SS Posted December 25, 2018 Share Posted December 25, 2018 I am planning on picking one up after the New Year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted December 26, 2018 Author Share Posted December 26, 2018 Officially we are dropping support for VBXE because it seems no one is using a standard way to put these things into their computer, and many times using other upgrades. Opens up the chances there will be a conflict. The updated version boots up in standard Atari Graphics by default and someone will need to hold down option during boot up for the program to check for VBXE and load the routines if detected. The modified VBXE routine also does the game without using the color map, just VBXE sprite overlays. The spikes are represented with dotted lines. I would have like to make more games to use VBXE, and even proposed a Secretum Labyrinth Game to use it. However, since no one replied to that thread and from the prior problems, I decided not to move forward with any VBXE software at this time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 26, 2018 Share Posted December 26, 2018 How are you checking for VBXE? All VBXEs sit in the ANTIC socket and have the core decoded at $D6xx or $D7xx. Do you or any of the testers actually own a VBXE? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted December 26, 2018 Author Share Posted December 26, 2018 (edited) How are you checking for VBXE? All VBXEs sit in the ANTIC socket and have the core decoded at $D6xx or $D7xx. Do you or any of the testers actually own a VBXE? I have to go back into the source code, but I am checking in the D6xx and D7xx areas for certain values. If VBXE is not present and standard hardware is, it will read different. My VBXE programming loaded into RAM under the OS and the locations could be set to page D6 or D7. We are reluctant about supporting hardware upgrades because they are not mainstream among Atari 8-bit users. Plus only supporting a smaller market inside an already limited market. Edited December 26, 2018 by peteym5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 26, 2018 Share Posted December 26, 2018 Well, by the sound of it, you were keen enough to support VBXE until something happened to make you drop support for it, and you specifically blame this on no-one using a 'standard way' of installing it. The only deviation one usually sees with VBXE is the choice of RGB monitor jack, and this has precisely no impact on core detection. It sounds like the detection is insufficiently robust. This is the reason I ask if you actually purchased a VBXE on which to develop and test. I get the impression all VBXE testing is done in emulation, and the hardware or the manner of installation is blamed after the event when reports of issues come back. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted December 26, 2018 Share Posted December 26, 2018 Got mine this summer, great for a machine with stereo POKEY too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted December 26, 2018 Share Posted December 26, 2018 Well, I’m going to put in a request that you not abandon VBXE development. FWIW, I’ll certainly buy products with VBXE support, and I’m sure lots of others would as well if this is advertised as a game’s feature. Having a pinned ‘VBXE software’ thread would help all users identify programs instead of searching threads (or the FAQ). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted December 26, 2018 Author Share Posted December 26, 2018 (edited) Well, by the sound of it, you were keen enough to support VBXE until something happened to make you drop support for it, and you specifically blame this on no-one using a 'standard way' of installing it. The only deviation one usually sees with VBXE is the choice of RGB monitor jack, and this has precisely no impact on core detection. It sounds like the detection is insufficiently robust. This is the reason I ask if you actually purchased a VBXE on which to develop and test. I get the impression all VBXE testing is done in emulation, and the hardware or the manner of installation is blamed after the event when reports of issues come back. I had some trust worthy people re-flash their cartridge with the update and they reported back to me it works. If they cannot re-flash it, they can contact Video 61 to see if they can send it back for the cartridge to be re-flashed. If someone wants personal support on their VBXE Tempest Elite, send me a PM with full name, address, and proof of purchase and I can see what I can do. Edited December 26, 2018 by peteym5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted December 27, 2018 Share Posted December 27, 2018 (edited) I thought the serialized and personalized secret decoder ring encoded on all your products negated the need for 'proof of purchase receipts' etc etc... Edited December 27, 2018 by _The Doctor__ 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leech Posted December 27, 2018 Share Posted December 27, 2018 (edited) I would very much like more software to support the VBXE. Gonna have to order this. Edit: link seems dead again. Edited December 27, 2018 by leech 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted December 27, 2018 Author Share Posted December 27, 2018 (edited) I thought the serialized and personalized secret decoder ring encoded on all your products negated the need for 'proof of purchase receipts' etc etc... I will only support those that bought the first version of Tempest Elite. End of discussion. Edited December 27, 2018 by peteym5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wazer97 Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 How do I order? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted December 28, 2018 Author Share Posted December 28, 2018 http://www.atarisales.com/ Cartridge remains available. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mechanerd Posted November 8, 2019 Share Posted November 8, 2019 Non VBXE required ? Nice. Will this cart play on an Atari 800 or 400 upgraded with the Incognito board ? You are sorely tempting me to get a 1200XL or 130XE or XEGS again.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
