danwinslow

May 27, 2005

lol yep thats handy.

Thanks Bry

May 27, 2005

While we are on the subject, could someone give me a rundown on the graphics modes employed in this game? Not looking for anything detailed, just a general description. I've really never played it, but the SS's look cool.

May 27, 2005

AR online? Now THAT is interesting. Any further info or linkage?

May 27, 2005

I am comfortable with Wrath charging for this work. If I buy one of these, it will be that work I will be paying for, not really the ability to obtain the game, which I can do any number of other ways. He is merely repackaging it in a more convenient way. Yes, it will need to be changed, but it isn't being hacked to change its nature at all, or to represent it as the sole creation of Wrathchild. Its being hacked to fit inside a new medium. I also don't agree with the sentiment 'if you aren't doing it for free and for love then don't do it'. Some things are harder than others. Some things take serious time and effort. If there is no possible payback then some things just won't get done. If he were looking to make some kind of substantial profit, then I might agree with you, but unless he's nuts he knows that at best he will get some compensation for time and effort, but no real profit.

And the game itself should probably be considered public domain at this point. There is no real market to lose, its widely available for free, and the production company no longer exists. PP himself liekly does not have the rights to it in any case.

May 26, 2005

Yes, I woudl expect a read too on a disk check. Thats an interesting suggestion about writing internal buffers, a bogus sector would be a good way to do that. It tries the write twice because my response confused it I think. The checksum error I am not sure about....it could be because if it really trying to write an internal command buffer I may not be pulling the right count off of the bus.

I accepted the command on purpose to see what would happen in order to get debugging data points. Certainly a stock 810/1050 would NAK this...

May 26, 2005

Please, to be explaining his use in this device. I wish to gratify self with many downloadings and ROM heatings.

May 26, 2005

I have a TT that has a 32MB Mighty MIC ram upgrade into. I notice that when I go into multitasking mode via MULTI-TOS or Mint or Geneva, I get some very bad distortion on the video monitor. There's some faint ghosting and a lot of fuzzy and staticy looking diagonal stripes. The picture itself is basically intact, but overlaid with what looks like a bunch of interference. Could the MMU be emitting too much RF, or perhaps the massive ( and unshielded except for the case ) RAM of the Mighty MIC be causing this? Any suggestions welcome.

May 26, 2005

OK, new topic without burning up a new thread :

Booting off of a MACH37A.ATR file ( MachDos c3.7a ), I get a wierd sequence when switching out to dos from basic ( via the DOS command ) :

*snip*

processing header 31 50 0 2c ad

write sector 11264 on device 0 (D1:) sector size 128

receive_data_frame got 128 bytes

MSR 0

sio_recv_waiting()=>28

processing header 31 50 0 2c ad

write sector 11264 on device 0 (D1:) sector size 128

checksum in receive_data_frame not ok, 0 != 109

*snip*

This looks like an attempt to write sector 11264.....? Is this a hard drive check maybe?

May 26, 2005

Some interesting linkage :

http://retrobits.net/altcpu.html

http://www.overclocked.org/emu2600.htm

May 26, 2005

Really...hmm wow. But wouldn't the speed gains from a processor only overclock be sorta small? Maybe with some kind of on chip fast RAM cache.....hmmm....

May 26, 2005

I don't think the screen issues are that insurmountable. Maybe just running antic itself on every other cycle would help, or switching away from TV output completely to something else via some kind of converter. Then again, I don't really know wth I am talking about as I am strictly a software geek. It still seems like the video and sound and SIO issues could be handled...especially if game compatibility were not an issue...the memory might be able to be replaced too. The CPU maybe could be a 68c15 or whatever that 16 bit chip is, but run in 6502 mode only. The 65c02 sally was modded to have some kind of dma halt for antic IIRC, so maybe that would be a stopper, although draco seems to have dealt with it.

May 26, 2005

Well, I expected the effects you mentioned. The TV issue seems manageable given that the new rate would be, say exactly twice the current rate...you could just ignore every other vblank or something along those lines, or maybe just switch to a upscanner for VGA output or something. The sound issues and game timing are also to be expected...kind of like the old turbo-mode issues on PC's. I expect an OS patch to change delay loops and so forth could handle the OS issues, SIO, etc. But providing we are talking about new software only, and not concerned with maintaining compatibility with previously existing games, is there any deep technical issue why we couldn't double the clock rate?

*edit*

Hmm which chips, Bry? The CPU is rated easily high enough, IIRC. Memeory chips we could probably handle. The custom chips might be an issue, though.

May 26, 2005

Ok, could someone explain to me why an 8 bit couldn't be overclocked in an even multiple of its speed now? My dim understanding is that the 1.79 mhz rate was chosen to sync with the tv signal and vblank, etc. But tv issues aside, are there technical reasons we could not run the whole atari at say twice that speed?

May 25, 2005

Ok, thanks to you guys, got this worked out. The correct response is not a NAK or an error, but nothing at all. Me NAKing the type 3 poll was confusing the poor thing. If no response at all is received it times out quickly, although it does cycle through 20 or so type 3 and type 4 polls, but if not responded to they go quickly, so the delay all in all is just the standard extra bit of time for an XL boot and the contented farting noise.

Most of this you guys had already told me, but yknow.

Thanks!

May 25, 2005

No..lol flatulence...its a quiet wait. It seems to be waiting inordinately long, say 15-20 seconds or so between each of 3 or so tries. I responded to the initial status query ( command $53 ) with a very long timeout period, I wonder if that is affecting it.

May 25, 2005

Thanks, Bryan. There doesn't seem to be much information on how to respond negatively; I mean, I have no handler to upload. The 130xe seems to hang around waiting for something on its type 3 poll; it takes quite a while, and does get evenatually past it after doing 2 type 3's and 2 type 4's. I expected to be able to nak it or error it and it would give up but it doesn't seem to pay attention to the naks/errors.

May 25, 2005

Thanks, Sijmen

Are you aware of any links on the web for information concerning this expanded SIO protocol?

May 25, 2005

Well, I for one certainly will support your effort with a few purchases.

May 24, 2005

I am writing a small program to allow an 8 bit to boot off of a single board computer. The initial boot load seems to go ok, but at the end of that sequence I get some commands with a device of $4F and a command of $40. Here is a (commented) log snip of the sequence at the end :

processing header 31 52 4f 0 d2 //this is the regular boot sequence running

// a 'read sector' for d1: sector 4F

send data frame, 128 bytes checksum fc

MSR 0

processing header 31 52 50 0 d3 // next sector...etc.

send data frame, 128 bytes checksum 49

MSR 30

processing header 31 52 51 0 d4

send data frame, 128 bytes checksum 1d

MSR 0

processing header 31 52 52 0 d5

send data frame, 128 bytes checksum 2a

MSR 0

processing header 31 52 69 1 ed

send data frame, 128 bytes checksum 8d

MSR 30

processing header 31 52 6a 1 ee

send data frame, 128 bytes checksum 0 // boot sequence over now

MSR 30

processing header 4f 40 4f 4f 2e // and I get this ?

unhandled device code : 0x4f

MSR 30