Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'computer'.
-
Many of us buy and sell consoles over the years, but some have stood the long test of time. So what consoles computers have you had since you were under 18 years of age? It's surprisingly few for me... Tell us about your childhood consoles that you still love and cherish. What are their stories? Computers: Mac--I have a Mac Classic that I acquired on the cheap when I was in high school. It is sadly not running currently and I believe it just needs new caps on the motherboard and PSU. Got this computer for free from a computer lab at my high school which was retiring it. PC--My high school HP is still in my parents basement. The computer itself is unremarkable but has a Voodoo 2 or 3 in it which I need to salvage for posterity for some point. I may have it framed, or use for a Windows 98' PC build. This was the "family computer" but I paid for the Voodoo 2 out of pocket with part time work. Consoles: NES--My original NES was sent to an authorized repair center to have the 72 pin connector replaced. I was pissed to realize they gave me another (more worn) console as a replacement!! Still...that was my early teens and I still have that NES toaster to this day. I've since defeated the 10-Nes chip and replaced the 72 pin connector at least one more time. It's currently in storage as my NES toploader is my go-to, but I will probably be hooking it up to my living room TV soon as I now have the space/capacity for it. The NES was a Christmas gift around 1990 or so. N64- My high school N64 (black launch model) was stolen at a party, but the translucent orange funtastic machine I replaced it with is still in my possession, bone stock with the Nintendo Ram Upgrade only, and is hooked up to the big flat screen at my parents for when I visit there. Paid for out of pocket with summer job money. Gamecube- My launch edition black gamecube was fried when my roomates in Germany (Army) plugged it directly into the wall instead of a transformer. I replaced it with a Platinum edition GameCube which I still have to this day and is currently in storage. It was my last purchase at 18 that qualifies. It will be coming out soon to keep my Wii U company in my gameroom, as the Wii U is moving downstairs having been replaced by my switch. Paid for with my earnings while in the military. Every Atari, Sega, Panasonic, Nec, Phillips, or Microsoft was acquired after, either new or at Play N' Trades. I wish I still had my childhood Super Nintendo but my parents never bought me one!! lol. I had to put my N64 on layaway as it was with "the bank of mom" Speaking of which, please do add fun stories of how you PAID for your consoles back in those years. -
I was looking at the picture of the 7800 computer that never materialized. http://www.atarihq.com/museum/2678/7800key.html It looks to me to have been nothing more than a modified XL that attached through the joystick port to the 7800. I wish there was more info on it but creating such a device would be doable. A cartridge on the 7800 for direction and all the peripherals would hook to the attached computer. The computer would be nothing more than a fancy dumb terminal. IF one could create a cartridge for the 7800, this could be done with a current XL or XE, just turn off ANTIC as it would not be needed. Wish had more info on the thing.
-
This is how the data is stored in files on this type of computer. NOTE: This is a work in progress. I will be updating this post as I think of stuff to put on here. Bytes $20-$7F represent the standard ASCII character set. Character $7F represents the cursor symbol. Bytes $00-$1F are control codes. $00 - ROM Section Header $01 - Palette $02 - Graphics $03 - Mappings $04 - $05 - $06 - $07 - $08 - Set Tab Width $09 - Tab $0A - Line Feed $0B - Comment Tab $0C - $0D - Carriage Return (same as $0A) $0E - $0F - $10 - $11 - $12 - $13 - $14 - $15 - $16 - $17 - $18 - $19 - $1A - $1B - $1C - $1D - Change Label Line Color $1E - Change Label Line Toggle $1F - Toggle Show/Hide Labels Characters $80-$FF are more control codes. When the file is saved, it is compressed using LZSS.
-
Hi all, I'm looking into getting a floppy drive for my 99, but I don't want to break the bank for one. Is there anywhere (or any other type of drive) that I could get? What are all your suggestions? Thanks!
