Legacy versus ARM-based 2600 Game Development

[AW127]

1 minute ago, RevEng said:

I think really it's better to not worry about misconceptions future generations may have. The 2600 will be remembered only as a blocky pixelated footnote in the dark pre-history of gaming, before Nintendo invented the industry.

 

I am not really sure about that, because who had thought, that a console which sees the light in 1979, still is there in 2020 and is loved by thousands of people.

 

Okay, now you can say, but when this generation which had the concole as kids back in the days, later has died, nobody will remember the Atari-2600. But also here i am not sure, because alot of these people give their enthusiasm for this console to their children and this works in alot of cases. Here in my circle of friends, of which alot are retrogramers, the children also likes C64, Atari, Amiga and so on and they also have PC's which they use, with much more CPU power and better graphics and so on. So i think, also in 2040 or later will be people, which likes the Atari-2600 for what it is and was back in time.

 

[RevEng]

Yeah, I was a bit hyperbolic. I'm sure there will be the odd person that is into it. There are people that collect audio recordings on wax cylinders and magnetic wire, but really that's not a live scene. I think the same will be true of the 2600 when most of us are in the ground.

 

It's Yet Another Diversion™ from the main topic, but we reached peak-nostalgia for the 2600 some time ago.

[christo930]

12 minutes ago, AW127 said:

 

It's not easy then, to set a limit or a point, up to which it is acceptable or not. How much of the work to run a game, must come directly from the Atari-2600 itself, that people can still call it a Atari-2600 game? As you already mentioned, then new video and audio chips would be possible and could be integrated. When normal limits of a system were blurred, it's difficult to find an end then. But also normal, that meanings in this point can be different. Sad would be, when in the year 2040 (if earth still exist then?) a newbie to the Atari-2600, saw a video of a running ARM-game on a Atari-2600 and then would think: "Aaah, this is how the typical games for this system looked like, back in the days." You understand what i mean?  

To a point.  I think there are examples that aren't nearly as fuzzy as other examples.  Like if you have to have a HDMI cable hanging out the end of an Atari 2600 cartridge, it's not really an a2600 anymore. 

 

I sometimes see younger guys throwing shade on the original 2600 devs from the commercial era of the 2600.  To me that's a bit frustrating.  The early guys had to do the figuring out part and they had to do it with extremely limited tools.  The guys working in 77 probably never thought something like Pitfall could be done.

[+Cafeman]

If the game is well tested and fun and its graphics/sounds match its concept,  I don't care what its specs are.   But I do like labeling a game,if it is Melody or ARM or whatever extra PCB is used. If it isn't labeled, I'll have to go dig and find out to satisfy my own curiosity anyway.  

 

Compare Pac-Man 4K  and Ladybug ... its obvious to me which one has a little extra oomph in the cartridge ... but they are both 10/10 games.   

 

I want to try a 5200 ARM game someday. 

[AW127]

3 hours ago, RevEng said:

This discussion was born in the "hey someone should make 2600 galaga thread" or whatever it was called, but it was initiated by AW127 as a philosophical question.

 

 

Yes, this is true. As a philosophical question. Not as an attack on ARM-games or ARM-game-developers. But alot people here seems to see it exactly like that. Maybe the thinking of people from different places also is totally different. I give an example.

 

When the first demo-versions of "Galaga" came out, i was totally blown away by the game and then i opened a thread in a big german C64-forum about the game. Screenshots i also posted and a link to a Youtube video, in which the game runs, i also gave. People, especially the ones which had or still have a Atari-2600 at home, was totally blown away by the fact, how good this looks and plays and the thread had alot entries in short time.

 

At that time i knew, that the game was ARM-supported, but not exactly, how much advantages this would mean for the game. Then one person in this thread mentioned technical facts of the ARM and that this game supports it. Then, the interest of the people for this game goes totally down there. Alot people then saw it not as a Atari-2600 game anymore and that's that. I could not fully understand this and wrote their, that it's still a Atari-2600 game, but i think, i was nearly alone with this meaning there. 

