bhall408

Monday at 06:07 PM

On 3/25/2024 at 1:57 PM, S.D.W. said:

This game has been tested on real hardware using the 7800GD, the miSTer 7800 core and emulators including A7800 and BUPSystem.

Works on Argon as well... If you'd like it added, DM me!

(Screen shot from our Mac testing tool, which uses the same engine as the Android version)

April 3

Has anyone ever done an Astrosmash patch/hack that lets you start a new game without hitting reset?

ie, make it so that at "Game Over" you can press a fire button (or perhaps a menu choice) to restart the game.

Maybe that wasn't done so you wouldn't accidentally start a new game w/o taking note of your final score? Or maybe to keep within the confines of not needing additional ROM chips (cost savings?)

A bonus (and way to solve the issue of accidentally starting a new game/not seeing your final score) would be to add a title screen that can display high score, sort of like how there are Atari 2600 mods that have done that.

Would be much nicer when playing with modern game controllers, and for people that don't realize you need to reset the hardware.

April 2

16 hours ago, nanochess said:

Yes, I think this is the first CVBasic program not made by myself. I'm glad to see new original games.

I could see it cool to do a CVBasic contest/game jam to help kick things off and generate some new games once you feel it is stable/ready for a push like that!

March 20

20 hours ago, Panther said:

Is Argon open source?

It is not. If that is a requirement, then you'll probably want to continue your work on Colleen. Nice that you picked it up!

March 19

On 3/15/2024 at 3:23 PM, Ben from Plaion said:

include some sort of DRM that would allow Atari to sell NEW titles in ROM form, which would be locked to a user/device. - It would be nice to test this out but regretably I would likely have to roll out the tired "I dont think the investment would bring in a profit"

If the customer base is OK with "locked to device" (which I don't think is what most people would consider "buying a ROM", where they expect it to be portable), it would be sufficient to have an online store, and that is a solved problem. Would require the device to have WiFi though...

March 19

On 3/15/2024 at 3:23 PM, Ben from Plaion said:

2) HDMI output with CRT blur option - Bilinear filter and or scanlines? Decent scanlines require too much CPU grunt. Bilinear needs a UI or physical switch.

An option is to offload all post-processing to the GPU. We've been doing that lately with ArgonUnity (our Unity plugin version of Argon for B2B projects) - both the upscaling and the effects. Eventually we'll bring that code back to the consumer Argon app too.

March 19

On 3/6/2024 at 3:27 AM, Panther said:

I've been missing being able to run Colleen on my phone at all since as of a few years ago Google Pixel phones can't run 32-bit programs and there haven't been updated builds of Colleen in ages. So, I took to compiling it myself. I was able to get it to compile, in 64-bit, using a much later Android API level than it was written for, and it runs...but, file access is broken so I can't actually run anything besides booting into the built-in Altirra OS. I'm sure it all has to do with the security changes. I'll work on fixing it as time allows. Unless someone else out there has already done this.

Accessing files has been getting more and more restricted with each Android release.

We support Storage Access Framework (SAF) in Argon, which is what you are now meant to do.

You also have to support asking permission to access files/folders, etc.

Similar changes have been happening over time with Google Drive access. There are extra hoops to jump through now for even read-only access to Google Drive compared to last year.

March 19

Argon supports SGM... Available on Google Play and Amazon AppStore...

March 19

On 2/20/2024 at 7:42 PM, Gunoz said:

His profile shows -

Programmer

Computer Magic

Jan 1984 - Jan 1985 · 1 yr 1 mo

Developed video games for the Coleco Colecovision.

Programmer

Impact Research

Jan 1983 - Jan 1984 · 1 yr 1 mo

Programmed games for the Matell Intelivision and Coleco Colecovision.

Profile is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-thompson-86753a5/

March 17

1 hour ago, ijor said:

If you have older, non-ANSI, code, it might be just easier to run the original compiler under emulation. Emulators can map host folders to emulated hard disks. So you don't even need to bother copying your source files between the host and the emulator.

I took that approach with the first old 8-bit assembler project I had resurrected from source. I was glad I didi it, but then after that I moved to updating/modernizing and getting it to assemble with ca65.

