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Tempest Elite coming soon to Atari 8-bit


peteym5

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Yeah but The!Cart and TheUltimate SD are very smart devices. They can mimic all kind of cart types including SIC, XEGS, Atarimax etc etc. The good part is that as a developer you can develop and test and write on and for the real hardware and the bankingscheme you prefer. I can recommend you getting one of those for quick tests on real equipment.

 

As written before the atari does not care. It only sees the selected rom as being just a single cart. In case of this game the cart would mimic XEGS 128

Edited by ProWizard
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The only files I plan to host will be PC Game Projects I am involved with. I will be doing my own web page for my PC Game projects in a few months. Might have a sub page for the Atari Games that provides information, screen shots, and maybe a few demos.

Edited by peteym5
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I do not have the feeling hat it does matter what I answer to this, but like I wrote in the past... I am not asking for an XEX or disk version, but simply for the ROM file that you burn in the eprom on the cart. What is the difference for you if I read out the cart myself and write that same file to disk?

 

You are obviously not aware of all the development in atari 8bit world the last decade. There are cartridges available that can carry multiple ROM files. There is The!Cart and there is The Ultimate SD Cart. You simply add the ROM file to these carts and you can play. The!Cart has 128 Megabyte of space so all the games are on that cart here. All kind of games that run on 64K Atari; your Tempest Elite would also play on 64K computer using The!Cart, since it does handle ROM and CAR files (yes that is the raw dump file of EPROMS).

 

Dumping a cart is easy:

A lot of people own this device: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/149720-usb-cartridge-programmer-and-maxflash-studio-software-now-available/

 

Reading out your cartridge (and almost any other cartridge) will be a piece of cake with that device.

 

After I obtained the ROM-file using that device, I will add the ROM file to my multiple-rom-cart called "The!Cart"

The Atari will not see the difference. The Atari will "think" that the original Tempest Elite cart is connected.

 

Like I wrote before, if you do not provide the cartridge rom file for sale... well I might purchase the cartridge itself anyway. No problem. Only a waste of shipping money and more.

 

My problem with this discussion is that the given reasons not to provide a download version always are not applicable to my situation or the reality.

And everytime when I explain why the answer does not fit, there is given a new reason.

 

I agree it is peteym5's game. He can decide what and how he wants to provide the game. The only thing I wanted to make clear with this post: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260178-tempest-elite-coming-soon-to-atari-8-bit/?p=3671092

 

Was to explain to peteym5 that even if he does not want to provide a file, it did not matter, since it is possible to dump (nearly) every cart without even opening the cart, so that it would be easier, safer, and yes finally even greener, to provide the file.

 

If he does not want me or anyone to have a rom-dump of his game, he should decide not to sell the cart in whatever form.

 

I know the stories where download vs physical storage medium about pollution. But hey... in all those stories only CD's or Blue ray are compared to huge data. The download of a 128Kilobyte rom file would take a few seconds. That is greener than creating and shipping a cartridge. But sure, it is not the only reason. All the other reasons have been given in the past, and yes it is not needed to repeat them over and over again.

 

People who think that I'm bashing, or compulsively begging for downloads just to annoy peteym5, or that I do not respect his decision to sell 'cart only' are wrong. I seriously appreciate his work, and like I wrote before in this topic I think it is wonderful that he does all this for the community. That more people ask for a downloadable version (and there are many people who would want this, you can verify that by reading recent and older topics) is for the simple reason that they love the game, but want to play it in their setup and not to spill money or whatever for something they do not need or not gonna use.

 

I offered my apologies to Peteym5 in PM for things that happened in the past between us, and I still stand behind those apologies.

 

The atari hobby is only fun when people keep writing new titles. Peteym5 does that, and I want to support that.

My contribution is not writing software, but buying all that stuff. And anyone here can see that I do that -A LOT!- Almost every new project is supported by me, and I find it very important to do that, to keep the atari alive.

 

I find it a pity though that the development of all these new things (like The!Cart, The ultimate SD cart etc) is not in sync with the development of all the great games of peteym5.

