Mikebloke
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Posts posted by Mikebloke
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50 minutes ago, atari2600land said:
How? I want to play my stuff on a real TV!
Whatever happened to the flashcart?
@evietron has a device that is for sale if you get the Fairchild caddie for it as well. I've ordered mine, I'm just waiting for it to arrive (its apparently in the country now, but it seems to have just disappeared on tracking...).
As soon as I get it I'll test my games on it to check compatibility but if it already runs the commercial games I imagine mine will be fine. I do still have the one from 3DMaze but haven't heard anything from him in awhile.
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1 hour ago, e5frog said:
If you use the "MESS adjusted" plot routine it adds 4 to the coordinates (4,4 is the upper left corner visible in MESS) so that would explain a change for a 122 width block placed at "0".
You change bg colors just as described in the links. You can only set one color per row, don't think it's possible to switch fast enough to force more - nor time it.
I recommend drawing background larger than "0,0 102,58" as different TV:s show more of the screen than MESS does. Going -4,-4 106,60 is not a bad idea (or change routines to use real coordinates).
Thanks for the help and putting up with me, yes the MESS adjusted thing is why it was seemingly working for me before.
I'm confused on how exactly to get the colour I want, but its ok, I seemingly have worked out a way of getting each colour in some convoluted way, I seem to have to change the colour 2 or 3 times to get what I want - I'll explain what I ended up doing:
I was trying to get grey at the top, which I have now succeeded in doing, so with a $c3 call to $00D0 to start (light blue whole screen), colouring first with $00 to columns 125-126 I get light green, then doing it again with $C0 but from "0" to "122" x value gets me grey. Doing any other combination in less steps seems to result in light green or black. I'll try and brute force testing code to do it quicker in the future but it is working as intended now once the light green has been wiped.
My brain is not designed for this stuff, but I keep trying!
This is the latest version, I noticed I needed the sub above the bottom colour, which seemed to serve no purpose in the original game after all. I was going to stick scores in colour at the bottom, as I couldn't work out earlier how to get grey at the top, but now I've worked it out I've moved it back again. I've roughly worked with the colours from the original game, but will leave the Submarine as blue instead of red to differentiate the 3 ships and works to keep the scores properly colour coded (in the version I had the sub and sub score is red, but then the score background is also red - so it clashes - with "light red" (grey) being the background colour, I figured I would just separate the sub to blue for ease).
I will make adjustments to how it works on a real TV once the rest of the gameplay is ironed out, probably a first test release tomorrow.
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5 minutes ago, e5frog said:
For a single line you'll write $0 or $FF in the proper row at columns 125 and 126
https://channelf.se/veswiki/index.php?title=Accessing_VRAM
For severeal rows it can be handy to define an object to plot with the usual blit routine.
https://channelf.se/veswiki/index.php?title=Palette
Using grey/blue you can toggle to black with a single write.
Thanks e5frog, this has been on my mind for years!
Ironically the next line of code I did after posting did what I wanted by accident 😬 though its good to finally understand "what" is supposed to actually change it. Basically I was doing a block of blue for background and went too far off the edge, turned white haha. That was doing a block starting at 0 and 122 width and it seems to have done the job for changing it to black and white.
Here is what I got before I saw this, I can probably optimise the start up code now to speed up the display.
Next question:
Is there a specific way of getting the different background colours on a single line? When I was messing around I was able to get "grey", light blue and light green on different lines, but I don't know how I did it specifically.
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Been quiet here hasn't it!
I've got another of those "should probably already know" questions, I'm porting over Submarine which I did years ago for the 2600 really poorly over to the Channel F.
I would really like to know how you are "supposed" to switch a line's background colour / switch between black and white and colour.
Its clearly doable, plenty of people have done it and the official games often have things like HUD and gameplay in different colour settings, but how are you supposed to do it?
Like, I can make a line go black and white when things go wrong, but when I try to do it on purpose it seems to not like me, is there a proper way???
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Are you :
Between 30-50 years of age
British or had a punk lifestyle at any point in your life.
Left wing, like whatever that means over here in Europe, not the centre right democrat stuff in the US.
If you answered yes to all three of those questions like I did, cyberpunk 2077 will make you wet yourself as a transposition of the problems of a commercialised global world where the corporations rule and the individuals fight the system.
Alternatively if you really like the idea of slicing people with a katana in bullet time (looking at you metal gear rising fans) or really want to see Keanu Reeves try to act badass and swear a lot, you might also like it.
It's a fancy shooter but whatever way you cut it.
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45 minutes ago, jhd said:
There are tons of great RPGs on the PS 2. Personally, I enjoyed Final Fantasy XII more than than X (or X-2). There are many optional side-quests in addition to the main story.
