thegoldenband

I've been playing through Silver Surfer recently, and I have to say that its reputation seems undeserved. It's fairly unforgiving, but I've seen far, far worse, and for the most part the challenge seems fair -- a player can anticipate what's coming next without having to memorize intricate patterns. I've generally been able to play through each stage on the first or second try. Back to the Future, on the other hand, is a contemptible wreck of a game -- the kind that ends up with you swearing at the screen and wanting to punch the designer out, because it's so full of cheap shots and so poorly playtested. The worst part is the final stage, which is borderline criminal. To get the car up to 88 MPH, you have to navigate at high speed through a field of tricky obstacles. Blow it, and game over. It basically depends on pattern memorization, but you only get one chance to learn the pattern! Plus the game doesn't give you any indication of how close you are to the checkpoint/lightning rod, so you can't adjust your approach based on how much leeway you have. It's really inexcusable. Ironsword is also pretty dire -- the final battle is just way too hard, completely out of proportion with what it ought to be. Combine that with taking away all your continues, and you've got another game developer who probably needed to hire a bodyguard. Other damned hard games...Cybernoid, Captain Comic, and the original Adventure Island all come to mind. Add Double Dragon, but mainly for the moving blocks at the beginning of Stage 4, for which I've never found a 100% reliable pattern. Destination Earthstar was pretty brutal, too -- I never did beat that one, those side-scrolling levels get out of control fast. And for puzzle games, the Lolo series gets incredibly sadistic at times, and I remember the last few levels of Kickle Cubicle as being rough. But except for Destination Earthstar, I've beaten all of those, and a bunch of other allegedly impossible games. One game I've never gotten anywhere with, though, is Dash Galaxy. I play that one for a few minutes and always just throw my hands up in despair.

The newest version seems great, though I encountered a couple little glitches. Specifically, when I went off the bottom of the screen at level 4 in one game, I wasn't able to return, though I could still fire at my opponent. Also, on one or two occasions, I noticed that one of my shots didn't clear properly, and left playfield pixels behind.

This is coming along very well so far! The graphics are attractive, particularly the gladiator animations/outfits (which look great), and help to demonstrate that bB is capable of some nice-looking games. I do feel compelled to point out that the face that appears at the start of each round bears an uncanny resemblance to Homestarrunner.com's Marshie the Marshmallow! One thing I like about it, too, is that it's a little bit weird, in the way that many of the best/most memorable Atari games are a little bit weird. There's something a little cryptic about the mysterious flashing face, the playfields that look a bit like crop circles... in other words, it has a promising atmosphere, and reminds me of what it felt like as a kid to play a game like Yars' Revenge, or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Oh, and my girlfriend really likes the look of your Round 3 beasties.

This is a very murky area of law, actually, from what little I understand. While it's clear that the modified Donkey Kong cabinet itself is a derivative work, it's not at all clear that you can say the same thing of the replacement ROM chips, as long as they don't have any of Nintendo's code in them. For instance, an automobile's design is the intellectual property of the company that sells it, but they can't forbid third parties from selling items which the end user can use to customize their car after-market, even if those items are specifically designed for the car in question. Really, it's the same issue as with IPS patches for ROMs. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that if you don't use any of the original's code, you can't be held liable for infringement, even if you're distributing something that allows someone to modify that code. Now, that prevailing wisdom may yet be challenged in court, but I don't see how it's enforceable -- you really can't forbid the software equivalent of a screwdriver. As for the Star Wars example, it would actually be completely legal if you used no material whatsoever that was Lucas's intellectual property. You might run into problems promoting it using the Star Wars name, but that's a trademark issue, which is something different.

Bakasama, did you make any headway with this project?

Is there an OS X version of MisfitMAME? (I should add: that'll run on PowerPC?) It looks like there were efforts underway here, but I don't know how far Bakasama got.

Hey, thanks for this -- it is indeed a great watch for those of us who, like me, don't know the system. It definitely piqued my interest. Lots of eye candy there, with a few very notable exceptions!

I posted the .bin file and the .bas file: Sorry, I should've been more precise -- "I don't have the .bas for Random Terrain's version handy" really meant "I don't have time right now to find and download the .bas, coax bB (which is occasionally flaky on my system) into working, and compile and upload the .asm". I already had the .asm handy for mine, so...

