zenassem

hmmm... I was just thinking about some of the popular software crackers that I remember seeing on "Pirated Disks" in the early & mid 80's. Always wondered who they were, the tools they used, and if they are still in the 8-bit scene. I remember seeing "Cracked by Killroy" or something close to that, on alot of disks. I'm trying to remember the others. And perhaps some of you know the history behind them. Was C.H.A.O.S. another one? (I don't think it was actually the C.H.A.O.S. computer club out of Germany.) ~zen

@Wrathchild, I will have to look at them, my memory is a bit fuzzy when it comes to the games on the A8. Adding to the confusion, was all the hacked software copies that I had back then. A lot of them changed the name of the game or other text elements. (Did anyone else have the copy of Karateka? I really thought I was out to save the "nymphet"! ************************************************************* (Some inital thoughts as I experiment....) I have been playing around with EnvisionPC font editor, and think I'm starting to see what the A8 programmers were facing. If it's true that they used character sets for the much of the Gauntlet graphics... It's not as easy as I thought it would be to design the ghosts. When using Antic mode # 4 for instance. The colors I get depend on how I use the 8x8 grid. So while, I have 5 colors, It's quite difficult to get the exact results I am looking for. The funny part is, one of my first attempts came out looking "Exactly like the current A8 version". I'll tinker with it a little bit more. But, there are still alot of other areas where the game can be improved. Mainly gameplay, speed, AI, difficulty balance and the screen layout. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Can someone tell me if they believe that the character set in the A8 version was dispalyed in Antic mode #4? If you were me, which Antic mode # would you use for a game like this? Thanks, ~Zen

I'm going to try using modified character sets for most of the in-game graphics. While I try to do most of my work on the actual Atari 65/XE I figure for this type of project I will need to make as much use of the PC tools as possible to speed up my progress. I just downloaded envisionPC to modify the character sets easier. I haven't used it so, I have some reading to do. I have the atari800win plus, the Gauntlet.ATR, the atari810 diskdrive emulator and the sio2pc cable. If anyone knows of other tools I should consider please post. I figure I'll code it in mac65. I am not trying to do an exact duplication of the current Mindscape A8 version of Gauntlet ; But rather, a complete re-"PORT" of the original Arcade. If anyone has ideas of screen setup/modes please share. Thanks ~zen

@atari smeghead, I couldn't find my 1050 field service manual. All I could find were the boars i/o shematics. Frustrated, I just purchased the service repair manual, and it should be arriving in a week. I will send you a copy, when I recieve it. I think that I will have to create an Atari "service, repair, field tech manual -- Free Downloadable Archive website"! I can't believe how hard it is to find the Atari Internal docs, and the Service Repair manuals. This stuff really needs to be made available to the general public. I mean not to many places have an atari 8-bit authorized repair center/dealer anymore. I'm suprised that these documents haven't been scanned electronically and made available to the masses. We really need to change this. There are a ton of atari webpages discussing games, mods, general hardware pictures. But very few sites if any, that are providing detailed repair info. Aren't any of the past atari techs fans anymore. You think that they would scan all of their service repair manuals and offer them for free. ~zen

(I really need the edit feature to return) Just a quick note: The "GAUNTLET" logo in the above screens, changes colors rapidly to give a glowing-chrome like effect. The C64 screen wasn't grabbed at the best possible part of the cycle. Hence the reason, it looks weird.

@TMR, Thanks for the info. It amazes me when you guys can see those hidden details & tricks from one still screenshot. I would never have thought that players would be used along the horizontal edges. I'm ot exactly sure I get what effect that has. Are you saying that the player are the height of display - therby boxing in the scrolling map? What would happen to the display if they weren there? ********** I realize the C64 screen didn't paste so good. So here is another one so that you can see the difference. I also have the title screen for both the c64 and atari c64 in-game screen Please look at the two title screens. Would I be wrong in feeling that the programmers just got lazy with the Atari8 screen? I know that it's easier to work with color in the c64 bitmap modes, but surely the Atari can display something just as good. c64 TITLE Screen VERSUS A8 TITLE Screen Please share your comments. And feel free to let me no if I am wrong in being harsh on the programmers. ~zen

