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calamari

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Posts posted by calamari

  1. Posted

    I've always thought that the Windows card bounce routine was a little underwhelming (and besides, this isn't supposed to be a clone of that game). Hopefully I'll be able to come up with something more, but inspiration hasn't hit yet.

     

    calamari

  3. Posted

    Starting at $1000 is fine.. I tested a full screen Antic F mode on the 5200 (was experimenting with drawing a 320x200 image with 8 "colors" using R/G/B page flipping.. it works, but 20Hz flicker is hard on the eyes). I only had to jump once in the middle of the DL.

     

    calamari

  4. Posted

    quote:
    Originally posted by Albert:

    Did you do this by burning an EPROM and sticking it on a 5200 cartridge board?

     

    Yep! You just need a few modifications to the board (you have to use a board with a connector on A13) and the addition of a 7408 chip if you want 32k. I also put on a ZIF socket, that makes it a lot easier to switch EPROMs You can get instructions for the 32k cart procedure at http://www.azstarnet.com/~jeffryj/5200res.html

     

    quote:

    I assume you're going to take advantage of the analog capabilities of the 5200 stick for mouse movement?

     

    For sure! Once I work out a few of the keypad bugs I think I'll write a little diagnostic program in 5200BAS so that I can see what the controllers are doing and tweak away It might also be interesting to put a memory dump in so I can compare readings with the emulators. I haven't decided what to do with the hex A-F keys, but I'm leaning towards using plain 0-9 then if you need A-F you'd push * first. Start for the Enter key, Reset to clear a typed line, probably # for a spacebar and Pause could choose between the controller view and the memory dump view.

     

    quote:

    Have you started work on the sound yet?

     

    I have music on the title screen, it plays perfectly! I really didn't expect it to work, but it did, so that was cool I don't really have plans for future sound, it was generally agreed that having sounds during the game would be annoying. Maybe it can play a little number when you win or something.

     

    calamari

  5. Posted

    UPDATE!

     

    After modding the cart back to 32k (realized I had the 7408 wired wrong.. I was comparing it to another modded cart when I should have been using my spec. Apparently the 7408 used in the another cart used a different pin layout.)

     

    Anyways, I got the 32k working, so I thought I'd try with the 27c256 eproms just for fun.. they actually work now! Couldn't tell you why, but I'm glad, because that means I can test and erase more efficiently.

     

    calamari

  6. Posted

    Tried out Solitaire on the actual hardware today!

     

    Here's my report

     

    The title screen and music work great.

     

    The keypad code needs work though.. it auto repeats like I thought it should.. but it wasn't repeating on the emulators. I'm going to check a few things out to see what I can do about it. The fire button also repeats automatically, but I coded this one not to, so theres a bug

     

    With my Wico controller I was able to move the mouse around, but it was hard because I have it set to only move on a certain number, and it requires a bit of coaxing to move around.

     

    The colors actually seemed pretty close to what I saw on the Atari 800 emulator, but the yellow was a lighter shade. The red is a bit darker, and the half green/half black empty card spots turned out mostly black. I noticed on the Atari800 emulator that the mouse cursor seemed transparent when it would go over certain colors. I thought it was a bug in the emulator, but it really does this on the 5200.

     

    Because of the autofire mouse button I wasn't able to really play the game, but I cycled thru the draw pile all the way till I got the red X.

     

    When switching from the title screen to the game the character set sometimes gets reversed (so the card chaarcters are down in the status bar and atari character set is drawn on the cards). This is another emulator situation apparently, because I never really reset the character set specifically in the game, although I originally did and took out the code when it didn't seem to matter.. oops.

     

    Last of all, the status bar is just a little bit too far down, I need to move it up a row.

     

    When I fix these bugs I'll release an updated version of 5200BAS.

     

    calamari

     

    [ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: calamari ]

  9. Posted

    IMO, Atari800 Win is crap (at least for programming). It would change which ROM I had inserted, sometimes it would revert to screen modes, etc. Forget trying to reload a ROM.

     

    Use VSS or Atari800 DOS instead. With both of these emulators you can access special debugging functions by pressing F8.

     

    calamari

     

    [ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: calamari ]

  10. Posted

    I happened upon the same thing today (SKSTAT).. however, it doesn't work as expected It will stop MOST of the repeats, but if you hold a key it will eventually repeat (after half a second or so).

     

    Right now I am experiementing with KBCODE, but it doesn't seem to working at all.

     

    calamari

     

    [ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: calamari ]

  11. Posted

    Yep.. only 16k at a time, but 32k is possible.

     

    There is a $40-7F enable line and a $80-$BF enable on the 5200 connector, as well as A0 through A13. To get 32k you tie $40-$7F to A14.. but you can't just tie either plain $40-$7F or $80-$BF to the /CE line (because then the chip would be disabled for half the addresses). So you put both enable lines as inputs on an 7408 (2-Input AND Gate). You'd really want an OR gate, but since these lines use negative logic, the AND turns into an OR. Then if either enable is activated, the chip is enabled.