-
This next section is a big one. Wouldn't it be great if you could test code as you programmed it? Well that's where Code-As-You-Go comes into play. The mode can be accessed with a dedicated button on a keyboard. It's labeled "CAYG." Take a look at this: That's the code as you go screen. On the panel at the right, you can enter the data you want to test. On the upper right of the screen is the address that the code will assemble to. In this example, the written code will compile at address $001404. You could instead have it display which line of the source code the code will go in. First, give the subroutine a name. In this example, we have a routine called "TetrisLFSR." This will be a Motorola 68000 version of the NES Tetris RNG routine. The NES version of Tetris iterates its RNG (a 16-bit LFSR) in the following manner: Set the output bit to the XOR of bits 1 and 9, and right-shift that input into the RNG. We will replicate this routine as we enter the code. For this test, enter the input in d0. We need to enter a 16-bit value. Using a mouse, click on the fourth-to-last digit of the d0 register, then type "7259." The digit highlighted in green is the cursor. Note that the register values are displayed in hexadecimal. If you enter an invalid hexadecimal digit, nothing happens. When you enter the last digit, the cursor stays there. (If it were an A-register, the cursor would be red.) Now, time for the first instruction. Type "move.b", tab, then "d0,d2", and hit Enter (if you hit Space, it will tab for you). When you press Enter, the last line of code you wrote is automatically executed in the CAYG window, and its machine language code appears in the window as well. In M68K assembly, the instruction "move.b d0,d2" is represented by $1400. The screen looks like this: Note that after you typed the code line, that instruction automatically executed. The last byte of d0 is $59, so the last byte of d2 is now also $59. The next two instructions are "move.w d0,d1" and "lsr.w #8,d1". These are necessary to retrieve the upper byte of a 16-bit value in d1. After the second line was typed, d1 became $7259. After the third line, it became $0072. In the machine code box is E049, which is the code for "lsr.w #8,d1." Remember, only the compiled code for the last line you typed appears in the machine code box. Next, we want to take the XOR of bits 1 and 9 of the bytes in d1 and d2. Since 1 and 9 differ by exactly 8, no shifting of either byte is needed. Just XOR the bytes by typing "eor.b d2,d1", then pressing Enter. Register d1 is now equal to $2B, which is the XOR of $72 and $59. It is bit 1 from this value we need to extract and get into the X (extend) flag. To do this, type "lsr.b #2,d1", and press Enter. The value in d1 became $0A. But more importantly, look at the X and C flags. They lit up, so their value is 1. Any flag that is clear appears as white-on-black, while a set flag is indicated by the opposite color scheme. Since the XOR of bits 1 and 9 of our 16-bit value was 1, a 1 will be right-shifted in to get the new RNG value. Here is the last piece of the puzzle. Now that we have our output bit in X (and C), we can use a "roxr" instruction to shift it in. Type "roxr.w #1,d0", and hit Enter. And there you have it. The new RNG value is $B92C. With the ability to see the code execute as you type it, coding will become as easy as pie. You could also toggle register updating off/on, and you could also move your cursor to any line in the code, and press a certain button to step through the code and see the results. After finishing the code, press the CAYG button again. All the code you wrote in the CAYG screen will be placed at the place in the source code you were at when you went to this screen. You can then edit it, delete it, or change it as normal. All in all, the code-as-you-go feature could be a breakthrough for future assemblers. No matter whether it's 6502, M68K, Z80, or anything else, it's the next innovation in coding.
