MrFish

Actually, we have hundreds of these where I work... how many are you interested in still? I can get them cheap or for free. I can probably even get any specific brand/chip maker... I'm interested in as many as you can aquire, and as cheap as you can get them. they absolutely MUST have 8 or 9 chips and be 60ns (or 50ns) access time.. Where do you work that still deals in 1 megabyte 30 pin SIMMs? We are one of the largest computer/electronics resellers/recyclers in the bay area (Sunnyvale, CA ). We don't even have these up for sale because our time is better spent selling all the other items that we get. We usually just save them up, with all the other obsolete ram, and sell them at the best scrap rate. We easily have hundreds available at any given time. I have a huge bin right next to my workbench. I'll go through some this week. I also have a simm tester to check them out with.

Actually, we have hundreds of these where I work... how many are you interested in still? I can get them cheap or for free. I can probably even get any specific brand/chip maker...

The frequency and nature of object overlap. In Space Invaders, objects generally do not overlap. Almost any time objects would overlap, one or the other is destroyed. By contrast, the flying rocks in Asteroids Deluxe routinely overlap. If the rocks were solid, they could be drawn with low-resolution edges but high-resolution insides. Since the rocks are hollow, however, and must allow other objects to 'show through', both the inside and outside edges have to be jagged. If the player ship were the object and UFO were drawn with the lowest priority, it would probably be possible to have them be high resolution while everything else was low resolution. Depending upon how the rocks were drawn, that might not be a bad approach, but I'm not sure how worthwhile it would be. Wait a minute, wait... Have you ever played Asteroids Deluxe on the 7800?? It's already in hi-res mode...

Probably because there would be no practical way to have high-res vector shapes overlap properly. The 7800's screen is divided horizontally into 160 double-pixels. While it's possible to display different colors in the halves of a double pixel, transparency decisions are made on a double-pixel basis. What is different in Vector Edition than Deluxe that would make this relevant?

This looks really good. Nice to see stuff being done in hi-res mode. I have a question... Since you did a version of Asteroids Deluxe (very nice) in hi-res mode, how come no version in hi-res for Vector Edition?

So, now that you guys are almost finished with Bomb Jack, it should be a breeze to finish this one...

Just had pretty much the same thing happen. Beginning of Round 6, dropped to and touched the lowest platform, then re-appeared from the top of the screen. Forgot to mention the first time... Using Atari800Win PLus 4.0, XL/XE (Rev. 2), 1088k, and "Do not allow activatiing attract mode" is not checked.

Here's some for sale pretty cheap ($2 + $4 shipping): Antic Magazine - On Ebay A little expensive for just reading material, but they're collectable and they're Atari...

Here are a couple of sites that will give you plenty of Atari reading material: Classic Computer Magazines Atari Archives/Books As far as not understanding what topics/posts are about... don't worry, there are many who attend here who know little or nothing about programming. They are just interested in Atari hardware and software usage, and emulation. You can just hang out and absorb what you're able to. Plus, people here are almost always happy to answer questions, as you have already seen. There's really no better place to be than here, when it comes to Atari community and information sharing.

Any way to avoid the shearing/flickering?

OK, I just had something strange happen. Beginning of Round 7, went to the bottom of the screen and re-appeared at the top. I don't think this is supposed to happen (new to Bomb Jack). Here is the save state file, just in case it can be of any help: Bomb_Jack_7.zip

I see what you mean about it being only 1 char... that makes things a little more difficult. The palette I'm using is for NTSC colors ("XFormer" palette). I know it does help sometimes switching to the standard palette for games developed for PAL. I tried it to see, and there definitely is more contrast overall. Plus sky is blue instead of purple, bombs are red instead of dark brown. Opening screen looks better this way also. I prefer to see the way it was intended. But, too lazy to switch palettes most of the time. Looks good either way, though... Here are my ideas for the platform again, but with the correct palette and single char: ...

Good idea, releasing this on the 4th of July, with the bombs going off here in the U.S.! Nice game. I like the "Bom Jack" spinning logo screen, "High Score" screen, and music ... very nicely done. Observations: 1. The platform graphics seem to blend in a little too much with the rest of the background - Here are a couple of ideas for making them stand out a little more - ... 2. I noticed that I can die after I have completed a level. I have done this several times when getting the last bomb right next to an enemy. I don't know if this is the behavior of the original game, as this is the first time I have played Bomb Jack. Using AtariWinPLus 4.0...

Cool, thanks... i've been waiting to see this one for quite a while.

You mean how it's kind of jagged with pixels sticking out here and there? The road is pre-rendered, maybe there's some kind of filtering I can use to clean that up a bit. Actually, I think he's just looking at the uneven stripes on the right hand side... but, they are uneven on purpose, to give a better effect of movement. I think he was expecting to see a straight line. It just looks a little funny in a "still" shot. I wouldn't worry about it...

Site's down... but maybe everyone is still sleeping over there...

Looks great, as does everything else done so far. However, just looking at the perspective of the metal frame around the windshield on the left side... shouldn't the frame be coming more straight down rather than bending right as it touches the hood/body of the the car? Everything else looks great. Can't wait to see it in action...

Yea, I always thought the overscan problem was exagerated. Even back in the day, my tv never required use of the the standard border sizes. I was happy when I found out I could change them. I guess Atari just wanted to make sure for the worst possible situation. I always leave 8 scanlines blank for the top and bottom of the screen (16 total). As far as using the entire screen, there may be cases where it doesn't matter. If you need to test it out in an emulator, use one of the full-screen clipped modes. It'll give you a good idea of what effect it will have on gameplay, etc.

You can always expand the vertical playfield size. It looks like you're using the standard 24 scanline border on top and bottom. Even if you leave 8 scanlines on the top and bottom, that would still add 32 scanlines to your current display.

Try searching on the disk of version 2...

Here's my collection of 5200 conversions. I believe it's complete, minus games that are already available for 8-bit and games that I just just don't care to have in my collection. 5200_Conversions.zip Vanguard is the only one that falls into the "I just don't care to own" category. Of the others that are available for the 8-bit already, I believe only Pac-Man has any significant differences - mainly, the intermissions (which i always hated) and the ghost behavior (which i find to be far more aggressive than the original). Additionally, I have added the "hacked" version of Mario Bros., which was done by Tebe, Vidol, and String. Some of these were converted by Glenn, and some of them by HomeSoft. Some may also have been converted by others. I leave this to someone else to figure out...

Here's a rough version of the DOS II manual. It's been downsampled in order to meet the max 2mb upload size. DOS_II_Reference.zip

Thanks for the demo. Aside from the timing issues, it looks very good. I particularly like the explosion animations. Observations: Playfield feels slightly cramped. I compared the Atari and MAME in full screen, and the difference seems to be in the size of the rocks and vertical playfield size. Additionally, a little room could be gained by moving the player "ships remaining" onto the same line as the "scoring". Rock A.I. needs some improvement. (just kidding )

Have all the problems listed in this thread been addressed in the current version of the firmware? Thanks, Fish

I'm afraid there's nothing to report. I would really like to get back to it. The last thing I was working on was 2 player support. Work has been eating up quite a bit of my time. tjb Fair enough... just curious. BTW, is there a demo available?