Big_Mo

You sure you got the right pinouts. A2 would be needed by ANTIC. I would say pin 4 (light pen) may have effect on trigger on GTIA. Try pulling that up to see if it's ANTIC related. I see some ANTIC pinouts here: http://www.xmission.com/~trevin/atari/antic_pinout.html Whoops! I got my eye on the wrong chip! Disregard that. I swapped ANTIC and no difference. I also bent pin4 up to see if that would do anything, but still, nada. Of the two chips, ANTIC would be much less likely to cause trigger problems than GTIA. I was clearly not thinking clearly wen I said it was Pin 11 of ANTIC that was bent up...it was pin 11 of GTIA. It's when I swapped that part with one with the 11 pin bent down that the screen got corrupted. Any idea why they'd bend Pin 11 up?

You sure you got the right pinouts. A2 would be needed by ANTIC. I would say pin 4 (light pen) may have effect on trigger on GTIA. Try pulling that up to see if it's ANTIC related. I see some ANTIC pinouts here: http://www.xmission.com/~trevin/atari/antic_pinout.html Whoops! I got my eye on the wrong chip! Disregard that. I swapped ANTIC and no difference. I also bent pin4 up to see if that would do anything, but still, nada.

Ok. I pulled open the 5200 and discovered two things: 1. The Antic chip that's in there has pin 11 (A2) bent so it doesn't go into the socket. 2. If I put a different Antic chip in (with no bent pin) the graphics mode gets messed up, but the stick fire button problem persists. Could the 5200 diagnostic cart help diagnose the problem?

I have. That's not the issue. It happens on both controller ports as well. Try swapping GTIA chips with a known working one. That's what I was going to try next. Thanks!

I have. That's not the issue. It happens on both controller ports as well.

Sounds like trigger line got latched on the GTIA chip (which supports that feature). Did you try to cold start the machine and see if it reset? I have had that happen because some cartridge switching caused it on warm cartridge exchange. I checked this and the state of "coldness" of the system isn't at fault. However, I noticed that the behavior isn't entirely consistent. I notice it mostly on games on an old Multicart, and I only have a dozen or so 5200 carts at hand. But it's not consistent on all games on the multicart. For instance, Countermeasure behaves fine on both the Atari cart and the multicart, but then Kangaroo is unplayable because when the game starts the mama Kanga just punches repeatedly, and ergo can't be moved.

Wonder if anyone has an idea what could be causing this... I just got a 5200 and noticed that something weird was happening. Some games played fine, but on others the control was screwy. When I put in Qix I discovered that the system was acting like the upper fire button was being held down. I switched four different controllers and this still happened. I then plugged in Dreadnought Factor and the game was continuously launching bombs, again as if the upper fire button was being held down. Again, it's not the controllers. I've verified that. I'd appreciate any thoughts on what could be causing this.

Very cool. Thanks. I have no experience assembling 2600 code, but I'm sure I can learn it. Even with my limited knowledge I can see how the graphics data is stored. I will probably start by redesigning the sprites and backgrounds using pixel pushing. Changing how the colors are changed on which scanlines of the characters will make a big difference in how they look (making Supes' cape never enter the top pixel of his sprite, fer instance, so the top line can be black for his hair).

Interesting! I can't seem to find .bin files for Greatest American Hero or Nukey's Superman, but I was able to play them on Vizzed.com. I'm interested in taking a stab at tweaking the graphics for Superman, being an old pixel pusher myself. I think it may be possible to make the backgrounds better and designed in such a way that that would help you know geographically where you are.

I was reviewing Superman the other day and wondered if anyone had even undertaken to hack the game, or disassembled it. I look at the 2600 Hacks and didn't see any listed. Anyone?

Danke, Nukey! I checked them out! I'm curious, from your working with the code, about how the ghost logic works. I'm very familiar with how the ghosts work in arcade PAC-MAN, but I was wondering if they have distinct targeting routines.

Okay...so where in Nukey's 4K PacMan? I'd love to see it.

Okay, so what's the best HACK of PACMAN (not Ms.) that sticks to the 4K size limit and makes the game look and/or play better?

Hey, does anyone have the instructions for the 8-Bit Domain 5200 video mod (non solder)? I can't recall which pin the one clip goes to, and I appear to have lost the original installation instructions.

Sorry to ressurrect this weeks-old thread, but I thought you guys might want to see that I rewrote the Wikipedia entry on the game. If you have any suggestions on how I can improve the article, let me know.

Hey Curt: Sorry to ressurect this thread, but I was curious if you could illuminate what the markings are on the lowest row of three orange buttons. The black text says "who" "how" and "help", but I can only make out yellow text above how (CE?). Are there are other yellow or white symbols on those keys? And are the bottom two buttons "word shift" and "letter shift"?

Hey all: THIS IS NOT A SALE. I've been going through my garage and find I have a couple of extra XLs (800 and 1200), a 1050, a printer, plotter, some carts, etc. I need to get rid of the redundant pieces, and was wondering if there are any locals who could use any of it. I'd rather donate the stuff to someone local who really wants it rather than selling it. I'm in San Francisco, so if you're in the area and interested let me know. I'm not looking to ship any of it.

A fun note: I found Guy Nouri who was one of the founders of IPS that made MovieMaker, and sent him the link I posted here, plus the one to the Jonathan L. Seagull animation. His reply: Nice.

Here's another Atari MovieMaker video I found on YouTube: , which is an actual short made entirely with MovieMaker by one Paul J. Tracy. Cafeman: Well, everything you see in that Star Trek game demo was done on an 512K ST, so a good programmer could have done it on that system (it would have required some disc loading for different sequences). I still have all the art sheets that were used. To do it on an Atari-8...well, it was intended as a 16-bit game (hence mocked-up on the ST), but it's basically a Star Raiders type game with a some much flashier graphics, so some kind of version of it could have been done on an 8-bitter.

Thanks. In putting that together I opened up the original animation data and got a laugh looking at how we'd done them. Also, with 23-24 years hindsight, I see how I should have done them. The big challenge back then were the limitations: the resolution, the four colors at once restriction, and the fact that any animation could only be 300 frames maximum.

Hey all: Been working on preserving and converting a lot of my old work from various computers, notably animation work done on the XL/XE, ST and PC. I recently reconstructed a , and just today finished converting the lot of my oldest animations. Those were made with the Reston and then EA releases of MovieMaker. I put these Final Cut and rendered out a version which I just put up on YouTube.

Yeah, the European version was via Andromeda.

Hey all. I've just about finished reconstructing the Epyx Art & Film Director demo video, but I find I'm missing one thing: the sample images that came with the Art Director product (second disc). Does anyone have a dump of the package, or at least the second disc of Art Director? The European (not Epyx) release had different samples. I'd love to get all four discs to make sure I have everything. Thanks in advance.

There's no code. This was an animated mockup made using Art Director, Film Director, and CAD-3D. But I'm glad you liked it.

Well, thank you. It was weird to get into the software again 23 years later!