-
From the album: The Best Assembly Computer
A set of 7 different color palettes to use while programming. -
From the album: The Best Assembly Computer
This is the menu you would enter if you wanted to view a picture for a background while assembling. -
From the album: The Best Assembly Computer
The same simulated assembler screenshot, but with a picture background. -
From the album: The Best Assembly Computer
This is the same simulated assembler screenshot, except the background is changed to dark blue and the foreground changed to aquamarine. -
From the album: The Best Assembly Computer
What a color changing screen for an assembler might look like. -
When assembling, there are several different screen enhancements that could use to make the experience more enjoyable. One way is to change the background and foreground colors. This is the shot from the previous installment: By pressing a certain key (or key combo) on the keyboard, it will bring up a screen saying what color you want to use. That screen might look something like this: As indicated on the screen, press 0-9 or A-F to choose the appropriate color. When you press one of these buttons, the color beside the "current" heading changes to the selected color. For example, if you press "3," while in the palette shown above, you will choose purple. You can also toggle between foreground/background color choice by pressing the "/" key. To change palettes, press up/down. There are seven different palettes, plus one palette you can customize. The chart below shows the seven fixed palettes: Each row is one palette, and each palette has a different theme. They are based on palettes from older gaming and computer systems. Palette 0 - Apple ][ Palette 1 - Commodore 64 Palette 2 - Mattel Aquarius Palette 3 - Commodore VIC-20 Palette 4 - MSX Palette 5 - CGA Palette 6 - ZX Spectrum Palette 7 can be defined using your own colors. Each color in every palette is stored as a 24-bit RGB value. I will get to palette 7 editing in another post. Using the Apple ][ palette, let's say you decide to change the background to dark blue and the foreground to aquamarine. This is the result: If you don't want to change the colors, hit the ESC key. This causes any changes to be cancelled, leaving the background/foreground colors as they are. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another thing you could do is have some picture to look at while programming. To change the background to a picture, press a certain key combination. Pictures can be uploaded from flash drives. If you have a flash drive installed, it will list all the picture files on it. The screen would look like this: Press the appropriate button (0-9 or A-Z, depending on the number of pictures) to choose the picture. If there are too many picture files to fit on one page, press left or right to move to another page. For example, let's say you want to use the following image. It's the back of an old McCormick food coloring box from 1975. This picture was taken from Etsy: When pictures are loaded into memory, they are stored as 24-bit RGB values for simplicity of decoding. The picture is also scaled to a size of 480*360 so it can fit on the screen. The picture replaces the background color. Here's how the screenshot at the top of the page would look with this picture as the background: You can change the picture by going back to the picture menu. Plus, you can choose to go back to a solid color background by going to the background color change menu. The foreground color change menu works the same. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In addition to pictures, you could also use a video for the background. The video loops forever. Like with pictures, you could upload videos from a flash drive. They can be in any format, but each frame is converted to 24-bit RGB format before being displayed. Frames are buffered. You could also choose to play two or more videos in a continuous loop. After one video ends, the next one starts. After the last video, it wraps back to the first one and the cycle repeats forever. Next, I'll mention code-as-you-go, one of the most important aspects of this type of computer.
-
From the album: The Best Assembly Computer
This is a simulated screenshot of an assembler. It's inspired by the Apple ][. It shows a multiply routine in 68K (useful for the Sega Genesis). -
The interface for a good assembler is just like a text editor, with extra features added to make assembly easier. Take a look at this simulated screenshot, inspired by the Apple ][. This is a multiply routine for the Motorola 68000: There are several things that would make this more of an assembler than a word processor: Under the label "Multiply," there is a blue line stretching across the screen. You could toggle this on or off. Under this line can be shown information about the subroutine (e.g. input/output). Each line of code is indented automatically. The local labels have a period before them, and are not indented. There is a red "+" before the label. Clicking it changes it to a "-" and makes the code disappear. You could click the "-" to make the code reappear. Whether the code is folded or not, it's compiled when requested. When compiled, the branches with the ".s" extension will resolve to a ".b" (8-bit) or ".w" (16-bit) displacement, whichever is the shortest possible. If the extension is left off, assume it to be ".s". That way, you don't have to figure it out yourself. In this example, the screen is 480x360 pixels. Characters are 7 pixels across and 8 pixels down, just like on the Apple ][. In system RAM, this could be handled with one table telling which ASCII character to show (one byte per character), and another table to tell the background/foreground colors for each cell (in each byte, there are 4 bits for background color and 4 bits for background color). By default, the line under labels is enabled, tab width is 8 characters, lines after labels and code automatically indent, and code is not folded. When a mouse is used, the character that the mouse is pointing to is shown in a different color (for example, in the above screen, it would be shown as a white cell with a blue character). Characters would be stored as ASCII. The blue underline is toggled on/off with a control byte, and the tab width is also controlled using a certain byte. You could use any programming language you want, be it 6502, 68K, Z80, BASIC, etc. Regarding the keyboard, there could be additional keys based on what programming language you use. In addition to a regular ASCII keyboard, there could be attachments you could just snap on. For example, a 6502 keyboard attachment might have buttons labeled "LDA," "STA," "CLC," "SEC," "ADC," and "SBC." Next, I'll mention some enhancements you could make to the screen.
