Best Homebrew: 2018 Atari Awards

[Best Homebrew: 2018 Atari Awards]

 

It would have been possible to write a soft blitter chip, one was prototyped on the Apple before developing the Amiga hardware blitter.

 

This would have made it more competitive against the NES's PPU hardware blitter.

 

 

No that ARM architecture has the potential to run a modern OS like Windows and Linux; it's architecture makes it more powerful than 1,000 6502's despite being only 100x as fast.

 

The answer is yes if you had a mainframe or more accurately a super computer hooked up instead of the Graduate; that wouldn't be very practical rather something you might see at Bell labs.

 

Oh, I see, I didn't realize the cartridge had a whole other processor in it.

Found this, "DPC+ is an extension of the original DPC chip that was developed by Activision and included in the Pitfall 2 game released in 1982. It basically allows you to update graphics faster and much easier, and also includes more ROM, RAM and better sound. The DPC is actually implemented using a 70mhz ARM processor, so in addition to its features, it also allows you to write game logic in C which is then executed by the ARM. All interaction with the TIA still needs to be done in 6502 assembler."

 

So it's really like a whole new system given the additional ARM CPU. Sort of.

[Best Homebrew: 2018 Atari Awards]

I had to join this forum specifically to congratulate the team on Mappy for a job well done! The port is absolutely stunning and an impressive achievement given the hardware.

Wonder if Atari could have made an Atari 2600+ with a built-in DPC chip back in the day. Seems like it would have given the NES a run for its money.

Hat's off to the developers of Mappy!