 

And now? Seems like, german people had alot different meaning about the real limits of retro-systems and what really defines a retro-system than alot of the people here. This doesn't mean that one side is right and the other side is wrong, it's a point of view. But the longer i thought about this whole case, the more i think, that these people are right, when they say, that it is not a real Atari-2600 game anymore.

 

But this then don't mean, that i hate those games, or that i condemn programmers of those games to not stay "real" or something like that. But it makes me think, when alot of the newly released, so-called Atari-2600 games, are ARM-supported and people see them as the highlights of this console. If on my C64 alot SCPU games would be released in one year, and then they would all be on the first 10 places on Lemon64's TOP-100 game-list, then this would cause me to think likewise. Would be the same thing on a different system. Is this really a C64 game-list then anymore? Is the C64 not defined to it's normal technical limits?

 

This was the "philosophical question" with which i started this discussion and this is NOT an attack on anybody, so people should not threat with things like "when i read this discussion, i dont want to make ARM-games again" arguments, just to close the discussion or to make people, who think this way, silent. I really think, this is a legitimate discussion and legitimate point of view.

Edited January 23, 2020 by AW127

[Mr SQL]

1 hour ago, AW127 said:

 

It's not easy then, to set a limit or a point, up to which it is acceptable or not. How much of the work to run a game, must come directly from the Atari-2600 itself, that people can still call it a Atari-2600 game? As you already mentioned, then new video and audio chips would be possible and could be integrated. When normal limits of a system were blurred, it's difficult to find an end then. But also normal, that meanings in this point can be different. Sad would be, when in the year 2040 (if earth still exist then?) a newbie to the Atari-2600, saw a video of a running ARM-game on a Atari-2600 and then would think: "Aaah, this is how the typical games for this system looked like, back in the days." You understand what i mean?  

 

Interesting perspective, on perspective lost over time.

 

If we take the Delorean back to the early 80's our perspective increases commensurately:

 

We all wrote Atari games to the extent the system had the color and sound to support them. And, some of the games written on the Atari weren't Atari  games.

 

 

[christo930]

2 hours ago, AW127 said:

I am not really sure about that, because who had thought, that a console which sees the light in 1979, still is there in 2020 and is loved by thousands of people.

 

Okay, now you can say, but when this generation which had the concole as kids back in the days, later has died, nobody will remember the Atari-2600. But also here i am not sure, because alot of these people give their enthusiasm for this console to their children and this works in alot of cases. Here in my circle of friends, of which alot are retrogramers, the children also likes C64, Atari, Amiga and so on and they also have PC's which they use, with much more CPU power and better graphics and so on. So i think, also in 2040 or later will be people, which likes the Atari-2600 for what it is and was back in time.

 

I would think the fan base would be smaller, but it would likely still exist.  Though obviously a bit different, I'm a fan of a lot of cars that were mostly in the junk-yard before I was even born.  They will never make cars like them again.  I absolutely love the styling of a lot of these old cars.  You can never have too much chrome:)  I really like the old radios too. Though, I do remember radios that were old at the time, but not antiques yet.  They were part of my childhood.

And an Atari, Colecovision etc would be a lot more accessible than cars are.  Owning a classic car is just an enormous investment in time and often a lot of money.  At a minimum, they could play games on emulators.

 

 

[AW127]

25 minutes ago, christo930 said:

At a minimum, they could play games on emulators.

Yes, indeed. Emulators helped in spreading the older systems to alot of people, even when it's not the same like owning the real retro computers or consoles. But they are a factor in keeping older systems alive and I really love emulators for this.

[Omegamatrix]

ARM games are real Atari VCS games, and have their rightful place in the ongoing history of the 2600.

[+Andrew Davie]

On 1/20/2020 at 12:45 AM, Mr SQL said:

How close does the generic BD engine come to handling enough unique characters to render Chess or Archon?

Can it be added to the engine and/or could the new code be used as a similar kit engine?

  

I think you could get 20 or so unique characters in BD. Maybe a few more. It could do a chess set easily. But it's 4 pixels wide...making meaningful shapes in 4 pixels wide is tricky.

