Memblers

512 is a bit much, but lots of fun stuff can be done with 64+ instruments. Morphing between waveforms. Adding different levels of resonance or filter changes to the same sound. As an extreme case, the C64 SID chip has 12-bits of pulse-width control.. replicating that on a sample-based system would take up 4096 "instruments" (though it's overkill for sure.. and since SNES samples are in RAM, in this case at least it could probably be rendered in software instead of storing pre-rendered ones).

Try doing a google search for Galaga "RAM OK", you'll find a lot of detailed troubleshooting info. It may be something as simple as a corroded IC socket, or failed electrolytic capacitor. Simplest thing to try, other than visual inspection, would be pushing the chips down in their sockets, starting with the CPU and EPROMs. You may be able to ship the board to someone who will repair or swap it for you. I think it would be a terrible waste to convert an original Galaga cabinet into a multi-game thing. I imagine to a collector it's worth considerably more unmodified, even being non-working, compared to being modified into a multi-bootleg thing. There are tons of less desirable games that could be converted instead. Just my opinion.

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ActRaiser soundtrack is amazing, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't stream anything, that was rarely done in any games. There's one easy way to know: if there's a working SPC rip of the music, then it doesn't stream anything. Because SPC format doesn't allow for it.

I imagine you're thinking of something along the lines of NESMaker, and to get a realistic view, I'd urge you to take a closer look into it. I don't mean this as a slight against people using that tool, but seems like 90% of the stuff made with it is very much "cookie-cutter" in terms of gameplay. Creativity is still possible, but only within the hard boundaries of a pre-made engine. From what I've seen, the stand-out games made with it tend to rely on "plugins" which as it turns out, is just plain old 6502 assembly written specifically for the game. My impression is that when using NESMaker to make a truly unique game, one would end up using NESMaker mostly as an asset manager (potentially useful, even still). Nothing wrong with that, it's a way into the hobby. Some users who started with NESMaker even moved on to writing games from scratch, to be rid of any imposed limitations, and as you say, make whatever kind of game they want. I'd bet the tools we have available now, for free, are better than what SNES developers had access to back in the day. Surely the documentation and general availability of information is a lot better. I'm sure using a PC-98 with those Emulator-SE boxes was quite cool, but compared to what one can do with Mesen? Probably not as useful. Anyways, it's crazy to me how much name-calling, trolling, etc. is going on around here. Yeah, I'm also somewhat baffled that Kirk doesn't want to learn how to program, while also having this intense interest in the PPU. To me, the PPU is harder to work with than the CPU. At the same time, I don't think "SNES development" should be gate-kept to programmers only. Artists, composers, designers, even testers.. all essential to development. "Idea guys", well, maybe not as much, unless they're also hiring and paying people, haha. For that matter, a lot of game code is crap that barely works, anyways. That's fine, it just needs to work. As long as your loop finishes before vblank, on a console it's not like you gain anything by having more idle cycles left over, nobody will ever notice.

I've heard that the first version of the SNES Game Genie doesn't work with some games. You can either try finding a revised Game Genie, or you can try modding it. Reportedly involves replacing some 470 ohm resistors with 100 ohm on the GG board. This seemed to be the solution reached in this NESdev thread https://forums.nesdev.org/viewtopic.php?p=190993#p190993 I've attached a photo of the mod by Fisher.

The start game jingle in Defender 2 is also Great Tiger's theme in Punch Out

Interview from someone who worked on Disney's side of things: https://www.nintendoplayer.com/interview/former-disney-game-producer-darlene-lacey/

To be clear, the interval time value is write-only, and the count value is read-only. The count value is how many times the selected interval has passed. The count output is only 4-bits wide, and having it reset when read is good because it simplifies extending it, just add it to a variable to let it accumulate into a larger range. Since there is no interrupt, the SPC program's main loop could have it's idle time polling all this stuff. The main loop needs to complete before the 4-bit count can overflow, otherwise those signals are lost. It may help to manually insert more calls to the polling/accumulating subroutine elsewhere, if the SPC code's worst-case timing runs longer than the intervals. Somewhat related, just this week, the LLVM-MOS compiler started supporting SPC700 in the latest release. Now you can program in C/C++, if you want. Performance-wise it's been great for 6502, and it looks like 65816 support may be coming eventually. https://github.com/llvm-mos/llvm-mos/pull/357 https://github.com/llvm-mos/llvm-mos-sdk

Sounds like you have it narrowed down the connector port. It may have dust inside, or oxidation on the contacts. If you're lucky you can clean it out, I've seen some recommendations for interdental brush and rubbing alcohol. Or maybe another small nylon brush. There are other tips about cleaning headphone jacks online. Otherwise, the port might need to be replaced.