-
From the album: The Best Assembly Computer
This is what the section header for the main program would look like. Note that it doesn't have a section number. -
From the album: The Best Assembly Computer
Another example of a program's section header. This could be used for all the math routines used in the game (e.g. multiply, divide, random numbers). -
From the album: The Best Assembly Computer
This is what a section's header would look like. The color and font can be variable, but the header text is always in the same font throughout the same source file. The example here is for a program's vertical blank routine. -
A good assembler has ROM section headings. These are a way to cleanly divide the source code into settings, so you can definitely figure out at which address each section starts. Think of an assembler as if were like Microsoft Word. Section headings could appear as solid-colored bars with text on them. The user should have control over what color to make the bar. They also might have control over the font. For example, your main program header might look like this (note that all images are simulated): Notice I used the Roco font. Anyone familiar with Sonic The Hedgehog 2 will recognize this, but it's the actual font, not the Sonic 2-rendered one. Every computer program needs a vertical blank (or "V-Blank") routine. Its header might look like: One common thing to have in any program are math routines. So, you might include a section like this: For a hardware/software implementation, fonts could use a bitmap. Up to 96 different character glyphs can be stored. In addition, the numbers could be made a little bit bigger if the user chose to. Each character's bitmap can be stored using 1, 2, or 4 bits per pixel. For each character, the size needs to be specified, as well as where its glyph data can be found. For file storage, section headers could use this format (each pair of letters represents a byte): hh ff rr gg bb ll tt tt ... hh = Token for a section header (a fixed value). ff = Flags. If bit 7 is set, restart the numbering at 1. If bit 6 set, toggle whether the number is shown for this and later sections. rr gg bb = Section header color, a 24-bit RGB value. ll = Length of text. tt = The text shown. It doesn't include "Section #". It's in ASCII. Let's say that the section header token is $00, and I'll use the vertical blank section header as an example. The byte stream in the source file would look like this: 00 C0 00 60 20 0F 56 42 4C 41 4E 4B 20 52 4F 55 54 49 4E 45 53 The 00 signals the start of the section header. C0 means to make this section #1, and turn on section numbering (by default, it's off). 00 60 20 is the RGB value. It produces a dark green color. The 0F determines how many characters there will be in the section's name. The rest is the text, in ASCII. The text says "VBLANK ROUTINES". Section headers are not taken into account when compiling a ROM. They are there to cleanly divide source code. When the file is opened, the number of headers is counted, and section numbers are assigned accordingly.
-
I have used a lot of assemblers to program games. I have used Learn to Program BASIC, BasiEgaXorz, and EASy68K. I have also used Apple ][ Basic, C++, and others. There are many different assemblers out there, but what if there was a computer (or maybe an application) with a really sophisticated assembler that could be used for programming games, and other things? The goal is to make programming easier, faster, and more enjoyable. First, I'd like to mention all the essential things that any good assembler needs. Fast interface, as well as fast assembling. The ability to cleanly divide a ROM into sections. Code/data folding. The ability to test code as you write it. Storing colors, but showing them visually, rather than as numbers. Storing graphics for a game as data, and making it show like it would in the program. Compress graphics if necessary. If it's for a system that uses tiles for graphics, computing the mappings for them. Compress data in some way. Test code for length. Being able to make short/long branches automatically according to smallest possible file size. Making sure VBlank code starts and ends properly. For any routine, sort the local labels alphabetically or numerically. Add a number of labels to a ROM that follow a certain character pattern. Add/manage data structures. Lets you pick labels/variables from a list. Calculates a ROM checksum and/or adds code. Pads a ROM to a number of bytes that is a power of 2. I might add more of these. Over time, I will be adding blog posts regarding one or more of these elements. Keep in mind that any images posted in this blog are simulated. The Apple ][ is my inspiration for their look, since it was one of the first computers I grew up with.
