Bobo Cujo

...And I mistyped a byte in Spelunker, causing the button debouncing to not actually work - yay dropping dynamite and then activating the Phantom Blaster, thus being unable to move away from the dynamite. ? Here's a fix. Also, apparently it's a Phantom Blaster, not a fan. Who knew... @www.atarimania.com That link above is for an Atari manual of the game - you may wish to contact the site author about adding it to Atarimania... Spelunker - Joy2B - 2 Buttons - Rev 1.xex

Here's Spelunker - 2 Button version. (Broderbund release with the animated intro, based on the .xex version from Homesoft's page) Unlike many of my previous hacks, I purposely kept the keyboard controls intact this time. Existing controls: Button 1 (Fire Button): Jump F : Launch Flare (to deal with birds) D : Place dynamite (to blow up big "hills") Space: Activate fan (to deal with ghosts) Additional controls: Button 2 + UP: Launch flare Button 2 + DOWN: Place dynamite Button 2 without UP or DOWN: Activate fan All of the above will still work if the player is moving left or right. Please try this out and let me know if I've introduced any bugs/crashes; it's hard to tell what's actually free memory... (3 button version coming later - that one will have a dedicated fan button) Spelunker - Joy2B - 2 Buttons.xex

It turns out I introduced a bug in Star Trek where the player can't shoot photon torpedoes after running out of warp energy. Here's a revised version... And while I'm at it, here's a 3-button Star Trek version too, also with the above fix. 3-button version controls: Left/Right: Steer ship Up: Thrust Button 1: Fire Button 2: Warp Speed (it's still possible to steer in this mode) Button 3: Photon Torpedoes Star Trek - Joy2B - 3 Buttons.car Star Trek - Joy2B - 2 Buttons - Rev 1.car

That's correct (Sega master system controllers will work too). I use Genesis 3 button controllers on my own real Ataris for 2 button support. Sadly, I don't have a 3-button Joy2B+ stick.

Here's Meteorites (based on the Playsoft conversion of the original 5200 version). Old controls: Button: Fire Shift key: Hyperspace New controls: Button 1: Fire Button 2: Hyperspace It's just like playing the 5200 version with a Masterplay and its included extra button... except without needing either of those (ultra-rare) items. ? Meteorites - Joy2B.xex

Here's Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator. Old controls: Left/Right: Steer ship Up: Thrust Button: Fire Down: Photon Torpedoes Hold the Button, then hold Down (yes, really): Warp speed (it's still possible to steer in this mode) New controls: Left/Right: Steer ship Up: Thrust Button 1: Fire Button 2: Photon Torpedoes Down: Warp speed (it's still possible to steer in this mode) This now matches the 5200 version's button layout. At some point I'll also make a 3-button version that maps Warp Speed to button 2 and Torpedoes to button 3. Star Trek - Joy2B - 2 Buttons.car

And now, Qix 5200. (Modified from (what I presume to be) the Glenn the 5200 Man hack). Old controls: Move the joystick to move the marker along the playfield, and to initiate/perform fast draws. Hold the fire button while drawing to perform slow draws. New controls: Move the joystick to move the marker along the playfield. Hold Button 1 while drawing to perform fast draws. Hold Button 2 while drawing to perform slow draws. The controls now match both the 5200 version and the original arcade game. No more getting killed by the Qix because you overshot the already-drawn lines by a pixel ? Qix (5200) - Joy2B.xex

@playsoft @kiwilove OK, here's Beta 1 of my Hawkquest Joy2B mod, with the changes I mentioned earlier: - Fix the critical section bug (that sometimes prevented bootup*) by changing lda NMIEN/pha to lda #$40/pha/nop - This mod is now guaranteed to not clobber existing data, since the button2 handler is now in the OS memory space (which has plenty of free data) - Relocate and optimize the VBI handler to optimize out 2 JMP calls (6 less cycles :-)) Tested on level 1 with some shooting and bombing. * I actually tried the earlier version of this on a real NTSC Atari 800XL via Ultimate Cart earlier today, and I didn't run into the bootup failure... also: Thanks @kiwilove for the manual link! Hawkquest - Joy2B - Beta 1.car

@kiwilove Ah, so that's what you have to do - I'll give that a shot the next time I'm able to get to the fortress ? It looks like perhaps it's worth trying to add 2-button or 3-button support for that part too... Out of curiosity, do you have the text of the original manual? (Sadly, atarimania.com doesn't seem to have it)

