Jump to content
IGNORED

Chess


Andrew Davie

Recommended Posts

The Graphics in this Chess game are awesome Andrew! :) Really nice feel.

 

Played a fast round - some feedback to help the engine, it let me advance on the Knight with a pawn, and then let me keep pushing the pawn to take a Rook:

Also it moves really fast - Video Chess takes a lot longer but protects against those moves. I'm enjoying this one as a player because I really like Chess and not looking closely at the engine design just the performance.

 

ChessGame2.JPG.edfa96999fd51d4bd158ae5993adca04.JPGChessGame20200312.JPG.c5d815fa6dbb86bbbe322d8995f3f344.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Mr SQL said:

The Graphics in this Chess game are awesome Andrew! :) Really nice feel.

 

Played a fast round - some feedback to help the engine, it let me advance on the Knight with a pawn, and then let me keep pushing the pawn to take a Rook:

Also it moves really fast - Video Chess takes a lot longer but protects against those moves. I'm enjoying this one as a player because I really like Chess and not looking closely at the engine design just the performance.

 

 

Thank you for your kind comments.

In fact, this is NOT playing chess against you. It is merely choosing a completely random move.  Just you wait until there's actual "AI" in there. Oh, and speech, because it's going to cuss a lot.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, Karl G said:

Maybe the difficulty switches can be used to select the level of profanity? ?

I'm a bit of a rebel with regard to political correctness and peoples' delicate sensibilities.

I might have a bit of fun with the speech. You can always just not connect the AtariVox.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Andrew Davie said:

I'm a bit of a rebel with regard to political correctness and peoples' delicate sensibilities.

I might have a bit of fun with the speech. You can always just not connect the AtariVox.

I will say that the market for profane chess games is probably under tapped.  :-D

  • Like 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Voxel said:

I like how the Channel F, shows the notation too.

 

It would be nice to have an option to step through a finished game to study the game played, or to have an ability to store the played game or a log of the moves.

I agree.

I may use the PlusCart capability for this. Upload move/game to a web server where you can see/view the games you (or others) have played.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, my AtariVox has arrived. Thanks @Albert.

I guess I'll have to find some speakers and figure out how to use it. I wonder if I can plug my headphones into it.

I'm needing to get it working on my MacBook, for development...  mmh...

 

Edited by Andrew Davie
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Andrew Davie said:

Well, my AtariVox has arrived. Thanks @Albert.

I guess I'll have to find some speakers and figure out how to use it. I wonder if I can plug my headphones into it.

I'm needing to get it working on my MacBook, for development...  mmh...

 

Awesome, glad to hear it arrived safely. Hope you have some fun with it!  Yes, you can plug headphones into it, however, it is mono output, so you may only hear audio on one side.

 

 ..Al

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The good news is the AtariVox works, and it swears like a trooper.

The bad news is, that it doesn't work when connected via my USB-serial connectors on MacOS

I checked to see the serial port is there. I also tried connecting via 19200 baud, and I did get some bogus chars back in terminal.

But the AtariVox itself doesn't boot up and say whatever it's supposed to say at the start.

So, that's going to make development a bit of a pain.

 

I wonder, has anyone else used AtariVox on MacOS - and if so, what were you using?

Ta

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking through my boxes of electronics, I found a few of these items...

 

1936859557_ScreenShot2020-03-21at10_30_29pm.thumb.png.e3c634066a375963643c4ac257900298.png

 

Now those (YP-05) are supposed to be USB-Serial converters.

I'm hoping I might be in luck with this. Just need to hook up TX, RX, GND, V+. ...?
.. and switch the jumper to 5V ...?

 

What can possibly go wrong?

 

Edited by Andrew Davie
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Aha!  Found this...


http://7800.8bitdev.org/index.php/AtariVox_for_the_7800#AtariVox_Pinout

So, there are in fact two communication protocols going on.  EEPROM using I2C

and SpeakJet, using ... well, a two-pin comms system...

"The SpeakJet receives speech data via asynchronous serial interface, pre-configured to operate at 19,200 baud (8n1, inverted). The DATA line is connected to pin 1 of the 2nd joystick socket (bit 0 of SWCHA) and the READY line is connected to pin 2 (bit 1 of SWCHA).

The READY line may be read to detect whether the SpeakJet is able receive data. If this reads 0 then the chip is not ready (i.e. the input buffer is full) and data should not be sent at this time.