-
Hi I got Atari 800. Can I download games directly from my computer through the SIO port of Atari? I converted .cas to .wav (out only mono) using cas2wav, and then through Foobar I want to load into Atari. If possible, which contacts should the SIO send a signal from audio card. Logically, at 3 (Data Input) and Ground. Is this possible and can I damage Atari?
-
Hi everyone! I haven't posted here in ages, but am doing some more paring down of my collection. Lots of rare games, vintage computer stuff, and related collectibles. Let my temporary insanity be your gain! Link to all items: http://www.ebay.com/sch/joesm00th/m.html The particularly cool things: Atari 2600 AtariAge HOLIDAY GREETING CART 2003, #10 of 10 Atari 2600 MARBLE CRAZE by Paul Slocum, CGE 2002 release in tin box tin Atari 2600 QB Special Edition by Andrew Davie, 2002, #98 of 100 release in wooden box ColecoVision KEVTRIS by Kevin Horton, 1996, #56 of 100, First CV homebrew! Atari 8-bit Castle Wolfenstein disk w/ manual Atari 8-bit Fort Apocalypse disk w/ manual Atari 8-bit Bruce Lee disk w/ manual Atari FLASHBACK 2 w/ cartridge port hack + A/V jacks Atari 400 CIB w/ styrofoam Atari 130XE system modified with switches (for debugging?) Enjoy! Joe -
Need Help Identifying Computer Cartridge
mutterminder posted a topic in Classic Computing Discussion
I have two cartridges as pictured below that I believe go to a personal computer from the early 80's. However, I have so far be unable to identify what computer they are for. It's possible that they go in some sort of stand alone word processing system as well. Does anybody here recognize these, or perhaps you have a good educated guess? Thanks.
-
For years now I've been hoping to see a series like this for various retro computing platforms (Atari 800, Apple II, TRS-80 Model III, Fujitsu FM7, C64, VIC-20, Atari ST, TI-99, SG-3000, X68000, Acorn, BBC Micro, Color Computer, PC-88, Spectrum, Adam, etc...). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOT5j3ELi5BaSrb24fJEKvTqlRK4fg9wS In this case, it's for the Amiga. If others decide to make YouTube tutorial series' like this, please let me know. There are a bunch of platforms that I'd like to learn. And if someone can recommend a free video screen-capture utility that is Windows Vista compatible (and doesn't contain viruses), I may actually do more of these. Oh, and maybe an app that can add captions since YouTube is no longer offering annotation and captioning services as part of their site tools.
-
I've been following eBay listings for a while now and prices seem to be all over the map, so I was just wondering if you guys and gals might be able to offer me some guidance on what a reasonable price I should expect to pay for a tested and working nice condition Atari 800XL with power supply would be? For reference when I say "nice condition" I mean no yellowing of the case, all keys and rubber feet present and accounted for, and minimal scratching on the housing and chrome side keys. Not brand new or like-new, just well cared for and in good shape. I should also note that this isn't a want to buy ad, since it'll probably be some time in late summer or early fall before I'll be in the position to purchase one of these computers, I'm just trying to do a little market research ahead of time to figure out what I should expect to pay.
-
Just wanted to see if anybody had a basic Apple IIGS setup(monitor, keyboard, mouse, some kind of floppy drive, maybe joystick) and get an idea of what they're going for. Fascinating little system.
-
From the album: My Game Collection
1984 Radio Shack Tandy 1000 IBM PC compatible. Monitor is a Commodore unit.
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord