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Surprise! Donkey Kong with Pokey sound


tep392

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I'll post one in a day or two. I've been tweaking a few things and want to finish up before posting another update. Like I just added the falling sound when Mario jumps off a platform to his death.

 

I actually had a little fun tonight. I've been impatiently waiting for the XM to ship so I can test in hardware. I've only ever heard the game in emulation. Wanted to use a Ball Blazer cart, but the POKEY address space overlaps with the 48k rom. Thought about doing some address decoding to re-map POKEY but that was pretty messy and requird a lot of gates. Then it occured to me that I could use the r/~w line to enable POKEY only for writes and the rom only for reads. The POKEY and ROM share the same address space but are not enabled at the same time. Only required 2 NOR gates, 7 wires and 4 cut traces. Just finished building it up and testing. Seems to be working but the sound got messed up on the second level. I'm guessing it's a s/w bug, but I can't rule out some kind of timing issue with the board mods. Fun anyways to finally hear Pokey Kong coming out of my TV. :)

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I'll post one in a day or two. I've been tweaking a few things and want to finish up before posting another update. Like I just added the falling sound when Mario jumps off a platform to his death.

 

I actually had a little fun tonight. I've been impatiently waiting for the XM to ship so I can test in hardware. I've only ever heard the game in emulation. Wanted to use a Ball Blazer cart, but the POKEY address space overlaps with the 48k rom. Thought about doing some address decoding to re-map POKEY but that was pretty messy and requird a lot of gates. Then it occured to me that I could use the r/~w line to enable POKEY only for writes and the rom only for reads. The POKEY and ROM share the same address space but are not enabled at the same time. Only required 2 NOR gates, 7 wires and 4 cut traces. Just finished building it up and testing. Seems to be working but the sound got messed up on the second level. I'm guessing it's a s/w bug, but I can't rule out some kind of timing issue with the board mods. Fun anyways to finally hear Pokey Kong coming out of my TV. :)

 

Would LOVE to see a pic of that board :)

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Sorry but I just realized that I posted the wrong file. The .bin that was in the first post was an old file. I've put the current .a78 file up.

 

Thanks tep! The new walking sound is very good. You probably know this, but at least under ProSystem there is an issue with the keeping track of and displaying the number of (jump)men you have remaining. I was hoping the changes you discussed would make this a little more MESS friendly, but unfortuantely no dice. Oh well...I'm hoping ProSystem one day is updated with some decent video options. Right now, the raw output is very ugly on a modern LCD/LED.

 

Better yet, hoping the XM features are added to MESS. Love the hardware, bought (Pre-ordered) the XM. Have practically every 7800 cartridge available to the masses...Just do much/most of my gaming via emulation.

 

Regardless, this hack is very much appreciated. Looking forward to the XM release - And of course (If I haven't mentioned it already) I am very interested in purchasing a cart when they are made.

 

Thanks!

Edited by Trebor
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Sorry but I just realized that I posted the wrong file. The .bin that was in the first post was an old file. I've put the current .a78 file up.

 

Thanks tep! The new walking sound is very good. You probably know this, but at least under ProSystem there is an issue with the keeping track of and displaying the number of (jump)men you have remaining. I was hoping the changes you discussed would make this a little more MESS friendly, but unfortuantely no dice. Oh well...I'm hoping ProSystem one day is updated with some decent video options. Right now, the raw output is very ugly on a modern LCD/LED.

 

Better yet, hoping the XM features are added to MESS. Love the hardware, bought (Pre-ordered) the XM. Have practically every 7800 cartridge available to the masses...Just do much/most of my gaming via emulation.

 

Regardless, this hack is very much appreciated. Looking forward to the XM release - And of course (If I haven't mentioned it already) I am very interested in purchasing a cart when they are made.

 

Thanks!

 

Uh Oh. I forgot that the version I posted has 255 lives. I use it for debugging. The life counter looks goofy because it wasn't intended to display 255 lives.

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Would LOVE to see a pic of that board :)

 

It's not pretty, but here it is. I was a little impatient while working on it. :) I'm going to clean it up a bit when I get a chance. Can you spot the 4 cut traces?

 

post-24519-0-92934700-1343697900_thumb.jpg

post-24519-0-20423600-1343697930_thumb.jpg

 

Also, regarding the sound glitch, It always happens at the same point in the game so I'm sure it's s/w. It almost sounds like the AUDCTL register is getting corrupted. It's possible the code is writing to the ROM space as some sort of copy protection and changing the register on me. The way I have it setup, POKEY's space repeats every 16 bytes from 0x4000 - 0xFFFF, so it would be easily clobered if the code is trying to write anywhere in that area. I'm still without a debugger or logic analyzer, so it will take some work to track down.

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We need Chad to make a new bankswitch file for this to work properly on the CC2. None of the Pokey bankswitch files would work since DK is 48k. I get it to come up with the normal 48k bankswitch but of course there's no sound. Otherwise it just comes up with a blank screen.

 

So without a new bankswitching file, we cannot play this on the CC2? Would it be easy to make a new bankswitching file? I did a compare on 7800_4K.BNK and 7800_8K.BNK and there are a ton of bytes that are different :(

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've tested on a modified Ballblazer cart but need the XM to make sure there aren't any hidden bugs. In the mean time I'm playing around with it a bit. There is a little bit of memory left so I added the "how high can you get?" screen and updated a few sounds. Might make some more minor changes but it's pretty much complete.

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It sounds great. I like the "how high" screen you added. It seems to be out of order (25, 25-50, 25-50-75-100) but I suppose that's because of the missing pie factory level. Ah, the sad reminders... :lol: Anyway, great job!

 

I've been meaning to bring this up for a very long time, but the one thing that really bothers me is the title screen. "Pokey" Kong just drives me crazy. It's Donkey Kong -- made more faithful due to more accurate sounds... Donkey Kong the way it should have been in the first place if Atari weren't so frugal when this was initially released. A differing label indicating it's for the XM is plenty to distinguish it from the older version without the need to change the name. I'm not usually so anal about such things, but this one seems to hit my every nerve -- so much so that this one detail would keep me from buying a cart. I hope you will reconsider & I hope this is not a trend:

 

Pokari Warriors

Pig Dug

Pokey Mania Challenge

Pevious

Penophobe (maybe I would be a Pokeyphobe)

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Actually I'm going to be using the YM chip for Dig Dug so I guess I'll call it Yig Dug. :)

 

I kind of liked the change to the name but would be willing to consider going back to Donkey Kong if that is what people prefer. I'll have to start a poll to see what people think.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This "newly" released [NES] port still fails in many regards as hammer placement is still wrong on the first level. There is no 'How High Can You Get' screen, no alternating music after rescuing Pauline (Same tune everytime). Donkey Kong does grab Pauline and climb up the ladder, which is a plus, but makes no taunting laugh, which is another fail. Also, although it includes the pie/cement factory level, Donkey Kong does not move side-to-side, but stays in one spot. There are other issues as well (Such as you have to play in the Japanese board order), but I'll limit it to the aforementioned.

 

I just noticed this old post referencing the updated NES version. I've been working on an update of the 7800 version that will address some of these short comings. I'll be posting it in a few days.

- 'How High Can You Get' - YES

- alternating music after rescuing Pauline - YES

- Kong climbing ladder at the end of girder and elevator levels - YES

- Intro with Kong climbing ladder and hopping across top - YES

- Cement factory - NO - but I'm seriously considering it :) Will need a plentiful supply of bank switch carts to make it a reality.

 

TEP392

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