[Mr SQL]

2 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

I think you could get 20 or so unique characters in BD. Maybe a few more. It could do a chess set easily. But it's 4 pixels wide...making meaningful shapes in 4 pixels wide is tricky.

Very cool, 4 pixels is just enough for a blocky Archon/Chess set. Your Chess code has characters 5 pixels wide and looks like more with the shading, could do a better Archon.

 

Looking forward to seeing someone build Archon with either of these engines! 

 

Didn't you write the NES port bitd?   

 

[+Andrew Davie]

30 minutes ago, Mr SQL said:

Didn't you write the NES port bitd?   

No, might have been a close friend of mine, though - especially if it was BEAM Software/Melbourne House.

[+Andrew Davie]

I've been thinking quite a lot about "the scene" recently, what with all the discussions about old-school and modern '2600 programming. I'm rather disillusioned, really, about the whole thing. I got to thinking what it was like about 20 years ago when there were very few developers and we were a very tight-knit community sharing our discoveries on the [stella] mailing list. Things have changed. A lot.

Back then, [stella] was just about the only resource we had for learning stuff, and sharing our efforts. And everyone was supportive.. of everyone. The types of discussion we're seeing on the forums today in, for example, the Ataribox thread -- this just wasn't the way we behaved. This is really ugly stuff, and I guess typical of the internet today. We were developers and we were focused on programming the '2600 and little else and although I long for "the old days" when everyone was nice and accepting and supportive, I realise those days are long gone, and well, "home" just isn't there anymore.

 

But we're not all developers anymore. In fact, I daresay that developers - the "good old boys" if you like - are now a tiny tiny fraction of those interested in Atari 2600. It's no longer a community about developing games on the machine. It's much more a community interested in playing games on the machine. And the site, after all, is more about playing and selling games than it is about developing games. In my view, anyway.

It's all completely understandable, and a large part due to AtariAge which has made a business out of the retro scene - and done a damn good job of it, too. It's wonderful having such a well managed central nexus for my interest in the machine - I've been a member since way back when it was called, I believe, Atari Nexus or something like that. Anyway, a long time ago... far far away.  But I've been disillusioned, as I said, with the community "feel" - it's no longer tight-knit and supportive. It used to be something special and rewarding. But now it's fragmented, argumentative, and seems not to care about the mental health and happiness of others in the "other camps" in the community. And seriously if you're going to have a go at me in reply, that's probably just reinforcing my point.

Well, that's the nature of the beast, I guess - people are basically cunts to each other especially when they're behind a keyboard and somewhat unaccountable for their nastiness.  But, moving on, I just thought I'd drop a note into the forum to share some thoughts on a positive difference between now and then.  I was browsing the YouTube videos (Mostly AtariAge) to look at modern games, and also of much interest the comments in response to those videos.  Firstly, some of the modern games are truly amazing. Forget about the technology involved - just treating them as something a layman looks at -- just incredible. But what came mostly to mind was that not only is it about the technology anymore, but there is now a huge need/demand for quality art/animation and music/sounds.

We've left the "era" of single-programmer games where the programmer (for example, me) did all the programming, music/sfx, and animations... and now we're into collaborative work. Even the old-school programmers who are eschewing ARM are collaborating with pixel artists on their games. And the results speak for themselves - some of the new creations are absolutely gorgeous. They stand alone as works of art - regardless of the technology involved. I'm really truly impressed by some of the graphics coming out of these guys - in this case, their work easily surpasses the games of yore. But yes, they have better tools, more memory for more animations, and newer technologies, too. I don't really care - they still look great.

So, a big thumbs-up to the artists from me. Be that sprite art and animations, pixel art, and box/manual art. Truly inspiring stuff.

And back to the comments on the YouTube videos. It is clear that the majority of people look at a video and compare to the games of the past and their childhood - and are of course gobsmacked. There's little correction in the comments of the mistaken belief that these games could have been done "back then" and I've finally come to the conclusion that it really doesn't matter.  People are going to compare things and make statements about how much better one thing is than another. We're always going to have disagreements about what's "best", and have our own favourites.

