Wizzard Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 That is very interesting for me. Personally, I do not have original Thunderground cart, even that ROM is some unknown PAL hack, that I have dumped from one of my Atari clones, but I like it. So I have no chance to try it on the same console. When I run it from my clone consoles, it looks like in Stella. I sure may file a bug, if it is OK. I also noticed some issue when playing some "Oink" game version, when I try to push the brick, I have to go down at the base. When playing in Stella or on my clone consoles, I can push the brick just when I take it from the top. It is quite hard for me to explain, maybe I can record some video Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 Herea are some fixed versions of Thunderground that I made years ago. Thunderground Score Fix.zip 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 I just got my QuadTari today and while testing my VROOM! game on the PlusCart, the game suddenly returned to the PlusCart menu when pressing RESET to start a race. As it turned out this is due to the SaveKey attached to the right port. Other controllers seem to play no role here. I only have to read from the SaveKey and press RESET afterwards to trigger the problem. Any ideas? Also, can I disable the exit function somehow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Al_Nafuur Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 21 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: I just got my QuadTari today and while testing my VROOM! game on the PlusCart, the game suddenly returned to the PlusCart menu when pressing RESET to start a race. did it exit with the "Emulation exited" message? 21 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: As it turned out this is due to the SaveKey attached to the right port. Other controllers seem to play no role here. ? The right port should not be involved at the exit function. 23 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: I only have to read from the SaveKey and press RESET afterwards to trigger the problem. does reading from SaveKey affects SWCHA bit 7 ? 26 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Also, can I disable the exit function somehow? not yet.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 (edited) 18 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said: did it exit with the "Emulation exited" message? Yes. 18 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said: does reading from SaveKey affects SWCHA bit 7 ? It reads from and writes to SWCHA. Only the bits 2 and 3 are relevant, but the writes obviously always affect all bits, thus affect the left port too. Not sure if that would help, but does the exit code consider the state of SWACNT? I suppose the current code only checks bit 7 to become 0. I think it would help if you check bits 4..6 for being 1 too. Note: Probably the problem occurs now, because VROOM! is the first Paddles game which supports the SaveKey. I did a test with another homebrew (Three.s) which uses Joystick and SaveKey. There I can not reproduce the problem. Edited March 13, 2021 by Thomas Jentzsch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 (edited) Given the number of different controllers which act different with SWCHA, I don't think using SWCHA to detect an exit is a good idea. Therefore I would suggest using SWCHB only. E.g. while pressing RESET, switch Color/B&W. Not sure if detecting a change is feasible though. Edited March 13, 2021 by Thomas Jentzsch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 The Sears Video Arcade II & Atari 2800 don't have a color/BW switch, and on the 7800 it changes state only briefly when pushed in and out. I still really like just simply holding reset for 2 seconds. People could still randomize a game like Maze Craze by cycling reset for brief periods of time until they get a maze they like. I feel like that learning curve to figure that out is pretty low. What I like about this solution is that it makes logical sense for that switches function. Reset either resets the game, or resets to the menu with a longer hold. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bomberman94 Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 Agree what Omegamatrix said - Must be easy accessible and intuitive to the user ?♂️ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 1 hour ago, Omegamatrix said: The Sears Video Arcade II & Atari 2800 don't have a color/BW switch, and on the 7800 it changes state only briefly when pushed in and out. There are two more switches we can use. Long pressed Reset alone is IMO not working as it is used in some games e.g. to circle fast through the game variations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 9 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Long pressed Reset alone is IMO not working as it is used in some games e.g. to circle fast through the game variations. Thomas, I respectfully disagree with this. Game variation cycling is usually driven by holding down the select switch, not the reset switch. And again, if reset is being used to do a randomized start up (like maze creation in Maze Craze) then cycling the reset for short bursts would also be acceptable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 (edited) 21 minutes ago, Omegamatrix said: Game variation cycling is usually driven by holding down the select switch, not the reset switch. Usually you are right. But please check e.g. Space Invaders or Asteroids and press SELECT and RESET simultaneously. We need at least RESET && !SELECT. Edited March 14, 2021 by Thomas Jentzsch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_79 Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 2 hours ago, Omegamatrix said: The Sears Video Arcade II & Atari 2800 don't have a color/BW switch Technically they have it, although you have to flip over the console to reach it, so it is basically unusable...? Whatever switch combination is decided, I think a way to disable the exit function should also be added. There's always the possibility that some rom interferes with it, no matter what. Ideally, a way to disable it per-rom would be great (e.g. using a special extension in the filename), but I don't know if this is feasible. