Tyrant

On my pal Jaguar it works fine, I do remember manic flickering on the game over message, but I might be confusing that with Lars' new "Ball Game" (my memory is terrible sometimes).

The obvious solution would be to release it on cartridge, where you can put in a huge fat serial eeprom for saving data, use the universal encription header, and have anyone and everyone able to play it... except that the production costs in making new carts are fairly high I think. You could always then put all the movies and music (and extra levels) on an optional CD for those who have a JagCD (they are quite rare). As JagCD's are quite rare, as well as bypass solutions so until someone, somewhere, finds the encription key, cd games will still have a limited audience.

Logically you could use a scart or av cable plugged into the jaguar video port (the larger of the two edge connectors in the middle). Alternativly you could try to rig up a cable to adapt the french connector into a standard one. Or easier, I'd be happy to swap it for an English one with an RF Modulator , at no charge, since I've allways been curious about those weird french ones.

They also sell the top cover of the cd unit, possibly with, possibly without the eject mechanism in place.

Must have missed the msg, works great at 5000, thanx, and nice work on it.

I tried using Jag2Bin, but when I uploaded the bin file it still gave me an ileagal instruction, ho hum, maybe its just me doing something dumb, but I took your program (JagMarble I believe), ran it past Jag2Bin, took the bin file to my ST, uploaded it to 4000, set the program counter to 4000 and ran it, nothing happened.

Hmm.... your mouse hack didnt work the same way as a nomal Jaguar pad tho did it? If you plug a mouse in directly, it cant respond to the row codes the way a rotary controler or any normal pad does, due to the lack of an encoder chip. Still I'll have a play arround to see if it works, but... how does one run .jag files on an alpine? I tried to use a tool I found to convert them to bin files, but it still wouldnt run. I've long wanted to try the games you wrote but only just got a devkit, and havnt yet mastered the art of uploading all the different file formats.

Umm... whats wrong with the AtariAge forums? The only reason I can see to try to keep up with several messageboards at once is if a) there's a problem with one (many people dislike the JI2's layout and/or trolls for example), or there are interesting subjects on the other board, and as you said you only have 5 members so far, so, not wanting to sound... patronising, but why should we all go and join your board, either spliting our time between checking it and here (and the JI2), or abandon here entirely and go over to your board? I for one am perfectly happy living here, and see no need to move to anywhere else.

Just to remind you there are only 2 days left on this auction.

Welcome to our dark little corner of the AA forums If you've only seen screenshots, you really have *got* to get yourself a Jag, just be sure to ask us before you go buying games, some are absolutely incredible, but others will make you very disapointed. So as not to start another "what are the best games?" threads, which invariably go on forever, try doing a search to find the old threads about which games are the best.

While your waiting to get your controler, if you want to knock out a little program to test your code, I can see if it runs for you, having both the controler, an alpine and just having finished a BJL cable.

The interface code isnt that hard, I've already explained the logic to Lars in an email and Im priety sure he understands it now, of course turning my psudo-basic logic into working code is a different matter, but Im sure he'll manage it with not too many problems, and then hopefully share it with everyone else..... right Lars?

Woot! that is cheap, when I was looking at different mechs the only optical ones I could find were stupid prices, like £70 (umm.. 90-100 us or so I think at a guess). Yes there is, but it also isnt in very useful places, like all that empty space behide the main pcb, neatly divided up into 3 sections, except there's nothing really you can put there except perhaps a battery pack (yes I thought about making wireless controlers, no Im not going to do it). Also there is the problem of folding up all the cables so none get trapped when you put the back on, and on mine the encoder mech dosnt have much room between the front of the case and the back of the stand that held the pcb in place, so its hard closing it arround there. (Note to anyone who buys mine, dont open them, they're a b*tch to put back together and sometimes the screws get damaged since you need a fair bit of pressure).

Resolution isnt at all bad, 36 steps a revolution, not as much (I think) as your optical ones but it works briliantly, especially since the knob I use is only 28mm. Although the 36 is the highest they do, I dont think I would use anything more sensitive if it was availible. As for the price it is now, I dont think its that unreasonable, since they do take a good few hours to assemble, and the parts arnt that cheap either. Also there's free international shipping on that one, and how many people offer that these days? I'll keep making them on and off until its unprofitible for me to do so, but Im not in this for the money. Im curious as to how much your encoder mech's cost actually, since the only optical ones I could find cost a fortune. Or are you building them yourself with the detectors on a custom pcb? You've obviously got a lot more room to play arround with in a big case like that (the inside of a standard Jaguar pad has very little free space in it).

