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Showing results for tags 'TIA'.
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These Space Invaders soundtracks are written for the Atari 2600 TIA chip but can be played on the Commodore 64 SID via emulation. When played through the SID distinctly different soundscapes emerge. Try them on the Commodore 64: spcinvsids.D64 Use the loader program on the D64: load"loader",8 run Here are the Atari 2600 ROM binaries to compare: NewSpaceInvaders.bin NewSpaceInvadersAlt.bin The Tracker prototype written in Commodore BASIC is included on the D64 image and illustrates streaming a TIA chiptune to the SID. I used a 6581 NTSC SID for development. Filter effects may vary.
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I need a NTSC TIA chip for my old and I cant find any anywhere! Please help!
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Hi, I'm still learning 6502 assembly and trying to create an Atari game. I have a few questions regarding the number-size registers. 1) Why does the Stella guide refer to the bits of these registers (and other registers) as D1,D2 etc. for the bits in the register? It seems like B1,B2 etc. ( byte 1, byte 2) would make more sense. 2) How can I set the value of one bit, without affecting the values of other bits. In other words if I set the width of as missile using D4 and D5 Later on, can I set the players copies and size using D0, D1, D2 without affecting D4 & D5? Is that possible or do all those bits have to be set at the same time? This is all I know on how to set the number & size of players lda #%00000011 sta NUSIZ0 Thanks, John
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Hello everyone I'm in the process of building a VCS based hardware clone from scratch and have a few queries; I am going to replace the 6507 with 6502 (to get full 64k addressing + hardware interrupts + phi 1 and phi2 clocks ) and adding 32k of extra ram like the super Atari project (site is down but thanks for the wayback machine http://bit.ly/2FHlAH7) But these "NEW" eBay 6502 cpus (http://ebay.to/2DzjYJC) should work, or are these new chips like 65c02 in that the silicon has been altered due to "modern manufacture reasons"? And what's the highest clock speed available on a 6502? Also can you place some asynchronous buffer sram [cy7c408 = 128byte sram fifo memory] (http://bit.ly/2HGAAlm) between the data lines on the tia and 6502/7, so that the when the TIA Is drawing the data is already in the buffer, and all the cpu needs to do is correctly send the corrects address locations relevant to data stored in the buffer? (i.e instead of cpu calculating the display every scan-line you simply write a few scan-lines of image data into the buffer before The TIA begins to draw, then just correctly address in the order of whats stored in the buffer and do program logic) Since the [cy7c408a] is dual ported with asynchronous R/W, means you can just clock the output data [DO0-DO7] bus with the 1.19MHz clock from the TIA, iirc the TIA doesn't tend to like bus speeds higher than 1.19MHz? Then this should allow one to overclock the 6502 with for simplicity of counting cycles a multiple of the [ntsc] color-burst [TIA] clock ( i.e being able to have 684 cpu cycles per scan-line {using a 6502 clocked @ 10.75MHz = ~3x the TIA clock } instead of just 76 cycles) in such cases also sacrificing [native 2600] compatibility for increased cpu speed and more time for crunching instructions. I would also assume having the TIA reading the buffer @ 1.19Mhz would present in situations a bottleneck as well (when "drawing" to the TIA)? Since you can write data faster to the buffer than its being read (if the CPU is overclocked)? Since it seems the cy7c408 operates similar to a giant shift register, once its written you have to wait until data to reach to the TIA before it you write new data?? Can you just fill the buffer with 128 bytes of scan-line/sound data for the TIA, then handle the TIA addressing, and just fill the buffer as its being emptied, and essentially have 128 bytes of "VRam" (well more like Video buffer)? Also Can NMI be used instead of RDY, so that when the tia begins a new frame, wsync simply have the TIA tell the 6502 to "Stop, Pause , Go and do Display routine and then come back here", instead of just halting the cpu? Aswell i have a few microchip and avr (atmega8515) mcu's laying around wanting to be used for something and with a both MCU's, it's instructions are pipelined so that it takes effectively 1 cycle to load and execute data or decode and execute an instruction, except iirc when changing the program counter which iirc takes 2 - 3 cycles, So you don't