Stone

I think the main thing that distinguishes '16-bitty' games from all others is badly digitised graphics. Jagged edges on sprites and backgrounds really don't belong on a system with graphics hardware as powerful as the Jag's, and games like Native and Rayman show how lovely games can look when a little thought goes into the palette. Having played Native (far too much...:wink:) I'd say the thing that makes it stand out from lesser games is definitely the graphics. The backgrounds are *very* high-res (and often animated too!), the foreground items all have plenty of animation frames and the raytraced graphics look much better than they would at a lower resolution. Taking Blazing Star (NeoGeo) as an example of 16-bit-ness (yes, SNK advertised it as a 24-bit system, but they were adding the 16-bit 68K and 8-bit Z80 together ), the graphics are (although very fluid) quite blocky. The user gains the impression that fewer colours are used per sprite, with the result that the nicely 3d-modeled ships look utter pants (take a digital photo and reduce the colour depth to 16-colour; it looks like that, although not quite so blatantly). The backgrounds are mainly static (though layered and with nice parallax in places) and also look quite low-res (more carefully hand-drawn digital art rather than digitised). See this screenie: and look at the explosions for my point. One counter-example, however, is Viewpoint (also NeoGeo): By making excellent use of the palette and obviously taking great efforts to make their sprites look presentable the developers have made a great-looking game which really conveys the impression of the metal's shininess everywhere. Very nice Oddly enough, the ROM of this is around 2MB, whereas Blazing Star is around 28MB...just goes to show that having heaps of memory to stick the graphics in doesn't mean that they'll be good Just my thoughts, hope it was relatively clear and not too stream-of-consciousness Stone

Maybe they're trying to sucker someone into dumping the newer games for them? (for 'compatibility testing', yeah right <- that's a great smiley btw, congrats to the board admin for choosing it ) All the Songbird releases...BS...AirCars...all the games that came out after that coding group's (who was it again?) dumping spree in fact. Nasty. And asking for dumps of the CD games shows it off a little more...if they were really interested in emulating the JagCD they'd be using real CDs and buying them themselves at that. Guess everyone coding for the PC these days thinks development is supposed to be free... Stone

No Gunstar, down boy! I haven't got any reply yet. Thought it was clearish from my post, but evidently not I wouldn't be surprised if it was my mail server tho, so feel free to try him yourself. At least I didn't get a bounced mail...though you could try something like '[email protected]' to see if their mail daemon bounces unrecognised addresses... Stone

I mailed him at the only address I could find ([email protected]) - my comment about its availability was purely based on the fact that it took less than 5 minutes to get it If the address has lapsed (possible), or atari.net's email services are broken *AGAIN* (probable) then the lack of response is hardly surprising. Mind you, picking the source apart to find the VM code is hardly the most elegant way to do things Would the access details not have been released with the other cheats? Just a thought... Stone

Really? Where? Stone

If God was as easy to find email addresses for as Carmack, organised religion would be unnecessary. In the meantime, I'm waiting for my exploratory pleading mail to be bounced off their mail server... Stone

John Mathieson said something about there being 3 or 4 chipsets made up with one of the new custom chips and a production Jerry, but the pictures I've seen have both TOM II and JERRY II printed on the chips...I guess there may be 2 or so (max...) still out there. Jay: does the Space Tracker have an infrared port anywhere on it? If it doesn't communicate 3D position it may be possible to make some working innards for it from dissection of a normal pad (just having 2 fire buttons used). Would be nice, anyway Now I'm looking for that site... Stone

Try this. http://www.infinity.waw.pl/~alekc/files/jag2bin.zip Stone

I imagine someone got short of currency exchange medium and negotiated an exchange. I dimly remember one of them being up for sale/auction a while back... Seems to be the way with all this stuff, anyhow. What I'd be interested in is true or estimated numbers of the various types of stuff around; VR setups is 2, Stereo adaptors a couple thousand etc. I imagine there's only 3 or 4 Cortinas around, 30-40 modems; I have no idea about Alpines (of either flavour) or flash carts though. Anyone want to add to this list? Stone

No problem. Guess that's what they mean when they tell you to read the small print Stone

When you get the chance, get VidGrid as well. It's far under-rated, in my opinion. Stone

Good spot! I wasn't working from an original Jag logo, and I didn't notice that it'd been smoothed. It's being reworked now Stone [edit: my turn for eagle-eyédness: is your profile message really supposed to say 'I survivied the BattleSphere?' ]