When ST Format (the greatest ST magazine ever) gave away STOS on a cover disk, they then ran a series of tutorials, but they're priety basic (no pun intended).

Hehe, I've no idea, as you said its the first one I've sold Its already up higher than I would have thought, and its still got the best part of a week to go. I realise prices may get a little scarry at times (Ebay does tend to do that), but I still think its better than making a waiting list and selling them for a fixed price. More people get to see it this way so shouldnt feel they missed out because they were asleap or away when I announced it. Also, as synical as it sounds, the more the early ones make the more likely I am to make more of them, and the price will drop dramaticly as people who have one arnt going to be bidding on another one (possible but unlikely). I have lots of standard, sealed controlers, so I can keep making rotaries for a while, its just a case of getting the time (each one takes a good few hours to make).

I think I might have managed to find a cheap scsii interface board, I'll know in a day or two. Assuming I have, what drives are compatible, is it any scsii 1 drive? what is the maximum capacity, etc? How does one go about getting it set up? I believe there are drivers needed, and Im guessing it would need to be formated by the st itself? Where can I get software etc? Yes, lots of questions, sorry

Having done a little research into the topic to refresh my memory, and finding many many broken links and that there really isnt much current information on the net. So... how can I connect a hard drive to my ST(fm)? Ideally spending as little cash as possible, and if its possible, using a laptop ide drive so it can fit inside the case.

Thats probably what I'll end up doing, unless I can find a source of DD disks somewhere. (Im not going to wipe any of my old ones from when I last used the ST hehe, got some classic stuff from my youth on there. On the subject of hard drives, can anyone explain to me how one hooks one up again? I seem to remember needing an old SCSII 1 drive and a converter board, right? I never really paid them much attention before since I couldnt afford one hehe. What's the biggest one can use? Yes I know I should go look all this up instead of asking, but Im lazy, and my stack of ST Formats (complete from 16 - 78 with all cover disks) is burried somewhere.

The only thing I would add is to remember to put a calibration screen into any game that supports rotary (or analogue) controlers, since different types of encoder produce different numbers of steps per revolution. Even something as simple as a different size knob can radicly affect the feel (and speed) of a controler. Allowing the players to set their desired sensitivity and direction would be a very useful feature. Oh, and while its not possible to auto-detect using the controler-type bits as mentioned in the dev manual, you can do some auto-detection since a normal Jaguar pad will never allow both left and right to be pushed at once. Once the player has twisted the knob a few steps on the menu screens, both left and right should be "pushed" at once, and thus you can ask them if they're using a rotary pad and move on to the calibration screen.

Yeah right! Like I can afford one of those, I think a box of 720k floppies is a far easier alternative Or a null modem and apropiate software even easier. Well I've grabbed CoNnect, now I just have to dig my st out of the cupboard and set it up. micros~1 cause me so many headaches, all of this hassle trying to set up my old ST and put it back to work because windoze 2k wont let me use a paralell port lol.

Weee that looks promising, thanks.

The easiest way of all is of course to just transfer a floppy disk back and forth, but I'd prefer to have a little desk accessory that allows me to do a simple quick transfer from pc to st, Im sure someone somewhere has writen a transfer program... What exactly do you meen by using a terminal program? afaik terminal programs just emulate a dumb terminal on a smarter machine... the only way to transfer data with them is to play arround using logging and complex encoding (since they dont transmit binary data do they?), and I think it'd be quicker to use a floppy.

Does anybody know of any software capable of linking a PC and ST via a serial or midi cable, for file transfers?

Well thats a very informative threat, and a real shame, since I've allways wanted a Falcon, but, as other people have said, it would only be a toy. Actually I'd use it to develop for the Jag on, since windoze 2k dosnt let me use the paralell port directly and I dont want to format. But... there's no way on earth Im going to pay that much for it, sorry, I accept that its a good price, but for a collectible and a toy, its stupid. If I was running a post office on the other hand, I might think about it, since then it would be earning its keep