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XM has shipped!


Curt Vendel

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On 2/1/2020 at 12:37 PM, leech said:

Now that I have 1 fully working and 1 without a case 7800, I'm looking forward to this!  While waiting, I'll see if I can put my meager CAD skills to work and create a bottom replacement for the other 7800, probably will make one model that is normal and one that has holes for the composite mod...

Hi everyone,

 

got a notice from JLC PCB - they have closed their factory until Feb 10th due to the Coronavirus in Wuhan.

 

So the next batch of XM boards is delayed for a little bit.  Once they start up again and I get boards I’ll get the next batch out.

 

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21 hours ago, PacManPlus said:

Hi guys:

 

Here is my video on demoing the XM...  sorry it's in 4 parts (and yes, I know I need to vacuum the rug).

 

Part 1: 

Part 2: 

Part 3: 

 

Part 4: 

 

 

Curt, if I missed anything, please let me know - I did these kind of quickly.

Bob,

 

I finally got to see someone else struggling with the one handed gameplay while videoing...

 

I love how you proped up your console with it... at least it’s not a doorstop! ?

 

On the BIOS- users will only see the BIOS screen when no cartridge is installed.

 

the Top slot detect routine will run automatically when a cartridge is plugged in and directly load the cart up without the user having to do anything.

 

youve got the coolest game room ever!  You truly are Pac Man Plus!!

 

 

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1 hour ago, Curt Vendel said:

Bob,

 

I finally got to see someone else struggling with the one handed gameplay while videoing...

 

I love how you proped up your console with it... at least it’s not a doorstop! ?

 

On the BIOS- users will only see the BIOS screen when no cartridge is installed.

 

the Top slot detect routine will run automatically when a cartridge is plugged in and directly load the cart up without the user having to do anything.

 

youve got the coolest game room ever!  You truly are Pac Man Plus!!

 

 

I don't know man, he has far too many non-Atari machines up there... :P

This looks fantastic.  You know, I kept reading that everyone said the built in sound chip for the 7800 was crappy.  Is it as good as a POKEY?  Nah, but it's pretty decent at least on the few games I've played (Donkey Kong, Karateka, Joust, and Dig Dug).  I was pleasantly surprised.  But I would LOVE some of these being remade with legit Arcade sound with the Yamaha sound chip in the XM.  Really looking forward to getting one.

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18 minutes ago, Battlefish said:

Amazing stuff! I'm so happy this finally came out, and came out great.

 

By the way, does this mean that HDMI 7800 console can come back into development?

 

That would be sweet.  While it actually does look pretty decent on my TV with the standard RCA to Coax connector, it's just a tad fuzzy. 

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6 hours ago, leech said:

I don't know man, he has far too many non-Atari machines up there... :P

This looks fantastic.  You know, I kept reading that everyone said the built in sound chip for the 7800 was crappy.  Is it as good as a POKEY?  Nah, but it's pretty decent at least on the few games I've played (Donkey Kong, Karateka, Joust, and Dig Dug).  I was pleasantly surprised.  But I would LOVE some of these being remade with legit Arcade sound with the Yamaha sound chip in the XM.  Really looking forward to getting one.

Like dkxm??? ?

 

dk dkjr. Tia is about as bad as they come for sound..

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16 minutes ago, Jinks said:

Like dkxm??? ?

 

dk dkjr. Tia is about as bad as they come for sound..

Hey, if we can get them all patched to use the new stuff, that'd be fantastic.  The lot of games I got with the 7800 only had the 2600 version of DK Jr.  But Donkey Kong didn't sound as bad as the Apple II version, which was the last one I played before I loaded up and played the 7800.  Then again, the Apple II did have atrocious sound.  POKEY FOR LIFE!

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8 hours ago, Curt Vendel said:

Hi everyone,

 

got a notice from JLC PCB - they have closed their factory until Feb 10th due to the Coronavirus in Wuhan.

