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Miner 2049er - Title Screen


MrFish

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Well, it happens that way with the original cart on my real PAL Atari. And to tell the truth, I have never seen it otherwise. When BB reaches the bottom right-hand side, the platforms disappear, the text changes colours (rainbow colours appear) and the music begins to play... did not know that the platforms do not disappear on NTSC machines...

 

I have also never seen a fix for this, the only fix I have is a fix of the level-6 bug of the Miner ROM.

 

P.S.: Most Rasta Converter pics have a length of 22-24kbytes, so when I saw your uploads with a length of 24k, I thought that this is only the G2F title which has this length, ahem...

Edited by CharlieChaplin
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Well, I do not have the tape or disk version of Miner 2049er, but it happens that way with the cart on my real PAL Atari. And to tell the truth, I have never seen it otherwise. When BB reaches the bottom right-hand side, the platforms disappear, the text changes colours (rainbow colours) and the music begins to play... did not know that the platforms do not disappear on NTSC machines...

 

OK, that's the answer I was expecting. According to Atarimania, only a cartridge version was commercially produced: Miner 2049er (unless they just don't have other versions entered in their database yet). So, I assume all other versions come from conversions. I also assume NTSC machines exhibit the intended behavior. Not really an issue, though, but odd.

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[Note: Press <RETURN> to get from the title screen into the game.]

 

 

I deleted my older attachment and therefore add this new one - it includes the two Miner 2049er versions (normal and cheat version) combined with Mr. Fish`s title. You have to find the <any key> to continue loading the game when the title is displayed. Also added the usual Basic-off routine and a screen-off routine right after the title.

 

The disk now contains six files:

 

- MtitNTSC.xex: the Miner title picture (NTSC)

- MtitPAL.xex: the Miner title picture (PAL)

- Minr1NTS.xex: Miner version 1, combined title+game (normal version, NTSC title)

- Minr1PAL.xex: Miner version 1, combined title+game (normal version, PAL title)

- Minr2NTS.xex: Miner version 2, combined title+game (cheat version, NTSC title)

- Minr2PAL.xex: Miner version 2, combined title+game (cheat version, PAL title)

 

You can boot with or without Basic, MyPicoDOS is on the disk to execute a file...

Minertit.zip

Edited by CharlieChaplin
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I'm sure someone else could chime in on the exact memory location, but I thought there was a simple peek that could be done to determine NTSC or PAL. You could read that memory location and set your colors accordingly . That might be better than 2 seperate releases if color values are the only difference.

 

Bob

Edited by bfollett
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I'm sure someone else could chime in on the exact memory location, but I thought there was a simple peek that could be done to determine NTSC or PAL. You could read that memory location and set your colors accordingly . That might be better than 2 seperate releases if color values are the only difference.

 

Yes, it is just a simple peek to determine PAL or NTSC. But it requires assembly language coding, which I haven't gotten into yet. It's alright, most people just want one or the other anyway.

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Here's the excerpt from "Mapping the Atari" that talks about determining PAL or NTSC, for anyone interested in knowing about it:

 

53268 D014 COLPM2
(Write) Color and luminance of player and missile 2 (706).

PAL
(Read) Used to determine if the Atari is PAL (European and Israeli
TV compatible when BITs 1 - 3 equal zero) or NTSC (North
American compatible when BITs 1 - 3 equal one; 14 decimal, $E).

European Ataris run 12% slower if tied to the VBLANK cycle (the
PAL VBLANK cycle is every 50th second rather than every 60th
second). They use only one CPU clock at three MHZ, so the 6502
runs at 2.217 MHZ - 25% faster than North American Ataris.
Also, their $E000 and $F000 ROMs are different, so there are
possible incompatibilities with North American Ataris in the
cassette handling routines. There is a third TV standard called
SECAM, used in France, the USSR, and parts of Africa. I am
unaware if there is any Atari support for SECAM standards.
PAL TV has more scan lines per frame, 312 compared to 262 ..
NTSC Ataris compensate by adding extra lines at the beginning
of the VBLANK routine. Display lists do not have to be altered,
and colors are the same because of a hardware modification.

Edited by MrFish
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Interesting statement in that last line, "colors are the same..."... well, they aren't!

 

They're all shifted one color lower in the color spectrum for PAL compared to NTSC.

[Example: NTSC $24 = $14 for PAL]

 

What "hardware modification" are they talking about?

Edited by MrFish
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Here are versions with height reduced from 199 -> 192 pixels with NTSC and PAL colors, which should both run on 800 systems (tested in Altirra).

 

[Note: Press <RETURN> to get from the title screen into the game.]

 

 

 

Works great in Atari 800 MacX as well - no real 800 set up at the time ;( Thank you!

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Love your title screen!

If you have any more updates, could you add code so that by pressing joystick button it also goes to the game like pressing RETURN does.

 

Thanks. The <RETURN> press (actually, any key will work) is determined by the MIC2BIN converter -- used with the version that was created to run on 800 machines -- with no option to change it. If you want a version that works with a joystick, use the original Graph2Font one posted here: Miner 2049er - Graph2Font Title (XL/XE only).

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Maybe some programmer can alter the MIC2BIN.BAS program (which converts a Gr. 15 picture into ML) in such a way, that both <any key> and the joystick firebutton are allowed to continue loading after the title picture ?!? (But maybe some other users do also want the Start key to continue loading ? So the program should accept <any key>, fire button, Start ?)

 

Alas, I am no programmer, so I have no clue what has to be changed in the original Atari Basic program (nor where the changes have to be made)...

 

Attached is the MIC2BIN program as an ATR (with DOS 2.5) and as a single .BAS file.

Mic2Bin.zip

Edited by CharlieChaplin
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with careful programming maybe those added lines are reclaimed on the ntsc machines the other thing I was aware of is that the ntsc standards changed over the years..... this affected the color situation and of course we all either adjusted our Atari or the tint control on our tv and sometimes both to get the desired results.... this was not the case for pal.... many programmers selected colors based on what they saw or stuck with what they always used.... that's one of the reasons for calibration of the television/crt etc before adjusting the Atari. To make matters even more crazy books documented the colors based on what people saw rather than what was supposed to be.. that is why it seems there are two different color keys depending on what reference material you used.... to continue further the colors for artifacting and programs like jingle disk etc.... were only adjustable on some programs... who wants a purple or red christmas tree..... I changed the capacitor that effect the artifact in most of my XL's.....

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... and one more version ...

This version works with PAL and NTSC. I also fixed the problem at PAL in the Title Screen...

 

http://www.mushca.com/f/atari/index.php?idx=M#139|MINEION_

Thank You also for the Joystick button start from the title screen!!!

and adding a timer for the title screen.

Edited by FULS
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