Starpath Game Burned to Atari PCB?

[StephenJ]

Hey everyone,

I'd like to have a Starpath game burnt to an Atari PCB...so I can put it in an Atari shell. I realize that would require a Melody (extended memory) PCB Board.
- I just need the PCB and not the shell or labels.

 

If you can provide this service, please PM me.

 

Thanks,

StephenJ

 

Note: I double-posted this thread in another area of this forum.

[King_Salamon]

I know Albert can do this for you... he did it for me!  I have a cart of Dragonstomper in my collection.  No I need to spend some time and enjoy it some more.

 

Just email the store or Albert and he can get it done for you.  Which Starpath game are you looking at made into a cart?

[StephenJ]

Thanks King_Salamon

[+Kaboomer]

Curious if any/all the StarPath games be done like this?

[+groundtrooper]

Curious if any/all the StarPath games be done like this?

My guess would be yes since they all can be played on the Harmony. But I am in now way a CPUWIZ. [emoji12]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jason_Atari]

Generally speaking what size where Starpath games? 32k?

[alex_79]

51 minutes ago, Jason_Atari said:

Generally speaking what size where Starpath games? 32k?

There's not a general answer. It depends on the game.

 

The supercharger has 6KB of RAM. That's the max size of the game after it has been loaded from tape. But a game can also load further data from tape later on when it's running, and replace part/all of that 6KB with that new data(e.g. to load new levels).

For example, "Escape from the mindmaster" has four loads. The size of each load is as follows:

Load 1     6144 bytes
Load 2     3328 bytes
Load 3     3584 bytes
Load 4     6144 bytes

[+Propane13]

How do all of the reloads work with the cartridge-based version?

 

[King_Salamon]

6 minutes ago, Propane13 said:

How do all of the reloads work with the cartridge-based version?

 

To me, it's magic.  lol  I need to play my Dragonstomper some more to see how the 'load' screens are handled.  Admittedly, I haven't played my cart much since getting it but when Albert made it for me, he tested it out and it worked for him.  I'll try to spend some time with it this weekend.

[SoundGammon]

Be cool to put The Official Frogger on a board and put it into a Parker Bros. shell!

[mutterminder]

 

On 3/7/2020 at 10:13 AM, SoundGammon said:

Be cool to put The Official Frogger on a board and put it into a Parker Bros. shell!

Shouldn't it be like a Sierra On-Line shell? I don't recall any actual Sierra On-Line carts for the 2600, but it could be patterned after the Colecovision carts.

[+Propane13]

I'd definitely like to know more about this.

It might be fun to have a cart of Escape from the Mindmaster, Dragonstomper, and Survival Island.

 

Survival Island seems to be low on people's like list-- I'm a bit curious why that is (granted, I never got that far, but I believe there's a large maze/mapping element at the end).

 

 

[+SvOlli]

On 3/7/2020 at 6:44 PM, Propane13 said:

How do all of the reloads work with the cartridge-based version?

Very similar how it's handled in Stella: have a special ROM with the same API and copy the data from flash to RAM instead of assembling it bit by bit from tape.

 

Take a look at the documentation at http://stella.wikidot.com/starpath-supercharger . Search for Multiload.

 

In a nutshell, when you want to load a part that's not first or single, you pass an index number to the ROM, originally prevent to load the wrong part. Every follow-up part gets a unique 8-bit id.

 

After taking a look at the source code for the Harmony cartridge tool, I can tell that 1.5k are used for firmware and fake ROM. Each part takes 6144 bytes (6k for data + 256 bytes for header). This means five parts fit into a typical Melody board. So as far as I know, all games available for SuperCharger as of now will work using Melody boards.

 

That's just theoretical, as I'm not good enough to play though a first part of a SuperCharger game.

[+batari]

For Harmony and Melody, multiload Supercharger games load the next part (and the first part for that matter) pretty much instantly, because they can. All the parts of the multiload .bin are all right there in the flash memory itself already. I suppose that the load bars could be faked, but I didn't see the point in that because there is no actual loading taking place.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

57 minutes ago, batari said:

For Harmony and Melody, multiload Supercharger games load the next part (and the first part for that matter) pretty much instantly, because they can. All the parts of the multiload .bin are all right there in the flash memory itself already. I suppose that the load bars could be faked, but I didn't see the point in that because there is no actual loading taking place.

