RAM requirement carts for the 800 probably use most of the RAM - as they nearly all use Antic E graphics mode - which of itself uses 8K of RAM, then add in 2K for PM graphics and one or two character sets for title screens etc (like Joust) - and bang 12K all eaten up... sTeVE

As far as I can tell (I've only quickly looked at 2 of the 5200 to 800 hacks on a disc) they are not larger than 16K files on disc... Both files require 48K to run however - I pulled my 800's RAM to see if they would run in 32K or less... I would suspect that the files are the ROM images re-origin'd to fit into RAM and use other RAM space as work space to create an environment that mirrored the ROM/RAM in the 5200 setup for the real cart versions. Chances are they were hacked on a 48K machine and so just plopped into the free memory rather than any sophisticated minimum requirements solution found. An intresting point here - at some point around '84 Datasoft released Pole Position, Dig Dug and Pacman on Disc - all of which were available on 16K cart - the disc versions were identical, but required 48K to run too!!!! sTeVE

Yeah - that's what I meant more ROM - more storage for data and larger program space. I understand your description of the 5200 RAM/ROM process - its the same on almost all cart based systems... Lots of games load into the 8bit's RAM in one load and never touch the disc again. And even if they do they only access upto the Disc's capacity (88k usually) - so most games could in theory be made to work with ROM size LARGE and 16K of RAM space perhaps... A disc/cassette game loads and runs in the RAM footprint - all data and code is in the RAM - so a 16K game loads into and runs in one block of 16k. A 48k disc game behaves the same - 48k for all code and data - unless the game goes to the disc to load stuff incrementally when the game could be as big as the disc capacity, but the code has to execute in the 48k RAM... sTeVE

Calamari, I've done routines like you outlined to get more than 5 sprites on a line - if you color manage it well its not TOO flickery... I'd also do it as a Raster Kernal tho' -- not a strict DLI (counting with D40B - VCOUNT), so I could get precise vertical positioing of the zones independent of the modeline structure of the DLIST (also so I could add color interrputs to the PM's a la 2600 style stripey sprites too)... Although that would SLAVE the 6502 to the screen draw the type of game has very little logic to process - nothing that could not be done in the Vertical Blank. And to be honest if you are going that far then the 6502 doing all the raster management would allow you to get non flicker sprite reuse on one line - check out the examples in: http://www.atariarchives.org/agagd/chapter6.php The Kernals section - the kind of thing done with the half red/half black screen demo can be done with a sprite so 2 instances of it occupy the same modeline with no flicker!!!! sTeVE

Good question... Can anyone make a BIG 5200 cart - one that can be used to create bigger than 16K games - a bankswitcher? I know I said (in an earlier thread) that I didn't understand why anyone would want to port over the 8bit games that never made it to the 5200 (DK, DK jnr etc) - but I've had a change of heart since I set up my 5200 in the lounge - could anyone do it - at least bring over all those 16K 8bit carts...? I'm sure the mods to the code required to do it are not that difficult (it happened a lot the other way) - any 5200 programmers care to comment??? sTeVE

AMongst my 5200 games I have almost exclusivley '82 releases (except for a duplicate copy of Space invaders with a non metallic 1986 label) - but I was sorting out duplicates and I stopped when I was going thru the 4 copies of pacman I somehow seem to have gotten... One copy has a different label - no coyright strap lines under the picture and the pink ghost has its eyes obsured (rather than just the top of its head) by the blue title bar. Any other odd labels like this - is it a late production run or a pack in copy?? sTeVE

Liveinabin, The offical LCD displays shown at E3 were quite a bit larger than a PSOne display - and of equal quality (not like the hideous 3rd party stuff by various companies)... They looked VERY good on the back of the GC units... sTeVE

You should play with one then - there is NO LAG - every remote controller I've ever used before Wavebird has had lag and often easily interrupted. At E3 the Wavebird demos were very convincing - its a very good controller! Esential for Mario Party 4 (and hopefully Mario Golf II sometime soon!)... sTeVE

HURRAH! Thanks for the info Sheddy - La Machine is a BRILLIANT program if you're doing an Antic E game sTeVE