But me, I just appreciate some of the amazing stuff that's come out. I'm disillusioned by the politics that have invaded my little corner of the internet - and no doubt I have contributed somewhat to that over the years. I'm really really unhappy with this whole concept of comparing games against each other to find "winners". I've found the only "safe place" for me to be mentally is to block all of that out, withdraw from any thoughts or feelings of "competition" with other developers/games and just try to focus on doing the things that interest me and make me happy.

And those things are pushing the technology that I'm interested in... collaborating with interesting and skilled people... and trying to help others do the same. I have no interest in comparing my games against others, or making judgements about the relative merit of one technology against another. As soon as I do that, I start to fall into disillusionment about how "unfair" such comparisons seem to me. And then I switch to realisation that it's not the difference in technology that is "unfair" - it is participation in some sort of competition between developers that's the issue. And I refuse to participate in that. This is my current view, and I hope I've been consistent over the years - but in any case, I've done a lot of thinking about things in my disillusionment, and that's how I'm feeling now.  

The only way to "win" is not to play the game. Do what makes you happy, and block out the noise. I really look forward to working more in future with those incredibly clever people who have helped me over the years, and just having fun doing what I do regardless of what others may think. And if people like what I do, then... well I guess I shouldn't care one way or the other, right




 

[Omegamatrix]

Andrew, that was well said. I think we all have to do what we are interested in, and love to do. I don't see you as being in a smaller subset of the community. I honestly feel you are one of the most open minded people here to trying new things. We all belong.

 

Kudos to you man. 

 

 

[+TwentySixHundred]

It's funny to think in 2027 only 7 years from now this system will be cracking it's 50th anniversary. I think even as small as a community we are it will only become smaller from then on. It's only us that were introduced to the system slightly later due to being part of families that weren't well off and could only afford the previous gen console that will still really appreciate the system from a nostalgic POV.

 

There is always new interest however only those interested in studying the true history of old consoles are really going to know the in's and out's. Signs of this are already starting to show with the new interest within the younger gens. Basically i agree with those who say do what you want, if that's pushing the system with new tech or programing straight vanilla. Do what makes you happy!

Edited January 24, 2020 by TwentySixHundred

[Dionoid]

Hi @AW127, I'm not sure why you're posting inciting messages like this about ARM-supported games. My guess is that your opinion is based on incomplete/wrong information, so let me try to give some more color to that.

 

First of all, in the ARM-supported games like Galagon, the ARM is used as a co-processor. The 6507 CPU still runs the show, as it is the only chip that can address the TIA (graphical chip of the '2600, responsible for all TV output). Please read the posts from @batari in this thread; he actually is the inventor of the Melody/Harmony boards, and worked together with other people on schemes like DPC+ and CDJF.

 

The first time a co-processor was used in a '2600 game, was for Pitfall II, released by Activision in 1984. They called this co-processor "DPC" and it allowed for better graphics and music (although I personally don't like the somewhat noisy and hissing sound).
While this technology was released after 1983 (which for some people in this thread is the magical cut-off year), I don't think anyone back then considered Pitfall II to be "not a real Atari 2600 game". 

 

16 hours ago, AW127 said:

...

At that time i knew, that the game was ARM-supported, but not exactly, how much advantages this would mean for the game. Then one person in this thread mentioned technical facts of the ARM and that this game supports it. Then, the interest of the people for this game goes totally down there. Alot people then saw it not as a Atari-2600 game anymore and that's that. I could not fully understand this and wrote their, that it's still a Atari-2600 game, but i think, i was nearly alone with this meaning there. 

...

Some of the "technical facts on ARM-support" in this thread were actually wrong, so there was some discussion on that. I don't recall anyone in this thread referring to ARM-supported games and saying that they "saw it not as a Atari-2600 game anymore". I'm not sure why you draw this conclusion. Until now in this thread, it looks that you are the only one saying that ARM-supported games are "not real Atari 2600 games".

16 hours ago, AW127 said:

...