And since he gave several reasons for not providing a file in the past, I did like to show him that all his reasons are not applicable.

 

Also to show him, since he find some things very important (like piracy), that it providing cart-only is a false sense of security against piracy.

 

The last word: I do not tell him what to do, I try to give him motivated insight why the reasons he brings up are not answers to my questions. I also am not telling him that releasing a cart is a wrong thing to do. I simply hope I can buy the rom file of his game cartridge, while he also offers the game on cart.

 

Well I think this motivated post explains it all. For the last time I say sorry about all this. And what _The Doctor_ says... let's move on.

OP can release this on whatever medium he wants. If you don't like it, you don't have to buy... :thumbsdown:

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This will be a cartridge game. Video61 owns Atarisales and will be distributing Tempest Elite. Any concerns, you can contact him.

 

I am busy working a regular full time job and do game programming when I have my spare time. I let other people assist with work beyond programming like beta testing, manual, and label preparation.

I am working on finishing up some unfinished Atari 8-bit games so I can go back and finish upgrading some PC games. I had not much time to do research those hosting pay per download sites or had a reason a to do so..

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  • 4 weeks later...

I apologize for delays on the release of the Tempest Elite Cartridge. It took some time to get the different controller options re-programmed and need to make sure they work. Then there is an issue with Video61's SIO2SD device that made it difficult to transfer the files needed to make the cartridge. I had to physically send him the disk through the mail. In another thread, a few other people had been complaining about issues with the SIO2SD devices. I had some problems with mine and ended up being a power supply issue with my 130XE.

 

This game has a few things in it that never had been done before. Detecting the presence of VBXE and loading in video routines that either can be Atari Player/Missile Multiplexer or VBXE Blitter. Mono or Stereo Pokey, and now can be played with something other than the Joystick. There was not too many other hardware modifications out there I could think of that this game could take advantage of.

 

We will try our best to use EPROM cartridges and avoid using Flash Cartridges. For some reason, something happened with Flash Cartridges and the content of the cartridge got erased. The Flash Cartridge Version will not be released.

 

I know many people in Europe expressed concerns about shipping, fees, and taxes. I had been making inquiries and looking into ways to work around these issues. It may take some time. I am not sure how things will be effected if the UK exits the EU (Brexit).

Edited by peteym5
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Never had an AtariMax flash cartridged erase itself on me since he first started producing them. Sounds mighty strange that it happens to you...If it will break I usually am the one to make it happen.... that goes for software... firmware and hardware.... I'm just that lucky! Just sticking with mostly the 1 mb size though.. as the 8mbit one hates my realtime clocks

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Never had an AtariMax flash cartridged erase itself on me since he first started producing them. Sounds mighty strange that it happens to you...If it will break I usually am the one to make it happen.... that goes for software... firmware and hardware.... I'm just that lucky! Just sticking with mostly the 1 mb size though.. as the 8mbit one hates my realtime clocks

Known bug - there is a banking register conflict (I believe $D500) with the R-Time 8 and AtariMax 8Mb carts.

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Never had an AtariMax flash cartridged erase itself on me since he first started producing them. Sounds mighty strange that it happens to you...If it will break I usually am the one to make it happen.... that goes for software... firmware and hardware.... I'm just that lucky! Just sticking with mostly the 1 mb size though.. as the 8mbit one hates my realtime clocks

 

I did not happen to me personally, happened to some people who purchased the Flash Cartridge with Tempest Xtreme on it. I have some AtariMax cartridges myself. I even tried plugging them in slight crooked until they could not make full contact or cross contacted. Then plugged them back in. Content was still there. It might be because some people who received them have dirty contacts or something else wrong with their cartridge slot. They could had tried to dump the contents of the cartridge to attempt to pirate it, and messed up the flash cartridge. Some people even might be trying to claim their cartridge is not working and try to convince me to send them the flashing disk program. I don't know who these people are, so I certainly not going to send them the ROM file or flashing program.

