F18A

[broettger]

Does anyone know if he is still making the F18A? I went to his website and it hasn't even had a blog post in a long time.

[+Lee Stewart]

Does anyone know if he is still making the F18A? I went to his website and it hasn't even had a blog post in a long time.

 

“He” (@matthew180) is regularly on this forum. If you go to his store (top, left menu) on his website and select the F18A, you will see where you can be added to the pre-order list. When he gets enough pre-orders, he will make a run of F18As. As of last October, he was 70 % there.

 

...lee

[broettger]

Thanks. I added my name to the list.

[matthew180]

Yes, I'm still working on getting more made. Sorry for the delay. Life, work, etc. blah blah blah, (insert normal excuses here). Anyone on the contact list will get an email when the next batch is available.

Edited March 23, 2018 by matthew180

[digress]

Yes and to help promote more I might attempt to make commando using f18a for the colecovision. I think it's possible.

 

You gave me a bit of machine code to scroll the tiles left and right after the the register scroll reaches 7 and resets. Could we expand this to do up & down as well?

 

were having a discussion on whether this is possible here:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/278067-commando-on-a-colecovision-debate/

 

Yes, I'm still working on getting more made. Sorry for the delay. Life, work, etc. blah blah blah, (insert normal excuses here). Anyone on the contact list will get an email when the next batch is available.

Edited April 25, 2018 by digress

[Asmusr]

Yes and to help promote more I might attempt to make commando using f18a for the colecovision. I think it's possible.

 

You gave me a bit of machine code to scroll the tiles left and right after the the register scroll reaches 7 and resets. Could we expand this to do up & down as well?

 

It should be possible to make a great version of Commando using the F18A.

 

Set the least significant bit of VR29, that will give you two vertical pages to scroll through. Then set the scrolll offset in VR28.

 

For creating the bridge it is possible to set some tiles to take priority over sprites, to allow the player to move under to bridge. That could also be used for moving behind boulders etc.

Edited April 25, 2018 by Asmusr

[+OLD CS1]

Are we talking Commando for the ColecoVision or the TI? I am definitely down for the latter.

[Asmusr]

Are we talking Commando for the ColecoVision or the TI? I am definitely down for the latter.

 

Did you see this? A great version of the music for our PSG.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/276060-what-is-this-music-i-am-working-on/?do=findComment&comment=3996953

I might try to get the music to play on the TI.

[+OLD CS1]

 

Did you see this? A great version of the music for our PSG.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/276060-what-is-this-music-i-am-working-on/?do=findComment&comment=3996953

I might try to get the music to play on the TI.

 

Holy cow, WTF! Should be easy enough to capture into a VGM. Reminds me I have not been to VGMRips in a while.

[matthew180]

Sure, vertical scrolling can be done a few ways. Rasmus<<1 already pointed out one way, i.e. you can use two name tables and enable using two vertical pages for scrolling. The second name table provides the data that is scrolled "in". If you don't use the second name table, then you need to mask the bottom row and update a new row of data every 8 pixels (similar to what is going on with the horizontal scrolling).

 

Once you have more details about how you want to set up the screen and doing the scrolling, I would be happy to provide you some GPU routines to help with managing the VRAM data for the scrolling.

[Davidb]

The F18A is a very impressive project. I'm glad it's had interest across several systems.

 

I was wondering, is it possible to achieve a 16 colour mode in any form at all?

Edited May 13, 2018 by Davidb

[Asmusr]

The F18A is a very impressive project. I'm glad it's had interest across several systems?

 

I was wondering, is it possible to achieve a 16 colour mode in any form at all?

 

There are many ways to get 16 colors and more on the screen. If you need to color each pixel independently then you can use a fat pixel bitmap of 128x192 pixels to cover the whole screen.

[Davidb]

 

There are many ways to get 16 colors and more on the screen. If you need to color each pixel independently then you can use a fat pixel bitmap of 128x192 pixels to cover the whole screen.

 

Thank youThat's good to know. Would 256x192 be possible at all?

[Asmusr]

 

Thank youThat's good to know. Would 256x192 be possible at all?

 

A bitmap of 256x192 in 16 colors would require 24K and the F18A only has 18K. You can have 256x192 in 4 colors, or you can use tiles/characters where each of the 256 8x8 tiles can have up to 8 colors from one of 8 palettes. You can also change the palette for each scanline while the screen is drawn. In combination with the old (9918A) bitmap mode this can give some amazing results with far more than 16 colors. Sprites can also be used to add more color.