@playsoft From what I can tell, the main gameplay difference between each of our mods is in bomb button debouncing: Your version: Bombs will keep dropping if the button is held down My version: The button has to be pressed for every bomb In both versions, the forward shots feel the same (the button needs to be pressed for each shot). I'll leave it to @kiwilove re: which approach is preferable... Some other thoughts from the code pack you provided: - It certainly is a lot easier to be able to use an assembler to patch in new code without having to introduce JMP band-aids ? - I'm still trying to figure out how the shots perform the same despite taking different code paths (I haven't looked at it closely enough) - My code does less in the vblank interrupt handler but does more in game code; does it make a performance difference either way? (I couldn't seem to tell from playing them) - When running make_carts.exe, only the Saves and Joy2B+Saves cartridges (rather than the Joy2B only cart) actually enable Joy2B content. JOY2B_HAWD1S1.ATR is identical in content to HAWD1S1.ATR. It looks like it's fortress.dat that patches in the actual jump to the new 2-button function (it contains jmp ($E816) )? At any rate; later on this week I'll patch my version to do the following: - Fix the NMIEN handling per what you mentioned - Move my $98D2-$98EB to the OS ROM space, now that I know that it's safe there (and is guaranteed to not clobber existing data ? ) - Perhaps also relocate the VBI handler elsewhere in OS ROM space since there's plenty of space, just so that I can eliminate the two JMPs Thanks for the insights!

@kiwilove @playsoft And now, a big one: a beta release of Hawkquest Joy2B! (based on @playsoft's NTSC-compatible Atarimax Cartridge version; specifically "hq_blank.bin") Old controls (in the overhead shooter stages): Fire button: Shoot Fire button + UP or Fire Button + Down: Drop Bomb New controls: Button 1: Shoot Button 2: Bomb This should now make lining up bomb shots considerably easier (especially given the sheer amount of flak to dodge). Note that the game allows you to have up to two projectiles onscreen at once, where one of those is allowed to be a bomb. Tested on level 1 (played all the way through until I got to the base). As for why I'm declaring this a beta release rather than a full release: As far as I can tell, the new button code appears to be stable, but it did involve having to branch out to other parts of the rom since the new code took up more space. In particular: - This is a very big game (!) and I haven't had the opportunity to play all the levels yet (but two-button firing makes me far more inclined to do so :-)) - The button 2 handler takes up $98D2-$98EB. I don't know if I clobbered an important lookup table/bitmap/etc. in the process; I didn't know of a better place to put this code ? - I had to add some extra code to the game's custom VBI handler so that it got the POT value and called STA POTGO; this takes up $F2E0 - $F2EC (there's JMPs to and from the existing handler). - This also meant changing the bootstrap loader code params to account for these extra bytes; hopefully this doesn't clobber other data someplace... (A01A: LDA #$EB now becomes LDA #$FB) - I don't know if the on-foot sections need the Joy2B treatment as well. Other than moving and shooting, I don't actually know the controls for it (I don't even know how to get out of the upper-left quadrant of Mycea's base... is there a bomb somewhere?) - I recall that this game is a bit on the tight side re: per-frame cycle count for NTSC compatibility - how much buffer is there? @kiwilove and @playsoft, please let me know if any of that code should be relocated to other places, or if there are any other unintentional bugs I added... Hawkquest - Joy2B - Beta 0.car

And now, James Bond 007. (Based on the cartridge release, which 1) forces you to play the levels in order as intended 2) lets you press a button to skip the intro cutscenes) Old controls: Fire button: Air missiles and flare bombs (each successive press of the button switched between the two shot types, similar to Super Cobra earlier in this thread) New controls: Button 1: Air missiles Button 2: Flare Bombs For whatever reason, the 5200 version only had one button firing too - I think only the Colecovision version (possibly others?) had two button firing. At any rate, this version effectively lets you time each type of shot however you want (even firing both at the same time). Since shot timing is particularly important in this game, it should make the game decidedly less frustrating. Tested with players 1 and 2 across the first three levels. James Bond 007 - Joy2B.car

@ascrnet ...such as Satan's Hollow? ? Old controls: Fire Button: Shoot Joystick Down: Shield (hold to use, release to recharge) New controls: Button 1: Shoot Button 2: Shield (hold to use, release to recharge) The game now matches the original arcade game's controls. Tested with players 1 and 2. Satan's Hollow - Joy2B.car

And now, Gauntlet (cartridge version, based on @Wrathchild's Switchable XEGS bankswitched version). Old controls: Player 1: Fire: Joystick 1 Fire Button Magic: Space bar Player 2: Fire: Joystick 2 Fire Button Magic: 0-9 on the keyboard New controls: Button 1: Fire Button 2: Magic (for both players 1 and 2, each on their own joystick) Note that the magic button may be a little laggy, since the game loop isn't exactly 60/50FPS - if this happens, just hold down the magic button for a bit until it activates. Gauntlet - Joy2B.car