Thanks, roland! Here's the assembly code for my final version (aka "alt7"), which has all the pitches in place but doesn't include Random Terrain's changes: ballblazer_start_zylon_goldenband_final.asm.txt Obviously there's a great deal that can be cut -- this is just the raw output from bB. I don't have the .bas for Random Terrain's version handy, but I could compile it tonight if he doesn't upload it first.

Another thing that would be nice is support for folder aliases under Mac OS X -- right now they're just treated as unmountable files. My bB stuff lives in a totally different directory than my main ROMs folder, and it'd be nice to be able to quickly jump between the two (I've put an alias of each folder in the other one).

I assume you're not trying to load up the .bas, rather than the .bin? Otherwise I've no idea... (Also, Stella 1.12 is a pretty old version, isn't it? Are you on an older Mac or something similar?)

ZylonBane's code* processes the data in blocks of seven numbers, as in the comments: rem voice 0 frequency, volume, distortion rem voice 1 frequency, volume, distortion rem duration One beat is equal to 24 duration-units. The "doo doo doodit doo" section you're wanting to tweak falls right after the loop point I've set, and begins with: 14,6,12 29,6,1 18 That's the first "doo", which is more in tune than the rest of it. That being said, I don't know that you'll have a lot of luck finding more in-tune notes -- there really isn't anything else available in the lower octave, which is where the problem is. Eckhard's guide calls those two notes h1 and e1, following German notation; they correspond to notes 15 and 23 on distortion setting 7. Distortion setting 1 doesn't go that low, and setting 14 is just as out-of-tune (for the e1). *(which is, I believe, a refinement of the code by Kisrael that I've used for all my previous tunes)

Good catch, that helped me find one more small thing that needed to be tweaked: ballblazer_start_zylon_alt7.basballblazer_start_zylon_alt7.bas.bin The lower note in the "boop" was an octave too low, compared to the way it sounds on the 8-bit. Roland, I think this version is ready for inclusion, if you'd like to add it to your WIP!

I found a couple small rhythmic errors in the file (a couple notes/pauses were longer than they should have been). I have corrected them, as well as tweaking one or two other things: ballblazer_start_zylon_alt6.basballblazer_start_zylon_alt6.bas.bin I think the rhythmic glitches made the overall tempo seem slower than it actually was. Does it seem quick enough now to folks, or does it need to be even faster? I checked against the Youtube file, and it seemed pretty much the same to me.

Thanks! Here's a slightly updated version with a few tweaks, plus source: ballblazer_start_zylon_alt4.basballblazer_start_zylon_alt4.bas.bin Though I'm not sure that I can do it right now, the extra bar that makes it loop shouldn't be a problem to add -- it's just a couple extra notes which are readily available (26 and 29 in distortion setting 1, plus 15 in setting 7). It's just a matter of adding a tiny bit of extra data, and then modifying the loop routines appropriately. EDIT: And here you go! ballblazer_start_zylon_alt5.basballblazer_start_zylon_alt5.bas.bin

Thanks for the Youtube link, that was very helpful, especially as my (outdated) copy of MacSDLMess is suffering from all kinds of crazy sound glitches. OK, I think I've gotten it: ballblazer_start_zylon_alt3.bas.bin What does everyone think of this? (BTW Albert I think the problem w/ the previous attachment was a mistake on my end; this one should work.)

OK, then how about this? (EDIT: Corrupted attachment deleted, see below for newer version.) I've tweaked ZylonBane's version a bit, and while it's not perfectly in tune, it seems like a happy medium. By the way, I mainly know the 7800 version. Is the 8-bit melody different?

First, I am not familiar with all those music terms. What it does is, that it optimizes for frequency *differences*, not matches. So, if the tune matches best e.g. a quater octave higher, then it takes this. No matter if the sound is somehow related to the real music scale. Aha, I stand corrected -- my apologies, es tut mir Leid! I was fooled by the fact that it continues to specify the original note at the left. Yes, your tool is very smart, so that it knows that (for example) you can best render e3-f3-f#3-g3 as g#3-a3-a#3-b3. It would be nice to have a column at the right indicating what the letter name of the suggested note is, but that's not strictly necessary. Very nice, I'll have to play with it some more!

But it only offers suggestions within the original key, right? I know it makes octave transposition suggestions, but unless I missed something, it doesn't appear to offer a search through different keys to find which one would be the best fit. Some melodies fit very nicely in (for instance) C major on the Atari, but would be impossible in F# major, and vice versa. In other words, if I put in the pitch-set of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" as E-F#-G#-B (which fits somewhat poorly on the Atari), it'd be nice to have a tool that would say "Hmmm, he's really looking for x, 1.125x, 1.25x, and 1.5x -- if he does that in C, that'll be much closer." Don't get me wrong, though, your tool is still quite useful!

