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Space Harrier Released


Sheddy

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The best way of understanding this is dive into the explanation of cartridge technology.

 

For the atari it doesn't matter how big a cart is. It all depends on the banks witch registers. The!Cart for instance is 128MB and a 16bit register is used to reach each 8kb page of the cart. In fact: with a 16 bit integer as bank switch register you could reach 65536 pages of 8kb each which would be 512megabytes.

 

The only thing that changes data is the window from a000-BFFf (on atarimax and compatible carts) so 'all' other memory is free to use.

 

If the cart is switched off and on even the 8k window I mentioned can be used apart from the cart.

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And to be more clear: no it can only work on AtariMax 8Mbit cart, OR on THE!CART.

 

The way Space Harrier is coded at this moment it can not run from MyIDE, since that is max. 512K while Space Harrier occupies arround #$80 pages of $2000 bytes each (which is 128 pages of 8192 bytes) which is 1MB of data.

 

The only thing interesting is: would it be possible to split this game into two parts. If the game consists of 18 levels, would it be possible to split it in two files of 512KB ... Space Harrier level 1-9 and Space Harrier level 10-18.

 

But anyway the game has to be rather heavily modded.

 

I have the game on one of my THE!CART (128MB) carts. That is a fabulous thing!

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  • 5 weeks later...

Sorry for not reading all the 20 pages here but.....is/was there a dedicated cartridge released and if so where do I get it ?

 

No way to put this on an ATR file and use it through SIO2PC ?

 

Or do I really need to get a Maxflash cart to run it ?

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Sorry for not reading all the 20 pages here but.....is/was there a dedicated cartridge released and if so where do I get it ?

 

No way to put this on an ATR file and use it through SIO2PC ?

 

Or do I really need to get a Maxflash cart to run it ?

Or find someone with a spare 8MBit cart to program it for you.

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Or any flash cart that'll work with rom images. I have a SIC cart (Super Inexpensive Cart) that I flash with The ROM Generator, which I believe works, though I haven't tried it specifically with Space Harrier yet.

 

That will not work. The bankswitching technique (which is a hardware thing, controlled by the software (The game Space Harrier in this case)) is completely different in SIC!

Where SIC! works with a register for the page-select, the AtariMax 8Mbit cart (and 1Mbit cart too) uses a address range ($d500-$d57f; and $d500-$d50f for 1Mbit carts).

 

David_P is right: when you want to play this game, get yourself an AtariMax 8Mbit cart. When you want to play other games, simply reflash the cart. It's worth every penny.

AtariMax makes terrific quality products, and he is the only one offering this cart in a perfect cart-shell, fitting in all atari 8bit computers.

 

Only downside is that you can not play this game from your hard disk setup.

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  • 4 months later...

If your very industrious you might still find the disk versions from before the october-december 2003 time frame where it started to be converted to cartridge...which was the point of the major re write to make it work on the cartridge... I am not sure if any of the original work is still around... you could try Chris.... but I don't think he wants to be slammed with tons of questions and e-mail sh.asm used to contain programming and comments of what was being done...

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I just purchased this in at the Portland show, and am very impressed. However, I was wondering if there was a way to skip levels, or start a t a higher level? Or any invincibility codes, since I can't get past the fourth level, and would like to see or play the rest of the game

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  • 6 months later...

Bump.

 

Has anyone considered modifying the code so a CX-22 or CX-80 Trak-Ball controller could be used with the game? I know, the arcade version obviously didn't have a Trak-Ball but I think the game would kick ten tons/tonnes [Metric or Imperial] of azz with a Trak-Ball. Of course, the game may be too CPU-intense to allow for Trak-Ball support; on another thread elsewhere here some people mentioned the XEGS version of Crystal Castles would be impossible to add Trak-Ball support for that very reason.

 

On a similar note, porting this over to the Atari 5200 would be epic. Since I'm not aware of any RAM upgrades for the 5200 and nobody so far [to my knowledge] has any cartridge PCB with added RAM working on a 5200, I guess it would have to be coded to use the AtariMax 5200 SD Cartridge hardware. Space Harrier would be great with the 5200's analog joystick [assuming it's a working one and/or has the Best Electronics gold refurb kit installed] and it goes without saying that the game would be beyond legendary if it were compatible with the ultimate Trak-Ball, the 5200's CX-53. I know the 5200 takes a lot of heat here from a lot of A8 true believers but you gotta admit it would be a lot of fun to have it run on the 5200 while waving a middle finger salute to the Colecovision, Commodore, and NES fanbois who like to trash talk about that particular Atari console.

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I never saw a 5200 in my front and probably there wasn't anyone here with one.

Back then I only got the pirated games tapes versions from friends and stores saying on screen those Glenn the 5200 man conversion message but I had to wait untill that Atarian U.S.A. mag hits the shops to see its photo that for me seemed a middle/cross between the 2600 and the 7800. But at this time I didn't know what those were and from photos just that the carts were bigger/other sizes and the games screens got to me thinking that 8bit computer line was just GTIA with more resolution than the 2600 and the 7800 the same with some more colours and multicoloured sprites. I had to wait untill end of the 90s and beginning of the 21st century and the internet to know what they are/were and the Atari story (stories it seems...).

And that is why I still think that had Atari always had the compability between all the life of the 8bit line things would be much different.

Of course that maybe there wasn't the 5200 but also not the XEs and the 7800 could get it better with the NES and maybe this way a cart could turn the 8bit computers updated and they released that only seen on old photos 7800 keyboard and no necessary duplication of resources to market also the XE Games System, its games, joystick and light gun.

Had this get in good and were not Tramiels and we had an Atari Amiga not the ST and there wasn't the shit cision and lots of great games would had been converted from the arcades division Atari Games and a sucess computer and consoles range line would 'invite' others to publish games...

Atari don't need to, and in some way, better they didn't agreeded to sell the NES on the States because in my point of view on that time they were a machines manufacter and had a name on the market, not a one that have the rights to sell others machines.

But for me now at the 21st century I like and always want to see all kind of new things to all Atari related even the STs ;):-D!...

Edited by José Pereira
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I just purchased this in at the Portland show, and am very impressed. However, I was wondering if there was a way to skip levels, or start a t a higher level? Or any invincibility codes, since I can't get past the fourth level, and would like to see or play the rest of the game

 

You could set the difficulty to easy, hold down fire constantly and constantly keep on moving. That is how I get through it.

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  • 6 months later...

I just purchased this in at the Portland show, and am very impressed. However, I was wondering if there was a way to skip levels, or start a t a higher level? Or any invincibility codes, since I can't get past the fourth level, and would like to see or play the rest of the game

 

Take a look here:

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  • 11 months later...

Yes I know this is going to sound stupid, just need to check. Should this run on the XEGS? I grabbed a copy at PRGE this year and it won't run on my XEGS. Just get a blue screen with a cursor and the sound freaks out. Other games run fine. Did I get a bad cart?

My existing cart worked fine on my XL but took a lot of re-insertions on my XE to get it to run, with similar results / corrupt displays when it failed, but it worked in the end :)

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During development it worked on just about any XL/XE XEGS but I am not sure if it changed... it originally ran on floppy disk, but was highly re structured to work on cartridge... you may need to re-flash the game to different Atarimax cartridges to find one that works with the XEGS properly, as I have seen different runs and chips on them with varied success for use on the XEGS, somewhere here on AtariAge are utilities that make sure the XEGS selects things properly that might help as well... Is your XEGS modified in some way?

 

I can't remember the last time I heard someone say it will not work.... I haven't seen or heard from Chris in a long time...

Edited by _The Doctor__
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  • 3 months later...

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