The de-facto standard NES audio expansion mod is intended for NES carts, actually it originated with the NES PowerPak when loopy added VRC6 support to it. You're using a Famicom cart. You'd have to be using a Famicom-to-NES adapter of some kind, and that's likely where the audio is being lost. Most of the FC-to-NES adapters around predate any standardized audio mod, and I doubt most new ones do anything about it, either. So, you may need to modify the adapter. Google searching 'nes to famicom converter audio mod' will turn up some info about it.

I have a copy of it, it's been years since I played it, but yeah it is great. I had a lot of fun playing it. There is a demo version, but the final version improved things, so the demo barely does justice to the full version. http://infiniteneslives.com is open, if they're taking payments you will definitely receive your order.

Any luck? Maybe the power switch has a problem. The unregulated power should pass through it. 13V would be normal from a 9V transformer, when there is no load. It also passes through a bridge rectifier, but that's before the capacitor, so maybe that part is OK.

That's awesome that these files were able to be found. I've found that Henry worked at Datapoint. There's a transcription of a panel where they talked about some stuff here: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/05/102658342-05-01-acc.pdf and the server at home is mentioned.

There's on a few days left on this, sorry this post was a bit late. Check it out if you like. (spammy disclosure: I'm supplying the boards for this release, so I stand to make a couple bucks (literally) from the cart sales.) It's pretty neat, nice looking, the music is fun. It's made by Optomon, who's well known for some cool Castlevania hacks, but this is completely a homebrew. Clearly a very talented developer to have pulled all this off on their own, the only other credit is to the artist for the cover art and manual illustrations. The NSF is on the Kickstarter if you want to hear the music.

I backed at the $60 tier, but if there were a cheaper cart-only option, I also would have gone with that instead. I just like the carts more than the boxes, manuals, and all that. In a way it makes the release seem a little more classic-style, it's not like you could ever really just buy brand new, loose carts anywhere. It seems like KHan has released NES games in a lot of different ways, so it's always interesting to see how it turns out. There was one (NES port of Atari 2600 ET) that was only available through a mail-in order form that was included in the box with another of his releases.

3 days left on this. I wanted to point out also, if anyone was planning to try getting a cart after the Kickstarter, it would be best to order now. With this game, I expect the non-KS carts will sell out quickly, and like the way a lot of homebrew stuff goes, soon after that after that you can usually only buy it second-hand.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nescape/nescape-an-escape-room-game-for-the-original-nes/ NEScape! is a new NES game being released soon by KHAN Games. It's fully developed, Kickstarter is being used to raise funds for a CIB physical release. You can also purchase the ROM for $10. Despite it using a relatively unique hardware, the ROM can be played on PowerPak and Everdrive flash cartridges, as well as recent emulators such as Mesen and FCEUX (interim builds since 2016 or so, including RetroArch). Note for full disclosure, I'm supplying the boards for this project, so I stand to make a couple bucks (literally) per cartridge order. The kickstarter page talks a little about the GTROM board the game uses. It's a particularly good board for those who are self-publishing. for it being low cost and coming preassembled and tested (512kB FlashROM, 32kB RAM). The kickstarter has less than 2 weeks remaining.

The Hi-Def and AVS are both great options. Just FYI, the jailbars are an analog effect, presumably caused by electrical interference getting into the power supply and/or video signal. It can't possibly exist in the digital HDMI output. So the countryside is safe, for now.

I talked to Rob (the developer) and it sounds like it should work on the NES and SNES classic. When you beat a boss, it will ask if you want to save, you will need to select no. It uses flash memory for saving, so if it's not emulated then mostly likely nothing will happen (but maybe it could lock up, so better to select no). I have an NES classic but haven't tried modding it yet. If it's running FCEUX, then that does support flash saving.

Candelabra: Estoscerro by Slydog Studios is 100% complete, and this Kickstarter campaign ends in just 3 days..! Check it out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1545426105/candelabra-estoscerro-a-new-game-for-the-nes/ You can here the full soundtrack here (open in youtube if you want to skip around in the playlist): Here also is a short video review: If a dungeon crawler isn't your cup of tea, check out Rob's other games here (full versions for free): https://slydogstudios.org/