Thank you Wrathchild! (btw, Does your ScrnName have anything to do with the Iron Maiden song of the same?) You have a knack for explaining these things -- Better than some of the explanations I have seen in published books. Have you written any Tutorials? I also appreciate the alternative examples. ~zen

Here on this site are images of the 7800 game Dark Chambers, that inspired Gauntlet. The 7800 version looks cool, although I have never played it. Also here is the 2600 cart Gauntlet which has nothing in common with the game I am referring to. It would be fun if one of the 2600 gurus could work up something. It could use some of the same techniques that were use in Adventure. Which of course got me hooked forever on Maze type games. For those who love the AtariST here is a screenie of probably the best port I have seen. In fact it looks 3X's as good as the DOS version. The Beloved an Envied (at least by me) AtariST port: ~zen

Schmutzpuppe, Thanks for taking the time to research that. I will try a couple of methods and come back here with my results. Here are the screenies: Arcade Commodore ******************* Atari 400/800/xl/xe Perhaps someone with some experience can pick apart the display that the A8 version implemented. I can already see - as was stated - that unlike the arcade version which has the ghost overlapping; the A8 the enemies do not overlap. They are confined to a tilebased grid. Well at least our port looks better than the apple ii, and iie below. That was Atari's aimed competition. apple ii apple iie Ughhhh!!! (Something else of interest as I was researching. The actual coin-op used the 6502 as the sound CPU.)

Wow! All of you have contributed a wealth of knowledge, and it gives me a lot to experiment with this weekend. I'll post a screenshot of the A8 version when I get home (about an hour from now). Be prepared!!! It's quite ugly. But, that's why I am choosing to work on this. I really think that with some hard work and the help from this site, I could produce a better looking port with smoother gameplay. The A8 version is really bug-ridden and not all that fun to play. It suffers from slowdown, flickering, poor control/firing, even in single player mode. The orignal I had owned was a C64 B-side. "I fell for the old - put a different computer's screenshot on the box trick!!!" Needless to say I was very dissapointed. It has annoyed me to this day, the difference of quality between the C64 port, and the half-baked atari masacre!!!! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I will attempt some mock-ups and demos this weekend. ~zen

Ooops, I failed to clarify that I was referring to the 8-bit ports. Specifically the Atari 400/800/xl/xe version from Mindscape. I'll try my best to remember the next time I post in the programming forum. BTW, I'm using Gauntlet as a mere example. Most of my programming from way back was strictly in basic. And I took the Atari Basic Guide as the Gospel back then. "4 players , 4 Missiles". Then one day I picked saw an article inCompute! that showed how the 4 Missiles could be combined to make a 5th Player. Great! But, I never could understand how some commercial games had numerous objects moving all around. First, I guessed that there was some "magic" chip inside the cartridge. But that didn't make sense, because I had plenty of games on Floppy that had all of these "players" and "missiles" buzzing all over. Gauntlet is a good example of this (although the atari port really wasn't good after seeing it on the C6?). So there is obviously a way to have more sprites displayed on the screen then my basic books ever lead me to believe (kinda the same sucker punch as when I found out about antic modes vs Basic modes). Now here is what really adds to my confusion.... One day I was playing Ghostbusters on my friends C64. And I noticed that the graphics were not only sharper, but the men had more colors and a better color scheme. I couldn't understand why the Atari version had the men wearing blue shirts. So one day I read an article about multicolor sprites (in basic). The method was to over lap two players. So I made the following assumption: That's what must be going on in GB's. Each guy is 2 players and where the players cross is where the third color comes from. The ghost must then be made up of the 4 missiles. Hence the single color. The traps were character sets. etc.. etc... and so was the lasso like object that springs up from the trap. The lasers are just drawn lines. So, I was all happy and fuzzy thinking that I figured it out. But with that line of thinking... how could I explain Gauntlet? Well, I couldn't. And I still don't understand how it's done on an Atari 8-bit. At least space invaders I could reason that each alien is actually a remapped character set. But looking at the graphics in Gauntlet, this method wouldn't work. So I am stumped, and I have been stumped from nearly 15 or so years ago.

