Foebane

Yes, Sheddy, I had GDI ticked. I've found a solution of sorts, anyway. Thanks to Rybags, the MPEG4 encoder works very well, doesn't cause too much slowdown and produces a small file. Normally, if I then went to TMPGEnc to convert it to an MPEG1 (for Video CD, understand?) I got sound problems. But just now I used VirtualDub to convert it to a DivX file first, and I got satisfactory results this time. In fact, I've just now played a short little Blue Max video on my DVD player, which doesn't look perfect, but good enough for me. If you're all wondering why I'm doing this, it's because I'd like to record the top Atari Demos like Numen and others onto Video CD, so I don't need a computer or an emulator to watch them. Ta for all your assistance, A8 Peeps!

Yes, you're right, they do get integrated into Windows. The MPEG4 encoder worked fairly well, but I've tried almost all of them, even "full frames uncompressed" (EEK! HD space full!) and received varying results. The only trouble is, none of the AVI files produced will work with TMPGEnc - the sound always cuts out in the first millisecond of each file. One MPEG encoder does work - it's the one integrated into Blaze Media Pro - but if you change the resolution from Atari800Win standard to Video CD standard (for maximum compatibility for all DVD players), it doesn't do it smoothly - I end up with these ugly jagged edges. What could be causing these problems with Atari800Win's Save Video? When I try to use some of the codecs, I get the message "Could not run video streaming for selected driver."

How do I get Atari800Win to work with them? Where should I put them, etc?

I've tried recording video from Atari800Win with Fraps, but nothing happens. Fraps doesn't seem to recognise the emulator. I've tried the various codecs on the standard Save Video menu item, but some slow the system to a crawl and others produce files far too big for me. Trouble is, none of them work (at least sound-wise) on the Tsunami MPEG Encoder. There is a Fraps compressor as one of the codecs, but I can't get it to work. What should I do?

Duplicate post.

Maybe thats where he came up with the BSOD. 967591[/snapback] Except the Atari BSOD has a nicer shade of blue...

Other stupid stuff I've done, as a teenager: Fried my Atari 1010 tape deck's motherboard by poking around blindly with the power lead (which was a female connector) which connected with the SIO (male) port. Oops! Fried my old Texas Instruments Speak 'n' Maths by inadvertantly plugging the power lead into the earphone socket. Oopsy again! But the STUPIDEST thing I ever did was connect two Lego light bricks to the mains - BOOM!! One of the lights was totally destroyed (of course) but the other one still worked! The irony is, the pins for the lights' plugs were exactly the same size as the holes in one of those small mains leads for cassette decks. That's asking for trouble, really.

This thread is for those crazy things you've ever done with your A8 that could easily fry it, or damage it irreparably. My story is this: I was bored to tears one evening and decided to see what would happen if I plugged in a cart, only to remove it slowly at an angle whilst the system was powered up (an 800XL). The cart was Pole Position, and I managed to achieve some very funky and weird effects on the screen whilst the game was still in-race(!) before the screen went blank and I repeated the cycle. I did this for over an HOUR! Of course, I didn't know at the time that this is usually a recipe for disaster, but everything was fine afterwards - maybe I was just lucky. Then again, just last week I managed to totally screw up a TV set just by plugging my PC's TV output into the front AV socket (which is what it's DESIGNED for, right?) I think the only difference is the TV was ON at the time. But then, obviously, so was the Atari. Have any of you ever done stuff like this out of boredom or just curiosity?

In my last year of A8 ownership before I got an ST, I did also dabble a lot with the Mandelbrot Set, and wrote numerous programs to generate it in Turbo Basic. Oh man did I have fun with that!

So here is snap from my PAL 800XE. It is directly grabbed from composite output with my TV card. 956712[/snapback] Compared with the original image from the emulator: You'll see that unlike the screen grab from a real Atari, the emulator's colours are slightly different at best. No wonder they don't match.