I'd buy one if the blue helmet was disassembled and put into a red case. The blue one had higher-res and nicer sound... Jay: do you have the two unpopulated shells as well? There's two helmet shells and one for the space-tracker joystick out there Stone

Sounds like the head might be pushed too far down the spindle...prying it up with a screwdriver may be the solution. Check http://www.the-crow.co.uk/jagcdtrans/. My advice would be to buy it, then check all of the options above. If it's not there then you're down $30 Of course, saving for a little while and getting a new one would save you all the angst, but that's up to you Stone

Exactly what Symm said. The previous efforts to overclock the Jag were a simple case of swapping out one of the crystals for a faster one (26MHz->33MHz?). The clock gets divided everywhere and everything ran faster, but the video timing went to hell and the audio did indeed sound like the Smurfs. Both Tom and Jerry became hot to the touch. Don't do it Stone

OK, best we have several to choose from (I'm still unsure about the 'S' on my one...hmm, will wait and see). Maybe we should get some shirts made up Well, *I* wouldn't mind...I think it should stay late-Atari based at least (sorry in advance to all ye purists) but I don't think people are going to stay away in protest! Main thing is to make sure we have enough room for everything, so if you're going to bring stuff fill up with Jag first then add whatever else afterwards. And bringing completely unrelated stuff is probably going to be frowned upon. Maybe if we just give TV priority to Jags and let the rest fight it out among themselves? Hehehehe It would be excellent if someone could arrange to borrow a video projector from somewhere...I would offer to, but I'll have left my school by the time it happens. 6ft-wide BSG would rule Stone

Nobody else seemed to be doing anything, so consider it done if you think you can do better feel free to have a go; post it to the group and let the people at the top decide As for selling stuff, I may make up a couple more BJL cables if people are going to be willing to buy them Stone [pic removed, see page 5 for final version]

If you just want to mod the Jag to be 60Hz permanently you don't even need to do any soldering, just snap the resistor off with a pair of pliers (though melting the solder is a nicer way to do it ) What Tyrant says about the LED is absolutely correct; I've actually already modded one Jag like this for a guy getting a new Alpine. More switches is always better though Depends on what the Jag is running Seriously, with most commercial games it makes little-to-no difference, as the region is latched on startup by the boot ROM (don't know how...lets just say I played with it a lot and I can report the effects accurately ). Changing from 50 to 60Hz in-game will thus do nothing (I guess most games set up the screen at the beginning then do nothing until next time it is started up). The one exception I have found to this rule is the Sinister Developments MOD-player, which appears to access the region register directly. Switching it while SlamRacer or any other program using the player is running makes it sound...well, 'hurried' I guess it's a fair assumption that the region won't be changing during runtime in the vast majority of cases, it's just not designed for people like me, hehehehe *evil grin* I actually had a far better idea for an LED mod, but I'll wait and see if it works properly (should do...) before modding my virgin Jag. You may be able to see it at JFUK Stone

Well, I got my rotary controller this morning (thanks Tyrant!) so I thought I'd post some thoughts about it. First off, top marks for presentation. The controller comes in a standard Jag pad box The black-anodised aluminium knob is of excellent quality and feels solidly attached, which is always comforting. The finish is matte/satin, and provides excellent grip as well as being comfortable and feeling good. In use, it's exactly like a normal Jag pad (excepting the Pause button which is minutely stickier than a normal one...I'm guessing this is just an artifact of taking the pad apart and it still works as normal, so a very minor nitpick), with the only difference of having a proper rotary control. First thing to watch out for is some slight oddness in Yak's code - while it is possible to use a normal pad in port2 for almost all menu functions, you can't get into the game options with it, you have to press Option on the rotary pad. In-game, however, is what it's meant for, and it's lovely. Paolo was right about the detent; it does feel odd when you first use it, since it's a different playing action to with a normal pad (where you would normally hold down a direction, you have to keep turning the control to do this now). However, it's something you soon get used to once you find the right position to hold it in. My hint here is this: hold the right side of the pad with your right hand as normal, but don't hold the pad with your left hand at all, just use your index finger and thumb to spin and grib the knob. It's much easier to move fast this way, and it's much easier to turn larger distances without having to stop, move your finger and then keep turning. My second hint would be to keep a pad plugged into the second pad port - you will find it very helpful to do the 'flying' bonus stage, which is extremely difficult with a rotary (you seem to move on a logarithmic scale, so each progressive click moves you to that side with increasingly high speed...). It does help a lot on the stay on the green path' stage though. Other than not being able to enter your initials with the rotary (Yak's fault) and my cart periodically resetting the EEPROM (annoying, but my cart's fault) there's very little not to recommend here. Great stuff! Go buy one. You won't regret it, unless you're the same sort of loon that doesn't like T2K Cheers Tyrant, job well done. Stone