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 21 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Usually you are right. But please check e.g. Space Invaders or Asteroids and press SELECT and RESET simultaneously. We need at least RESET && !SELECT. Good example, but here I would say we already have a solution in that both Asteroids and Space Invaders got menus added for ease of use, and the functionally of these are far better then holding reset for a quick scroll. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 1 minute ago, Omegamatrix said: but here I would say we already have a solution in that both Asteroids and Space Invaders got menus added for ease of use, and the functionally of these are far better then holding reset for a quick scroll. Do you promise to immediately create menus for all game which use that feature? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 11 minutes ago, alex_79 said: Technically they have it, although you have to flip over the console to reach it, so it is basically unusable...? Whatever switch combination is decided, I think a way to disable the exit function should also be added. There's always the possibility that some rom interferes with it, no matter what. Ideally, a way to disable it per-rom would be great (e.g. using a special extension in the filename), but I don't know if this is feasible. I did not know it was on the bottom. That is good to know. I like the idea of disabling fast exit function if necessary, but I'm hoping that it would be very limited in use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 Just now, Thomas Jentzsch said: Do you promise to immediately create menus for all game which use that feature? What other games do this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_79 Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 Just now, Omegamatrix said: I like the idea of disabling fast exit function if necessary, but I'm hoping that it would be very limited in use. Sure, hopefully it would be needed only in very rare cases. But it's good to have the option IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Al_Nafuur Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 31 minutes ago, alex_79 said: Ideally, a way to disable it per-rom would be great (e.g. using a special extension in the filename), but I don't know if this is feasible. I thought about a way to disable the exit function and also about using the filename (extension). I think this is the most feasible way, because we wouldn't have to change the ROMs and users can disable the exit function on their ROMs if they like. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 5 minutes ago, Omegamatrix said: What other games do this? I haven't done extensive testing. IIRC Maze Craze does it too. I suppose a lot of game with many variations and no select screen will do so. Also my own games/hacks (Jammed/Pitfall!x256) use that combination. For random selects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted March 16, 2021 Author Share Posted March 16, 2021 For what it's worth, my view is that a long press of RESET is intuitive and sufficient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 11 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said: For what it's worth, my view is that a long press of RESET is intuitive and sufficient. Fine by me if you also check that SELECT is not pressed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted March 16, 2021 Author Share Posted March 16, 2021 On 11/7/2020 at 9:10 PM, Andrew Davie said: I believe that nearly all (not all, but 99.9%) of games will use INTIM for timing frames. That is, each frame there will be at least one wait loop that will look something like this.... wait lda INTIM bne wait Well, as we now know... the correct way to do this is to check TIMINT for negative (not INTIM for zero). Although they both work, mostly, if your timer expires before you start the loop in the above version, you may end up waiting an extra (up to) 255 loops (give or take). The reason being, INTIM starts counting down in 1-cycle increments when it reaches 0, whereas the TIMINT negative flag is set when it reaches 0 and remains set (at least until INTIM is accessed again). Lots of programs use either, so any code injection would need to account for both usages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 My PlusCart exits each ROM when pressing right on the left joystick. What is causing this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Al_Nafuur Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: My PlusCart exits each ROM when pressing right on the left joystick. What is causing this? ? Maybe your "Reset" button is stuck ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 Nope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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