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Stephen

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Posts posted by Stephen

  1. Posted

    51 minutes ago, Rybags said:

    RC for VBXE wouldn't really work.  Changing a single palette entry takes 3 x load/store operations for the RGB.

    Using colourmaps and all 4 palettes and attribute map allows 1024 colours.  You could probably do an 8x1 attribute cell size to give an FLI-like mode.

    Redefining an entire palette probably takes more cycles than it's worth.  But even with just the Atari base 256 colours you can cover most needs.  Or a custom palette to suit the picture displayed will be even closer.

    Yeah - the image viewer I currently am coding does just that - reads an 8bpp BPM file, reads in the palette, then displays the image in 256 colour mode at 320 pixel resolution.  It's amazing just how good 320*[email protected] colour looks, especially on CRT.  Even in 160 pixel resolution, that amount of colour is impressive.

     

    • Like 8

  3. Posted

    I made a 6 hour (one way) drive out to Toad computers, I think in 1996 to play a prototype version of Battlesphere.  Found a typo in the game's opening text scroller and notified the team.  Was a fun trip.  I scored a working Ultra Pong for $5.

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    2 hours ago, Gury said:

    It seems that blue color is more intense because of the blue shadows on the original picture. I wish I could figure out proper settings in RastaConverter to remedy this.

    Limited colour palette on our machine causing this.  If I were you, I would try editing the source image - turn down the saturation in the lower half of the image and see if that helps.  There's definitely pre-processing that can help with this, but it's all experimenting.

  5. Posted

    48 minutes ago, skr said:

    I´ll probably never see that. Level 08 is the end for me. I´m just not able to control Albert as I want to. All three control options are suffering fine control for me. Tried different sticks, but it keeps being a game of luck, and that gets boring quickly.

    I was never great at gaming, but some of these new releases make me really feel out of touch!  It's is a great looking game however, very nice overall presentation.

  6. Posted

    2 hours ago, Jacques said:

    If it loads in NORMAL and TURBO POKEY Divisor 06, I'll be happy. Just no enforcing 1xSIO when turbo is available, please ;-)

    That is all I was getting at when this started.  I did not mean to drop such a bomb.  Anyhow - when Stunt Car Racer came out, XBIOS was definitely locked to single SIO speed.  All XXL had to do was tell me sometime in the time since then, XBIOS supported faster load speeds, and none of this huge blow up would have happened.

    • Like 1

  7. Posted

    3 minutes ago, TheNameOfTheGame said:

    You're on a roll tonight haha.  Stay strong my friend.

    Bad day at work, 6 inches of solid ice in my driveway, uncontrollable IBS coming up on TEN YEARS NOW due to a surgery, and 3 more days of work this week before I can hunker down in freezing temps and do more of nothing.  Sorry man.  Imagine what my poor wife has to put up with.  I'm gonna take my old man pills and go to bed now, so I can get up extra early and yell at some clouds :)

    • Like 3
    • Haha 4

  8. Posted

    On 2/13/2021 at 2:22 PM, Eagle said:

    I would like to present my new idea for A7800 - new graphics mode - Multicolor 160B+

     

    Orginal picture - One Zak and his Kracken by Carrion (commodore plus 4) 89 colors used

    https://tomseditor.com/gallery/i/33074/one-zak-and-his-kracken-by-carrion

     

    Converted for A7800 has 55 colors

    I'm still working on glitches and color palette 🎨 

    I hope I'll finish in next few weeks

     

    https://raz0red.github.io/js7800/?cart=https://atariage.com/forums/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=811209

     

    Multicolor160Bplus.a78 32.13 kB · 27 downloads

     

    CarrionA7800emu.png

    BTW - there is some weird kind of synchronicity going on here.  I just converted this to A8, and did a worse job than someone when they did it back in 2015:

    https://atariage.com/forums/topic/200118-images-generated-by-rastaconverter/?do=findComment&comment=3147608

     

    • Haha 1

  9. Posted

    I dunno man - I'm getting a vibe here from some really prominent folks, that the only Ataris we should be supporting are 16kB CTIA machines.  We don't want to use hi speed SIO loaders, we don't need PBI in the OS, we shouldn't fix an unbroken membrane keyboard.  Don't need extra RAM - hey let's go back to the original 4kB and 8kB designations for the machines.  Can't consider stereo pokey, that wasn't in the plans.  Display options should definitely be limited to stock RF.