     

    Hope that made sense. I am a beginner with electronics, so if there are errors, please let me know

     

    calamari

  12. Posted

    Finally found the problem with my EPROM board. I was using an AMD 27C256 EPROM. Today, because I was desperate for other things to try, I bought an Intel 27256 EPROM. It worked!

     

    So, I dunno if its the brand difference or the CMOS thats doing it. It would be great if someone with a wider variety of EPROMs can do some tests for me!

     

    Moderator Edit: The 5200 cart rewiring schematic is located here:http://lilly.csoft.net/~jeffryj/5200bas/52...es/5200res.html

  14. Posted

    I believe I may have been able to answer my own question, because of the EPROM. Even though I won't be using the A14 line on the EPROM, I can't just leave it floating. My guess is that if I tie it to GND, then I'll burn $0000-3FFF, If I tie it high, I'll need to burn $4000-7FFF. If the address lines use negative logic, those two might be reversed, but I can just burn two EPROMs and figure out which one works.

     

    calamari

  15. Posted

    Hi,

     

    A 32k .bin uses $4000-$BFFF. I am fairly sure that a 16k .bin uses $8000-$BFFF. My EPROM board isn't working (not sure why yet), but I suspect that the 7408 chip might be a problem, so I want to try without it.

     

    If I take it out, I will be limited to 16k, which will be fine for testing the rest of the board. Since I only have 27256 EPROMs, that leads to my question: Do I burn the 16k image in the 32k space from $0000-$3FFF or $4000-$7FFF?

     

    Thanks,

    calamari

  17. Posted

    Hi,

     

    I've done a bit of soldering in the past (built a SIO2PC cable for one example). However, that was built from new parts.

     

    What I am trying to do now is reuse an Atari 5200 cart board (I'm modding it for a ZIF socket instead of a ROM). I have taken the chip out (clipped it off, poor Pengo ) but now I am trying to put a ZIF socket where the chip used to be. The problem is that even though the ROM is out, the solder filled the holes back in, so I can't just slip it in.

     

    How can I get this socket in, short of buying a solder sucker / solder wick? I was kinda hoping to get it done tonight, if possible, and all the stores are closed.

     

    Thanks,

    Jeff

  19. Posted

    quote:
    Originally posted by DEBRO:

    Has anyone got the ROM image to work on Atari800WinPlus? It keeps crashing my emulator. I'm assuming this is happening because the ROM is 16K but I'm not sure.

     

    You assume correctly, at least for the Atari800 DOS version (the Windows version acts up on me so I don't use it much). If your ROM is called TEMPEST.BIN, then type this at an MS-DOS prompt to get a 32k copy:

     

    COPY /B TEMPEST.BIN + TEMPEST.BIN TEMPEST2.BIN

     

    Then run TEMPEST2.BIN. The playfield isn't showing up for me in Atari800. Use Dan B's emulator to see that (and it will work with the plain 16k ROM).

     

    calamari

  20. Posted

    this sounds great BUT

     

    How do you use it? Can you write up a document explaining how to incorporate it into a program (or maybe an example program)? Is there a tool to translate MIDI songs to the format?

     

    Thanks,

    calamari

     

    P.S. Oops, I forgot to answer your question! I wrote the music player because I didn't know about any existing routines except those premade songs. I also wanted a utility that would translate MIDI songs, because MIDI is a universal format. For example, there is a NSF (Nintendo Sound Format) to MIDI convertor, so now I can have access to NSF's as well. Really, the player was the easy part to write, using 5200BAS ... the convertor was more of a pain.

     

    [ 02-12-2002: Message edited by: calamari ]

  22. Posted

    As long as you don't use it for looping game background music. I'd hate myself if I knew that I helped make your game sound like Super Mario Bros

     

    Actually, I think the lack of constant music is one of the cool things about classic games. Some games have music before a level or when you die, like Jungle Hunt or Galaxian. The only game I can think of on the 5200 that has constant music is Pitfall 2, the music is cool for a few minutes, but I can't stand playing it for long sessions.

     

    calamari

  23. Posted

    quote
    Would like to see a mode where an ASM code comes out of this utility. This ASM code can be later just included in any ASM/BAS file and just get enabled when the music is needed...  

     

    The song player routine you can probably just grab out of the compiled source, then to start playback you'll need to point the VBI at the player routine and enable it. Take a look at the MUSIC.ASM file.

     

    quote:
    Also, the output can be used on NTSC consoles only? Is there a mode to select between NTSC vs. PAL?

     

    Actually no, but that should be trivial to implement. I'll add a -pal switch . I didn't know there were many PAL 5200's anyways though.

     

    quote:

    Any inention to support drums in the future?

     

    Not ATM. I'll need to play around with my 800xl a while to see what sound effects I can make. Right now, everything comes out as a square wave.

     

    calamari

  24. Posted

    quote
    more difficult of course would be to render a 256 color picture down to HVE-format...

     

    You may want to check out Paint Shop Pro. Since there are more than 16 colors, you could use it to dither the image from 256 colors to the "best" 24 colors. If the 24 Atari colors are fixed, then you could create a custom palette, and load that on the image. Or you could write a dithering program yourself Just spread any color error down and to the right for each pixel.

     

    calamari

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