Is anyone working on original games for the 7800?

[Ransom]

I see a lot of ports coming our way, and that's great! But I was wondering if anyone had come up with an original game they're working on for the 7800.

[mimo]

I'm sure Groovy Bee has a few under wraps

[+Propane13]

I see a lot of ports coming our way, and that's great! But I was wondering if anyone had come up with an original game they're working on for the 7800.

 

Yep! It may be postponed until Arkanoid is done, but it's something that could easily turn into an original game:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/153178-some-of-the-demos-i-was-developing-6-years-ago/

 

-John

[8th lutz]

PacManPlus is working on Failsafe. Failsafe is an original game because it actually a sequel to Countermeasure and I think it is near completion. That is the closest original game that he will do for the Atari 7800 since his strength is in Arcade ports. PacManPlus is great at it and there shouldn't any complains about him doing arcade ports.

 

PacManPlus does add different things in his arcade ports that wasn't found in the arcade version.

 

I know Groovy Bee has plans for a Zelda style game and a game similar to Atic Atac. There might be more original games he has plans for the Atari 7800 that I am not aware of.

Edited December 14, 2009 by 8th lutz

[7800Lover]

A Zelda style game...for the Atari 7800? I'd buy that!

[tgnetz]

I see a lot of ports coming our way, and that's great! But I was wondering if anyone had come up with an original game they're working on for the 7800.

I have been looking for programmers for an original game I had tried to make years ago in BASIC, but I wasn't quite good at programming.

 

I would think that the game play would be different from what is out there...

 

It is essentially a bag boy collecting shopping carts from a grocery store parking lot. He must collect the carts before they hit cars, which have a gravitational pull surrounding them, and push them back into the store.

Edited December 25, 2009 by tgnetz

[Gorf]

Working the lat 3 days on my original title Warbirds. Got some bugs ironed out in the second

mission which is almost complete. Also got the scoring and level code working and displaying.

I hope to eventually release a skeleton lib to allow 32 sprites with Astrocade like vector

animation routines so other can make games without too much trouble. I hope to make it work

in such a way that you need not worry about DLL's or anything other than game logic and AI.

 

 

Once I get Warbirds done, I'll have those for release on cart and then I'll finish up UFO!

which is a twist on the O^2 classic of the same name, also hopefully on cart.

 

Then after this I'll help PacManPlus with Gorf if he needs it. Then I'll release the skeleton

lib with an example and tutorial on how to use the lib.

 

Hopefully, after all this I'll get to work on Zaxxon to fullfill a promise to Curt Vendel.

I'll send him the bin and let him decide what to do with it. hopefully I can find someone to

help me with the scrolling back drop since I never tried anything like this on the 7800.

Edited December 26, 2009 by Gorf

[Ransom]

Awesome, Gorf. I look forward to all of them!

[Gorf]

Awesome, Gorf. I look forward to all of them!

 

It's actually been fun coding my first processor again. I hope folks will like these.

All assembly. Except for the register counts the 6502 is similar in some ways to the

J-RISC's in the Jaguar. I hope once I release the skeleton app, that someone makes

good use of it.

[+chriswhit]

I'd love to see a new game that made use of the Xboard. I'd buy it in a heart beat

[Gorf]

I'd love to see a new game that made use of the Xboard. I'd buy it in a heart beat

 

 

Well I understand this but as someone who actually considered this, I realized it would be

a lot of work for a limited crowd. I much rather write games for the stock machine and add

any extra hardware on the cart. Everyone can own/play that way. The one regret of releasing

Gorf for the Jag was putting it on Cd but that did not matter as it turned out Midway was

still owner of the rights.

[Ransom]

I'd love to see a new game that made use of the Xboard. I'd buy it in a heart beat

 

 

Well I understand this but as someone who actually considered this, I realized it would be

a lot of work for a limited crowd. I much rather write games for the stock machine and add

any extra hardware on the cart. Everyone can own/play that way. The one regret of releasing

Gorf for the Jag was putting it on Cd but that did not matter as it turned out Midway was

still owner of the rights.

