Pixelboy

Eduardo told me that he has a bank-switching PCB prototype. He's using it for his Pac-Man Collection project. He didn't offer any details beyond that.

Hello all. I know next to nothing about electronics, so please forgive me if I sound like a total noob: When a homebrew author makes a console game and wants to test his game on the real hardware, he has to transfer the ROM file to a PCB, right?. Are such PCBs rewritable? If so, what kind of support hardware does one need to transfer ROM files, and where does one buy PCBs 100% compatible with the ColecoVision? Is all this stuff expensive? Thanks in advance for any info.

Actually, the "Classic Gaming General" sub-forum is for everything else than Atari, although no one will really complain if you mention Atari-related stuff here. First of all, you first have to select the right sub-forum, from here. If you want to discuss a subject related to the Atari 2600, pick the "Atari 2600" sub-forum. Simple as a square, wouldn't you say? Secondly, the post you made isn't related to this thread's main subject, and it would have been better to start a new thread with your question. So once you have selected the correct sub-forum, click on the orange "New Topic" icon and you can start a new thread from there. For the rest of what you should know, click on the "Help" and "Guidelines" links at the top of the page. Welcome to the AtariAge boards.

It's been mentionned a while ago, right here. As far as the dev kit is concerned, it changes nothing, I'm happy to report (although the work is progressing more slowly than expected, mostly because of me, not Eduardo). As for the SEM project, that's really up to Eduardo, although I believe he wants to concentrate on his CV homebrews for now, namely Magical Tree and Pac-Man Collection. Definately not bad news for the rest of us.

I like to think of the future of homebrews not so much as games, but more as dev kits. If a good public dev kit comes out for a classic console system, it encourages people to try programming games for these older machines, especially if the dev kit's language is evolved and easy to learn, like Batari Basic for the Atari 2600, or DragonBasic for the GBA. Once good tutorials have been released, the rest is just hard work and dedication. Make a good dev kit for ColecoVision or the NES, and amazing things may happen!

Bah, you could just use a password system similar to Metroid on NES. You could store a lot of data with a long password, which could be entered easely with the keypad buttons on the standard CV controller.

Beating 2010 (on the ColecoVision) at skill level 4. I can't remember my final score, but considering that the Discovery is almost impossible to save at that skill level, I felt like a million bucks when I finally succeeded!

You can read all about it here. That's interesting... Actually, opcode has his own plans for upgrading the CV, as you already know if you clicked the link above.

Oops... Seems like someone beat Eduardo to the finish line, by about a year... I don't know how he's going to take this...

Easier? Sure, because of today's tools that are at everyone's disposal, but is it really less time-consuming? Personally, I don't think so. Anyone who's into game programming has to go through some kind of learning curve, and you simply can't go around the fact that, no matter what hardware you make your games on, it takes years to gain enough experience to really master the art of making good games and taking full advantage of the hardware. A single guy in his basement can do wonders with such systems as the Atari 2600, the ColecoVision and all the similar hardware from the eighties, but as soon as you enter the NES and post-NES era, you'll find you can't make something you can be really proud of without involving a team of people to help you with the graphics, music, testing and everything else. And the more people you involve in your project, the more complex it becomes, and the longer it takes to reach completion, if it ever reaches that point at all. So to answer your question in a general fashion, I would say that making games for the old classic consoles required between one and five persons working full time, often for several months, and the games changed a lot between the initial drafts and the finished products, mostly to cope with hardware limitations. For later machines like the NES, the teams often went up to dozens of people associated (partially or full time) to each project, depending on the project scope. The number of involved people has increased over the years, and today it's not uncommon to have hundreds of people pitching into a single game, each employee performing specific and specialized tasks. Long gone are the days of the lone programmer making commercial games on his personal computer, but for those who feel nostalgia for those days, there's always the homebrew dev scene, which is kept very healthy thanks to the internet.

Probably meant "landfill".

I never liked the arcade version of Spy Hunter, but I really enjoyed the ColecoVision version, which I could play hours at a time.

OK. I was thinking that, but wasn't sure if it would damage anything. You just use a q-tip dipped in alcohol? 998292[/snapback] Actually, Nintendo recommends NOT to use rubbing alcohol to clean their cartridges and systems, but don't let that stop you. Just put a couple of drops of alcohol on a Q-tip (just enough to do the job, but not so much that it will leave residues on the connectors), and that should do it. Be prepared to use many Q-tips, however, because they can get dirty pretty fast.

There are kits out there you can buy. Visit eBay and do a search with the keywords "NES cleaning kit" and you'll see what I mean.

I tried these today and both were quite good. Gemini Man especially. I'm sure I'll use the others as I go through the next stages too. Thanks for this post 998014[/snapback] Thanks!

Perhaps you can code a 2600 version of your game using Batari... I've never tried coding with Batari myself, but it's worth investigating at least...