First, sorry if I am asking too many questions for a noob, but many of you know so much about how to pull off many of the professional feats, that it's hard for me not to ask. I did try searching the forums, but some of your threads on this topic are a little more advanced than my level. How did the game gauntlet appear to have so many sprites on the screen at one time? I had made some guesse (don't laugh) 1) modified character sets (but the colors used and the size, collision etc... lead me to believe that it can't be this) 2)There are a few "actual sprites", and they are repeated displays of the actual sprites. (I can't imagine how or if this could be done) 3)Somehow, a few of the sprites are hardware sprites, and the rest are software sprites. (If that makes any sense) well, it's kind of above my level right now. So I'm not expecting a code example or detailed explanation, but just a nudge toward the overall theory of how it was done would be great. Thanks ~zen

Atari Smeghead, I have to look through my files, but somewhere I have a technicians repair document for the 1050. Many, many, years ago I had a 1050 drive belt replaced by an Atari Licensed repair center. He replaced the belt in under an hour, so I know it can be done without too much hassle. I'll post the document shortlly. ~zen

@joeybastard, I also purchase an sio2pc cable from ebay $15.00 (not sure if that's a good price, but it was worth it to me) that has everything neatly done inside the cable. One end looks like a normal atari sio (although not alll the pin contacts are used), and the othe end is neatly terminated with a com port housing. I haven't bothered to take it apart to see how it is done, or if a chip is inside the housing; but it does work quite well. The seller always has the listing on EBAY, and makes them to order. I believe it has a "Buy Now" option rather than bidding. If your interested in purchasing it this way, I can look up the seller so that you can be sure you get a working, good quality, cable. ~zen ~zen

also I don't understand, could you clarify for a NOOB?

@Heaven, I think (and this is my personal oppinion only) that , at least here in Long Island NY, US many of the people I knew were more interested in playing games for their 8-bit computers. I hardly new anyone who was working on programming or interested in programming languages like I was. Therefor, I believe many of the stores around me were only concerned about having the latest game in-stock. Also by the time I got into the computer scene everyone here was into gaming on the Commodore 64. I was young, and didn't know about user groups, and I didn't have a modem. I was lucky if my parents would buy me Compute! magazine every other month or so, from the grocery market. It seems to me that in europe and other countries, people were more eager to program and understand their machines. @Analmux, Thanks for the comprehensive answers to my questions. I am quite new here and I don't know where to find Emkay's demo. Is it available as an .atr? @Emkay, I would really like to check out your demo. Where can i get it? Do you provide the source code as well? Thanks for any help. ~zen

Thanks, I should have been able to figure that out even though it is a few chapters ahead of where I am. I have always had difficulty with understanding related items such as bitmasking, one's & two's compliment operations. Am i correct in saying that to get the lower byte the program uses: HLIST/256 and performs an "AND" operation with 255 (as a mask) to get the upper byte HLIST&255? Embarassing as it is, I tried replacing the "&" with * 256 More embarassing is: I find myself thinking in C or Basic when I am working with 6502 assembly. So when I see an "&" I automatically think I am referencing a pointer or "adress of". Lastly, Is this typo in the actual printed text or is this just a mistake in the online atariarchives version? I have noticed other typos here and there. Is there a way to submit corrections to www.atariarchives.org to fix things like this? Thanks, for alll of your help. It's greatly apprecited. I will try the code later today. ~zen

