MrFish

Any news for 2008?

This manual was produced by Corey of "8-bit Classics". Supposedly he was also working on getting the "Action!" manual PDFed.

Here's the BASIC XL Manual. It should cover most of the commands for BASIC XE. The main one that comes to mind that will not be in there is "Extend", which is used to access the extra RAM for a 130xe, etc. BASIC_XL_Manual.pdf

7800 Joust is superiour in my opinion, because of controllability, graphics style, and sounds effects. As far as the other 4 games are concerned, the NES versions are superior. The 7800 "Mario" games suffer from bad music/sound, and some sub-par graphics on Mario Bros. 7800 Galaga just can't compete with the NES version, but is probably the best game of these other 4.

Sounds great... any screenshots, etc. to post?

I don't know what an "Acorn" is (yet), but this looks good... and still in the early stages, i guess. Keep goin' man...

This is game is really rockin', and in no small part from the music. It's looking great, so far. Observations: 1. I noticed that the "grid" starts to lose pixels as you play. 2. As far as controls go, I would recommend Gyruss style controls. Totally directional, and very natural... no confusion about which way you're going to move.

Here, check this out dude... Atari Cartridge Dumping Project

what were the results of your experiment, sir?

I don't Mess with MESS... Features to add... hmmm... Dolby 6.1 support for TIA sounds I use ProSystem every time I play 7800 games... a sound product. I would definitely like to see an update.

As a general example of its effectiveness, the Super Mario Bros series games did it often on the NES... also other games like Tetris and more I'm sure. You can clearly hear voices eliminated as you jump etc. They did a good job at pulling it off, obviously... just have to use good judgement in deciding which voice to eliminate during the effects.

Ahhh... Bejeweled... very addictive game. Thanks for bringing it to the Atari. Nice addition... How come no sound effects while playing music... not possible using RMT?

nahhh... just get a monitor, and forget about it...

alright... thanks for the info. i wondered if the PM/hi-res thing was correct or not in emulation. too bad... it would've been nice to be able to eliminate artifacting in this way. i have worked with artifacting on the real thing many times... developed several games using it. it's best, and probably only, advantage is the ability to combine hi-res text with color graphics on the same scan lines. but, in practice i never liked it that much. artifacting can be a nuisance in cases where you would like to use single lines... very annoying. atari dropped the ball on the implemetation of this mode. commodore does it better... btw: i only turn on artifacting in emulation to view it's effects temporarily. it stays off 100% of the time during real use.

No, you get artifacting in the player colors. Michael I never played with it "back in the day...", but if emulation is correct artifacting IS eliminated by the overlaying PM graphics. Many examples out there... Shanghai being one of them. Turn on artifacting and look at the PM overlayed objects in the center of the screen. No artifacting going on there, in any colors. I was planning on using this feature in some future projects. But, would like to know if this is also true for a REAL Atari. Clarification anyone?

I think the community is always interested in any new developement for the system. I don't think people lose interest in projects, they're usually just waiting for news. I'd love to see this one finished... very fun game... and looking great so far.

Advan Basic looks like a very interesting alternative, now that it's been released to the public. It has a lot of built in features for player-missile, dli, sound, etc... Unfortunately I haven't tried it yet, because it doesn't suit my current projects enough to change languages mid-stream. But, I will be checking it out in the future. Has anyone else had a chance to delve into this environment? Other than that, I have been using Turbo Basic XL exclusively... great tool, when combined with ML routines...

Donkey Kong Jr. Mr. Do Joust

Where is the file TBMOUSE6.OBJ that the 8-Bit Mouse.txt file claims to be present "on this disk"? Thank you. Here's the disk that contains the referenced file: TB_Mouse.zip

Here are the disks. The compilation is called BASIC Turbocharger. It has full assembly source listings on four disks. I have also included a partial listing I made of which routines are on one of the disks. There is some fairly useful material here. For some reason, some of the routines are "listed" and some of the routines are "tokenized". I made some notes on which ones are which, for some of these. However, you will have to find out for yourself on the others. Would be nice if someone converted the tokenized ones. BASIC___Turbocharger.zip This second archive contains some ML Subroutines that I have collected for my own use from various sources. Most are in PC text format. So, you'll have to convert the files to ATASCII using Dratex or some other utility. ML_Subroutines.zip

Machine Language subroutines are also very helpful to have for BASIC programs. I have a commercial collection on disk at home. If you're interested, I can upload later. I believe it's two full disks of routintines. I also have some useful ones from magazine articles that I have used quite a bit. Wish I still had my original collection. I hand-typed tons of them "back in the day"...

This game is definitely one of the best games to appear on the atari. Great job, to the authors. Here are my compliments/suggestions for future releases/versions, after several weeks of play: - x-rays music is great, as usual. he's definitely one of the best composers for the a8. - the in-game theme is great. but, when you finish a level you get 3 tunes in fairly close succession. the end-level, begin-level, and in-game music, which all have a different musical flavor, seems a little too much. maybe just playing the music from the end-level, for end-level and begin level would be a little bit easier on the senses. something to think about in terms of "fine-tuning" the game. - i would like to see the option for Gyruss style controls, as in the early beta. i find control at the top of the tunnel to be disorienting at times. Gyruss style controls seem more natural, and i have always loved playing Gyruss for that reason, in part. (i also like the suggestion for using paddles. this may be an even better idea for easy control) - i like the non-square tiles. they make for an intersting change mid-level. i think it would look good to have some levels that use these types of tiles exclusively too (maybe they already exist, i haven't finished yet. if so, disregard this comment) - multi-colored levels would be good. the "shades of a color" look is great, but it would also be nice to see some mix of colors on a single level. maybe there could be a version that has this type of look, or a series of levels (if this is done in later levels, please disregard also) - having levels where "special tiles" or "objects" are required to be bounced on for level completion. this could also be something used to "beef up" levels, after the entire game has been completed, to add difficulty. Once again, great job, and congratulations on winning the ABBUC contest.

I had the same problem once, also. I was able to fix it by using the "Clear All Settings", under the "Misc" menu. It worked fine after that. But, later, when I initialized my file associations, the problem returned. The only way I could get it to work, was by clearing all the settings again, and leaving the files un-associated.

Thanks for the update, and all the hard work... Great discovery, however long it takes...

Assume nothing unless posted otherwise. QUIT BUMPING POSTS! Tempest It's no longer kosher to ask how a project is going??? Assume nothing unless posted otherwise. Tempest I prefer to "assume" that the individuals working on this project know more about it's status.