Joystick fire rate

[JJohnson]

Hi folks, 

 

I was playing Space Invaders game 33 with my father-in-law, and we noticed the fire button didn't fire every time we hit the button. Has this happened to anyone else? 

 

Is it the button being worn out or dirty, not designed to take rapid input, or the machine itself (atari Jr) not being able to handle rapid input? As in, press fire several times in a second, and it registers maybe two of five presses. 

 

Has anyone else had this issue? 

[CapitanClassic]

2 hours ago, JJohnson said:

Hi folks, 

 

I was playing Space Invaders game 33 with my father-in-law, and we noticed the fire button didn't fire every time we hit the button. Has this happened to anyone else? 

 

Is it the button being worn out or dirty, not designed to take rapid input, or the machine itself (atari Jr) not being able to handle rapid input? As in, press fire several times in a second, and it registers maybe two of five presses. 

 

Has anyone else had this issue? 

Have you read the instructions? (“It's NOT that common, it DOESN'T happen to every guy, and it IS a big deal”)

https://atariage.com/manual_html_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=459
 

have you tried frying the cart? (I.e. holding down the game reset switch while flipping the power on/off. That will let you fire-off twice)

 

[alex_79]

3 hours ago, JJohnson said:

Is it the button being worn out or dirty, not designed to take rapid input, or the machine itself (atari Jr) not being able to handle rapid input?

None of the above. The 2600 has a very simple hardware and almost everything is handled via software. The polling rate of the joystick and how the game reacts to a button press is determined by the code in the cartridge itself, and what you experienced is exactly how that particular game is supposed to behave, as you can see by reading the manual linked by @CapitanClassic:

Quote

Each time you fire the cannon you may not fire it again until
you hit a target, or until the laser beam disappears off the
top of the screen.

 

[JJohnson]

5 hours ago, CapitanClassic said:

Have you read the instructions? (“It's NOT that common, it DOESN'T happen to every guy, and it IS a big deal”)

https://atariage.com/manual_html_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=459
 

have you tried frying the cart? (I.e. holding down the game reset switch while flipping the power on/off. That will let you fire-off twice)

I got the game from an eBay auction without the manual, so I haven't at all.  If there's a homebrew Space Invaders, the fire rate needs to be increased a lot.

 

[JJohnson]

4 hours ago, alex_79 said:

None of the above. The 2600 has a very simple hardware and almost everything is handled via software. The polling rate of the joystick and how the game reacts to a button press is determined by the code in the cartridge itself, and what you experienced is exactly how that particular game is supposed to behave, as you can see by reading the manual linked by @CapitanClassic:

 

It's good to know it's intentional behavior but dang, that's frustrating that it's so limited.  

[+KaeruYojimbo]

2 hours ago, JJohnson said:

It's good to know it's intentional behavior but dang, that's frustrating that it's so limited.  

Maybe, but if you could just spam slow moving enemies like the ones in Space Invaders with unlimited shots, there wouldn’t be much challenge.

 

Looking forward to your reaction to Gorf.

[+wongojack]

That's how the arcade game worked too.  Same as Galaxian and parts of Gorf, Phoenix, etc.

 

@JJohnson try Megamania.  That is my favorite vertical shooter for the 2600.  Communist Mutants from Outer Space is another good one, but that one is harder to track down outside of emulation.  Both of those allow you to fire multiple shots.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

And if you just want to fill the sky with bullets, give Spider Fighter a try.

[JJohnson]

4 hours ago, KaeruYojimbo said:

And if you just want to fill the sky with bullets, give Spider Fighter a try.

I guess if the original game was limited, fine, but a version with unlimited fire and a bigger score field for more points would be great for the sake of getting high scores. We got up to 1500 points on the original game before dinner. 

[doubledown]

The single bullet/missile/shot on the screen limit, was absolutely part of the challenge of the old games that used it.  It's especially challenging when playing on an original arcade cabinet with a vertical monitor, with a much taller field of play in the Y-axis, than that offered by your home television set oriented horizontally.  When you missed every possible enemy...it would seem like forever before you could shoot again.  If you could freely rapid fire at those slow moving aliens...the game would be child-like simplistic/easy, and not worth playing.  The skill to develop, is simply not to miss your targets.  

[+SpiceWare]

On 4/4/2021 at 11:07 PM, JJohnson said:

I was playing Space Invaders game 33 with my father-in-law, and we noticed the fire button didn't fire every time we hit the button.

 

Game 33 = simultaneous 2 players

 

In Space Invaders all shots are drawn by using the ball object, which is shown in light blue when using Stella's debug color feature. The ball is used because the missiles would be in triplicate when they're drawn in the the area with the invaders or the shields.

 

 

The shots are drawn using 30 Hz flicker. One frame draws both invader's shots:

 

 

the other frame draws both player's shots:

 

 

 

There's only 1 ball, so each pair of shots (aliens, humans) must be vertically separated.  If both players tap fire at the exact same time only 1 shot will come out.  If you hold fire the other player's shot will automatically come out after the first shot has moved up-screen far enough to allow the ball reposition to occur - the height of 2 rows of invaders.