have wait states [i.e iirc if using a z80, thats takes 3+ cycles for most of its instructions which is why they have such high clocks]. Is it possible to use the atmega or 18f4550 as sort of display controller for the TIA having the MCU handle reads from the buffer instead, and handle writing the data to the TIA, and use the atmega8515 to emulate the RIOT? Is it possible to emulate the Riot but with 256 bytes of ram? iirc RIOT ram is in page 0 so is faster to access than the 32k of extra ram? Plus is it possible, using A12 and A15 with a 74hc138 and a logic gate or two as a way to partially decode address to swap between cartridge space and 32k ram, so one can simply keep some compatibility, simply if A12 is high and A15 low then cartridge ROM is accessed, and if A15 is high in any case 32k Ram is Accessed? just building it to just play 2600 games isn't really hard (it was done from 1977 to 1992 literally millions of times), and seems a little redundant to me, I just figured since you can build your own 2600 compatible hardware clone for less than $50 in parts shipped, why not beef it up for some shits and giggles like a dev kit, have 256k of rom space and 32k ram, 6502, if possible using an MCU or 2 as an "In Hardware display Kernel", as well as emulate the riot, And CO10444D. why you ask? Because i i'll have the only atari "super" VCS with full USB 2.0 support (upto 12Mbit/s if I do use the 18f4550 lol) and plus i can really push the hardware to the limit see what it can do with some actual "power" behind it
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I made a thread about this in the Atari 7800 forum, but I'm not sure how much overlap there is with that in this forum. So I thought I would make a thread that I'll keep updating with stuff I write on both forums. https://www.dropbox.com/s/e0kt2uihubvd3h9/dbASF.mp3?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/2xqr51wq3f8rivs/dbAS.bin?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/6z4bhlll8b8s1xw/float.mp3?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/7kec2h0q85fquwe/bigrace.mp3?dl=0
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Hi, guys. I have some questions about the programming of atari games. Here is my understanding of atari programming. Logically, a game should contains two parts. First part is the logic computation which is the internal game logic(such like computing the rewards, relative locations and so on.) The second part is visualization to player. This part is time-comsuming (which is to scan all the scanlines). First question: Am I right? Second question: If I am right, Can I remove the part of scaning all the scanlines if we don't want to visualization(which time-consuming)? I heard the people in the forums are very nice. Thanks in advance. -
I haven't had any issues with the 2600 incompatibilities on the 7800 so far, but I've recently been wanting to play Kool-Aid Man and was wondering if you could replace the TIA in the 7800 with an earlier one, to possibly fix some of the compatibility issues. Thanks -
I have decided to make a rom hack instead of coding from scratch (since I have the programming talents of a peasant) It's a "Sonic-Themed" version of Bentley's Crystal Quest with revamped graphics & levels. Is there a way to insert new music to the game, let alone change POKEY sounds back to the crisp TIA? EDIT: Nevermind, rom itself got corrupted it wouldn't read with the editor...
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- bentleybear
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I recently purchased a 2600 Darth Vader at a yard sale. The unit was labeled ‘2600 Original Needs Work’. It was $15 so I decided to pick it up anyway. I fixed the first issue which was the power jack not making connection with the power cord end. Now that the unit powers on, it displays incorrect graphics. From looking around on threads, it seems that this is an issue with one of the ICs. I am unable to get a clear answer if this is a bad TIA chip or RIOT chip. I would rather not buy both unless necessary. Does this seem to jump out as a specific issue to anyone? Any help would be appreciated. Symptoms: Misplaced/distorted graphics No (or very little?) sound Related(?) Threads https://atariage.com/forums/topic/263506-atari-2600-jr-bad-tia-or-riot/ https://atariage.com/forums/topic/240746-bad-tiariot-need-help/ http://atariage.com/forums/topic/181394-atari-2600-strange-video-problem/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAeXVazgUXc In this video, the 2600 is having similar issues to mine. He troubleshoots it by swapping the ICs with a working machine, but I only have a working 2600jr with soldered ICs.