And now? Seems like, german people had alot different meaning about the real limits of retro-systems and what really defines a retro-system than alot of the people here. This doesn't mean that one side is right and the other side is wrong, it's a point of view. But the longer i thought about this whole case, the more i think, that these people are right, when they say, that it is not a real Atari-2600 game anymore.

...

The only German people in this thread are you and Thomas, right? So when you refer to "these people", you basically mean Thomas. And I never heard Thomas say that ARM-supported games are "not real Atari 2600 games"; I know that in this thread Thomas brought up the magical cutoff year of 1983 (in that year both bank-switching and extra RAM were available, but Pitfall II wasn't released yet), but these are his personal self-imposed restrictions for writing '2600 games; just as every '2600 developer has his/her own set of self-imposed restrictions, otherwise we wouldn't be writing games for that old system.

16 hours ago, AW127 said:

...

But this then don't mean, that i hate those games, or that i condemn programmers of those games to not stay "real" or something like that. But it makes me think, when alot of the newly released, so-called Atari-2600 games, are ARM-supported and people see them as the highlights of this console. If on my C64 alot SCPU games would be released in one year, and then they would all be on the first 10 places on Lemon64's TOP-100 game-list, then this would cause me to think likewise. Would be the same thing on a different system. Is this really a C64 game-list then anymore? Is the C64 not defined to it's normal technical limits?

...

If you don't mean to say you "hate" these games or "condemn" these programmers, then please don't use these words at all. Words like that tend to stick in the back of people's minds (even if you said that you mean the opposite).

And in this quote you're referring to newly released ARM-supported games (like Galagon) as "so-called Atari-2600 games". That sounds both really rude and ignorant.

 

Of course Galagon is a highlight on the '2600! Just as Draconian, Aardvark and Boulderdash to name a few. But we all know that these are homebrew games and were not released during the active life-span of the '2600. And yes, we nowadays have better software tools, better hardware, and better (shared) knowledge on the '2600, so comparing them with games from the '2600 heyday doesn't make much sense.

I appreciate every new homebrew game that's released for the '2600, no matter if it's using the original limits (4K ROM + 128 bytes RAM) or using extra ROM, RAM or co-processors.

 

These C64 Super-CPU games you mention, require you to have a SCPU built into your C64, right? That means these SCPU games won't play on unmodified stock C64 machines, so that is where your comparison fails.

For me, using ARM chips as co-processor in the '2600 is a natural progression of the hardware. Quoting @Random Terrain:
"If you can plug a cartridge into an unmodified Atari VCS and play it, it's an Atari 2600 game. Doesn't matter if it has 20 gigabytes of RAM and a magical half-unicorn fairy living inside of the cartridge."

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by Dionoid

[+Andrew Davie]

15 minutes ago, Dionoid said:

 

For me, using ARM chips as co-processor in the '2600 is a natural progression of the hardware. Quoting @Random Terrain:
"If you can plug a cartridge into an unmodified Atari VCS and play it, it's an Atari 2600 game. Doesn't matter if it has 20 gigabytes of RAM and a magical half-unicorn fairy living inside of the cartridge."

 

 

Well, you still have to be taking the video output from the Atari via TIA, not the cartridge via some embedded video circuitry  . Otherwise... yeah.... can of worms.

 

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by Andrew Davie

[Thomas Jentzsch]

On 1/18/2020 at 8:00 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

What makes me wonder...

Since I got little feedback to my quoted post, I have to say that I am still quite irritated.

 

Why feel people negative about this kind of discussion? Why is having different opinions and sharing them regarded as something bad (or make some people feel bad)? As far as I can tell, the whole discussion here was very rational and polite. There were no personal attacks, insults, name callings etc. which are poisoning the web. Is this maybe a fall out of what happens in the web, so that people are afraid that such discussions may leak that poison into AA? 

 

I really would like to understand.

Edited January 24, 2020 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+Karl G]

Since profit from an individual Atari 2600 game is very modest, the only real payoff developers get is appreciation from the community. If I spent countless hours carefully crafted ARM-enhanced games, then seeing endless discussions debating whether or not these games were legitimate might feel invalidating to all of my effort.