    • Like 3

  10. Posted

    3 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

    Yeah. I'm not gaslighting here. I just worked out (owing to the fact I recently exhausted a bag of 30 DIN13 connectors bought five years ago after I got sick of purchasing them piecemeal) that I have installed at least 30 VBXEs for other people, and thus something like fifty or more U1MBs. All U1MB machines assembled after 2015 had the FJC firmware flashed at divisor 0 with UFLASH. Because U1MB does nothing to affect POKEY, you could substitute U1MB for a Hias HSIO patched OS ROM or soft loaded patched OS and all of them would have run divisor 0 using the same FTDI/RespeQt/AspeQt setup. :) The only failures I experienced were caused by a fake FTDI chip and more recently by the fact POKEYMAX doesn't like the SIO caps on some 600XLs.

    Something is clearly amiss.  You must be part of the enemy, churning out those poxy machines with faulty mirrored addresses.  I tell you on these quiet nights I can honestly hear RainMan himself, banging his head against the wall because register $D3xx repeats.  Can you hear it - repeating over and over "yea, yeah, definitely a good coder, yeah, Dad let me drive the Buick.  16kB was enough, not gonna go to WalMart - yeah, yeah, yeah.  Let's throw in an LAX here, that will do."

    • Haha 1

  11. Posted

    Damn - I see a competition coming up with the 8-bit (ANTIC/GTIA) folks.  We pick fights all the time.  We generally lose them.  But we like to swing.  So - um yeah, bring it :)

     

    All kidding aside - very nice looking stuff, I just got a DragonFly cart, so my real 7800 is going back on the shelf.  Hope to see some of this on a real CRT soon.

    • Haha 2

  12. Posted

    1 minute ago, rensoup said:

    I initially thought that xbios loaded slower than stock 1050 speed... but that's not the case. It would be nice if it supported Happy speed if the user has one... not sure if it does ?

     

    Well, when Stunt Car Racer was released, the decision to use XBIOS was lamented because it only supported single speed SIO.  So, when I asked about this earlier, in an attempt to gaslight me and make me look like an idiot (I need no help BTW - I do this fine all by myself) - a video magically was posted showing XBIOS loading at single and US Doubler speeds.

     

    Please - via show of hands.  How many of you were privy to the fact, before me asking about this (AND APOLOGIZING BTW - when I admitted to not being correct in a statement) - that XBOIS loaded at more than 1X SIO speeds?

  13. Posted

    32 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

    No serial floppy disk drive I am aware of supports anything near 127KB/s. I am asserting that SIO2PC (FTDI) works on every machine I have tested. Several 600XLs attain divisor 0 with SIO caps present, and many other machines don't have the caps in the first place. So the notion that hardware modifications are required or that results are inconsistent does not tally with my experience. Anyone capable of using cutters can remove caps. Your mileage may vary, of course. :)

     

    Well now, don't forget.  There seems to be this issue at play:
    1 - You or I say we have machines where something works - and we are basically told "fuck off - you are the exception".  We are also dirty heathens that modified our machines.  OMG - how dare we not conform to the original 1979 designs, as they were etched in stone, never to be changed.

    2 - Other folks say something doesn't work, and whoa brother.  Full stop.  If they said it's broken, well then it's broken - they are meant to be hailed as gods, because their experience trumps all others.

     

    Example #1 - this very thread.  More people demonstrated working hardware than did broken hardware.  BUT - the broken hardware "wins" the argument at all costs.  Change the argument, change the parameters, move the goalpost, etc.

    • Like 1

  15. Posted

    8 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

     

    They coded a rival 5200/A8 version of Gyruss that Parker Bros didn't use. Who still has the code - and whether it can be retrieved - are different stories. It might be better, about the same, or worse than the version Parker Bros sold. But it's sought after nonetheless.