The data is sent in 8n1 format (1 start bit, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit) but is inverted compared to normal RS-232. The DATA line should be held high whilst idle (between data transmissions) either by setting the pin to input mode, or to output 1 (same thing).

To transmit a byte, each bit (1 start bit, 8 data bits and 1 stop bit) are output on the DATA line at intervals of 1/19,200th of a second. For the Atari 2600, an interval of 62 CPU clock cycles is a close enough match. First is the start bit, which is always 0. Then the 8 data bits, least significant bit first. And lastly the stop bit which is always 1 (returning the DATA line to idle). The stop bit must be present on the DATA line for at least 62 cycles."

I'm tending towards, now, thinking I only need to connect pin 1 and 2 on the DB9 (+GND +VCC of course)

To what....  well, still thinking about that. Still confused.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

The good news is the AtariVox works, and it swears like a trooper.

The bad news is, that it doesn't work when connected via my USB-serial connectors on MacOS

I checked to see the serial port is there. I also tried connecting via 19200 baud, and I did get some bogus chars back in terminal.

But the AtariVox itself doesn't boot up and say whatever it's supposed to say at the start.

So, that's going to make development a bit of a pain.

 

I wonder, has anyone else used AtariVox on MacOS - and if so, what were you using?

 

I got a USB interface from Richard H.: https://atariage.com/forums/blogs/entry/5503-homebreviews-part-26/

 

He'd be the one to ask, but my understanding is that most USB to serial converters will work if they use an FTDI chip. You have to download and install the latest driver for it.

 

One issue I've found with it (I blame Apple) is that if I unplug the USB adaptor then plug it back in, the computer will no longer recognize it unless I restart my Mac. Unplugging it apparently unloads the driver, and it doesn't automatically re-load it when the device is reconnected.

 

Oddly enough, the System Report will see it:

 

usb-devices.thumb.jpg.453f270c3e9770d4d130cd08f31eda85.jpg

 

But terminal will not (using ls /dev/tty.*). It only sees Bluetooth:

 

terminal-no-atarivox.thumb.jpg.e150e45e7592fba2ae91993ccf12e83c.jpg

 

After a restart though, it shows up:

 

terminal-with-atarivox.thumb.jpg.bf4b0300cc29648d07fe5edbfab4156d.jpg

 

Then Stella can be configured to use it:

 

stella-config-atarivox.thumb.jpg.0bcc29970c76c89a64ba256a194d885a.jpg

 

You have to assign it to the P1 controller for the ROM you're running:

 

stella-config-rom.thumb.jpg.39690104595997ab85fc3f99f777392e.jpg

 

Reload the ROM, and it should work.

 

There's one glitch with it currently though. On really long phrases, the AtariVox won't play the entire phrase from Stella (or Speakalator - more on that in a minute). It will garble the last words of it:

AtariVox-Stella-Gorf.mp3

 

However, the exact same binary works perfectly fine on real hardware:

AtariVox-2600-Gorf.mp3

 

John Champeau is submitting a bug report about it.

 

Onto Speakalator.

 

Phrase-a-lator is the official Windows AtariVox phrase and sound building tool. Unfortunately, its was last update 12 years ago, and only runs on Windows.

 

RevEng made a Unix version called Speakalator. Recently he ported it over to the Mac so I could work on the voices for Gorf.

 

He hasn't publicly posted it yet, and it could still use some polishing. But I was able to plow through all of the phrases for Gorf in a weekend with it, so it's certainly usable.

 

I just set up an AtariVox Club here on AtariAge, so we can have a dumping ground single repository for all things AtariVox. Nothing's there yet, but I'll work on adding some things this weekend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks @Nathan Strum for the reply and all the info.

My current USB-serial dongles do show up on MacOS under /dev/tty.* and /dev/cp.* when I plug them in and out.

What's not happening is the AtariVox powering up when connected to them.

I'm thinking of bridging the 5V line from the USB input to the DB9 VCC pin, to see if it's just a power issue.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also have the original USB interface. It is extremely simple. (I have the schematic somewhere if you need it.) 

 

One thing that held me up a long time was: In MacOS, the FTDI drivers are already there. Installing from the website broke operation.

It was not until I uninstalled the website drivers that the AtariVOX+ started to work.

 

And then after that, I was using Windows under a virtual machine to drive the VOX with Windows software and Windows Stella. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...