Thanks for that -- it seems like a very useful tool, though because it doesn't offer transposition suggestions, I think Eckhard Stolberg's and supercat's charts will be the key to this one. The basic riff of Ballblazer, if I'm hearing it right, uses the following pitches (not in this order!): Bass line: E G# B C# D# F# (span of a major ninth) Melody: B D D# E F (span of a tritone; F=E#) If you wanted to define it in terms of frequency relationships from an arbitrary x, then you'd need to find the following frequencies within the TIA's capabilities: Bass line: 0.67x, 0.833x, x, 1.125x, 1.25x, 1.5x Melody: 2x, 2x*1.189, 2x*1.25, 2x*1.33, 2x*1.414 (x in this case is equivalent to the B in the original bassline) This is very approximate, and the melody mixes equal temperament (twelfth root of two) and Pythagorean intonation, but it's a reasonable guide. (1.189 is the twelfth root of two to the third power, or the fourth root of two; 1.414 is the twelfth root to the sixth power, aka the square root of two.) Also, in the melody, wherever I've used 2x you could also use 4x. That would take the melody up an octave. I suppose one could write a search algorithm that could search the frequency range of the 2600 and find the best frequency fit for a particular melody. So if someone can compute a version that's more in tune than my #2a above, I'm all for it!

Thanks for this, it was very helpful. Here's my best attempt so far at rendering the signature Ballblazer "riff" for the 2600: ballblazer_tune.bas ballblazer_tune.bas.bin It's very crude, but it's more or less in tune. I don't think it can be done in the original key of G-sharp minor (not with normal techniques, anyway), but it fits reasonably well transposed up a fourth to C-sharp minor. The upper melody is an octave higher than I'd like, but the notes for it aren't available in the lower octave: ballblazer_tune3.bas.bin Yuck! One could take it down two octaves, though, albeit with slightly mixed results: ballblazer_tune2.bas.bin ballblazer_tune2a.bas.bin (last note in the bass is changed) Perhaps 2a is the closest of all these to the original?

Stupid question time: are you using the right or left joystick? Pick Axe Pete usess the left on an actual O2. I had the exact same problem, with the exact same cure: "Swap Joysticks" in the "Emulator" menu. Don't feel too foolish, though; something about the Mac port of O2EM is less than user-friendly -- for one, there's no keyboard config panel, or none that I can find, at least.

Looking at it for a bit, I suspect one might have better luck rendering it in A minor (rather than the G# minor of the original). The bassline seems to be the key issue, but if you switch between distortion settings 1 and 7, with a pitch baseline of about +30 cents, I think it can be done. Yeah, I tried looking at Eckhard's TIA frequency file and sussing out some combination of settings that would allow for an in-tune, note-accurate rendition, even if it had to switch between a few different sounds. It gets a little dizzying after a while, when you're juggling 12 possible keys, four different viable settings, and trying to figure out the optimal tuning center to boot (i.e. do I want it to be around +30 sharp of standard tuning? in tune? somewhat flat?). If I had time, I'd try to put together a Flash file (or something similar) that would display a piano keyboard and a horizontal slider; the latter would display a value ranging from -50 to +50 cents, and would serve as a pitch baseline. As you dragged the slider from left to right, the keys on the keyboard would be highlighted or darkened in varying degrees, depending on how in-tune they were with your reference pitch. One could apply various filters, based on which distortion settings you wanted to include as options, or what scales you were looking to use. Still, the challenge is definitely a big part of the fun. Stravinsky often described how, for him, artificial constraints were a strong compositional stimulus. He wanted to have as many obstacles and limits as possible, so that he could use them as a means of guiding his work. He was terrified of the freedom of the blank page!

Those tunes by the Montgomerys are pretty fantastic. Some of the others are flashier in terms of multiple layers of activity or pushing the hardware (especially the stuff from the demoscene), but I really like the tunefulness of the Montgomerys' melodic writing -- it's so well-written for the hardware that it makes you forget the 2600's pitch limitations.

That 3DO encryption key was cracked back in 2005, no? http://www.wunderland.com/WhatsOld/2005/WN.07.21.05.html http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Icebrea...Icebreaker.html