Jetboot Jack

Heaven, I'm really enjoying toying with XASM - its pretty easy to convert over ATSM and TASM stuff - the hardware register abbreviations are a bit odd at first - but I'm sure it will become second nature soon :-) I have gotten Code Genie to work perfectly with XASM now - it was very rock yesterday afternoon - but I ended up just declaring a PATH to XASM in my AUTOEXEC.BAT (yes XP still uses that - so much for progress!) and its all wonderful now... Looked at the TP source - intresting - I've not really gotten a grip on the FOX Kernal yet - any "deconstruction" would be great sTeVE

Heaven, What is the data format in the .RAW grx files in your Timepilot demo?? sTeVE

Anyone successfully using Code Genie with XASM? sTeVE [ 06-01-2002: Message edited by: Jet Boot Jack ]

Thanks Geezer! sTeVE

If ya want to program 6502 for 8bit/5200 then get a copy of Atari Roots! Atari Graphics and Arcae Game Design is quite useful as an overall tutorial - it delves into non DLI raster effects (so you can re-color sprites etc a la 2600 without DLI limitations) and also Software Sprite basics too... If its gneral 6502 I would recommend the Computes Machine language for beginners series as a good set of books. sTeVE

Well I've recovered from the malestrom of E3 and I just wanted to pass on my thoughts on the show as far as the BIG THREE hardware platforms were concerned... Sony - lots of games, lots of average games, some that were sequels (ATV 2 etc) or clones (Sly Cooper and Rattle and Clank - think Jak and Daxter), Socom looked cool, as did EA's stuff - particularly The Two Towers... XBox - everyone had product for the Big Black Block, it had the MOST titles on show across the show. Some of it even looked good, a lot of of it looked like PS2 or PC product (Knights of the old republic, Mechwarrior Assault) - BLINK was awesome... Nintendo had AMAZING product - Zelda, Wario, Metroid (BRILLIANT), Mario Sunshine, Starfox (SUPERB) all played wonderfully - 1080 and FZero looked good on video. Resident Evil Zero looked cool (I didn't play) as did Mario Party 4... sTeVE P.S. The rest - Namco and Capcom looked weak as did Konami (except for Contra on PS2). Doom III was fabulous, as was Warcraft III, Midway was strong (I'm a sucka for 3D Defender - Dr Muto was fun too) and Sega had great games on all platforms (Shinobi, PSO, Panzer Dragoon all stood out). Tron 2.0 might have been cool, except it wasn't either pretty or much fun. Acclaim had some product - VEXX had a hideous camera and looked best on Xbox. Of the games publishers think EA, Infogrames, Midway and Eidos had strong stands this year...

Plutos on the ST does indeed have a 2 player mode

The Translator Cart has several flavors of 800 OS on it, you select what you want from a menu then pull the cart, the system reboots in that OS... To use with carts you pull the cart with select held down, a green screen comes up - you firmly pop in your new cart and the system reboots and the cart runs - simple sTeVE

Plutos was an Atari ST game released in the UK by MicroValue: Plutos on LGD In Game Shot Is this the same as the 7800 game (vertical shooter)? It was a budget game (9.99) in the UK early on in the ST's life... And it was quite tough sTeVE [ 05-27-2002: Message edited by: Jet Boot Jack ]

Midnight Magic uses Antic F and is monochrome - the colors are produced by artifacting as Joey says... But depending upon your TV and your 8bit you get different colors from the odd/even column pixel pairs: I get Pinky Red and Green from my 1200XL, Blue and Orang(ey) Brown on my 800 and XEGS. I believe GTIA and CTIA may produce different artifact colors... If I connect it to my HDTV Sony Wega I get the same colors as my Panasonic Portable, but they are much brighter on the SONY (more Red and Green than Pink and Lime) and just a bit less fuzzy... steVE

Both the cart and ROM image of Tower Toppler that I have are incomplete as far as I can tell - there is garbage graphics for the "flying" aliens... The game is in Antic F, for the most part, with some multicolor terrain in the "fish" stages (which are truly awful since the sub and fish are limited to the default mode 8 blue upper section!). So on PAL is mostly monochrome, but on NTSC it has Artifacted colors (pretty ugly both ways). Its slow compared to the C64 original, since the 8bit version is done totally with software sprites and the C64 version uses hardware sprites, and LOTS of color too :-( Overall 8bit TT is a bit naff and I can see why it was not released - they should have done it MUCH better, and could have for sure... sTeVE

Heaven (and anyone else going to the show), I leave for LA tomorrow - are you working on a booth or wandering the show - do you have a cell phone I could call... Mail me: [email protected] steVE

