cd-w

Awesome - great to see the return of these reviews (though I won't be rushing to play any of these anytime soon!) Chris

I see that Project Bruce has been removed from the list - this is still something that I would like to do one day, and should be much easier using CDF. It doesn’t look like the bus stuffing issues will be resolved any time soon, so Black Squirrell is postponed indefinitely. I’m looking forward to the restart of your high quality home brew reviews! Chris

I don't know how to solve the problem, but here is a slightly tighter version of your code: DLI_PB: LDX DLIFLG ; Load in X register so we can use INX later BMI DLITOP_PB CPX #LASTPBZONE-2 BMI DLIMID_PB DLIBOT_PB: ; Move code up here to save a JMP LDA #$FF STA DLIFLG INC RTLOCAL+1 BNE DLICONT_PB INC RTLOCAL DLICONT_PB: JSR RAND JSR TUNER JSR LOADER JMP DLIOUT_PB DLITOP_PB: LDA #GRAPH160ON STA CTRL DLIMID_PB: INX ; Use INX/STX instead of INC/LDA LDA PBCHRBASE,X STA CHRBASE STX DLIFLG ; Do the STX after so that the write to CHRBASE happens earlier DLIOUT_PB: PLA TAY PLA TAX PLA RTI

Thanks for reviewing my game! I didn't manage to catch it live, but watched through the whole thing today. It is nearly 10 years since I wrote Juno First, and the 2600 homebrew scene has come a long way since then, but it is very gratifying to see people still getting a lot of enjoyment from one of my creations. You get bonus points for hooking up the AtariVox - I don't think many people have actually heard the speech in the game! I'm looking forward to watching more of your reviews. Chris

I got draconian this week also. I’m still waiting for your review comparing the two versions of star castle Chris

http://harmony.atariage.com/Site/Order_Encore.html Price depends on your location, but the base price is indeed 84.88 Chris

This game is looking great! Would you be interested in adding a high score table? If so, I could write a version of F6SC that saves the high scores onto the Harmony/Melody cart (like Star Castle Arcade). Thomas - I think we could port across the high score code from Star Castle Arcade without too much difficulty? Chris

A good text editor is all you need for asm - sublime, atom, or textmate and you are good to go ...

Thanks for testing - it looks like we are not yet there Fred is now looking to obtain his own problematic Jr consoles to help him diagnose the issues. Chris

Fred has come up with a possible fix for bus stuffing on problematic 2600Jr consoles. Can someone with a problematic Jr run the attached binary from their Harmony cart and post a photo of the results? Thanks, Chris bustester00_bin.zip

Nice work on getting the RC completed. I'll compile it myself later, but how many bytes are still free, and were you able to fit in all the samples? Chris

That is good to know - will it be a Melody equivalent of the Harmony Encore internals, or a completely new design? Chris

Please don't stop working on your homebrews! CDF will make it possible to do some amazing things. Is it possible that the tight PRGE deadline is sucking the fun out of it? Perhaps you should consider pushing the release after the show to give more time to finish things off? Chris

Can you explain a bit about how the XOR algorithm works as I'm struggling to follow it from the code? I think you start with a base station image in RAM, then draw the pods into a second RAM buffer, then XOR the second buffer into the base station image. I'm curious why the second buffer is required? Could you simply draw the pods on top of the base image, or xor them directly onto the base image without the buffer? Chris

I don't think z26 ever had working digital audio support and it hasn't been updated in years. I suggest you just use Stella. Chris

You should change the CUSTOMNAME in the Makefile from testarm to draco or similar (though don't use draconian or it will collide with the 2600 bin file) ... Chris

The pictures on the news are unbelievable. I hope you continue to stay safe and that things improve soon. Some things are more important than Atari. Chris

Darrell - I hope you are not too badly affected by the storm? Is there time to draw a reflected PF underneath the smaller logo? If so, you could add extra width by drawing a red frame behind the menu, something like this (WARNING - programmer art): This is a rough attempt to match the red frame on the arcade flyer: Just an idea to make it look a bit wider with minimal use of memory (Nathan should be able to make it look much better)? Chris

It is a shame that you had to drop the large Draconian logo. I wonder if it would have been possible to compress the logo data better (e.g. RLL encoding) and decompress it directly into the 4K display data region, but I guess the 96-pixel kernel would still take a lot of space? Chris

Nice - are you still trying to get it finished for PRGE?

It should be a coding battle - tightest kernel wins. Thomas will have the best code, but Darrell and I will cheat and use the ARM Chris

I'm writing a programming guide for CDF, but (as always) it may take some time for me to complete. Chris

CDF (Chris, Darrell, Fred) is an enhanced version of DPC+ bankswitching, which adds support for digital samples and fast jumps. It is being used to implement Draconian. Chris

I'm sure Stephen would be happy for you to contribute an emulation of the full LPC2013 micro-controller. However, this would be a large undertaking and the end result would be that Draconian runs exactly the same in Stella as it currently does. Star Castle Arcade is actually running on a Cortex M3 platform, so this would also need to be implemented for full compatibility ... Chris

Agreed - writing a new bank-switching scheme is a large undertaking - it has taken around a year to develop CDF (given all the issues with 7800 compatibility) and it is safe to say that I won't be writing another one for a long time! Chris