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Hi everyone, I want to announce a new game in development. Almost done basically (just some dozens of hours of work left . It is a fast paced reaction puzzler in 4k for the wonderful Atari 2600. Restricting myself to 4k was very important to me, since I consider it the original spirit of the machine and indeed, I am now increasingly nervous about the ROM size limit and fight for concepts and bytes already. Some space is left, but sound fx and a few other things are still missing as well. I am very confident, however, that it will see the light soonish. Your screen shows 5 windows. One central and one in each of the four neighboring sides. A quarter of a face in a particular color is given in the central window and you can place it via joystick up, right, down, left if the corresponding tile is still empty - otherwise you're losing one of your precious lives. During all that the timer bar decreases faster and faster... Once a full face is complete, the window is cleared again and you score points. The amount of points depends on the colors as you probably have guessed by now. A full face of the same color gains you 300 points. Having 3 face parts in the same color, still results in 100 points. Only 2 parts of equal color give 40 points and a fully mixed face a mere 10 points. In case you were able to clear ALL windows, a whopping extra 500 points and an extra life are added as well! I started this project as a true one-man show, as for Atari 2600 you have to CODE all the sounds and graphics anyway. Ptoing, a blessed graphician and a friend of mine, immediately had great ideas on how to improve the by then rather simplistic screen design. He is quite a technical guy so once familiar with the basic limitations of the 2600, he came up with several mockups. Most of them found their way into the game for the better! So he did the graphical design of the game (including Title logo and skull . Logo and face gfx are not final though. See below a couple of screenshots. The final game will most likely be available via Atariage which makes me super happy already The colors and some graphics are subject to change This is my first finished game for the 2600, though I did quite some coding on the C64 before and the even more basic cycle counting on the atari really excited me. My only published contribution to the 2600 scene so far was the endscroller in the ATARSi demo Assembloids 2600 is based on Assembloids 2013 which I coded for the C64 and was published by RGCD http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2013/02/assembloids-c64-2013.html which was a new version of the Flash game "Quartet" by Photon Storm. In between we were asked and granted permission to port that concept to the Atari XL/XE as well and it was recently released as 'Assembloids XE'. What better thing to do than to put forward an ASSEMBLOIDS 2600?! The game was so suitable for porting from flash, since it could utilize the colorful bitmap graphics (due lack of scrolling and such) of the c64 and later on the Atari XE. Ironically, the Atari 2600 version uses its sprites for the faces I hope to be able to provide some video footage soon Martin /enthusi