During game development a few years ago I remember going thru MANY DC units - they constantly flipped out (we did have them turned on 24/7, but they seemed a lot less reliable than other hardware). You could try making sure the vents are clean on the cooling system, the DC runs hot, and that was the problem I encountered. The fact that DC units are prone to overheating worsens with age too (I've got a couple of PAL units that are pretty unreliable)... sTeVE

XBox is suffering from lack of titles - its a good machine and whilst I love what I have it makes me pretty mad to not see more titles for it I'm off to E3 and HOPE to see the goods for it there, and lots of Gamecube goodies too sTeVE

Ok - DA works on OS A/B, but still it should not drop to basic, but crash the machine - Astrochase et al make my XE display go spastic not bring up basic. Even with a trasnlator cart (which I often use to play Astrochase) I wonder if the DA cart needs cleaning... sTeVE

DA works fine as far as I know - sounds like dirty contacts the machine is not even seeing teh cart - carts that are not XE compatible don't drop you to basic they handg the machine sTeVE

GCE & Food Fight - I think that GCE developed and produced the game for Atari - it was an Atari branded coin-op when I saw it... BTW - "designing a 7800 game that included all of Atari's stars, much like Nintendo does with the Mario characters or Super Smash Bros." - I took to mean Atari developed or owned characters... sTeVE

Yeah I concur, the 8bit has a great library of Golden Age video games. And whilst I lived in England during the ST's glory days, and therfore experienced the FLOOD of games for the machine in Europe, I gotta say less of them stick in my mind as much as the 8bit wonders! That said the ST has a wonderful library of late 80's and early 90's European software, which for the one time in Atari's life elevated their computers to be dominant platform... sTeVE

Well I have a 5200 with 2 brand new sticks... The sticks don't ruin the games, but they don't help either... BBSB and 2049'er are not good with the 5200 sticks compared with the 8bit versions, neither are the Pacman games or Dig Dug. But Star Raiders, Pole Position, Missile Command, Space Dungeon all play GREAT!!!!! I guess the real unfortunate thing about the 5200 is that all the released games are available for the 8bit anyway (copies or ports), and many of the unreleased (although not all) titles too. So for me the 5200 is a neat thing to own, but I'll bust out my 800XL for a game of Ms Pacman or Dig Dug anyday sTeVE

One real problem with the 7800 games and the ports of DK and DKjr in particular is the AWFUL sound - it makes my head split. IMHO DK/DKjnr/Mario Bros play better on the 8bit (which is just a big 5200) than the 7800 - and especially 'cos the sound is so much better on these versions. Ms Pacman is great on both the 7800 and 5200 Centipede rules all other versions! BUT when programmed aggressivley the 7800 can do MORE than the 8bit architecture graphically - Desert Falcon, Basketbrawl, Ikari Warriors, Commando etc... I would reckon IF Atari had produced big (1mbit plus) carts for the 5200 it could have been a competitor for longer. Had Atari licenced or developed good modern games for the 7800 it could have done better too (just make sure you put POKEY in every cart!) sTeVE

Eldestructo, I'm not sure that single pixel scrolling would be needed for the main building, its pretty slow at 60fps So if you scrolled in steps of 2 pixels and used 4 charsets, you could also get, free of charge, LOADS of 4 frame animation all over the building all for 4K Andre - how about Last Ninja indeed (well II actually) - I still have the contract after all these years, unfuilfilled, but signed up sTeVE

deadtech - you're so right, I totally forgot: Charley Chuck Major Havoc The "Swordquest" Characters Gauntlet But I don't reckon you can count: Joust Jungle Hunt Outlaw KBeXpress - since the idea was to emulate Nintendo's SSB (or even SMK) then I think its dead on to ONLY include genuine Atari Characters Otherwise it just beomes "my favorite characters"... sTeVE

Yes it is - my paper copy shows the name/number a bit more clearly... And the book refers to machines from the Atari 400 to the 1450XLD sTeVE

El Destructo, Yeah that's one way - when Menace gets uploaded (soon I promise) you'll see a very similar method being used for the parallax (kinda like Contagion used)... Using several character sets (say 4) and flipping them each scroll is how we did the horizontal version (only 4 pxels per character)... sTeVE

How do you imagine the vertical "whole building" scanner working on the left? It would have to most probably be a sprite overlay - 'cos you are scrolling the whole screen. Apart from that I think CC is a great candidate to be converted, the 2600 verion never satisifed me! I fact I reckon the 8bit could do a more colourful than arcade version!!! sTeVE sTeVE