Well, I'd be willing to pay a hell of a lot for a copy of Rayman 3D Stone

I'm just glad it went to someone who likes it It made no sense to have it just lying in my cupboard while so many Jag fans are gagging for a copy Why thank you A little extra effort to be careful in storage, opening the box etc goes a long way. Also, if you're going to stack your games in a cupboard, put the most valuable ones at the bottom of the pile...then they don't get dusty I'm very relieved you like it, I was afraid of being complained at for giving you a turkey Nice to know it's gone to a good home. Stone

Good plan. The way EJF2K2 worked seemed OK: have some people 'prebook' and get little namecards made up for them, but let in anyone who pays on the door and have some blank cards ready for them. Like Starcat said, it'd be nice to convert a coupla people, even if they are just randoms who wander in by accident Heh, no worries, I know how it is. My advice on cart packing: wrap the box in a little bit of bubble-wrap (just enough to go around) then wrap that in harder stuff (just make a boxy shape from loose card), then stick it in a padded envelope. Has worked a treat so far, and the resulting package is too big for the postie to squish through the letterbox Stone

I'd be interested, depending on how easy it is for me to get to wherever it is. London's closest, I have ended up going to Birmingham quite a lot though (I may end up going to uni there). It's easier for overseas people to get to any of the London airports than the one in Birmingham too. I've got 2 Jags (one BJL+regionswitch+LEDswitch+everythingelse), SCART cables (not a lot of these around...odd...), 2 Doom (nearly ) and a Jaglink to help out terminating a Jaglink2 network I'd also bring some of the classics along: Rayman, UV, PDR, NBA Jam, Flashback, T2K etc, as well as my JagCD and a coupla protos if I can fit them all in my bag I'd probably have to bring the one that gets searched at all ports and airports due to it being huge, shapeless and black...high-capacity tho Gaztee: definitely a can of worms opened It'd be excellent if lots of people could come, would be really nice to see some of the rarer stuff that I haven't got the chance to see in action before. We might need some people to bring more than one TV with them though; this would be a huge problem with people coming from further away than France, or by any means of transport other than road. Maybe just hire a van and borrow all your friends' TVs for the day As for timing, I'm free any time after May and selected moments in between - it's probably best to poll who can come on several alternative days and pick the one with highest potential attendence. This is a really great idea; I thought about it a little while back but thought I'd keep quiet because i didn't want to organise it myself Good plan. Stone

I much prefer Doom to AvP...found my copy from waaaay back while clearing up my old PC before dismantling it for parts; my DOS sound drivers are broken so I played it with no sound at all...way scarier than AvP While I was trying to decide whether or not to dispose of my copy of AvP a couple of days ago I thought I'd fire it up again to see if I was about to make the wrong decision. Played a little with the Alien...thought it odd that there were no Marines around. Turn a corner and face at least 15 of them. It went It just reminded me of the thing I find most irritating/frustrating about AvP - the random enemy placement. I think it really sucked to have a game so promising ruined by this, because as it is it's easily possible to create an unwinnable situation, which is inevitably bad if you ever want to retain your players. To be fair, I can see why it was probably done: since it's an 'open' game with no real set levels in the usual sense of the term(excepting the different floors, obviously ) it makes sense to be ale to save anywhere, and there won't be space to save all the enemy locations in the EEPROM. BUT it is easily possible to save the random number generator's seed code in the savegame and start with all the monsters that were *going* to be ahead of you actually ahead of you when you save It's also silly that a suitable amount of loading/reloading can solve any alien-related problems by literally putting them behind you. Anyway, I'm not going to have any regrets, it's gone now. Hopefully I can persuade some people to stop overrating it and buy 3-4 decent games instead of splurging for it Stone

$9.50...ouch Do these GameExchange things happen outside of the USA? Would be nice if I could get Jag carts from a physical shop around here... Stone