Hi everyone! I am attempting to play an Atari 2600 on a modern-day television. Specifically, on the LG - 77" Class CX Series OLED 4K UHD Smart webOS TV. Its specs are a little different than your average digital TV, I believe. At least different enough to not be compatible with the recommendations I see for using an upscaler. Because it's not a 60hz TV; it's 120hz. And apparently that causes...interface problems with upscalers most ppl are using. So that's fun, right? LOL.... There is also some question as to HDMI being used, tho I am not entirely clear on the reasons associated with that. This model encompasses both HDMI 2.0 as well as HDMI 2.1 (thank goodness)....which other LG OLED models do not. Apparently HDMI 2.0 is getting "phased out"....but this model, thankfully, still allows its use! Something else of note....is the "Resolution" with this model. It's listed at 2160p (not 1080p)......is that unusual? I expected it to be 1080p. And since that is double what other models I've seen list, how does that impact use of an upscaler, or even use of an Open Source Scan Converter (OSSC) in this process of getting the Atari 2600 to play (well) on this model of TV? Here are the full specs of the TV in question, the one that will be used to play the Atari 2600 on. From the BestBuy website: ___________________________________ Specifications Key Specs Display Type OLED Resolution 4K (2160p) Screen Size Class 77 inches High Dynamic Range (HDR) Yes High Dynamic Range Format Dolby Vision, HDR 10, Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) Refresh Rate 120Hz Specific Manufacturer Technologies HDR Dynamic, Tone Mapping Pro, Advanced Contrast Enhancer, Face Enhancing, Ultra Luminance Pro, Billion Rich Colors, True Color Accuracy Pro Smart Platform webOS Featured Streaming Services Apple TV+, Paramount+, Crackle, Disney+, Fandango, Google Play Movies & TV, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Peacock, Prime Video, Redbox, SHOWTIME, SIRIUS, STARZ, Sling TV, Spotify, Twitch, Vudu, YouTube, YouTube TV, iHeartRadio Number of HDMI Inputs (Total) 4 Works With Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant Voice Assistant Built-in Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant General Product Name 77" Class CX Series OLED 4K UHD Smart webOS TV Brand LG Model Number OLED77CXPUA Series CX Series Model Year 2020 Color Silver Color Category Silver Dimensions Product Height With Stand 40.3 inches Product Width 67.8 inches Product Depth With Stand 10.6 inches Product Height Without Stand 39.1 inches Product Depth Without Stand 2.2 inches Product Weight With Stand 79.1 pounds Product Weight Without Stand 58.9 pounds Adjustable Stand Width No Box Dimensions Height 44.5 inches Width 74.6 inches Depth 11.2 inches Display Display Type OLED Resolution 4K (2160p) Screen Size 76.7 inches Screen Size Class 77 inches High Dynamic Range (HDR) Yes High Dynamic Range Format Dolby Vision, HDR 10, Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) Picture Quality Enhancement Technology Cinema HDR Curved Screen No Refresh Rate 120Hz Closed Captioning Yes Language(s) Displayed English, French, Spanish 3D Technology No Features Remote Control Type Magic Specific Manufacturer Technologies HDR Dynamic, Tone Mapping Pro, Advanced Contrast Enhancer, Face Enhancing, Ultra Luminance Pro, Billion Rich Colors, True Color Accuracy Pro Smart Capable Yes Smart Platform webOS Featured Streaming Services Apple TV+, Paramount+, Crackle, Disney+, Fandango, Google Play Movies & TV, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Peacock, Prime Video, Redbox, SHOWTIME, SIRIUS, STARZ, Sling TV, Spotify, Twitch, Vudu, YouTube, YouTube TV, iHeartRadio Screen Mirroring Yes Screen Mirroring Technology Miracast Indoor Or Outdoor Use Indoor Text-To-Speech Yes Video Description Yes V-Chip No TV Tuner Digital Connectivity Number of HDMI Inputs (Total) 4 Number of HDMI 2.1 Inputs 1 Number of HDMI 2.0 Inputs 3 HDMI Audio Return Channel (ARC) Yes Number Of USB Port(s) (Total) 3 Number of USB 2.0 Ports 3 Ethernet Port(s) Yes RF Antenna Input Yes Bluetooth Enabled Yes Bluetooth Version 5.0 Network Compatibility Built-in Wi-Fi, Ethernet Number of RS-232 Inputs 1 Headphone Jack Yes Number of Digital Optical Audio Outputs 1 Number of Component Video Inputs 0 Number of Composite Video Inputs 1 Number of DVI Inputs 0 Compatibility VESA Wall Mount Standard 400mm x 200mm Works With Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant Voice Assistant Built-in Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant Audio Built-In Speakers Yes Built-in Speaker Type Front firing Surround Sound Supported Dolby Atmos, OLED Surround Speaker Output 40 watts Power ENERGY STAR Certified No EPEAT Qualified No Estimated Annual Operating Cost 38 United States dollars Estimated Annual Electricity Use 313 kilowatt hours Rechargeable Battery (Remote Control) No Number Of Batteries Required (Remote Control) 2 Number of Batteries Included (Remote Control) 2 Included Stand Included Yes Cable(s) Included AC power Warranty Manufacturer's Warranty - Parts 1 Year Manufacturer's Warranty - Labor 1 Year Other UPC 719192637177 ___________________________________ Thoughts on what type of upscaler (if any) or OSSC (if any)......to use to get this done? Really need to play the Atari 2600 on this TV!! Man I hope there is a solution to be found. I'm open to any and all suggestions!!! Please let me know what should be used; the things to get and use, etc....even if they are not OSSC or an upscaler. I just want to know how to play Atari again, on a modern TV; how that gets done though eludes me. Pls forgive the n00bishness. <3 Thanks in advance for any and all help! With appreciation, froggerchamp ---

Since the game is still WIP, I decided that it is better to continue here. Below you find the latest versions: Robot_City_20191110.zip Robot_City_20191118_RC1.zip Robot_City_20191124_RC2.zip Robot_City_20191125_RC3.zip Robot_City_20191126_RC4.zip Robot_City_20191201_RC5.zip Robot_City_20200425_RC6.zip Robot_City_20200426_RC7.zip Robot_City_20200427_RC8.zip

I stumbled on someone here sharing a hi-res image of the old 2600 box and made a 4K wallpaper out of it for my TV (It cycles art that I like as a slideshow as I have no more wall space for the real thing ) Figured I'd post it here since this is where I got the original file and I imagine there might be someone else who'd like it. Oh! If anyone has really hi-res boxart examples from anything from the 70s/80s, feel free to send them my way. I'd love to add more of this kind of packaging art to my TV "gallery".