 

I do think discussions about the differences between these games and ones without a co-processor have their place, but it is also important to take in account how certain wording can come across to those who have put in a lot of effort to produce some great games.

[christo930]

7 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

The only way to "win" is not to play the game. Do what makes you happy, and block out the noise. I really look forward to working more in future with those incredibly clever people who have helped me over the years, and just having fun doing what I do regardless of what others may think. And if people like what I do, then... well I guess I shouldn't care one way or the other, right




 

  Is there any consolation prize for you that there are more people interested and who might see and play and appreciate your game than back in the old days when it was the just the Stella list and rec.games.video.classic (and others)?

 

While, yes, a larger and broader audience is going to bring some of the things you bring up, not to mention a lot of younger people and the shit show that ensues, it also brings a lot more eyes and players.

[hizzy]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Since I got little feedback to my quoted post, I have to say that I am still quite irritated.

 

Why feel people negative about this kind of discussion? Why is having different opinions and sharing them regarded as something bad (or make some people feel bad)? As far as I can tell, the whole discussion here was very rational and polite. There were no personal attacks, insults, name callings etc. which are poisoning the web. Is this maybe a fall out of what happens in the web, so that people are afraid that such discussions may leak that poison into AA? 

 

I really would like to understand.

If I have to guess, I would say it relates to the effort it takes to produce these games. People invest so much time and effort into these creations. I imagine it must get people emotional when they see people being at all critical of their works, even when the discussion is civil and polite. 

[+SpiceWare]

1 hour ago, Dionoid said:

For me, using ARM chips as co-processor in the '2600 is a natural progression of the hardware.

 

I wrote a blog post about this at the end of 2016 - extra hardware!  In the comments I also point the Super SNES used an SA1 coprocessor in 30+ games, it's derived from 65C816 processor.

[+SpiceWare]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Since I got little feedback to my quoted post, I have to say that I am still quite irritated.

 

@Dionoid pointed out a good example:

 

2 hours ago, Dionoid said:

And in this quote you're referring to newly released ARM-supported games (like Galagon) as "so-called Atari-2600 games". That sounds both really rude and ignorant.

 

When slights like that are posted my visceral response is "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" to whoever wrote it.  I try to ignore those slights, but they linger in the back of the mind and eventually ended up coloring my take on other comments. That ultimate lead to my response of fuck this with plans to leave the 2600 scene.

 

I've calmed down enough since then that I've resumed the CDFJ tutorial.

[+stephena]

8 minutes ago, SpiceWare said:

When slights like that are posted my visceral response is "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" to whoever wrote it.  I try to ignore those slights, but they linger in the back of the mind and eventually ended up coloring my take on other comments. That ultimate lead to my response of fuck this with plans to leave the 2600 scene.

I can't tell you how many times over the past 19 years I've been tempted to say 'fuck this' and move on to something else.  Even now, there are days/weeks/months when I just want to walk away from it all.  But I always keep coming back (so far at least) because of the community.  I can say that over the years, there have been far more people supporting than denigrating.  As long as that ratio stays high, I personally will stick around.

 

I also agree with Thomas that discussion can be had on these topics without it meaning that someone is criticizing or dismissing your efforts.  But in certain 'controversial' topics, there will always be people that go from constructive criticism to dismissal of your work.  Sometimes it's a language issue; sometimes it's just a matter of different forms of communication.  For those, a response that the comment is being taken as offensive is warranted.  But sometimes it is someone with an agenda, or intentionally want to cause issues; aka, a troll.  For those, judicious use of user blocking and liberal application of IDGAF is required.

 

Note that I'm not immune to this by any means.  There are topics/people that sometimes push my buttons, and make me want to respond.  But if you do, or quit because of it, they have won.  I try to go by the old saying: "Don't debate with an idiot; they'll bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience".

[+FujiSkunk]

If this debate leads to any of our wonderful programmers leaving the scene, regardless of whether they've embraced enhanced hardware or remain enthusiasts for the original technology, I would be very sad.

 

And that's all I have to say about that.