FF XII is definitely the better game, but think the problem is it can be too dense for some people so it's difficult to label it a "must play" for everyone. Same for games like Ring of Red, love that game, just not sure I'd put it in front of anyone who isn't into turn based strategy, or well anyone else!
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Honestly I think everyone should play at least one dynasty warrior game in their lifetime. If they are sensible, just one.
Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 I would argue are must play, Zone of the Enders 2 as well, though it is on pc now with VR (MGS is, on pc as well, technically).
RPG wise, Rogue Galaxy is a 'spiritual successor' to the dark cloud series, I would agree with FF X especially if you prefer chill turn based rpgs. For more of a traditional JRPG experience go for Star Ocean, till the end of time (plays a bit like tales of games from what I remember). Grandia 2 is on there, but it's on other things including pc again too now.
A lot of people like onimusha too, I think it's basically resident evil but medieval japan with spirits.
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I think I've played most of these lol. Whether I remember the name of them though..
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I've just looked at the hints 😛 it's going to not go as well as I thought lol!
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4 hours ago, Mr_Horizon said:
April Quiz - this round ends tomorrow!
An urgent message from the Mushroom Kingdom: LETS-A-GO, the fun will be over this Sunday! 😲
Over 100 players (nobody from here) have already sent in their (hopefully totally accurate?) answers, it seems like the scoreboard holds all results between ZERO and ALL points. Exciting!So @jgkspsx, @Keir, @Mikebloke, @Trinity32, @jeremiahjt, @BydoEmpire or @Black_Tiger ...how about it?
Hurry up, the deadline is this Sunday, 30th of April, participation via retrogamequiz.com/.
Here is the quiz one last time: link
Thanks for the reminder. Got a few for sure.
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19 hours ago, Mr_Horizon said:
@Mikebloke you don't have to go "I don't know!" on every field you you don't know. Just leave them blank
But that wouldn't be any fun!
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Done, aiming for one point this time
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6 hours ago, electricmastro said:
Which prob makes it all the more impressive how games like Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, Metal Gear, and Street Fighter made it into the 21st century.
There has been a theory for awhile now that nintendo franchises have been dumbing down for mass appeal ever since the gamecube / wii, certainly things like paper mario, which was a full fledged jrpg with levelling, item customisation etc turned into a 2 concept gimmick by the switch. Zeldas "go anywhere at anytime" and "all weapons are temporary and are virtually the same" new phase is a complete opposite of its puzzled near linear item progression of its early games, and probably started as early as the N64.
It's an issue for me because I see how basic it is, I can practically see the simplification of game design and code complexity as each generation passes. It probably doesn't help that all the publishers and by extention the developers have drank the game engine cool aid which probably limits a lot of unique experiences we used to get in order to streamline when the next financial payday is. I think pokemon is a good example of this, arceus legends which was made by a 3rd party had unique concepts and a bit of variation, while the mainline games have turned into an unimpressive laggy mess and little inspiration in its storyline but the goal now seems to be 'just make the next game because we know it would sell'.
Metal Gear is known for Hideo essentially being forced to make a sequel and taking more of the Michael each time . MGS was supposed to be the end, 2 was a polished rehash of 1 with a new backdrop and graphical processing ability, 3 was a artistic James bond parody of ridiculousness (which absolutely worked) , 4 was supposed to be a final f u to Konami about how stupid he could go with it, and then after all that they still made him make 5 which speaks for itself. The funny thing is mechanically, even up until 4 each game progressed a little bit, but 5 became a complete mess. Being able to run around in the tank doing stupid things without causing an alert, the infinite pistol glitch as any soldier could just whip a new one out his arse, the metal gear side quest that literally isn't used or seen in the game once done other than a fancy text prompt for idle missions.
I understand why series like mega man, pac man, Bomberman and others went the way of 3D action adventures and weird spinoffs (I just can't play any weird pac man games at all!) but it is interesting how all of them largely go back to their routes. Mega man is now back in 2D, pac man now has more traditional grid based 2D titles and the only redeemable Bomberman modern games is the ones that go back to 2D tiled line explosion type battle modes.
There just isn't as much going for a lot of the other franchises though, bubble bobble 1 (more arcade) and 2 (more platformer) are quite different games, a 'true sequel' could be different too but if the art and music style is wildly different then I'm not going to get on with it at all. Things like wonder boy get some stylised modern adaptations with a reasonable approach to the idea they won't be knocking out new games like assasins creed every year or two. I guess in my 'old age and experience' the sort of games I would buy are not financially viable long term, while fifa, AC, and shooter of the day will always have it's place. I don't get why so many people play League of Legends for example. It's great that so many people want to play the same mechanic over and over again in virtually similar scenarios and fighting over micro transactional mini battles, I just don't get it personally.