There was an early prototype of the 7800 that was done on single-sided PCB (i.e., traces only on one side.. and an insane amount of wire jumpers). I wonder if that was where "not enough room for a soundchip" started. On the actual 2-layer version, I think they could have made room for another chip. It seems crazy to put a sound chip into every cartridge. I wonder if they would have considered integrating the audio, mapper, and game ROM into the same chip. Possible, but I don't know at what quantity that becomes practical. I haven't programmed anything for the 7800, but have looked into it. I know the NES inside and out. On a technical level, the NES just stomps it, mostly due to the PPU being generally more autonomous and having it's own memory bus brought to the cartridge. While on the 7800, the graphics are more software-controlled, it has some flexibility but it comes at a high cost of CPU time. Pretty much the 7800 can display things that would be really hard to do on NES, but overall it can't keep up with the NES. If you could put a CPU in a 7800 cartridge that runs the game, while the 6502 handles MARIA and other I/O, then the 7800 would definitely be more competitive with the NES. On NES, mappers and the various MMC chips can add a lot of capability, but it's something like >60% of the NES library where the mapper is dead simple, they only bankswitch 16kB or 32kB program pages, and big 4kB pages (that's the full set of 256 tiles), if it pages graphics at all. That includes tons of games like Megaman 1&2, Castlevania, Contra, Zelda 1&2, etc. Would be fun to make a new game and/or cartridge for 7800, I just don't have enough time for new projects.

Anything is possible. Depending on the game, the difficulty would range from extraordinarily difficult, to very easy (if you have the skills/experience and the target program is hospitable). 2 major factors to consider: CPU time - does the game have enough idle time that you can take over? This varies during gameplay, and you have to fit inside the very worst case scenario (and your music program has it's own worst case timings to consider). Still fits in the "possible" category because, in theory, one could rewrite and optimize the game. This would be ridiculous though (unless one greatly enjoys RE'ing software). If there's not enough CPU time, better to just walk away. Or add your own CPU to the cartridge.. Memory - where in memory will the music data and variables sit? This actually may be kind of easy to overcome, as long there is a board with larger ROM/RAM you could migrate it to. If the game's source code was available that would be helpful to refer to, but overall it's of limited use. Assembling 30+ year old source code, or more likely converting it to a modern assembler, may be a bit of a project in itself. But I've never tried to assemble any of the old Atari source code, so I could be wrong. It's amazing that any of the source codes are even available at all. I wouldn't assume that they are the final versions, until you can assemble and do a binary compare.

Colecovision was my first game system, then we got the Atari expansion for it. Then later I was given a 7800, and that was my main Atari machine. Had maybe 15 games for it, but most of the other kids in the area had one with different games, too. I remember being really excited when we got a new TV, because I was able to move the old one into my bedroom, and soon I grabbed a butter-knife (as a screwdriver) and figured out how to hook it up. Maybe it was xmas 1990 when my grandma gave me a huge box that turned out to be filled with 150+ 2600 and 7800 games, bought the collection from one my relatives. I got a lot of use out of those. It's kinda funny that the very common CX40 joystick mostly reminds me of playing Atari at other people's houses when I was a kid, because I didn't have a CX40 or an original VCS until the mid-90s. By that time, I was more often using a Sega controller.

There is another way, excuse me if sounds a little crazy (because it is). It wouldn't require a modification to the system, however you couldn't use the RF output for audio to your TV (you'd need a separate audio amp/speaker or use an A/V mod to the system). One could make a pass-through cartridge, and plug your normal Atari game into the other end of it. This cartridge would have it's own audio output, and the audio synthesizer of your choice. The cartridge would spy on the CPU bus (let's say with a small-ish FPGA), and react to TIA writes. You would have a table of every possible combination of writes the game could make to the TIA, and use this to handle every combination of output you want to replace this with. With this, I imagine maybe just making a new pitch table so you have the same LFSR synthesis, but with the tones being closer to musically in-tune frequencies. This is a lot of work, for minimal improvement. If you change it too much, what would sound good on one game, probably will sound terrible on another. This meets the goal of requiring no modification to the games, but it is impossible to just look at the TIA writes alone and know the intent of the sound. To go further, the cartridge needs more intelligence. Inevitably, this becomes a thing where you'd have to make game-specific configurations. At this point you might as well also patch the ROM as a Game Genie does, then you can mute the TIA audio and not need the separate audio output anymore. I'm not saying this would be easy to make, just possible. I didn't exactly come up with this just for this thread, I'm actually designing hardware that will have these kind of capabilities.. Not for the 7800 though (and I didn't have this exact type of audio patching in mind), but it's definitely an interesting system that could use a soundchip. I feel the same way about the TIA like you said in your first post, I love it in the 2600, but to me it's just like 7800 doesn't even have a sound chip. I've seen the thread about the HOKEY project, I don't know what chip it is exactly but it's probably similar in capability to what I'm working with. Other than all that crazy hardware, I am working on my own game-music-inspired synth chip (which includes TIA and Lynx-type sounds), but now that I'm seeing that 7800 homebrew actually exists, I wonder if there would be any interest in bringing it to the Atari? But I suppose if the HOKEY turns out well, there won't be much room for another audio expansion.