For a one-off (just to get it to compile, not planning to do more) I think emulating the tool chain could make sense, but I have the feeling I'd be investing a similar amount of time in bringing up/re-familiarizing myself with the tool chain as I would in moving to a new tool chain, and that once I had it compiling, I'd then want to start making the app better ;-)

March 17

11 hours ago, DarkLord said:

Resurrecting an old thread - just curious, did you ever get the ST version

up and running?

Thanks.

Sadly, no. However I like that @ggn chimed in. I'll have to see if that is a viable option for me.

Part of the work is updating the C code to the C-89/ANSI standard (which I happen to like/prefer, but the code is a mix of pre-89 and post 89).

February 20

On 2/12/2024 at 1:51 PM, atarixle said:

Guess I will have to try Atari800 in RetroArch, or Kodi if needed. But that's a little too bloated IMO.

Give Argon Premium a try (I can send you a 1 month promo code if you like)

Android made alot of changes to how files are accessed, what permissions are needed, etc. in the more recent Android OS releases of the past few years, meaning apps needed to be updated or run into problems with local file storage.

We support both local storage and you can also create an "Argon" folder on your Google Drive and access that.

It is work to keep up with all the changes that come with Android OS updates. Hopefully folks can appreciate/support what we do!

February 14

23 hours ago, RevEng said:

I'd love to see that happen. I'm pretty sure Atari is aware of the games sold in the AA store, given they now own AA, but nobody has approached me or @mksmith about it.

Atari *should* be able to support it natively on the VCS, but if it helps, we now have a Unity plugin version of the Argon game engine. So we could make Mac/PC/console versions in partnership. ie, deploy it to Steam/Epic/GOG/VCS/Mac App Store/MSFT App Store/etc. Using Unity, you (or we) get to do the bonus content (soundtrack, manual, etc) in custom Unity UI, much like you get bonus content with a DVD/BluRay. Another approach would be to see if Plaion can support your physical cart on the 2600+ if they do not already.

February 8

On 1/31/2024 at 7:57 PM, Kamikazi26 said:

Negative. beach-Head uses a standard board. No JLP functions.

Thanks - please check the DM I sent you... Or you can ping me on FB or LinkedIn if you prefer...

February 4

On 2/2/2024 at 10:24 PM, eebuckeye said:

Those look really cool! I'd like to get a handheld to run them.

We have PICO-8 games in Argon... It is on Google Play, Amazon AppStore, and MS Win11 Store... I *love* PICO-8!

We have a handful of games pre-loaded (NEST 2 in the screen shot attached is one of them). Working to get more...

February 1

Yes, no surprise that it requires a data cable. I'm just surprised that I had so many charge-only cables kicking around (they tend to be the shorter ones). Since nearly all my devices are now USB C, the only ones I still frequently use that are micro USB are ones that I only charge (headphones, etc), so I hadn't noticed.

January 31

On the 4th cable I tried, it recognized the LTO... Figures!

January 31

A bit late to the party here, but I just unboxed my LTO Flash... I'm using a Mac running Sonoma (14.3)... The Mac LTO GUI app is from 2019... I was able to run it, but am not seeing the device. Is the 2019 version of the app known to work on Apple Silicon, Sonoma, etc? Or should I be troubleshooting the hardware/cable?

January 31

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Is it the full MAME, or just the a7800 emulator that was forked from MAME? I suspect the latter but not sure

If the Atari folks are interested in the a7800 version, we did work to bring that back into MAME compliance around MAME 240 (give or take, may have been 242) when we folded that into Argon. YM support would be extra to that (wasn't included at that time, mid 2022).

January 31

On 1/31/2023 at 4:44 PM, Kamikazi26 said:

I've decided to continue to show some love to the digital only players of Intellivision and release one of my latest games on ROM format. BEACH-HEAD! You may also support Carlos Madruga and purchase his latest ROM "Stop The Express!".

Does Beach Head require/use JLP? (We don't support that yet in Argon, but looking into it)

January 26

On 1/20/2024 at 12:54 PM, Allan said:

Do you remember any more details about it? How you got the job, etc.?

I have a few more items I'll post when I get around to it.

I think I had approached them with the idea, and they agreed. I *think* that came as a result of having been mailing them high scores (when mailing in a high score was a thing!)

I have my ANALOG "make these suggested changes and re-submit your game" rejection letters too ;-)