EDIT: Current release 4/25/20 can be found here Hello! Long time no see! Due to the coronavirus outbreak my schedule has conveniently been freed up, and I've started to port VePseu to the TI-99/4a! Attached is the progress so far.. Kinda sad I couldn't make a raster engine like BUILD or DOOM, but floating/fixed point is kinda a pain to implement and multiplication/division isn't signed like addition/subtraction, so I didn't feel like tackling that beast just yet. Is it possible? more than likely. Would it be playable? Not so sure The cart limitations are very similar to the original VeSpeu, in that I aim to keep the whole shebang under 4k. The code I'm working with also uses the upper 4k of the cart for RAM (specifically, as a video buffer so we don't have to access the slow VDP to manage basic graphics, you'll see why). The basic render code is done and only takes up around 1520 bytes *including an uncompressed map. I also plan to implement basic RLE or possibly simplified gzip compression on the maps as well, i'll just need to see how that goes.. Here's the basic to-do list Optimize code so it can run at 60/50 fps Comment the code Code Java-based development tools for maps, sprites, etc. Implement basic compression Make walls prettier Increase map size from 16x16(maybe, depends how tight optimization has to be) Minimap(maybe, depends if I have trouble moving through maps. Colored walls are a thing now) I do tend to have a habit of not finishing projects, I'm aware of this, but I still plan on optimizing the code a little and commenting the code before releasing the source. The TI-99 does have a lot more room to implement a game compared to the Atari 2600, and I already have a few in mind The source will be licensed under the BSD 3-Clause Revised license, and I'd love to see a game or two made with it! Plan on the code/binary to be released within a day or two, but don't quote me on it...

I'm declaring R3 to be the final version. (This is my first post, but I've been lurking for a few weeks while writing this game, and I've really enjoyed trying out other homebrews.) Water Diver is a reflex game, for one or two players (simultaneously): dots are bouncing everywhere in the water; collect the good ones, while avoiding the bad ones! Five Six Twelve exciting levels, four exciting songs. ? No title screen yet... The graphics are pretty simple, but I think it's fun, and challenging. I have yet to break 150 points, except when testing at slow emulation speeds. There can be a lot going on onscreen. My high score during development is 162; for R3 as released, my best so far is 131. Latest release: water_diver_R3.bin (NTSC) water_diverpal_R3.bin (PAL60) Older releases: water_diver_R2.bin (NTSC) water_diverpal_R2.bin (PAL60) water_diver.bin (NTSC) water_diverpal.bin (PAL60) I've tested in Stella 6.0.1, and on an NTSC 2600. In Stella, it's difficult with keyboard, but I find that it works quite well with a mouse. The two-player mode hasn't had a lot of play; please let me know what you think! Also feel free to suggest PAL color tweaks, or whatever else. I have a very small amount of room left. I expect to at least add a few more levels. Or maybe a title screen. Controls: Joysticks. Either player can start at any time, by pressing their fire button; after that, just steer the button will give a lateral speed boost. Between games, you can cycle through game modes, with Select: In the default mode, you advance from level to level in time with the music. In "flow mode" you stay on one level forever -- any level you have reached previously. (This is more fun than it sounds!) Hints: There's no way to only one level where you can restore your health. You can see how much damage you've accumulated by looking at your score. The faster you pick up the good dots, the sooner new ones can appear. (It can be dangerous to pay too much attention to this fact.) When the water turns green, watch out... The game is inspired by https://www.khanacademy.org/computer-programming/water-diver-sounds-added/5430351862169600