 

Yeah, that's the bummer of any add-ons for consoles or old computers. It was almost always a dead-end, because any publishing house is going to look at it and say, do I want to make a game for the whole set of people who bought the console, or just for the subset who bought the add-on? I'm sure we all own a lot of orphaned add-ons that were only ever used by a few games.

[Gorf]

I'd love to see a new game that made use of the Xboard. I'd buy it in a heart beat

 

 

Well I understand this but as someone who actually considered this, I realized it would be

a lot of work for a limited crowd. I much rather write games for the stock machine and add

any extra hardware on the cart. Everyone can own/play that way. The one regret of releasing

Gorf for the Jag was putting it on Cd but that did not matter as it turned out Midway was

still owner of the rights.

 

Yeah, that's the bummer of any add-ons for consoles or old computers. It was almost always a dead-end, because any publishing house is going to look at it and say, do I want to make a game for the whole set of people who bought the console, or just for the subset who bought the add-on? I'm sure we all own a lot of orphaned add-ons that were only ever used by a few games.

 

 

Im actually considering making an add on to the 7800. It would be via the cart port and

include a cart thru connection. It would have a pokey socket and a RAM bank as well as

some other useful goodies.This way you would not have to mode your console. I would also

make sure the unit add on is disabled by default until a cart that makes use of it enables

the add on. This way you can leave it plugged in, play all the origianl games and have

the developer enable it for new games that make use of it.

 

It would have a 64k bank of static RAM switchable to 8 seperate 8k blocks.

POkey socket and allow up to 1 meg of ROM. IT would also have some built

in libraries for DLLs and sound so mostly AI and game logic would be all

the developer needed to write to make a new game. It would also include

a power fast hardware based math system that would allow for very fast

multiplies, divides, sin/cos and other trig functions. It would be quite

useful and hoepfully greatly expand the power of the 7800 be simply plugging

the unit into the cart port. But this would not be any time soon or even

definitive at this point.

[The_Laird]

Sounds like a great project

 

Finally we would have some real 7800 "SUPER GAME CARTRIDGE"

[Ransom]

That sounds like a great project, Gorf. It would get rid of my main irritation with the 7800: the sound of any non-Pokey game. With your module, anyone could take advantage of the Pokey chip, as it should have been in the first place.

 

I'd buy one, particularly if it came with a game that used it.

 

And then hopefully developers would use it...

Edited December 27, 2009 by Ransom

[+chriswhit]

I wonder if I will loose any game compatability when I install my Xboard?

[jaybird3rd]

I wonder if I will loose any game compatability when I install my Xboard?

No, not in my experience. I think the XBoard has to be initialized in software before it can be used, so any game that wasn't designed for it doesn't know it's there. I have one in my 7800, and all my games work perfectly, whether they're POKEY games, RAM games, or bankswitched games.

[jaybird3rd]

That sounds like an interesting idea, Gorf. Curt Vendel was also working on an external plug-in upgrade for the 7800, something along the lines of the "computer module" that was originally planned. I too would love to see an easy upgrade path for the 7800 that would remedy two of its biggest limitations: lack of upgraded sound and limited onboard RAM.

 

One danger I can see in such a project, however, is overdesigning it and adding in so many features that it becomes too expensive (or never gets finished). One of the things I like about the XBoard is its simplicity: just an additional 128K of bankswitched RAM and a POKEY chip, all on a tiny board mounted inside the console, avoiding the need of plastic shells and pass-through cartridge connectors. However, the biggest problem with the XBoard is the difficulty of installation: I think it was designed with pre-socketed PAL consoles in mind, but socketing the 48-pin MARIA is too intimidating for owners of NTSC consoles wanting an easy upgrade. If possible, I'd love to see a new design that simply ran jumper wires to the relevant pins on the MARIA chip (how many does it really need, anyway?). This would also give you the option of mounting the board anywhere inside the 7800 that you want; at its current location, the XBoard tends to get in the way of video upgrades, although Longhorn kindly avoided this problem with the layout of his new upgrade kit.