    Interesting - I was not aware.  I like the Parker Brothers version, the music is good.  Would have been nice to see them try a higher res version - it just looks so blocky and a tad slow after seeing the C64 version.

  18. Posted

    Just now, _The Doctor__ said:

    Yes, it would seem, we can only have paper tape, and cassette versions, maybe 80k or less disk, and my lord cartridge at 16k

    It would seem Antonia with 4MB is OK though.  Also, non standard CPUs are also fine which is odd, given his penchant for using every un-documented opcode in existence just because he can.

    • Like 1

  19. Posted

    Just now, _The Doctor__ said:

    seems my 800 with CTIA does divisor zero, there were NEVER any SIO caps in it from factory...

    but, I guess you think somehow memory cards and cards with GTIA are not permitted

    mine came with thumb tabs... so I didn't need a screwdriver

     

    What ever shall we do about those poor users who only use cassettes because that was the thing to do back then?

  20. Posted

    2 minutes ago, xxl said:

    do not be nervous, the conclusion is that I proved to you that the solution you proposed is unreliable. It may work for you, but it does not work for me, while the standard ATR + CART will work 100% for everyone.

    Everyone?  Including U1MB users that were previously booby trapped?  How sweet of you to keep such an open heart to all of us Atari users out there!

  21. Posted

    25 minutes ago, xxl said:

    in the video (post 1041) I showed you loading from cart faster than POKEY 00, but if you absolutely need a lower speed, please, in this video, xBIOS loads data at 3 different speeds during one continuous transmission 🙂
     

     

    ---

    I'm waiting for you to explain to me how to make POKEY 00 transmissions at home

     

     

    Good stuff - I apologize for misunderstanding the available load speeds XBIOS provides.  I was under the impression that it was locked to 19,200.  Seeing that it is not, I can withdraw my initial question.

     

    For the pokey 0 divisor, all I can offer is that I use APE with a USB device.  I set the divisor to 0 on APE and any machine I use which has U1MB (for the PBI device to load a hi-speed SIO driver) will just chirp away.

    • Like 2

  22. Posted

    I used Copy 2000 of course and APE USB device.  It is known that the 1050 drive will not do divisor 0.  However all the way back in 1987 when I installed a US doubler in my drive, my STOCK OS would do almost 3kB/sec.

     

    So - while I don't expect anyone with an actual floppy drive to read or write at divisor 0, you are not showing Prince of Persia loading from a floppy disc.  You are loading fro a file hosted on the PC.  So - load it with at least a pokey divisor of 8.

     

    This begs the question - why will you not answer a simple question?  Why does XBIOS only support single speed SIO loads when software has supported higher speed loading for nearly 40 years now.

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    13 hours ago, xxl said:

    to get the effect you showed, you need to modify the computer to replace the OS ROM, in many motherboards you should also change or remove capacitors or resistors at the SIO socket and you should have a PC or other SIO device emulator connected...

    while in 2021 it is enough to save this file on cartridge and the transmission will be even faster 🙂 you can make your life difficult like you, but why 🙂

    No OS replacement (as in physical removal or opening the machine) is required.  That's why we have PBI handlers.  This was standard from Atari since 1984.

  25. Posted

    11 hours ago, Gunstar said:

    I'm sure I've seen this image or one very like it on the Atari before. I think it might have been a G2F creation, but it might have also been a rendering in one of those other software graphic modes like HIP or TIP, etc. Possibly an earlier Rasta conversion done of a C64 version of this art?

     

    5 hours ago, Rybags said:

    I'm fairly sure that's a Plus/4 picture - the C64's 16 colour palette wouldn't be able to touch that.

     

    2 hours ago, ilmenit said:

    https://atariage.com/forums/topic/200118-images-generated-by-rastaconverter/?do=findComment&comment=3147608 

    Yeah - this was a C4 picture.  It looked familiar to me, but I didn't remember the conversion.  I was glad to see the post was from 2015, so I don't feel too bad about forgetting.

    • Like 1
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