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Robotron 2084 for PAL console


lucifershalo

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13 hours ago, lucifershalo said:

Hello, all please please please think about us and keep working on Robotron for pal console

I know there was a project to do it, it would also be cool to have a joystick accessory with 2 joysticks on it to play Robotron and T:Me Salvo ;)

I wasn't even aware there isn't a Robotron for PAL. 

 

If you search for 7800 on Thingiverse, you'll find a Robotron bracket for the painline controllers.

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It's only tested in emulation so far, but give this a shot and let me know.

 

Robotron 2084 (PAL HACK).a78

 

It's a (fairly involved) hex-edit hack that fixes the display to run on PAL, so no speed tweaks. (I don't know if speed tweaks are even possible.)

 

Technical details ahead... The display and NMI for this game is a bit unconventional. There are mulitple NMI, and the NMI that's supposed to run at the bottom of the screen looks to see if a vblank transition happens soon, to ensure it actually is running at the bottom of the screen. If that transition doesn't come, it assumes the NMI order is off, and shifts the order. But if the vblank transition is never seen in any of the NMI positions, the shifting never ends. 

 

Due to this NMI scheme, this PAL hack hangs on NTSC consoles, for the same reason the NTSC retail release hangs on PAL. (no vblank transition near the NMIs)

 

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Excellent work, @RevEng!

 

The slight slowness is somewhat offset by changing the skill level.  As each increment (or decrement) in difficulty adjust the speed of the enemies.

 

So for NTSC the speeds of... NOVICE <--> INTERMEDIATE <--> ADVANCE <--> EXPERT ...

 

under PAL the speed is more like... TEDDY BEAR <--> NOVICE <--> INTERMEDIATE <--> ADVANCE.

 

The only negative (or not - depending on preference/perspective) is 'INTERMEDIATE NTSC-like speed', "ADVANCE" label under PAL, furnishes only 3 (instead of 5) lives.

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  • 2 years later...

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