Help CRT, the chromatic alien life form, to find his way through 255 levels of increasing difficulty. Collect Rainbow Gems for power, defeat Evil Things that want to suck all the color out of existence, and bring color to the universe. Thank you to Zeropage Homebrew for giving me some ideas on things I could fix, and thank you Karl G for providing the statusbaronly mini-kernel. Final Version: Gem rooms: 25 points each, restore HP (40% chance) Mob rooms: 100 points each, chases player (40% chance) Boss rooms: 500 points and full HP upon kill, uses a beam attack (20% chance) level 2: pfpixels flip randomly each new level level 4: permanent wall 1 (right) level 6: permanent wall 2 (right) level 8: permanent wall 3 (center) level 10: permanent wall 4 (left) level 16: rainbow strobing playfields level 18: 1 pixel reverse scanline level 20: 2 pixel reverse scanline level 22: 4 pixel reverse scanline level 24: playfield flashes visible/invisible Enemies: 1 to 3 + (level/4) enemy spawns Gems: 4 + (level/4) gem spawns Bosses: 4 to 5 + (level/2) Boss HP Main screen: select level from 1-255 using up/down, start with fire or select. Game: move with up/down/left/right, shoot with fire, collect gems, kill enemies, advance to the next room when the north wall opens up. Reset switch returns to title screen. Left Difficulty Switch toggles the constant HP drain. Game Over: use the Reset Switch to return to title *Not Recommended for people with photo-sensitive epilepsy* CRT_Final.bin

I have released a new demo at the Revision 2017 demoparty, this time in 4k because people kept telling me you have to do a 4k to become a "real" VCS developer. Here's the Pouet link: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=69681 I've also attached the binary to this post. The dasm source can be found here: https://bitbucket.org/kylearan/catharsis_theory/overview But caution, due to a lot of heavy optimization, it might not be very readable. The readme contains a technical write-up though, in case you are interested. Now I can go back to developing Air Taxi. catharsis_theory.bin

Hello. I'm a new forum member, Mike "Lockmoore" Losh. I'll post a longer intro in the introductions sub-forum in the next few days. I've had a lot of fun in the last several weeks while recovering from some minor surgery by getting back to my 2600 gaming roots and writing my first homebrew 2600 game: yet another implementation of the sliding-tile game 2048. As I was playing my new Atari Flashback 5, I started thinking that it should be possible to play my favorite smartphone timewaster, 2048 on the 2600 console. I found these Atari Age forums, tutorials, and references. I can thank Andrew Davie, Kirk Israel, Darrell Spice, Jr. for some really great tutorials and sample code, SvOlli, randomterrain.com, and the many folks who have put together the DASM assembler, the z26 and stella emulators and who have posted may interesting bits of code and advice in these forums. Of course, not long after I started looking at how I might implement 2048 for the VCS 2600, I came across chesterbr's very nice implementation of it here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/223570-2048-2600/?hl=+2048. It has a clever stacking the digits in higher-value tiles so they all fit with the limited space of 2600's sprites, and a neat rolling animation of the tile numbers when the tiles merge. While an impressive version, it uses some very different colors than Gabriele Cirulli's smash-hit online version. I wanted to see if I could get a lot closer to Gabriele's aesthetic while being still fun to play. While far from perfect, I think I'm getting close to my goal. Right now it has a title/attract screen, main play screen, and a best-score screen. It has some very basic sound effects. (Thanks again to Darrell Spice for the sfx code. I used a direct copy of the functions and custom-edited the sound sequences for my 2048 game.) There are some extra visual effects, such as flashing the grid background color gold when you create a 2048 or higher tile, or blue when the current game is over. I will probably post my source code and some specific questions someday soon. Right now, the code is littered with abandoned ideas and little extra testing bits, so I need to do some cleaning before I subject any of you to that. Game controls are pretty simple, Reset Switch will start the game play with a fresh board at any time. Move the left joystick in the direction you want to slide/merge tiles (left, right, up, or down). If the game is over, the best score screen will alternate with the screen showing the final arrangement of the tile grid. While in best-score mode, if you press and hold the left fire button, you will see a yellow underline bar grow under the words "TRY AGAIN?" If the bar fills the entire screen width, the game is reset just as if you used the console game reset switch. There are a few issues with the current version, which I will call "Beta 1". The scores shown in the main play screen and the best score screen are not well centered. At times when you move tiles, there is a noticeable shudder in the emulator, which I am certain is caused by not completing some code fast enough to start the next video frame at the proper time. I may need to do some deferred action to keep the screen drawing happen on-time. I have some ideas for enhancements, but I thought I get some feedback here before I go much further. Please note, this has only been tested on z26 and stella emulators. I don't currently have a real 2600, just the Flashback 5. If someone can put my .bin on a Harmony cart and give it a test on a real 2600, I'd really appreciate it. I'd especially get a kick out of seeing a photo of it running on a real VCS 2600! I'll also post some of the development process, such as ideas for things I could not get to work, at least in the self-impsed constraints of a normal 4K cart. OK, enough blabbering. Have fun and let me know how it works for you! -- Mike 2048_4vcs_beta1.bin