And now, Caverns of Callisto. Original controls: Fire button shoots When holding the joystick in direction different than the one you're facing (left vs center vs right), tap the fire button (hold for a maximum of 2 frames) to face the character in the direction of your joystick New controls (matching the joystick button handling of the original Apple II version, albeit with reversed buttons): Button 1: Shoot Button 2: Change the direction the player is facing (based on the current horizontal position of the joystick) to left, center, or right. All of this should make it much easier to actually hit things with your shots, which is even more important given that your guns can overheat in this game... Note that if the player is facing center, moving left or right will cause the character to face left or right regardless of whether or not Button 2 is held. Believe it or not, that's how the original Apple II version worked (so no, it's not exactly like Choplifter). It's just as well given that your targets are often not right above or below you... Caverns of Callisto - Joy2B.atr

Here's Beamrider (cartridge version). Button 1: Shoot Button 2: Missile (formerly UP on the controller) One important side effect of this hack: When starting a level, pressing UP will no longer work - press LEFT, RIGHT, DOWN, or Button 2 instead ? Beamrider - Joy2B.car

And now, Commando (XEGS Cartridge). Button 1: Shoot Button 2: Throw Grenade (formerly Down + Button 1) This now matches the original arcade version's controls, complete with the ability to fire grenades no matter what direction you're facing/moving. For whatever reason, there's code in there to randomly fire the grenades (lda RANDOM, and 0x3, beq ...) under some condition I couldn't figure out. I removed it since it sounded detrimental to the gameplay... (I don't think the demo uses it either?) Commando - Joy2B.car

Here's Seafox - the cartridge version. Button 1: Shoot torpedo upward Button 2: Shoot torpedo to the right (former controls: Tap and release button 1 to shoot a torpedo upward; hold down the button to shoot a torpedo to the right) This now matches the controls from original Apple ][ version, complete with the torpedoes launching on button press rather than button release. Bizarrely, the Homesoft .xex version (as well as at least some of the disk versions floating around) eschew the rightwards torpedoes in favor of letting you have three upwards torpedoes on screen at once (but no horizontal firing)... Seafox - Joy2B.car

I didn't realize that someone on this forum had made Conan into a cartridge until you mentioned it ? Here's the cartridge version of Conan Joy2B. Luckily, the memory mapping of the input code is the exact same as in the disk version, so it was just a matter of copy/pasting in the hex editor... Conan - Joy2B.car

Here's Air Strike I. (Air Strike II already has Joy2B support, per the git/wiki mentioned above). Button 1: Shoot Button 2: Bomb (formerly Space Bar) Yay simple two-byte changes ? Air Strike - Joy2B.xex

And now, Conan. Button 1: Throw Sword Button 2: Jump (formerly UP on the controller) Note that UP on the controller still climbs ladders. Effectively, this hack means: 1) The Atari version button mapping now matches that of the original Apple ][ version (no analog joystick controls, though). 2) You can jump even if you're right in front of a ladder. 3) No more jumping right into an enemy at the very end of a ladder climb because you held UP a frame too long.* Tested across the entire game and between games. Note that this disk image seems to have an issue in Level 7 where it's possible to get stuck in the wall next to the jump pad - I don't know offhand if that's an issue with all copies of the game, but it's easy enough to avoid... This is a 2-disk game, but the only one that actually changed is Disk 1 (which contains the actual game logic). (* unfortunately, this hack can't help you with the game's other issues - RNG giving you horribly unfavorable enemy patterns and wait times, the inconsistent frame rate, knocking your head on the ceiling and falling to your doom, etc. etc...) Conan - Joy2B - Disk 1.atr Conan - Joy2B - Disk 2.atr

Here's Bandits (based on a cracked disk version). Button 1: Shoot Button 2: Activate Shield - hold to continue using the shield (formerly UP on controller 1), release to stop using the shield (formerly DOWN on controller 1). Bandits - Joy2B.atr

Here's Gremlins (based on the Glenn the 5200 Man hack). Button 1: Sword Button 2: Flash Cube (formerly Shift) This now matches original 5200 behavior. Tested with players 1 and 2. Gremlins - Joy2B.xex

And now, Super Cobra - a game that didn't even have two button firing on the 5200! Button 1: Shoot Button 2: Bomb (For those curious, the game originally alternated between shots and bombs with each button press) Unfortunately, I had to expand the rom to 16K (originally 8K) so that I could fit the extra code (with button debouncing). But hey, maybe someone on this forum can take that opportunity and make the title screen look much, much nicer ? Tested on the first level with players 1 and 2. Super Cobra - Joy2B+ (16K).car

And now, Stratos... Button 1: Shoot Button 2: Activate repair ship (formerly activated via the Space Bar) Yes, repair ship (see the manual on atarimania.com for details). Stratos - Joy2B.xex