 

But whatever form it takes, I think a console-based upgrade is a superior option to shipping games with POKEY and/or RAM in every cartridge. That may have been an adequate workaround when Atari was still making tons of these chips, but since they're not being made anymore, and since homebrew cartridges need to be as simple as possible to save money, a console-based upgrade can quickly become a must-have after only a few games ... if the development community provides the needed support. I for one plan to support the XBoard in my own development efforts (which, by the way, will mostly be original game ideas).

 

I think the best way for developers to approach this issue is to go ahead and add features that would require RAM/POKEY to their games, but make those features optional and compatible only with the XBoard. In other words, let the game work without them, but give the user the full experience only if the XBoard is installed: if you want to add POKEY music, go ahead, but make the game playable without music for users who don't have an XBoard. Having several such games might be enough to motivate more collectors to invest in an XBoard, making additional developer support (and, eventually, XBoard-only games) more feasible.

[8th lutz]

I agree with Gorf completing the games he already started and get Zaxxon done before doing his project.

 

I like Gorf's idea. The key has to be cost with. What Gorf is considering as a project is something the Atari 7800 needs for making homebrew arcade ports like Ghost N Goblins for an example. I think the amount homebrew arcade ports that you could do without using a pokey sound chip is going down.

 

It beats putting memory and a sound chip in every cartridge.

[+Mitch]

But whatever form it takes, I think a console-based upgrade is a superior option to shipping games with POKEY and/or RAM in every cartridge. That may have been an adequate workaround when Atari was still making tons of these chips, but since they're not being made anymore, and since homebrew cartridges need to be as simple as possible to save money, a console-based upgrade can quickly become a must-have after only a few games ... if the development community provides the needed support. I for one plan to support the XBoard in my own development efforts (which, by the way, will mostly be original game ideas).

 

I have to disagree, I know I've said this in the past but I would much rather see it on the cart board instead of an add-on. RAM is cheap and plentiful, Pokey chip's aren't that hard to find though they are starting to go up in price slightly. If Curt is able to get a run of these made then it won't be an issue at all. What we need is for someone to design new cart boards that are cheap and plentiful. Bruce Tomlin had a pretty nice design though I don't think the RAM/Pokey board made it past beta stage. I know CPUWiz has tinkered around with 7800 cart boards as well. With all the problems with the 7800 cart port the last thing you need is a new finicky add-on.

 

Mitch

[jaybird3rd]

I have to disagree, I know I've said this in the past but I would much rather see it on the cart board instead of an add-on. RAM is cheap and plentiful, Pokey chip's aren't that hard to find though they are starting to go up in price slightly. If Curt is able to get a run of these made then it won't be an issue at all. What we need is for someone to design new cart boards that are cheap and plentiful. Bruce Tomlin had a pretty nice design though I don't think the RAM/Pokey board made it past beta stage. I know CPUWiz has tinkered around with 7800 cart boards as well. With all the problems with the 7800 cart port the last thing you need is a new finicky add-on.

Well, I was referring to an internal console upgrade like the XBoard, not something mounted in the cartridge port (which, I agree, would likely be of questionable reliability).

 

But yes, the lack of new cartridge boards to support these extra options has been the main issue. Retrofitting Atari's old boards with new ROMs is fine, as long as there's a steady supply. I've got nearly a thousand of them myself, which I bought to ensure that I would have them for use with my own games. But, as plentiful as they are now, they won't last forever. Plus, some of those Atari boards really weren't as well-made as they should have been, as I'm sure you know. I suppose quality control slipped during the 7800's waning days, because the workmanship on the ones I've seen has been fairly poor. In contrast, CPUWIZ's cartridge boards were of excellent quality, particularly the basic 48K boards he sold through AtariService; they're one of the few homebrew boards I've seen that used a good solder mask and gold fingers, which impressed me.

