Paul Slocum

I've tried all different port settings. I've got a 386 laptop, maybe I'll try that. I was trying mostly Pentium 1s. The other annoying thing is that if it doesn't work, often it locks up. So you have to reboot to try again. And it should have tools that automatically try different delay and communication settings to talk to the drive. Poorly written software IMHO. At least I got my own old programs off my disks onto my PC for more permanent storage. That was the main reason I built the cable. It'd be nice to hook up the PC to the C64 through the C64's joystick port, and have a C64 cartridge that contains software to control the disk drive through that interface. Then the C64 could handle the timing issues with the disk drive so the timing on the PC interface would be relaxed, making it easy to create a nice Windows app to drive it. Although you probably wouldn't be able to do a C64HDD setup this way, which is why a USB->C64 Serial adapter would be the best. -paul

XE1541. I guess they work for some and not for others. Some of my friends haven't been able to get their cable to work at all. -paul

awesome, thanks so much Chad!! -paul

I spent a lot of time designing programming details on paper beforehand. Mainly mapping out the RAM usage. But if you mean the map design, I just designed that within the code. The map layout system is complicated, using fill commands and some random generation to make ROM usage very efficient. So it's not like you can just draw out a map on graph paper and then implement it exactly as is. -paul

Kinda lame to request a feature and not be willing to do it myself, but I have almost zero experience with modern GUI-based programming, and my todo list is completely out of hand right now. The program is well designed aside from that minor issue. (and I also wish it had a minimize button.) -paul

I've tried it on a couple of older dedicated DOS machines and it didn't work. And even on the DOS machine that it did used to work on, only a specific old beta version worked. It's very finicky. -paul

For development when you're updating the ROM very frequently, using the MMC is too much of a hassle. I guess the frustration is that PlayBin for the original CC did include bankswitching auto-detection. -paul

Considering Joe was able to build and sell the Stelladaptor for $30, I think it's doable. I'll mention it to him, although I don't think he's much of a Commodore guy. -paul

I'm really happy with the CC2 code itself, but what I'd want the most is for the PC program that sends serial data to make bankswitching selection a little easier. Automatically select the most common method based on the file size, and even better, remember the last selected bankswitching method for specific files. I switch often between ROMs of different types, and selecting the bankswitching method from that long list every time gets a little tedious. -paul

I took a break over the holiday, but I'm about to start working on it again. It's around 75% done. The ROM will work on a Supercharger if ya got one. -paul

The cable is easy to build, but I've had a very difficult time getting Star Commander working. Hopefully 64HDD is better. Somebody needs to build a similar USB device that has hardware to handle the timing issues associated with the C64's serial port. -paul

Looks really cool. -paul

correction, LDA/STA after the loop. 6 extra bytes (or less if zero page) Still not a significant cost unless you have a ton of these (which I'm guessing is not the case).

I'd say just use BNE and add an extra STA destination,x after the loop. Only uses 3 extra bytes and no extra cycles. Although I always just use BNE and STA destination-1,x. I can't think of many situations where that won't work except maybe where you have some tricky page alignment issues. -paul

Yeah, I prefer to work on several projects at once too. I don't know if you're going for an exact port, but I'd kinda like it better if the balloon took damage so you could hit the wall a few times before it popped. -paul

Is this a new level of Jumpman?

If you like shooters, probably Oystron or Thrust. -paul

Not homebrews in general, but those that infringe on their copyrights. They have the legal right, but it's pretty lame. Not like hacks and ports for the 2600 and 5200 are going to hurt sales of their new systems and retro-comps. I've wondered if it would be possible to start selling some hacks again if the hack carts were made out of the original cartridges that they're hacks of (and this was made clear on the store website.) Like: make all Combat Rocks out of Combat cartridges. Then effectively all that's being done is modification of a Combat cartridge which doesn't violate copyright (although if the original Atari board is removed from the cartridge and replaced with a new board, the original would have to be destroyed). -paul

yeah, Thrust should be added to that list although it's actually a 360 scroller. Check out how Thomas programmed the scrolling in that. There's also a RallyX demo that someone posted to the Stella list recently. (Ah, if we only had the archives...) -paul

yeah, the TIA is just not very well suited for side scrolling. There aren't many NES-like side scrolling games (where you interact with the scrolling environment) mainly because there's no way that we've found to do smooth horizontal scrolling with the playfield. Also memory can quickly become an issue trying to do stuff like that. -paul

I don't know exactly how much you'll be able to do yet. You'll probably be able to use the voice and some sound effects as instruments, but I don't think you'll have enough control to make it actually speak or sing whatever you want. I think it's going to come down to whether I want to include more allophones (speech elements) or better pitch control. Personally I'm more concerned with pitch so that's probably what will end up being implemented. -paul

Yeah, it's a nice idea, but I think most programmers would rather just work on real consoles or even old PCs which can be bought for next to nothing. Considering it costs twice as much as a Gamecube, I don't think it's going to be very popular. -paul

Yeah, the Atarivox isn't in the store yet, but it will be very soon. I think it's going to be about $50 and the LoopCart will be around $25. You don't need the AtariVox to use the LoopCart, but you won't be able to save your sequences without it. If you're just going to use it to make loops to sample or use in my 2600 Sequencer Kit, then you don't necessarily need the AtariVox. I'm sure we'll make it out to Ft Worth before too long. -paul

This is going to rule.

Yeah, even with only 8 subpatterns, 6 patterns, and an 8 measure song memory is still VERY tight. But I believe I'll be able to include the ability to load new patterns from the AtariVox EEPROM without stopping the player. So you can interactively string together longer compositions (cool for live performances). -paul