 

When it came time to make Venture and Secretum Labyrinth, I said those will not be going to flash cartridge. I asked Video61 if he had anything else larger than 16K cartridge boards and shells. He told me he has these 64K Williams Cartridges that can store the game. With Inflate/Deflate, I can get game that is around 24K into a 16K ROM cartridge, or something around 100K into a 64K Williams.

Edited by peteym5
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Known bug - there is a banking register conflict (I believe $D500) with the R-Time 8 and AtariMax 8Mb carts.

Multiple things trying to use the D5xx page probably won't work. 128K AtariMax writes D500 to D50F to change bank, and 1024K writes D500 to D57F. If this R-TIME 8 writes those locations, it would also switch banks on the AtariMax cartridges.

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I haven't had anyone tell me that their Pac-man Arcade carts have failed and I've sold a bunch. I even write the high score to the cart and haven't scrambled one yet. There have been some high scores that have be corrupted, but I think that was probably someone hitting power/reset or something while the write was occuring. I write the high score to an area of memory away from the code. The thing is, you have to write a specific series of bytes to erase a cell and unless your program somehow does that, it's not going to happen by accident. Maybe it's possible that the flash memory is more prone to damage by things like static and that is the problem?

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I know many people in Europe expressed concerns about shipping, fees, and taxes. I had been making inquiries and looking into ways to work around these issues. It may take some time. I am not sure how things will be effected if the UK exits the EU (Brexit).

 

Leaving the EU is a long process and negotiations are not even underway. So it probably will still take about two years before UK leaves the EU.

After that I suppose EU members have to pay import tax (plus ridiculously high administrative fees) over goods from the UK again and visa versa.

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I haven't had anyone tell me that their Pac-man Arcade carts have failed and I've sold a bunch. I even write the high score to the cart and haven't scrambled one yet. There have been some high scores that have be corrupted, but I think that was probably someone hitting power/reset or something while the write was occuring. I write the high score to an area of memory away from the code. The thing is, you have to write a specific series of bytes to erase a cell and unless your program somehow does that, it's not going to happen by accident. Maybe it's possible that the flash memory is more prone to damage by things like static and that is the problem?

 

We did ask these people to ship these AtariMax cartridges back to us so we can examine them. They never did. Tempest Xtreme and Tempest Elite are set up as read only with the AtariMax Cartridges. One possible thing that might had happen was the code that opens for write was accidentally written to the $D5xx area with Tempest Xtreme. When I ported from XEGS to AtariMax, I just replaced the instructions with STA $D5bn (bank number) without a prior LDA (0-7F) first. While writing porting Tempest code over to make Tempest Elite, I added in LDA #$07 in front of each STA $D5bn instruction. I know if you have the high bit set, it opens that bank up for write, but Tempest does not write bank to the cartridge memory area. That is if that was the original problem. More recent copies of AtariMax Tempest Xtreme had this correction, I am waiting to see if anyone reports any more problems.

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To unlock the flash chip you have to write two specific values to 4 different memory locations in a specific order. It's not just setting a bit. It is highly unlikely you did this by not loading a known value into the accumulator before writing to the bank address.

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I just seen a report that the vote is going through England's Lower House of Parliament. That may affect the costs of shipping things in the future as the UK can write their own regulations. Shipping to the US may be affected on what President Trump and Congress does with taxing Imports and Tariffs.

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Yep: you don't usually enter AutoSelect by accident. Sounds like it got X-Rayed. :)

How resistant are the flash chips and EPROMs to Xrays in security settings such as airport scanners? If only the devices sent overseas to Europe failed, that might be a clue.

 

One thing that would help, but not completely prevent accidental erasure, would be to buy some heavy foil tape (like the kind used for AC duct work) and secure a rectangle of tape to the bottom and the top of the EEPROM. That might make it more resistant to Xray scanning. My understanding is with the low doses those scanners emit, it would take a very long time underneath the scanner to erase something.