I think as well, a lot of "acquired" companies go dead after a short while. Tomb Raider, Command and Conquer, Wipeout, even Sim city, a lot of these things sell to the big companies and then die back soon after.
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I think a lot of the issue is many 80s and 90s styled games don't convert well, or are not converted well. Bomberman from OP is a classic example, great multiplayer format, somehow completely destroyed in the age of high speed Internet. So while you can play shooters with 128 or even 256 players in a server, a 4 player tiled game where all the graphics can be handled locally without issue is apparently asking far too much.
I know my nostalgic games like galaxian and bubble bobble don't translate modern well, games that should also translate well regardless such as final fantasy fail due to their insistence on trying to make it more "active" for a higher player base.
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On 3/10/2023 at 12:47 PM, Creamhoven said:
Sometimes you just have to dominate. What are your monopoly tips (i thought it is heavily luck based)?
Always be banker, always buy property, always put houses / hotels down when you can, always push other players for property sales that benefit you. Although it is a dice based game, 'domination' works here too because its also a social game.
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I might get 1 this time.
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On 3/12/2023 at 9:33 AM, flip said:
The .ST2 filetype is a .bin file with an additional 256 bytes header that specify things like where to load the binary in an emulator. The structure of the header is as follows (courtesy of Paul Robson, who I believe came up with this format)
Offset Contents Reqd Notes 0-3 Header Y RCA2 in ASCII code 4 Blocks Y Total number of 256 byte blocks in file (including this one) 5 Format Y Format Code (this is format number 1) 6 Video Y If non-zero uses a special video driver, and programs cannot assume that it uses the standard Studio 2 one (top of screen at $0900+RB.0). A value of '1' here indicates the RAM is used normally, but scrolling is not (e.g. the top of the page is always at $900). 7 - 8,9 Author N 2 byte ASCII code indicating the identity of the program coder. 10,11 Dumper N 2 byte ASCII code indicating the identity of the ROM Source. 12-15 - 16-25 Catalogue N RCA Catalogue Code as ASCIIZ string. If a homebrew ROM, may contain any identifying code you wish. 26-31 - 32-63 Title N Cartridge Program Title as ASCIIZ string. 64-127 Block Pages Y Contain the page addresses for each 256 byte block. The first byte at 64, contains the target address of the data at offset 256, the second byte contains the target address of the data at offset 512, and so on. Unused block bytes should be filled with $00 (an invalid page address). So, if byte 64 contains $1C, the ROM is paged into memory from $1C00-$1CFF 128-255 - 256 Block 1 (Page address at 64) 512 Block 2 (Page address at 65) and so on Not sure which python script you are using (possibly from Paul Robson's github?) This is probably using python2 and running it on python3 could create issues. For a quick hack, the easiest is probably to copy the first 256 bytes from an existing .st2 file and insert this before your .bin using a hex editor. If your .bin is compiled for $0400, then the only thing that might need to be changed is the byte 4, the length and the block pages. So if your program is less than 256 bytes, byte 4 should be $02 and the block pages should be $04 $00 $00 $00 ... If your .bin is <=512 bytes, then byte 4 should be $03 and block pages should be $04 $05 $00 $00 ...
Hope this makes sense. If you still have problems compiling, feel free to PM me
FliP
Yeah I probably will pm! I did try Paul Robson github one and did manage to find a python version with zero errors (think it was 2.7) but nothing loads correctly. However I don't know if I'm doing one of the steps first wrong, and haven't checked anything with a hex editor.
I think if I can get something compiled I'll be happy because I'm OK with brute force learning assembly till something works!
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Got a technical question, hoping someone knows the answer.
How the [beep] do you compile a .asm file to a .bin and then convert to a .st2 file? I've tried four assemblers now, none of which the format for assembling makes much sense to me, tried assembling raw code of homebrew to make sure I got the right format, but nothing comes up when loading it in. I think part of my issue is that information how to do it is very fragmented, and sometimes references sites that no longer exist.
Here is what I got so far:
A18 assembler http://www.retrotechnology.com/memship/a18.html - just says there is lots of errors when I try, not sure if there is an error list that is saved...
ASMX http://www.retrotechnology.com/memship/asmx.html - Got the furthest with this one I think, I can get it to create a .bin file, that has something in it, but when I try to load it in emulator... nothing again.
TASM redownloaded dosbox for this, couldn't get this to work either.