[matthew180]

Unfortunately a true 256x192 pixel-addressable display with 16-colors per pixel requires more VRAM (24K) than is available (16K), as Asmusr mentioned.

 

To elaborate a little, the F18A provides a feature called the "bitmap layer" (or BML for short) that allows you to define a pixel-addressable rectangular area that supports 4-colors per pixel. This way you can have a 256x192 4-color display.

 

The BML also has a setting called the "fat-pixel" feature, which doubles the size of the pixels in the X-direction, but also gives you 16-colors per pixel. So using this feature you could have a 128x192 16-color display.

 

Also, the BML is in addition to the normal tiles and sprites (you could think of the BML as a big configurable sprite). Both the 256x192 4-color and 128x192 16-color BML would take up 12K of VRAM.

 

The BML can be any size you want, from 1x1 pixel to the full screen. You can also set the BML location anywhere you want on the screen.

 

Edit: corrected BML fat-pixel size information.

Edited May 14, 2018 by matthew180

[Davidb]

Thank you - that does make sense. It certainly makes very good use of the available memory however.

 

It's a shame that it's not possible to run two in conjuction

[Asmusr]

So using this feature you could have a 128x96 16-color display.

 

Only the pixel width is doubled, so it's 128x192, right?

[matthew180]

You are correct, it only changes the X-size. I have corrected my previous post. Thanks for catching that.

[ppj34]

Hello,

 

I have a tomy tutor and I read that your video card is compatible with this machine. The video rendering would be much better (than composite video output on the tomy).

Can I order a card if it's still available?

If so, I live in France and I would have to pay extra shipping costs.

Thanks

[+arcadeshopper]

 

Hello,

 

I have a tomy tutor and I read that your video card is compatible with this machine. The video rendering would be much better (than composite video output on the tomy).

Can I order a card if it's still available?

If so, I live in France and I would have to pay extra shipping costs.

Thanks

 

 

They are not currently available. If you read this thread.. you will see what the status is.

[matthew180]

Sadly I do not have any F18As right now, and the MK2 is held up due to a video output dilemma. I'm working on getting something worked out as quickly as I can.

[ppj34]

Ok. Thanks.

 

Notify me if you find a solution. I am always interested (and not in a hurry either) :-)

Edited November 7, 2018 by ppj34

[+Schmitzi]

Hi,

 

I have mounted 3 x F18A´s now (into EU/PAL-Consoles), but I cannot use the systems anymore,

or just in a very restricted way, as there is no sound on the Samsung 19" monitor.

I already had this problem at the last meeting in Germany.

 

Is anybody out there who can assemble & ship me 3 of this cables DIN/PAL-to-SCA-Cinch/Sound ?

Of course, I would pay for everything

(I am NOT able to solder, as all past tries destroyed any candidates/hardwares that I touched)

 

thanks

xXx

[globeron]

Hi,

 

I have mounted 3 x F18A´s now (into EU/PAL-Consoles), but I cannot use the systems anymore,

or just in a very restricted way, as there is no sound on the Samsung 19" monitor.

I already had this problem at the last meeting in Germany.

 

Is anybody out there who can assemble & ship me 3 of this cables DIN/PAL-to-SCA-Cinch/Sound ?

Of course, I would pay for everything

(I am NOT able to solder, as all past tries destroyed any candidates/hardwares that I touched)

 

thanks

xXx

I use a standard DIN 5-pin cable (USA), see pictures, but I remember having a DIN-6 pin (EU) as well with 4x cinch connectors and used that for sound. And use the converters to the smaller 3.5mm plug for Speakers or into a monitor. No soldering required.

 

Sent from my VIE-L29 using Tapatalk

[globeron]

Hi,

 

I have mounted 3 x F18A´s now (into EU/PAL-Consoles), but I cannot use the systems anymore,

or just in a very restricted way, as there is no sound on the Samsung 19" monitor.

I already had this problem at the last meeting in Germany.

 

Is anybody out there who can assemble & ship me 3 of this cables DIN/PAL-to-SCA-Cinch/Sound ?

Of course, I would pay for everything

(I am NOT able to solder, as all past tries destroyed any candidates/hardwares that I touched)

 

thanks

xXx

Maybe it is your monitor/TV, have you tried other speakers? You only need 1 wire into Audio (Pin 5 for EU or Pin 3 for US) and 1 wire into GND/Common (middle for EU, or pin 2 for US).

 

The only thing you need to be aware is how do you look to the Pins on the plug (inside out or outside in, otherwise they are "mirrored")

 

Sent from my VIE-L29 using Tapatalk