 

I also wonder about those SD flash cards that claim to be "X-Ray proof." If I placed a MicroSD card inside an leaded canister next to an isotope sample, and let it sit for a week, a month, would the chip still read?

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/8165504

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How resistant are the flash chips and EPROMs to Xrays in security settings such as airport scanners? If only the devices sent overseas to Europe failed, that might be a clue.

 

One thing that would help, but not completely prevent accidental erasure, would be to buy some heavy foil tape (like the kind used for AC duct work) and secure a rectangle of tape to the bottom and the top of the EEPROM. That might make it more resistant to Xray scanning. My understanding is with the low doses those scanners emit, it would take a very long time underneath the scanner to erase something.

 

I also wonder about those SD flash cards that claim to be "X-Ray proof." If I placed a MicroSD card inside an leaded canister next to an isotope sample, and let it sit for a week, a month, would the chip still read?

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/8165504

Are you sure you want to do these things in this post 9/11 era? If Airport Security sees something wrap in foil, they certainly would suspect something.

 

AtariSales recently been able to obtain some extra EPROMS for the 128K cartridge, so the cartridges will be ROMS instead of flash chips. Much more durable.

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Are you sure you want to do these things in this post 9/11 era? If Airport Security sees something wrap in foil, they certainly would suspect something.

 

AtariSales recently been able to obtain some extra EPROMS for the 128K cartridge, so the cartridges will be ROMS instead of flash chips. Much more durable.

I meant store it next to something radioactive to see how radiation hardened it is, not transport radioactive materials through an airport. :dunce:

 

Scientific method. How long will the SD card survive? These test samples are calibrated to yield a specific radiation dosage:

http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_8&products_id=1005

Yes, apparently you can buy isotopes online and have them shipped to your home! :o

 

I personally think the trithium glow sticks (11 year half-life) would be pretty fun to have on a keychain: :grin:

http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_8&products_id=994

 

Put the SD card next to a sample for one day, one week, one month, etc until the card has errors. Run daily tests on the card to test the integrity of the data. Log changes or corruption of the data over time until the card fails. Test multiple specimens.

 

Measure the sample with a Geiger counter and you can approximate the overall dosage in REMs before miscompares, and the overall dosage before device failure. Next step would be to determine the amount of REMs exposed to checked baggage and carry-ons. They have special radiation sensors that employees who deal with radioactive materials have to wear on their persons. You can get a cumulative reading off the personnel sensors, measured in REMs, by running them through luggage and postal system multiple times.

 

Then some basic arithmetic will tell you approximately how many times a device can travel through security before reliability is compromised.

 

= = = = = = = = = =

 

I've also heard people say that film canisters stored in leaded foil tend to get nuked more frequently because the security agents crank up the power until the contents become visible. That means anything outside of the bag is in for a good nuking! Format 2x SD cards. Put some files on them. Store one of them in a lead baggie and the other exposed.

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I just seen a report that the vote is going through England's Lower House of Parliament. That may affect the costs of shipping things in the future as the UK can write their own regulations. Shipping to the US may be affected on what President Trump and Congress does with taxing Imports and Tariffs.

 

Petey, ignore a lot of what you read re the Brexxit issue, there's huge political posturing to try and bring a halt to it happening and a lot of scaremongering going on, all of the predicted chaos by the remain camp pretty much never happened or things like the Pound dipped briefly then returned to a comfortable level. There will be falls and gains but don't make plans on the reports just yet.

 

As for Mr Trump, who knows but I'm sure we will hear about it first on Twitter :)

Edited by Mclaneinc
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I have been watching the news reports on Brexxit, just if it ever happens, there would be new shipping costs Inside England. I am looking into the Shipping fees and VAT tax involving mailing products inside the EU. I am not sure having a centralized trustee over there we can ship to and re mail out from their location would be cost effective. I am also not aware of anyone currently inside the EU is capable of manufacturing new cartridges to our spects. Burning EPROMs over there currently can help either. They would have to work with myself and Video61 and pay us for every game they sell.

Edited by peteym5
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