I'm talking about those of us who made our own games in the 1980s and later, as well as playing the vast Atari library available. In my youth (I was born in 1972) I started many, many programming projects on the Atari 800XL, but my problem was I hardly ever finished any of them, but a few I did. These projects I completed (but have since failed to keep) were written mainly in vanilla Atari BASIC, with help from various articles from Atari User magazine, and they were, not in order: 1. WORMS - Basically, a snake-based eat the pills type game which used a combination of GR.1 and GR.10 for 8-colour graphics (so the resolution was very poor but very colourful) together with some effects from Boulderdash (mainly the flash/crack and the door once you got the max number of diamonds). 2. BLOCKMAN - I don't remember too much about this one, but it was a grid-based game where the tiles disappeared under you as you moved. The graphics I think were good enough, but I put a lot of effort into the sound effects (especially of someone falling down stairs). 3. PARTY PETER - This wasn't the name of the game, but the name of the character. This particular game used a combination of sprite/playfield collision and animated graphics to represent the various traps in the mazes (once again, think of Boulderdash's animations slowed down and applied as collidable playfield). This was probably the greatest game I made, but I never kept it, which I regret. Besides, I don't see how I could've. 4. SPECIAL AGENT FARTSKI - Yes, crude, but a simple game involving running along the top of a parapet and letting rip at anyone climbing up ladders towards you. Er, ahem! I think I was inspired by The Comic Strip's Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door for that one. 5. ANIMATED HORSE - I once painstakingly pixellated the images of a running horse which I was going to use for a detailed showjumping program written in Assembler, but it never got further than that - but the animation was full screen (if monochrome) and exquisite. 6. ASSEMBLER CLOCK - This was the only program I wrote in Assembler. A simple clock program that used screen character memory to keep track of the time. As you can imagine, it was very simple to implement. And that's all I can think of. There were many more projects I started, but back in my youth I had very little patience and so most of those were never completed before I got interested in something else. But these projects I mentioned were the ones I am most proud of. What about all of you? I'm sure most of you Atari fans have tried to make your own games and programs, so let's hear about them.

Believe it or not, there was once a program published in Atari User that displayed similar bars or patterns depending on what the sound input of a music tape played in the 1010 tape deck was. I'm not kidding. Didn't work out too well, though. Apparently, it was all down to a few memory locations that monitored the strength of ordinary sound played on the tape deck, but as of now, 20+ odd years later, I forget.

Ooh, that looks tasty! Mmm!

Actually, I think for once the Speccy version is FAR superior.

There were many computers out there with less than 48k ram; the 400 and 600XL come with 16K ram only. You couldn't run most games on those systems on tape or disk. 949353[/snapback] But I bet you could on Carts, right?

Are you sure you don't have archive somewhere in the cellar? It would be wonderful if you restore you game list. 946807[/snapback] Unless you've ever heard of Worms, Blockman or Party Peter (my names for the games) then I never saved them.

I made some good games for Atari back in the 80s - pity I couldn't keep any of 'em.

Any chance of the 5200's E.T. game for the A8? I always loved that classic game. Honestly, any game than can kill off its parent company deserves a look.

If I remember, to make a cold reset (so that the Atari "farts" through its memory test) it wasn't necessary to turn it off, just press another key with the reset. I forget which, though.

My kingdom for standardisation!

What's that great big hole on the left side of the machine? The cartridge port? Also, I like the way the joystick ports are angled like that.

Naah, I always preferred the Konix Speedking myself.

You're saying that POKEY emulation has been improved? Oh, GREAT, I've already created a lot of CDs and MP3s of POKEY music, now they'll all have to be redone!

Don't bother with that pre-made chart, it's not very accurate - for example, hues changing during a column is not right.

CPUWIZ, I don't know how you made that colour chart, but I for one know it's not accurate. The idea with the A8 palette is that you have available at any time 16 hues with 8 brightnesses each - so why does it look like your hues are changing during a column? I mean, look at your penultimate column - why is the hue changing from green to brown like that? It should be the same colour throughout each column.