 

I understand your points, but it still seems clear to me that, if there are five new games that require extra RAM and a POKEY chip, it would be more economical to buy the two chips and install them inside the console one time than it would be to buy both chips five times over (once for each cartridge). Consider also that, even if new RAM and POKEY chips (assuming new POKEYs are made) remain inexpensive and readily available, they are likely to be very small surface-mounted parts, and not everyone who's building cartridge boards today has the ability to work with those: doing it by hand would be difficult, and automating the assembly would be expensive for small quantities. This means that the per-unit labor costs for these boards would be higher than those for plain vanilla DIP EPROM boards that just about anyone can build, which would be all you would need if the POKEY and RAM were inside the console.

 

If the manufacturing problems could be solved, and if a steady supply of inexpensive boards becomes available, then maybe this would be a better and less "invasive" option than an internal upgrade. Just the same, I'd be interested to see an analysis of the two options (a simplified XBoard design like the one I described versus a fully populated POKEY/RAM cartridge board) so the hardware and labor costs can be compared directly, particularly for multiple titles.

[Gorf]

Well you all make some good points pro and con but the beauty of my add on is it essentially is

a bare board that you can add to when you can afford it. The only thing on board would be the

8 switchable blocks of 8k static RAM ( a 64k static chip with logic) and math hardware which

is extremely low cost....a simple, effective method that would essentially allow for a few

register writes to get the result you need.

 

The pokey would be a socket for a pokey and the ROM would be the cart you plug into determining

how much, up to a meg. So as a matter of fact, the initial cost would be low and then the user

can decide when to add the other componenets to the system.

 

The beauty of the pokey socket is that the game would still work just without the other sound

channels present. The sprite engine is software so that wont be a problem. It would also include

an extra software based timer, scoring and score display along with a 32 sprite static field

update DLL with a full character complimented screen. The RAM would allow a RAM buffer based

backdrop for animated stuff like the warp field in Spacewarp of Gorf or the flagship explosion.

 

I'll probably include circle, line and point subroutines along with sin/cos and other useful

stuff. Like I've stated, the goal is to allow a developer to concentrate on the game play

logic and AI and not need to worry about hardware set up other than a call to a routine or

two. I want to keep the cost near that of a CC2 and cheaper if possible.

 

But please keep in mind, this is an idea and not one that is a definite or even likely at this

time as I have other projects in the works. Im also looking to design a Wizard of Wor like game

and a Berzerk like game too.

Edited December 28, 2009 by Gorf

[Bruce Tomlin]

Well you all make some good points pro and con but the beauty of my add on is it essentially is

a bare board that you can add to when you can afford it. The only thing on board would be the

8 switchable blocks of 8k static RAM ( a 64k static chip with logic) and math hardware which

is extremely low cost....a simple, effective method that would essentially allow for a few

register writes to get the result you need.

FYI, static RAM normally only comes in odd powers of two: 2K, 8K, 32K, 128K.

[Gorf]

Well you all make some good points pro and con but the beauty of my add on is it essentially is

a bare board that you can add to when you can afford it. The only thing on board would be the

8 switchable blocks of 8k static RAM ( a 64k static chip with logic) and math hardware which

is extremely low cost....a simple, effective method that would essentially allow for a few

register writes to get the result you need.

FYI, static RAM normally only comes in odd powers of two: 2K, 8K, 32K, 128K.

 

FYI, actually no...... 64k is 2^6. You also skipped 1k, 4k, and 16k all of which are

standard legitimate chip sizes since the stone age.

 

sizes 1k, 2k, 4k, 8k, 16k, 32k, 64k, 128k, ...on and on.

2^bits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,

 

 

Here is one to check out.

http://www.winbond-usa.com/products/winbond_products/pdfs/Memory/w24512a.pdf

 

They are not uncommon....also I have some older 28 pin 64k x 8 CMOS statics in my pile.

Forget who makes them but they are there.

[Bruce Tomlin]

FYI, actually no...... 64k is 2^6. You also skipped 1k, 4k, and 16k all of which are

standard legitimate chip sizes since the stone age.

I said "normally". I never said other sizes didn't exist, but for whatever reason, the standard commonly-found sizes (in bytes) are odd powers of two. 6116 = 2k x 8, 6164 = 8k x 8, 62256 = 32k x 8.