Rhomaios Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 I'm surprised no one else has come out and tried to supplant the XM with their own version. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 I'm surprised no one else has come out and tried to supplant the XM with their own version. Tell me, what would be the "good thing" about it? I have HSC & POKEY passthrough on paper, but I am not going to do anything with it. Seems like those are the 2 things people really care about, and then there is the hardcore crowd who wants to hook up a keyboard and floppy drive and dream that some homebrew author will utilize the Yamaha chip, for one or two games. And then there are the freak-a-zoids, who play pocket pool to a picture of a quad POKEY, they would never be happy with any add-on, unless it has a flux-capacitor. I digress. Did I ever mention that I absolutely love the shell design for the XM? So perfect. I want one. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 Tell me, what would be the "good thing" about it? I have HSC & POKEY passthrough on paper, but I am not going to do anything with it. Seems like those are the 2 things people really care about, and then there is the hardcore crowd who wants to hook up a keyboard and floppy drive and dream that some homebrew author will utilize the Yamaha chip, for one or two games. And then there are the freak-a-zoids, who play pocket pool to a picture of a quad POKEY, they would never be happy with any add-on, unless it has a flux-capacitor. I digress. Did I ever mention that I absolutely love the shell design for the XM? So perfect. I want one. You forgot me who wants to play/program Bill Wilkinson's 7800 BASIC. Allan 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 Tell me, what would be the "good thing" about it? I have HSC & POKEY passthrough on paper, but I am not going to do anything with it. Seems like those are the 2 things people really care about, and then there is the hardcore crowd who wants to hook up a keyboard and floppy drive and dream that some homebrew author will utilize the Yamaha chip, for one or two games. And then there are the freak-a-zoids, who play pocket pool to a picture of a quad POKEY, they would never be happy with any add-on, unless it has a flux-capacitor. I digress. Did I ever mention that I absolutely love the shell design for the XM? So perfect. I want one. I wish you and Curt could have collaborated on the XM. It would have been done years ago. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 I bet this will all be a moot point really soon, Fred doesn't screw around and I would not be surprised if aside from the HOKEY, there will also be additional RAM to use, along side HSC support. However, that is still not good for people who like to collect carts, as opposed to just ROM images, which is why it was cool to do the VersaBoard. Hell, each individual homebrew could save their own high-score with that board. I proved it with my experimental PIC BIOS demos, writing a few bytes for scores is a joke, sure it may not be blazing fast, but it does not need a battery. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 I told "opcode" to make his own 7800 XM and I'll pay for it again. At least his ColecoVision Expansion Module shipped, the first run anyway. Member opcode was also an early 7800 XM developer, but disappeared. CPUWIZ, you should design and make them for AtariAge, and actually make money on them, or practically give them away (like razors) and get a percent of every cart (razor blades) made for them. We win with cheaper carts. You and AA win with profit. Look what I just wrote. Man, I must be going crazy... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 If you want someone who can whip this thing up in a weekend, ask kevtris, because he can. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhomaios Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 I just want a way to play Donkey Kong XM! Scores would be nice, but unnecessary. That's what pen and paper is for! I guess I have the sounds in my head... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 I will pay cpuwiz 200-250 for an Xm get the shells at least we all paid for from Curt and will pay extra for you to have that whore finished.At least it would be done.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 (edited) Tell me, what would be the "good thing" about it? I have HSC & POKEY passthrough on paper, but I am not going to do anything with it. Seems like those are the 2 things people really care about, and then there is the hardcore crowd who wants to hook up a keyboard and floppy drive and dream that some homebrew author will utilize the Yamaha chip, for one or two games. And then there are the freak-a-zoids, who play pocket pool to a picture of a quad POKEY, they would never be happy with any add-on, unless it has a flux-capacitor. I digress. Did I ever mention that I absolutely love the shell design for the XM? So perfect. I want one. Wow, I felt the love there from that Quad POKEY comment. Shame on me for wanting to have arcade perfect audio in 7800 titles. It's also been done with one of the FPGA projects over on the A8 side. Trying to locate the YouTube vids, but I've seen one that did Dual POKEY and SID at the same time. The YM2151 is the reason why the project has been held up for the past few months from my understanding. Enabling support for it would allow the 7800 version of Paperboy - if it's recovered - to have a lot of the arcade games sounds to it. I'm sure Klax would also benefit from that. Same with POKEY since Atari Games arcade titles tended to use various numbers of POKEYs along with the YM2151 and also a TI speech synthesis chip. I think they tended to also have a 6502 call the audio shots and divvy up the work. The keyboard would automatically have support from the original 7800 Basic as well as from the AtariLab 7800 edition. Both Curt and Dan Kramer have EPROMs of that [AtariLab] in their possession. There may be other ROMs that they might have as well. Edited January 2, 2015 by Lynxpro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 I told "opcode" to make his own 7800 XM and I'll pay for it again. At least his ColecoVision Expansion Module shipped, the first run anyway. Member opcode was also an early 7800 XM developer, but disappeared. CPUWIZ, you should design and make them for AtariAge, and actually make money on them, or practically give them away (like razors) and get a percent of every cart (razor blades) made for them. We win with cheaper carts. You and AA win with profit. Look what I just wrote. Man, I must be going crazy... Speaking of the Colecovision expansion, isn't it strange Telegames never did that back in the day with their Colecovision compatible consoles? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toptenmaterial Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Hey where can I buy one of these? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 I'm beginning to think that what killed this project was trying to add in too much stuff. Just a simple pass-through High Score Cart with a Hokey-Pokey chip in it would suffice. No need to stuff a billion other technology into it that will never get used. Yamaha and extra RAM are unnecessary IMO. No game is gonna utilize the extra memory because to do so would make it incompatible with stock hardware, and no homebrew developer is going to write a game that won't work with a stock system. I would almost rather see homebrew games use the AtariVox instead for score keeping, because it's out now, works with both systems, and has more capacity. Best of both worlds, make your game work with both HSC and AtariVox. Default to TIA sound effects if the Hokey-Pokey isn't present. @CPUWIZ, you say you've got blueprints for a board that uses the HSC + Hokey-Pokey? Just design a PCB with a cart slot on the other side, and put it in a standard 7800 shell with the end label area dremelled out. Form factor would basically be a Game Genie style lock-on. No need for the expansion module to be almost as big as the console itself... Some fresh competition would be healthy considering the XM module has stagnated for so long. Something is better than nothing at all... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg2600 Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 I'm beginning to think that what killed this project was trying to add in too much stuff. Just a simple pass-through High Score Cart with a Hokey-Pokey chip in it would suffice. No need to stuff a billion other technology into it that will never get used. Yamaha and extra RAM are unnecessary IMO. No game is gonna utilize the extra memory because to do so would make it incompatible with stock hardware, and no homebrew developer is going to write a game that won't work with a stock system. I would almost rather see homebrew games use the AtariVox instead for score keeping, because it's out now, works with both systems, and has more capacity. Best of both worlds, make your game work with both HSC and AtariVox. Default to TIA sound effects if the Hokey-Pokey isn't present. The 7800XM from my recollection seemed to come on the heels of the fervor over the Colecovision SGM. OpCode was initially involved. Confidence was high given Curt's success with the Atari FB2. Many people celebrated it. I was highly skeptical because as you say it sounded like a system on top of a system. Similar to the Coleco Adam, Sega 32X, or Intellivision ECS, all commercial failures I might add. Sure it's nice to "have" this extra horsepower, but then, at least in my opinion, it's no longer the old system. The Yamaha being a great example, that was not an Atari concept. At some point this concept ceased to be a "7800," and became something else. A something else that I didn't really understand the place of? Same with SGM/CV. The software is never going to make such a high cost investment by the gamer valid. $150 or whatever investment just to play homebrews or arcade conversion upgrades? While the product (shell casing, label/bezel, manual, box) looked fantastic, what were you actually getting? The decision not to include an SD card interface was a deal breaker for me, and made no sense and I said so at the time. The Concerto (SD card, hokey/pokey) is really all I feel I need. If Fred comes up with a way to save scores, great, but not a necessity for me. I stink too bad at most of the games! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariBrian Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Well if the only thing and it is a very important one is that we won't have to keep finding pokey chips for each cart . 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Well if the only thing and it is a very important one is that we won't have to keep finding pokey chips for each cart . Time travel is supposed to be discovered within the next 10 years. Maybe somebody can go back and punch somebody at Atari for not including the chip in the first place. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Wasn't the ColecoVision module planned, like the 7800 High Score Cart? I thought it was something they were designing to extend the life of the ColecoVision before the crash. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Wasn't the ColecoVision module planned, like the 7800 High Score Cart? I thought it was something they were designing to extend the life of the ColecoVision before the crash. It was superseded by the Adam, but yes, it was something that was planned, among other things along the way, for the ColecoVision. That's what inspired the SGM. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+frankodragon Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Time travel is supposed to be discovered within the next 10 years. Maybe somebody can go back and punch somebody at Atari for not including the chip in the first place. Does anyone have 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to spare? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+5-11under Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Time travel is supposed to be discovered within the next 10 years. Maybe somebody can go back and punch somebody at Atari for not including the chip in the first place. Does it really matter when time travel is discovered? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Does anyone have 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to spare? I'll trade you my gigawatt power if you have a flux capacitor to spare! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austin Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Hey where can I buy one of these? You can pay me and take my pre-order spot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariBuff Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 You can pay me and take my pre-order spot. I sent you a PM the last time you offered your spot and didn't hear anything from you at all. Good luck, toptenmaterial Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austin Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 I sent you a PM the last time you offered your spot and didn't hear anything from you at all. Good luck, toptenmaterial I tried responding but you for some reason put me on ignore. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
108 Stars Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 I'm beginning to think that what killed this project was trying to add in too much stuff. Just a simple pass-through High Score Cart with a Hokey-Pokey chip in it would suffice. No need to stuff a billion other technology into it that will never get used. Yamaha and extra RAM are unnecessary IMO. No game is gonna utilize the extra memory because to do so would make it incompatible with stock hardware, and no homebrew developer is going to write a game that won't work with a stock system. Actually, when you look at GroovyBee's WIP list you will see a bunch of games for XM only. Tested them at e-Jagfest 2013, some impressive stuff. And he said that any future 7800 game he might do would be XM mandatory. Of course that is all up in the air now, since he doesn't seem so involved with the XM anymore and has a couple of Inty games to release first. I imagine he did not want the XM to be so late, but with all the work already put into the games I doubt he will abandon them. When Curt gets the thing out, there's definitely some top notch software exclusive for it on the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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