I very much appreciated the color password system of the SGB. With it, I was able to note down the best color combinations I could find for every Mega Man GB game, and also a few other games like Metroid II. I had a habit of switching colors by inputing passwords between levels. If anyone's interested, here are my color passwords for the MM games. Some of them are really good, but that's just my humble opinion. -------------------------------------------- MEGA MAN: DR WILY'S REVENGE -------------------------------------------- Elec Man stage : 0411-9633-4243 Ice Man stage : 0202-0229-3243 Fire Man stage : 0792-0625-6243 Cut Man stage : 2391-5339-2243 Wily Castle : 0792-7329-4243 Wily Space Station : 0822-4032-9243 -------------------------------------------- MEGA MAN II -------------------------------------------- Metal Man stage : 0702-1528-4243 Wood Man stage : 0062-1826-3243 Air Man stage : 2422-0225-6243 Crash Man stage : 0372-0627-9243 Hard Man stage : 2421-6123-1243 Top Man stage : 2422-0219-9243 Needle Man stage : 0187-0428-6243 Magnet Man stage : 2421-2817-7243 Quint stage : 1042-0222-8243 Wily Space Station : 1041-9327-9243 -------------------------------------------- MEGA MAN III -------------------------------------------- Snake Man stage : 0791-5619-9243 Gemini Man stage : 0131-3825-8243 Shadow Man stage : 0692-1834-3243 Spark Man stage : 1111-3226-3243 Wily stage part 1 : 0182-3328-6243 Dust Man stage : 0267-0476-8243 Skull Man stage : 0791-7629-1243 Dive Man stage : 0791-5833-0243 Drill Man stage : 0691-2828-1243 Wily stage part 2 : 0182-3328-6243 Wily's Sea Base : 0182-3026-3243 -------------------------------------------- MEGA MAN IV -------------------------------------------- Toad Man stage : 0062-2028-8243 Bright Man stage : 0167-2126-3243 Pharaoh Man stage : 0792-1876-9243 Ring Man stage : 1012-1526-7243 Wily Mobile Base : 2422-2930-0243 Crystal Man stage : 0242-2032-2243 Napalm Man stage : 0692-0628-2243 Stone Man stage : 0691-9634-3243 Charge Man stage : 0102-7134-3243 Ballade stage : 2422-0232-9243 Outside Wily's ship : 2422-0232-9243 Inside Wily's ship : 2422-4034-3243 -------------------------------------------- MEGA MAN V -------------------------------------------- Mercury stage : 0792-1840-7243 Venus stage : 2421-5529-0243 Mars stage : 0042-1539-8243 Neptune stage : 2421-3834-9243 Dark Moon stage : 2422-6132-4243 Jupiter stage : 1122-7129-9243 Pluto stage : 1042-1434-4243 Uranus stage : 0242-2035-9243 Saturn stage : 1682-6134-3243 Terra stage : Use 'SGB Enhanced' mode Wily Fortress stage : Use 'SGB Enhanced' mode

I thought it seemed completely random too, and that aspect of it was really disappointing for me. But the top 10 was okay, I guess. I certainly agree with putting SMB at the top of the list, because as much as I like Tetris, I don't think it's the greatest game of all time. In fact, I don't think there IS such a thing as "the greatest game of all time". Too many variables, too many different tastes, and each gamer has his/her favorite that, to them, deserves the highest spot on any list. I guess that's why the big video game mags like EGM do them every one in a while, because it generates harmless controversy. On the other hand, if you give me a separate list for each category (one for 2D platformers, one for RPGs, one for sports, one for puzzles, one for games-that-do-not-fit-any-category, etc., then THAT will be interesting to read.

You might as well wait until Opcode's CV-on-a-chip project is done. After that, he will add his Super Expansion Module update, and you can knock yourself out, using SD cards. I just hope you're patient, because it might be a long wait...

A question from someone who doesn't know anything about electronics (a.k.a. myself): Once the FPGA version of the CV-on-a-chip is done, could it be used as model for an ASIC design? Or does it need to be redesigned from scratch to optimize the ASIC version? (Sorry if my question doesn't make sense).

Many years ago, when I had an Adam computer, a friend of mine showed me how one could dump the contents of just about any CV cartridge and save it into an Adam tape. At one time, I had pretty much every CV cartridge game on datasettes, which I could play at any time! As for your hard drive question, I don't know, but wasn't there a 5.25-inch disk drive available for the Adam?

I used to play my Atari 2600 with a ColecoVision controller (it's the only compatible controller I had at the time), and I know the other trigger button didn't work with the 2600. The keypad didn't work either, obviously.

Notes to superogue: The "new hardware" link on your news page doesn't work. You might want to fix that. Also, your spec listings for the SEM are outdated. Read the latest posts in the ColecoVision Dev Kit thread (in the AtariAge Homebrew Discussion forum) for the latest specs of opcode's promissing project.

You can find the discussion about Ben's awesome work in this thread (it starts at post #36): http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=81174 Perhaps Ben should have made a separate thread with his announcement...

While reading those specs for the CV87 (which look very promissing BTW), a question popped into my mind: Would it be very complicated to add support for the ADAM datasette games? It's far from being an important requirement, but it would be fun if the SEM had just enough ADAM support to play Super Buck Rogers, Dragon's Lair, Super Donkey Kong, Super Donkey Kong Jr. and Super Zaxxon. I once played Dragon's Lair on the AdamEm emulator, so I know it's possible...