I have been working through the book "Atari Roots", and have been progressing ok. Of course I had to jump foward and try assembling one of the graphic display examples, and ran into my first problem. This code sample is giving me an error in mac/65. But I don't understand why. A CUSTOMIZED SCREEN DISPLAY 10 ; 20 ;HELLO SCREEN 30 ; 40 *=$3000 50 JMP INIT 60 ; 70 SDMCTL=$022F 80 ; 90 SDLSTL=$0230 0100 SDLSTH=$0231 0110 ; 0120 COLOR0=$02C4; OS COLOR REGISTERS 0130 COLOR1=$02C5 0140 COLOR2=$02C6 0150 COLOR3=$02C7 0160 COLOR4=$02C8 0170 ; 0180 ;DISPLAY LIST DATA 0190 ; 0200 START 0210 ; 0220 LINE1 .SBYTE " PRESENTING " 0230 LINE2 .SBYTE " the big program " 0240 LINE3 .SBYTE " By (your name) " 0250 ; 0260 LINE4 .SBYTE " PLEASE STAND BY " 0270 ; 0280 ;DISPLAY LIST 0290 ; 0300 HLIST 0310 .BYTE $70,$70,$70; 3 BLANK LINES 0320 .BYTE $70, $70, $70, $70,$70; MORE BLANK LINES 0330 .BYTE $46; LSM, ANTIC MODE 6 (BASIC MODE 2) 0340 .WORD LINE1; (TEXT LINE: "PRESENTING...") 0350 .BYTE $70,$70,$70,$70,$47; LMS, ANTIC MODE 7 0360 .WORD LINE2; (TEXT LINE: "THE BIG PROGRAM") 0370 .BYTE $70,$42; (LMS, ANTIC MODE 2 [GR.0]) 0380 .WORD LINE3;(TEXT LINE: "By [Your Name]") 0390 .BYTE $70,$70,$70,$70,$46;LMS, ANTIC MODE 6 0400 .WORD LINE4; (TEXT LINE: "PLEASE STAND BY") 0410 .BYTE $70,$70,$70,$70,$70; 5 BLANK LINES 0420 .BYTE $41; JVB INSTRUCTION 0430 .WORD HLIST; TO JUMP BACK TO START OF LIST 0440 ; 0450 ;RUN PROGRAM 0460 ; 0470 INIT NOP; SWITCHING COLOR REGISTERS FOR NICELY COLORED DISPLAY 0480 LDA COLOR3 0490 STA COLOR1 0500 LDA COLOR4 0510 STA COLOR2 0520 ; NOW WE'LL RUN THE PROGRAM 0530 LDA #0 0540 STA SDMCTL; TURN ANTIC OFF FOR A MOMENT ... 0550 LDA #HLIST&; WHILE WE STORE OUR NEW LIST'S ADDRESS 0560 STA SDLSTL; IN THE OS DISPLAY POINTER. 0570 LDA # HLIST/256; NOW FOR THE HIGH BYTE. 0580 STA SDLSTH; NOW ANTIC WILL KNOW OUR NEW ADDRESS 0590 LDA #$22 0600 STA SDMCTL; ... SO WE'LL TURN ANTIC BACK ON NOW 0610 ; 0620 FINI 0630 RTS 0550 is the line that is causing the problem. I figure that the "&" is a typo, but removing it doesn't solve the problem. also I suspect that line 0570 should read "LDA #HLIST/256" without the space. I would appreciate it greatly if someone could tell me if the listing is wrong, and what I can do to fix it. Should line 0550 be loading an immediate value "#" of HLIST into the accumalator???? Thanks

(Could someone let me know if their is an edit feature on this forum? I hate to double post) btw, the atarimania link has a dump of spindizzy (one word) in the 400/800 games section !!!! Good Luck! and Happy Gaming! ~zen

Yeah, The translator disk was made availbale because of the xl operating system and the inclusion of basic on the rom. To bypass the (pseudo basic cartridge) xl owners normally held down the option button. Not all third party developers followed Atari's guidelines for programmers even afterr th xl OS was released and some older games would fail to boot properly. Hence the translator disk. I have a notice from atari that was included in my 1050 Disk Drive Owners Guide stating this. I remember having two different translators as the above post mentions. Some games would load from one, some from the other, and some for both. I always intended to make a log of which disk needed which translator. ~zenassem