The UNO seems to work just like the supercharger with the loading bars etc. Wonder how it handles multi loading? Never played a supercharger game enough to experience that. I did play Survival Island on it after I first got it and don't recall any issues but then I don't know if that game requires multi loads?

 

[+batari]

On 3/10/2020 at 1:22 PM, -^CrossBow^- said:

The UNO seems to work just like the supercharger with the loading bars etc. Wonder how it handles multi loading? Never played a supercharger game enough to experience that. I did play Survival Island on it after I first got it and don't recall any issues but then I don't know if that game requires multi loads?

 

Even if it is loading the next part from the SD card, the operation is still fast enough that the load bars are probably gratuitous, just as they are in Stella. It comes down to a design choice, I think, to somewhat replicate the experience of using a real Supercharger. However, in my experience, a real Supercharger loads much, much more slowly than Stella simulates it (not sure what the UNO does) so in a sense, the load-bar experience isn't that authentic anyway. So, I chose to not show the load bars at all. I mean, "loads" in Harmony/Melody take all of 0.0004 seconds by my estimate, so why not just "load" instantly?

 

I guess I am of the opinion that wait times are not something most of us care to experience if we don't have to. The load bars were really only there to give you something to look at while you waited for the load, like a progress bar. But if there is no actual wait, why replicate the progress bar and part of the wait time that isn't there? I remember waiting 5+ minutes for some games to load from the 1541 disk drive on my C64, but I doubt there is a single emulator or 1541-flashcart device that replicates this load time, or any fraction thereof, for the sake of authenticity.

 

So, I suppose that brings up the question: Is it important to people to show a simulated load-bar screen at startup or between "loads" even if not necessary?

[Shawn]

1 hour ago, batari said:

 

 

So, I suppose that brings up the question: Is it important to people to show a simulated load-bar screen at startup or between "loads" even if not necessary?

 

No loading bar needed, IMO.

[+stephena]

In Stella, there's also an option to disable the load bars.  And it defaults to on.  So most people using Stella won't see load bars either.

[DirtyHairy]

On 3/10/2020 at 9:22 PM, -^CrossBow^- said:

The UNO seems to work just like the supercharger with the loading bars etc. Wonder how it handles multi loading? Never played a supercharger game enough to experience that. I did play Survival Island on it after I first got it and don't recall any issues but then I don't know if that game requires multi loads?

 

It is as batari says, the bars are just a fake, and I have been thinking about removing them when I poke at the code next time, too. In details, what happens on the Uno is

• The VCS jumps into the BIOS stub which shows the bars
• The VCS is parked executing a loop from RAM
• The Uno loads the next load from SD
• The VCS returns from the loop and jumps into the new load

[edburns]

On 3/10/2020 at 3:24 PM, batari said:

For Harmony and Melody, multiload Supercharger games load the next part (and the first part for that matter) pretty much instantly, because they can. All the parts of the multiload .bin are all right there in the flash memory itself already. I suppose that the load bars could be faked, but I didn't see the point in that because there is no actual loading taking place.

Hello @batari, does this mean the Harmony cart supports Supercharger games?  I just bought one now that @-^CrossBow^- helped me complete my AV mod on my Jr.  I am looking forward to playing four way party mix for Ferg's podcast.

[Jstick]

1 hour ago, edburns said:

Hello @batari, does this mean the Harmony cart supports Supercharger games?  I just bought one now that @-^CrossBow^- helped me complete my AV mod on my Jr.  I am looking forward to playing four way party mix for Ferg's podcast.

Yes, all the Supercharger games work perfectly on either version of the Harmony Cart.

Edited June 12, 2020 by Jstick

[+batari]

3 hours ago, edburns said:

Hello @batari, does this mean the Harmony cart supports Supercharger games?  I just bought one now that @-^CrossBow^- helped me complete my AV mod on my Jr.  I am looking forward to playing four way party mix for Ferg's podcast.

Yes, they work! Just a note, if you are playing multi-load Supercharger games, use the combined ROMs. For Party Mix it should be about 25k in size.