There is also asm80 which I did try, and gave up on. https://www.asm80.com/
I understand that the st2 filetype is just a renamed .bin with possibly a header at the beginning, though apparently most things would run fine anyway. There is a python program to do this, but it seems riddled with bugs possibly due to depreciation of code or syntax (I can sometimes "fix" this myself, but no luck this time).
Anyone able to help?
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On 3/4/2023 at 7:35 AM, jeffythedragonslayer said:
Roller Coaster Tycoon
This times a thousand, I remember when it first came out and I exchanged an Ant colony strategy game I couldn't run on my poor man's pentium 1 for this, which did work.
Its not just that Chris Sawyer made the entire thing alone, its that it was all done in Assembly. As I try my hardest to get blips of squares to pop up on the screen and look like its moving, Chris was there making entire customised park and roller coaster ride creation tools inside the game that can be used live as everything else is moving around. Amazing, just amazing. Slight Fanboy much.
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I just play to win, whether its the Wife, Ex Wife, or my kids.
Smash them to pieces.
I literally have two things I'm good at in this life and handing people's asses to them in games is one of them.
There's a reason why nobody plays monopoly with me now, and its a great reason.
Ok, mildly joking but also quite serious apart, I do allow others to win in very limited circumstances, like when they could do with a little boost mentally or emotionally. My youngest child is very focused on being able to win against people with far more experience (ie me) despite still being 6. Occasionally I make an effort to not do as well as I normally do, but he's getting to the point where I don't have to do this often, or as obviously.
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10 hours ago, evietron said:
My guarantee is that if your game does not work on BackBit, I will work to make sure it does.
That is one hell of a commitment! Have you done much testing with the Channel F adapter, has it got full compatibility? Does homebrew run on it fine without any issues?
In defence of @3DMAZE the prototype version I have is still amazing even with the few issues to iron out, mostly 'PAL' system issues. Its significantly stepped up some elements of my development for the system and there is virtually no issues on the games I've developed so far, and a lot of the others run too without issue even on a European system. 3DMaze is still the first to get practical, user friendly rom loading experience out there even if its not yet general release. I'm hoping we don't need to keep sacrificing donor carts now e5frog for new releases now we have a 3D printed solution for game cart cases (at least!).
I still need to convert to the new CHF format at some point, when my brain can take some new information in.
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I used to pick up random 3rd party contollers for any console I owned, but over time stopped doing it as much, and focused on what was needed/practical, such as the Colecovision stuff.
99% of the time if I have a console out, I'm using original 1st party controllers. There is boxes of 3rd party gear that only ever come out for multiplayer, which is another way of saying never.
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How soon do you need the money, and how much do people want what you have? That is what influences the market.
I had a huge book collection, some of the stuff is literally priceless, possibly the only copy left in existence, hundreds of years old. Does anyone want it? No? Its worth $0, £0, 0 euros.
I recently sold my Fairchild Channel F collection despite a lot of crying and not wanting to do it. I had a price in my head what I wanted for it, reasonable I argued, by what I've seen other sets go for. Location is not helpful for me either though, UK based, I think I could have commanded a higher price in the US if I was living there. Nobody really in the UK or Europe wanted my set, because if they were already a collector, they already had it or wasn't worth the investment to get the games they didn't have.
So I dropped it gradually over time, until it hit someone's sweet spot. I do this with my single game sales as well: I start at what price I would like for it, and what has gone recently. If it doesn't go, I reduce it between 1 and 5 % until it sells after a period of time. If people wanted it at that price, they will fight for it.
My advice is:
a) Start at the price you'd like for it.
b) Have a hard limit in your head what the lowest you would accept for it.
c) Be absolutely sure you want to sell it, in my case, I accepted that I had other ways now to play these games, and I needed the money.
d) Be suspicious of any site claiming what the value of anything is. Market sites like Ebay is what is ACTUALLY sold and paid for, and is a better measure than even high street resellers like CeX because that is only based on what they have been buying and selling for if they have them regular enough - a lot of games go for far more on Ebay than they do the high street.
Good Luck!
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Priced at higher than the boxed one that just sold, interesting!
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the official Channel F thread!
in Classic Console Discussion
Posted
I need help
I managed to bugger my console.
I just got the backbit today, and I tried to get it into the console, was a bit of a forced job, good news is it did work, but then I couldn't get the cartridge out. After a bit of fiddling I made the mistake of trying to open the console to get to the cartridge area. Easy pleasy just a few screws. Well.... I've fudged something in the process.
Here is what my screen looks like.
This is it being pretty close to what it should do, it's doing vertical and horizontal lines most of the time.
Here is inside my console.
I plugged in the multicart after. It's showing something like its supposed to but as blocks and not the text. Audio output is working too. Seems to be purely video related.
Someone please help :'(