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Composite modded 4-switcher has quiet sounds and ghosting picture
Kenal posted a topic in Atari 2600
Hi, everyone! I own 1981 Woodgrain Atari VCS CX2600A which I modded for composite video output and it has several issues. The first problem is ghosting of the picture. And the second problem is about the sound: volume of the 2nd audio channel is a lot lower than the first. I noticed the sound problem playing Pitfall as well as Synth Cart: all sounds in Pitfall are quieter than in other games, and in Synthcart when I turn on a beat on the right keypad it sounds very quiet too. When I switched the right keypad to bass or lead sounds they sound much quieter than sounds on the left keypad. The console has Rev. 13 PCB and AMI 8116XF TIA chip. The PCB hasn't 7805 buffer chip. I modded the console with this scheme: http://atariage.com/forums/uploads/monthly_11_2017/post-62422-0-00139200-1511299299_thumb.png Previously, I tried to mod it with TheFutureWas8Bit's Composite Mod Kit, but the picture was really dark and colors were dull, so I decided that mod amplifies the signal not enough and replace it with the mod on scheme above. I replaced 5K trimmer on that scheme by just a wire because when the resistance is close to zero the picture was better, and when resistance was increased by trimmer, the ghosting effect became worse and the picture was really blurred. Beside the modding, I changed all 3 capacitors in the console and remove and resat all three chips in their cradles. Can anyone suggest what these problems may be related to? The only reason I can imagine is that the TIA chip is defective in some way. Or maybe I should test something else? -
Hello. A quick introduction: I'm new to this forum, my name is Michael. Looking forward to meeting you. I started writing and recording music in 1991 where I've experimented with various genres, eventually getting into NES audio development in 2016. Last month, I started working with TIATracker. (Thank you Kylearan!) I've really been enjoying the experience, it's been a dream of mine to create music for the Atari 2600. Here are a few of the songs I've created: WarlockSum - TIA-01.bin WarlockSum - TIA-02.bin WarlockSum - TIA-04.bin TIA-03 isn't listed because now it's part of a full length album/cartridge I'm working on. I'm eager to gain more experience working with this machine, so please don't hesitate to contact me if you're in need of music or want to start conversations about working with TIATracker. OK, thank you, enjoy the rest of your day. - WarlockSum
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TIA Music on Atari 7800, (Stella's Stocking/ Mappy)
R_Leo_1 posted a topic in Atari 7800 Programming
Howdy all. So after hearing the amazing music on the Stella's Stocking and Mappy carts, I was wondering how that was done and if that programming wizardry would be possible on the 7800. I think it would be a great way to improve the quality of the 7800 sounds, without requiring an extra chip on the cart. -
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e0kt2uihubvd3h9/dbASF.mp3?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/2xqr51wq3f8rivs/dbAS.bin?dl=0
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Thanks to DirtyHairy, Stella's TIA emulation has greatly improved over the last two years. It is now able to emulate a standard TIA almost completely with perfection. But "TIA is a beast" and on top of that Atari used numerous slightly different TIA versions in their consoles. Some of these TIAs cause problems with original games and homebrews. To help homebrewers avoiding such problems in the future, we want to analyze these TIA differences and then add some developer options to Stella. This website describes a lot TIA chips in detail, together with the potentially affected games. Note: Most INFO links are broken, you have to change the path into "www.ataricompendium.com/game_library/easter_eggs/vcs/" to make them work. So if you own a console with an odd TIA which exhibits one of these problems and maybe also own a flash cart (e.g. Harmony, Krokodile, CC, Supercharger, Uno-Cart), you can help us. For now we are mostly interested into consoles which display stray dots in Ebivision's Pesco/Pac Man (we suppose Atari Video Cube, QuickStep, Thrust and Ixion might be affected on these too) display extra pixels in Masters of the Universe - The Power of He-Man; note that there are two different variations of the problem (here e.g. Obelix, Octopus, Room of Doom, Ski Hunt, Space Treat Deluxe, Squeeze Box and SW-Ewok Adventure might be affected too) have problems with Kool Aid Man and Thunderground (probably Spider Fighter too) have problems with G.I. Joe - Cobra Strike (see pictures attached) There are more bugs listed (especially with the Cosmic Ark stars), these may follow once we unterstand the other ones. If you want to help us, please tell us (here or via PM) which of the bugs listed above your console exhibits if you own a flashcart (for executing test ROMs) or any of the ROMs related to your console glitch listed above We will then ask you to verify other games (as listed above) and try some test programs. With your help we hope to be able to adapt Stella to as many TIA variations as possible. Fingers crossed!
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I was really tempted to spinlock on a timer until the end of the overscan period, but does this cause any problems or issues on real hardware?
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In games, there is a 6-digit number at the top or bottom of the screen, indicating the player score or anything else 6-digit-related. How does the TIA draw that score counter?
