Atari Light Pen

[Kernal]

Hi need a few light pen menu programs in basic and

any list of what software is compatible with the light pen?

 

any nifty tricks i should know about..

gimme the scoop.

[Rybags]

Light pen = light gun, insofar as how you program for it.

 

Light pen is probably the most forgotten peripheral from the 1980s. Not exactly a health & safety favourite either I suppose, since you have to be right next to the TV to use it.

 

Neither will work with other than a CRT monitor, and it has to be a single-scan one at that, ie no fancy 100 Hz ones.

 

To use it, IIRC the trigger should be mapped to PTRIG(0). You have to read the PENH and PENV values from RAM shadows 564/565 dec.

 

PENH gives a colour-clock value in similar fashion to how PMGs are horizontally positioned. PENV gives a VCOUNT value, so only reports to 2 scanline accuracy.

 

Also, you need to calibrate the pen/gun. Prompt the user to point/shoot at a pixel in the centre of the screen.

 

I've got one, but never really bothered to use or program for it. IMO a mouse is a much better input device.

Edited April 26, 2010 by Rybags

[Syfo-Dyas]

So...

 

...in other words the Atari could have been the first Nintendo DS had people with creative minds given it the time?

[JohnBuell]

So...

 

...in other words the Atari could have been the first Nintendo DS had people with creative minds given it the time?

 

Are there hacks to get one A8 to run two monitors at the same time? Somewhere in the very very back of my mind I seem to remember this as having been done, but I have no idea what the technical details were....

[Fox-1 / mnx]

Just use an XEP80 to drive 2 monitors.

 

Technically you can connect a 2nd XEP80 to the other joystick port to drive a total of 3 screens but this requires some handler-modding.

 

 

Just a thought... using an 800 may give you a total of 5 screens! :-)

[atariksi]

Light pen = light gun, insofar as how you program for it.

 

Light pen is probably the most forgotten peripheral from the 1980s. Not exactly a health & safety favourite either I suppose, since you have to be right next to the TV to use it.

 

Neither will work with other than a CRT monitor, and it has to be a single-scan one at that, ie no fancy 100 Hz ones.

 

To use it, IIRC the trigger should be mapped to PTRIG(0). You have to read the PENH and PENV values from RAM shadows 564/565 dec.

 

PENH gives a colour-clock value in similar fashion to how PMGs are horizontally positioned. PENV gives a VCOUNT value, so only reports to 2 scanline accuracy.

 

Also, you need to calibrate the pen/gun. Prompt the user to point/shoot at a pixel in the centre of the screen.

 

I've got one, but never really bothered to use or program for it. IMO a mouse is a much better input device.

 

Supposedly there's a delay between when the trigger event happens and when the value in registers 54284/54285 get latched so they don't correspond to same values as PMGs. Also the pen button is pin 1 of the joystick port (like moving forward on the joystick). PTRIG(0) is pin 3 and PTRIG(1) is pin 4 used by Paddle(0) and Paddle(1) respectively.

[JohnBuell]

Just use an XEP80 to drive 2 monitors.

 

Technically you can connect a 2nd XEP80 to the other joystick port to drive a total of 3 screens but this requires some handler-modding.

 

 

Just a thought... using an 800 may give you a total of 5 screens! :-)

 

Hmm, my dad's old 800 is sitting in my storage unit.... Tempting! Course, I would need 3 more XEP80s.

 

While I'm on the subject of the 800 (and off topic I know), could someone who knows PM me with a way I can figure out how much RAM the 800 got expanded to? It's got bare boards for everything but the original 10K ROM, and I have no idea how much RAM that is any more....

[cas]

I have here a little game (ABBUC music challenge) used during one of the annual ABBUC meetings. It is using a user interface with a Light-Pen.

 

http://wiki.strotmann.de/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Pen%20Music%20Challenge

 

It is in Forth, not in BASIC.

 

I'm not sure if we still have the MP3 or Tape that we used with it. But it should be not a big problem to recreate.

 

-- Carsten

[+CharlieChaplin]

Hello,

 

attached you will find a few lightpen programs...

 

Since you can use (almost) all lightgun software with the lightpen (or vice versa) you can add 20-30 more programs, e.g. you can find some lightgun programs to download here: http://atari.panprase.cz/?action=lg-hry

 

Using a lightpen in some lightgun games (e.g. Barnyard Blaster, Crime Buster, Bug hunt, Operation Blood, Special Forces) will give you auto-fire which isn`t such a good thing when your ammo is limited or your shot-accuracy is counted, but at least these games can be tested with a lightpen...

 

You can find another list of lightpen and lightgun programs here:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq

it is subject 8.5 there... -Andreas Koch.

ligpen.zip

[Kernal]

thanks you guys

im working on a light pen menu program.. and all this helps immensely.