777ismyname Posted November 8, 2019 Share Posted November 8, 2019 peteym5 is pretty much persona non grata in these parts. Tis a shame he didn’t want to sell digital downloads or floppies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted November 9, 2019 Share Posted November 9, 2019 (edited) 21 hours ago, 777ismyname said: peteym5 is pretty much persona non grata in these parts. Tis a shame he didn’t want to sell digital downloads or floppies. In the past I have been asking about this a lot. Some people here in the board were annoyed by those questions from my side. Although I completely understand people got pretty bored by that discussion and that it was pretty useless to ask the same question over and over again, the main reason for my question is still valid and proven a right one. In the end I finally gave up and decided to buy games from V61. I thought okay what the hell, let's do it. And then it turned out, just as I expected, that the carts I ordered were full of bugs. One game had even a part that was unplayable due to that. The other game had sound issues. Not my intention to do the discussion over again, but it is a good thing to be aware of the big downside of a ROM... hard to update or fix a bug. Those games are not tested (enough) on real hardware. They are entirely developed on emulators. The beta testers (if there are any) are not doing a right job since they do not try to find issues. The problem is the ignorance and arrogance that they seem to think their software is bugfree. Well that there are bugs is not a problem at all. I forgive them bugs at once since bugs happens to any development. But arg... why do they have to be on non-fixable carts? If their titles would be proven good, I still would prefer download but then I would accept to buy carts.... but not now. One of the carts turned out to be an atarimax flash cart. So they could have fixed the bug and send me a flasher. But no... then there was this attitude that everybody is a pirate and sending a flasher would mean that their title would be spread in public. Sigh... that attitude pisses me off. Those v61 guys know not much about current development in a8 world. They seem to think that carts is a solution against piracy, whilst the rest of the a8 scene already knows that dumping a cart is as easy as possible. So for preventing piracy a cart is a totally useless reason. And yes. People are right if they say that it is their business and that they have the right to do it that way. It is not me who can tell them what to do. I have to accept that indeed. I think it is a pity that this ever happened this way. People might not believe it, but I still wish Lance and Pete all the best with their a8 productions and activity. I think the ideas are good and I also believe Peteym5 did some very nice coding. I still offer my help to test their games on real hardware and catch important bugs for them (It is not my nature to tell about things I am good at, but for finding bugs and betatest I make an exception: I am really a serious effective bugfinder). It would be really awesome to improve their titels and add them to the existing library of a8 games. But as long as they stick to this paranoid 'everybody is a pirate' attitude and keep selling bugs on non fixable cart.... I do not think there will ever come a true cooperation between V61 and myself. Lance did by the way send me money back. That was nice. Not enough to return them though. I think he did the right thing there. If he wants the games back, he could pay postage for shipping to USA. I would be more pleased if he sent me bugfixes, then I would repay him all his money. I am not against these people. I believe they really want to do great things. I wished though that they would let me help them, so that it would be all be greater and cooler (and bugfree). So Lance... if you read this and want to work things out. Send me a message. I want to make things right and not to fight. Edited November 9, 2019 by Marius 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted November 9, 2019 Share Posted November 9, 2019 Just to be absolutely clear: Pete was banned because he maintained multiple sock-puppet forum accounts which he used to shill his products and inveigle potential customers. He was caught, offered a second chance, and then caught out again. While he exhibited many other disagreeable characteristics (paranoia, a complete lack of trust and good will towards the community, etc) and regardless of the rights and wrongs of not offering digital downloads, selling buggy, poorly tested software, shambolic labelling and packaging, etc, the reason he is excluded from the forum is squarely that he deliberately tried to run rings around admin and other forum members (and boasted to others about this) by maintaining a network of shill accounts. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted November 9, 2019 Share Posted November 9, 2019 The thing that turned me off of anything to do with anything was that he said that users are not important enough to listen to; or something to that effect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted November 9, 2019 Share Posted November 9, 2019 Yup, he was banned for that but already disliked for is stinking attitude towards customers. I like my friend Marius was one of the people who banged on about digital downloads PURELY because he was and IS missing a revenue stream because of an extremely un customer friendly way of trading, I mean, calling possible buyers "pirates" is one hell of a way to win new buyers! Having spoken to Lance its clear the no digital is here to stay, unlike Pete he was a joy to talk to but the way of business which is their right is staying carts only. Seems a shame as cart dumping is extremely easy as is checking for ROM status as well as tools like Omnimon (a simple look at C000 gives it away) but is also simple to stop any checks and as found and reported to Lance by me there was a Tempest Extreme up on a website I found while looking for new mapped rom images. So dumping their games obviously has been done and whilst I don't condone it its almost certainly been partly done because of Pete's outbursts. Pete's paranoia knows no bounds, I got a taste of it as well as others in this thread often for totally ridiculous reasons that were nothing to do with digital downloads or his software, the man just has an imbalance.... So Pete continues to be the worst possible sales promoter ever and a rather odd person, such a shame, I like Venture and I liked what I saw of Tempest, such a shame the 'team' he used to test (and oddly I was offered a chance to be part of it???) may well have been mostly imaginary as its clear some products should never have been released as they were with zero backup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted November 9, 2019 Share Posted November 9, 2019 2 minutes ago, Keatah said: The thing that turned me off of anything to do with anything was that he said that users are not important enough to listen to; or something to that effect. Yes and many more damning things.....How can he rationalise saying that stuff while hoping to make some money in the market? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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