 

So the next batch of XM boards is delayed for a little bit.  Once they start up again and I get boards I’ll get the next batch out.

 

Hope they wipe them off before they ship 'em, and then make sure you open that shit outside!!!

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7 minutes ago, leech said:

But Donkey Kong didn't sound as bad as the Apple II version

The original Atari 7800 DONKEY KONG has terrible sound! Once you hear (and play the arcade-perfect) DONKEY KONG XM(*) by @tep392, you'll never ever bother with the original version ever again. When XM's become widely available, the game will hopefully gets tons of additional sales and playtime with more folks.  Seriously, it's amazing.

 

(*) I have DONKEY KONG PK, the same game but contained in a cart with its own dedicated POKEY chip, making it much more expensive than it really should have to be.

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13 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

The original Atari 7800 DONKEY KONG has terrible sound! Once you hear (and play the arcade-perfect) DONKEY KONG XM(*) by @tep392, you'll never ever bother with the original version ever again. When XM's become widely available, the game will hopefully gets tons of additional sales and playtime with more folks.  Seriously, it's amazing.

 

(*) I have DONKEY KONG PK, the same game but contained in a cart with its own dedicated POKEY chip, making it much more expensive than it really should have to be.

vs

Ha, yeah while the Apple II has trash audio (doesn't even have music during the game) it the sound for the Pokey version is definitely better than the 7800, though it loses the intro music from the look of things?  Not that the arcade had intro music (at least that I don't remember).

Do have to love how good the pokey sounds!

 

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1 hour ago, DrVenkman said:

(*) I have DONKEY KONG PK, the same game but contained in a cart with its own dedicated POKEY chip,

Until now DK PK was the way to go. Talk about bringing the arcade home! This game is hands down, without a doubt, the definitive home console version of Donkey Kong. Whenever we have a game night, I have to dedicate a 7800 to this game.?

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5 minutes ago, rorysl said:

Hi all, just wondering what the dimensions of the Xm unit are? Building an entertainment unit and wanna clear enough room for 7800 + xm + sir lancelot/Robin Hood or ghost manor/spike’s peak! Space is at a premium!

For sure, as it is I have to pull the entirety of my 5200 out of it's space to switch Carts, one of the reasons I wish I could also get a digital copy of Adventure II (still hoping for the XE version of that to come out this year... hmm, a 7800 version would be amazing as well).

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It does 4k@$4000 and 4k@$6000, and they can both be disabled, but it seems there more to it than that, according to the register spec. Some inferences, while we wait for an official word...

 

The 48k mode provides RAM all the way from $4000 to $FFFF. That seems plain enough.

 

The "rof" bits appear to be for Rescue On Fractalus ram support. That's going to be at $4000. RoF has a memory scheme where odd pages of ram are mirrors of even pages, which has the effect of halving the vertical resolution on the 7800. This is useful for coarser bitmap modes, like the world display in RoF.

 

Much more speculatively... the Sally RAM multiplexing might be to bank-switch different 4k RAM segments into $4000 and $6000. The presence of separate Sally and MARIA multiplexing registers makes me think that Maria and Sally will be able to see different banks of RAM, so you can build new DLs with the 6502, while MARIA is still DMAing the old one. Purely a guess, though.

 

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Using the conversion tools here I was able to export your sysex data to OPM patches. As I said earlier, I plan to implement OPM import in 7800basic, but OPMs are text files, so you could also manually extract the register data.

 

Some cautions from the conversion tool author:

The results are not always perfect. Try tweaking the TL and FB levels to adjust the sound to your taste. Also try to play the sound in a lower octave.
For example often Bass sounds on the FB01 have been transposed an octave down, but VOPM does not have a TRANSPOSE voice parameter.

 

The VOPM he mentions is a free YM2151 soft-synth. (VST plugin) If you wanted to quality check the OPM patches ahead of time, you could set that up and have a go.

 

fb01-opm.zip dx100-opm.zip

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