Here are some of the links that I have for atari 8-bit emulation, games, utils, disk images. I willl have too look through my bookmarks because I'm sure I have others. I'm not sure if posting these links is frowned upon, so if a moderator will let me know if it's not okay to so so, i won't in the future. http://www.atariage.com/5200/emulation/ata...ri800_tutorial/ http://atariarea.histeria.pl/PLus/downloads_us.htm http://retrobits.net/atari810.html http://www.cwc.dircon.co.uk/ http://www.atarimania.com/ http://www.emulators.com/xformer.htm http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/xlsearch/ http://www.ataritimes.com/8-bit/ http://freeweb.siol.net/diomedes/index.html http://ape.dyndns.org:8083/ Those should help you get started. ~Zenassem

I'm not quite certain of differences between the xegs and say the 65xe, but I believe they are pretty close. I am sort of in the same situation as you, in that I just now began assembly programming on an atari 8-bit. (although I did own both an atari 600xl and 65xe about over 15 years ago). I can however recommend reading "Atari Roots" at www.atariarchives.org This book has finally made it easy for me to make the transition from basic to assembly on the atari. It not only covers 6502 assembly but it gives clear examples for using BOTH mac/65 and the Atari Assembler Cartridge; carefully noting any differences between the two through out the text. It also doesn't share the discussion with other microcomputers that use the 6502 (ie. apple, commodore etc..) The book covers how to use the different tools fro both packages including the editor, monitor/debugger, as well as loading, saving, running, and calling assembly programs from basic. Even though I already programmed in assembly for the 8086 using masm, I really didn't understand how to use the assembler packages for atari. I really wish that I would have known about this book years ago. Obviously, after this book goes well with "De Re Atari" and "Mapping The Atari", both of which can also be found at the site. Many of the people here I'm sure know about, own, or at least have read these books. I seem to be one of the few just discovering some of these books. Years ago my public library ony had a few books about Atari Basic. Well sorry if you have read and know about these books already. Perhaps though it will help someone else. Good luck with your assembly language coding. Perhaps someday we'll share some discoveries. Now go and make some fun games for us to play! ~zen

I am not at a computer with my bookmarked links, So I will post them later today. I'm sure someone else will answer by then as well. But If you want to get started, you can do some GOOGLE searches. Basically what you will need is: 1)Atari800winPlus : This is the best emulator that I have come across. Be sure to get the Plus version. 2)800/xl/xe bios roms, OS, &basic roms: They are not to hard to find, but they are usually not on the same site as the emulator. 3)The games are a little trickier to find, but I can post some links later. They usuallly come in disk images (.ATR files), cartridge Roms (.ROM) files, Cassette images (.CAS), atari executables other formats, you can read about the other file formats in the Atari800winPlus help. I will follow up later today with actual links.

Thanks Goochman. I remember seeing that language mentioned in the AtariFaq, but never gave it much thought nor looked into it further. Now I will! From my research on the web it seems that Poland has a lot of sites and programmers devoted to Atari. Not sure why the scene is so big there. I'll have babblefish those pages to find out.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions thus far. I am going to look at them immediately. From some of the other threads I have been reading, I can see that there are other people who have some of the same questions and confusion I have about Atari 8-bit programming, but I also see promise... In the fact that there are many talented individuals here who I'm sure I will learn a great deal from. Thanks for being kind and welcoming to a new comer, and taking time to answer questions that probably seem simple to many of you. Another question (especially for those familiar with c64) ====== Is there? or has anyone ever programmed an extension to Atari Basic to add commands similar to C64's Simon's Basic? I have seen some seperate routines that mimick some of it's functionality but nothing in one neat package nor all the extensions. for example the data @ command to redefine character sets. data @........ data @..bb.. data @..b.... auto numbering, sprite, audio, advanced editing commands etc... ====== In my experience tasks (like color text, and color'graphics in general) are pretty straight foward on the c64, and are made available from basic. The approach to screen memory and color are fairly simple to get one's head around. I was also envious of c128's built-in sprite editor and Assembly debugger. But for some reason I have always been hooked by the process of manipulating the Atari graphics modes, and have found it more enjoyable (even if certain things have eluded me).