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In Haunted House I see this bit of code being executed (in both Stella and my own emulator): F44E INY F44F SBC $0F F451 BCS F44E That SBC is reading from address $0F. This is in TIA, but there is no readable register there. So what does this read? My own emulator returns zero and so the code hangs. But Stella seems to not hang. When I read the Stella source it looks like this returns (depending on settings) something randomised or what was left on the data bus from before (though I don't fully understand how something can linger on the data bus). As the last thing on the bus was (I think) the $0F of the SBC instruction, it ends up subtracting $0F. That seems pretty weird. Anyone know what's going on here? Im the end I hard-coded a read from $0F to return $0F in my emulator and now I can play Haunted House in it. -- Dan
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While improving the sound emulation in Stella, we got some better insight into the TIA's sound generation. One important finding is, that the TIA volume is not linear (by far). E.g. a volume value of 56 is exactly 50% as loud as a value of 15. The higher the volume, the more it gets compressed. While this is good to know if you want to control the volume, this seems like no major problem. But the non-linearity affects both channels combined. This means that the combined volume of both channels is compressed too. E.g. a combined volume value of 10 is exactly 50% as loud as a combined value of 30, a volume of 15 is exactly 2/3 as loud as 30. And then the fun begins. Usually, if you combine e.g. two sinus waves of different frequencies, the resulting wave will look pretty wild. But it will still only contain the two original sinus waves. But doing the same with the TIA will add additional artifacts. This is because the amplitudes of both waves influence each other. If e.g. one wave is a full peak (volume = 15) the other wave at full peak would only add 50% of what it would add if played alone. And if you combine non-sinus waves, the effects are even stronger. The higher the combined volume, the more noticeable this becomes. I yet have to see an analysis (e.g. a Fourier transformation) of the the resulting waves, but I am pretty sure that additional frequencies are added which result from the hefty volume compression. You can clearly hear those as distortions. E.g. Ms. Pac-Man and E.T. sound pretty distorted on real hardware. This is because both games combine both channels at maximum volume value (15). And there the volume compression strikes most. If the volume values are reduced to e.g. 6 (= 50%), the distortions are much reduced. Rule of thumb: When you create sounds and especially music and want to avoid those distortions, reduce the volume. If you want to create unique, distorted effects, use high volumes.
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I found most emulators have sound that is accurate to the hardware, and the TIA involves two channels with a 9-bit polynomial counter each. The TIA involves 16 waveshape selections, with most of them duplicated and some silent. These range from pure squares, to buzzy tones, to white noise. But the problem is, every doc I found on the internet does not provide the exact timbral or feedback taps that give the sounds their accuracy. If any TIA emulator developer knows of these, let me know immediately!
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So, just like we (the Stella team) posted a thread about improving TIA graphics emulation, we now also want to start on TIA sound emulation. This work is documented at https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/issues/80. Last year, some code was donated to Stella from crispy (Chris Brenner) from his FPGA work. At the time the TIA emulation core wasn't properly structured to make use of it, but now it is. As a result, Christian Speckner (DirtyHairy) has ported the code to Stellerator. The initial results are very good; many test ROMs that didn't sound quite correct are now properly emulated. So now work begins on refining this code, and porting to Stella. What we need are test cases. That is, ROMs that illustrate where the current sound emulation is inaccurate/incorrect. We'd like you to test in Stellerator and in Stella 5, and (potentially) with new test builds of Stella as they become available. Please try to be as specific as possible when describing the issues (keeping in mind that it's hard to 'describe' sound). I'll start with some ROMs we already know about, in no particular order: phaser06: correct in Stellerator, in Stella 5 the sound is 'idealized' and sounds much nicer than it should tremolo: correct in Stellerator, left and right channels are properly 'mixed' and interfere with each other E.T.: sounds much better in Stellerator Ms. Pac-man: correct in Stellerator, there is now distortion from the analog mixing of left/right channels. In Stella 5 the sounds is 'better', but it is idealized and not like a real console. Remember, just like when we were improving the TIA graphics emulation, the more test ROMs and cases we get, the better the results. So get testing
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I have an Atari 2600(Vader), revision 16, with a dead TIA chip. Labeling of chip is TSU C010444-11D. Need a replacement.
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So, I know that the main CPU runs at 1.19 Mhz, and I also know that the TIA is 3 times as fast as the 6507, so it runs at 3.57 Mhz. How would I figure out how long a single color clock takes to execute? -
Looking for a working TIA chip, preferably solder-free. Trying to fix up 2600 Darth Vader (see http://atariage.com/forums/topic/268563-2600-graphical-issues-tiariot-issue/?p=3821875)
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hello i've been searching around on the web but havent found a definitive answer, i know that it's possible to get a 1 - 2 Mhz "clock" by toggling an arduino pin, but would it be possible to genrate the 3.579545 Mhz since you can actually display a composite output using the arduino tv out library? the project is pretty much a general sound and video synth, just to see how much more one could get out of a TIA chip by removing it from the limiting memory map/configuration of the 2600, aswell as having the more oomph power of the arduino at 16mhz, could one generate the clock and still have enough cpu(arduino) cycles to actually do useful stuff. P.s is it possible to use 2 74hc595 one for the addressing and the other for the data bus on the tia, or are the signal timings that precise?
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From the album: 2600
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