Skatepunk, Could this be done - well the INTV could and did do 3D mazes (Treasures of Tramin anyone). But to do a non gridbased, free floating game like doom - I doubt it. Whilst the 8bit Atari did things like the Eidolon by Lucasarts (and this I feel was the first REAL Doom precursor - including big enemies, free angluar movement and aiming etc etc) and Way out or Capture the Flag buy Sirius - and they were free floating 3D mazes too - I suspect the INTV (and certainly the 2600) lacks the horse power to do such a game And although the 5200 could so this - ROM size would be against it - all the games mentioned above require at least 48K of RAM and a DD... sTeVE

hehehe! That's a laugh... I love these kinda Hoaxes sTeVE

Atari Master - try these sources for really awesome how to's to get something up and running in Atari Basic on the real metal or Emulator: This Book is great - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/020...5843735-0209525 And this one too: http://www.atariarchives.org/c1bag/ And this is more advanced but totally great resource: http://www.atariarchives.org/agagd/ The first text is a "real" book, the others online at Atari Archives - which also includes the essential beginners book: http://www.atariarchives.org/basic/ sTeVE

Well to buck the trend - I like the new boards, the speed seems pretty much the same to me. I think the layout is cleaner, easier to read and more accessible too... Nice Job all sTeVE

No disrespect to Atari Master or any of those suggesting ways to get this "idea" into action... But I suspect Nukey that redefined characetrs are as difficult a concept to get yer head round as PMG when your programming knowledge of the system is that of a beginner. (lowering RAMTOP, fast copy routines etc). To do what Atari Master thinks he would like to code up he needs to set his sights realistically and if that means an Atari 8bit program then he needs, to start off in BASIC. He'll need to get a GOOD grasp of Atari basic and general programming principles before even starting out - and from what I read here he seems to be a bit away from that right now. As for how he should do it to get a prototype of his idea running quickly I would suggest a much simpler approach on an 8bit. Use a bit mapped mode say Basic 3 or 5 and plot or print single pixel balls, see the Basic Breakout game listing in the Atari Graphics and Arcade Game Design book for a pretty simple approach to Breakout using low res bitmap modes. sTeVE

Back in 1986 Analog published a utility called La Machine by Stephen Alpert... My Disk of the FINE software sprite editor has died and I so wanted to get it running under emulation on my PC Does anyone have this treasure on an ATR maybe?? sTeVE

It uses the analog sticks in two modes - original MOH and 2 Thumbs (which is GREAT!)... The game is TOTALLY AWESOME, and even better than the recent PC title (which was ace too)! sTeVE

Robbins.... I would take issue with your UK market analysis in several areas. You can't lump a 1982 machine and a 1986 machine in the same "popularity list" really – to condense the 8bit (1981-1985) and the 16bit (1986-1992) eras does a disservice to the machines. Whilst Spectrum, Amstrad and C64 continued to sell thru to the early 90’s they represented a dwindling market, mostly awful budget games, and the 16bit machines represented the dominant formats… As a retailer in the UK from 87 to 91 I've got a pretty good finger on the shape of the UK market (both computer and console). On the 8bit side the Spectrum and c64 swapped market lead every few months – and I would rank the 8bit market thus: 1. ZX Spectrum 2. C64 3. Amstrad CPC I would say acorn was about 2% of the market and the 8bit Atari even less On the 16bit side The ST was the clear 16bit market leader until 1990 in the UK - when the Amiga overtook it. 8bit conversions of spectrum and C64 games were by and large awful, since there were few truly competent Atari 8bit coders in the UK. And MAtertronic, Firebird, Byte Back etc were just chucking out titles there were soem exceptions (Zepplin titles, Henry's House - just compare C64 and XE!!!! etc) - but just remember Archer Mclean's Drop Zone and International Karate were UK products and all the great English Software titles (thanks Phil!) too!! sTeVE

Hve, Exactly.... E3 was fab! sTeVE

Sheddy, I would go with just occasional screen shot updates when you can - no more code releases until Beta tetsting What you have demo''d is so great that you'll keep us all keen with just a few tidbits as and when you can!! sTeVE

WOW! Demo 4 is great - your approaches potential looks VERY promising sTeVE

Fox, Nice work on XASM!!!! Can you shed some light on your Kernal that Heaven has used in the Time Pilot demos? I kinda get some of it, but I'd love to understand it in a bit more details - your comments are sparse sTeVE

Where is the "Atari ST" part of this thread - mis-post maybe??? sTeVE

I guess you need to download the Stella docs and some tools - from say here: Nick Bensema's 2600 page As for 6502 books - I would recommend the general - Compute's 6502 for Beginners Series, or the classic Rodney Zaks 6502 book. I know of no "learn 6502 on the 2600" books - but the above should get you off to a good start sTeVE