Hi I just uploaded a playable binary in this thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/216403-new-game-assembloids-2600/page-3?do=findComment&comment=2884033 Maybe you enjoy it a little bit. Cheers, Martin

Hi everyone, I was wondering and checking which Atari 2600 game carts I could open and re-use for my 4k homebrew. The idea would be to simple de-solder the EPROM (?) and replace it by a 2732, 2764, 27128 or whatever. Are there games known to have a pin compatible layout? I can burn these standard EPROMs but I would prefer not to produce new PCBs. Any ideas/suggestions/help appreciated Also if carts are known that require some changed wires or such -that would help. I am talking of very small numbers here, not mass-production of any kind. I.e. Star Voyager has some single chip on the PCB (no capacitors or such) that I fail to identify unfortunately. Thanks alot, Martin /enthusi

Here's a new game, I made in literally half a day. Assassin. ~~~~~~~~~~ Story ~~~~~~~~~~~ 5 Princesses, all whom lived in the once-peaceful kingdom of Corneria, have been kidnapped! You, Mr. Churchill, an Assassin-for-hire, must do through 5 Castles, and save all the prisoner Princesses. Each of the 5 castles, holds 11 rooms... the last of which, the princess resides! Each stage, Mr.Churchill enters the screen by falling, just because the thought amused me. ~~~~~~~~~~ Controls ~~~~~~~~~~~ -Left Difficulty B- Joystick - Move Fire - Attack with your sword You can't move and attack at the same time! -Left Difficulty A- Joystic - Move Fire - Hold to keep in "Attack mode." -Attack mode- Fire + Up - Jump upwards to dodge enemies Fire + Left - Jump Backwards to dodge enemies Fire + Right - Attack with your sword! Fire + Down - Throw a dagger! - All difficulties, Player 2 - Joystick - Move enemy, and enter 2 player mode, where Player 2 controls the enemy. If player 2 does nothing for long enough, the AI takes back control of the enemy. Your objective is to kill any enemies in your path, get to the 11th screen of all castles, and make contact(Literally!) with the princesses. When you save all 5 princesses, the game goes back to level 1 all over again. Hitting enemies with your sword, kills them instantly and yields 100 points, but is more dangerous to use Hitting enemies with your dagger, doesn't kill them instantly and only gives 10 points per hit, but is much safer. You can only be hit by enemies 5 times. On the 6th hit, you die, and you have to reboot the game. Enemies have to run into you to damage you. Currently the right difficulty does nothing, but I don't plan for this to be the only release of this game. Also, I have no Box-art yet. Assassin.bin

SIO99's recent musings stimulated a thought in my overworked and undernourished brain. UK based fellow Atari enthusiasts will probably remember the old 5-liners in Atari User, the premise of which was to fit an entire program in five lines of Basic. Most were crap, but I remember a couple of notable ones in there which I enjoyed - a Snake clone, a Pacman clone - simple but fun. So I thought a simple challenge to maybe stimulate some brains and have a bit of fun with it: Make a game in under 4K of Atari Basic! Any takers? No prizes, just for fun. Attach in replies to this post and I dunno, maybe make a mini-poll at the end to find out which one people think is best. Not many rules, but important I reckon, to keep in with the spirit of the competitions at demo parties and such: 1. No machine code. This includes embedded MC in strings. Data statements allowed, but only for UDG/PMG definitions, or say, data for a tune (doubt we'll see that in a 4K prog!). Pokes allowed to set up charsets or PMGs and similar, as long as it doesnt involve a mini MC routine. DLIs allowed. 2. 4K limit to be explicit is program length tokenised, including var table, is 4096 bytes as saved to disk (or however you can work out that limit in Basic... ). Most of you guys will know the trick here, but for those that don't, LIST the program to disk, NEW it, and ENTER the program back in to rebuild the var table, and then save back out to disk again. That's pretty much it! Now I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert in using the A8's multitude of hidden tricks, and my imagination for an idea of a game to try and do is pretty much non-existent. But if anyone can toss an idea up, I'm up for trying to implement it Disclaimer: My Basic skills are average at best, and my MC is non-existent So there we go. Let's say an end date of end of September. To the keyboards men!