What games released on the cartridge (or will be released) support Pokey or Yamaha but do not include these chips?

[rj1307]

As promised earlier, I am starting work on a pass-through cartridge containing the Yamaha chip, created for the Pac-Man Collection game cartridge. But I also wanted to add Pokey support to it at $4000 and $0450 addresses. Are there and how many cartridges have been issued (or will be issued) that do not have Pokey, but will support it when they detect it?

 

Games list:
1. Pac-Man Collection - Yamaha 

[mimo]

I believe Donkey Kong XM does not have the pokey chip, at least mine doesn't

[+MattelAquarius]

Perhaps this could be considered for a later product, to avoid feature creep...

 

Could a product like this include the mapper functionality* from Rikki & Vikki?  (Bupchip would be nice also, but perhaps not practical.)

 

 

 

*Note I don't fully understand the mapper used for R&V, but it sounds like it would offer developers a new tool for optimizing "stuff". 

 

 

[Trebor]

The below games have been released to cartridge both ways - with POKEY chip (or PokeyONE substitute) and without one:

 

Beef Drop
Froggie 
Pac-Man Collection (Original)  [Different from Pac-Man Collection - 40th Anniversary Edition which, as noted, is Yamaha]

 

They default to TIA sound when POKEY is not present.

 

Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest and Super Circus AtariAge, I do not believe have ever been released on cartridge without POKEY present. 

The former would only have TIA sound effects with no POKEY.   The latter @PacManPlus can state for certain if TIA works at all.

 

Serpentine, on the other hand, I do not believe has ever been released on cartridge with a POKEY chip, but does support POKEY sound if such a chip is present... @RevEng would know best though.

 

Quote

3 hours ago, rj1307 said:

As promised earlier, I am starting work on a pass-through cartridge containing the Yamaha chip, created for the Pac-Man Collection game cartridge. But I also wanted to add Pokey support to it at $4000 and $0450 addresses. Are there and how many cartridges have been issued (or will be issued) that do not have Pokey, but will support it when they detect it?

 

Games list:
1. Pac-Man Collection - Yamaha 

[+DrVenkman]

Pretty much all the POKEY games in the AA Store have a supply-your-own chip. Off the top of my head: Beef Drop, Froggie, Super Circus AtariAge, Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest, a few different earlier versions of Bob’s PAC-MAN collections, plus there are upcoming games like Popeye, EXO and probably a few others.

[Trebor]

41 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

Pretty much all the POKEY games in the AA Store have a supply-your-own chip. Off the top of my head: Beef Drop, Froggie, Super Circus AtariAge, Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest, a few different earlier versions of Bob’s PAC-MAN collections, plus there are upcoming games like Popeye, EXO and probably a few others.

In harmony with DrVenkman's comment respecting upcoming games...

Millie & Molly and Arkanoid both support POKEY.   Neither have been released in cartridge format yet.  The former is completed, that latter is still a WIP.  Danger Zone is completed with POKEY sound.  A cartridge has not been released yet.

 

A couple more already completed and released to cartridge games include...Pac-Man 320 and Ms. Pac-Man 320 have POKEY sound, though do not believe cartridges exist without a POKEY chip.  

Pac-Man Plus 320 contains POKEY sound as well, but do not believe it was released to cartridge.  All three have been superseded by Pac-Man Collection - 40th Anniversary Edition.

[+MattelAquarius]

4 hours ago, rj1307 said:

But I also wanted to add Pokey support to it at $4000 and $0450 addresses. Are there and how many cartridges have been issued (or will be issued) that do not have Pokey, but will support it when they detect it?

 

 

 

Out of curiosity, what would happen if you insert a cart that already has a Pokey mapped to those addresses? 

 

Would it be like crossing the streams?   Total protonic reversal? 

 

[Trebor]

4 hours ago, mimo said:

I believe Donkey Kong XM does not have the pokey chip, at least mine doesn't

Cartridge built and released containing the remake of Donkey Kong are distinguished by their label:

 

Donkey Kong XM = Contains NO POKEY chip

Donkey Kong PK = Contains POKEY chip

[RevEng]

3 hours ago, Trebor said:

Serpentine, on the other hand, I do not believe has ever been released on cartridge with a POKEY chip, but does support POKEY sound if such a chip is present... @RevEng would know best though.

Serpentine does indeed support external POKEY. The original A8 game didn't exactly push POKEY's limits, so there's not a huge difference between what you hear when using TIA vs POKEY. With TIA playback, the original music is pitched upwards a bit to avoid sounding sour, and the slithering sound has been modified to be less annoying than it otherwise would be with TIA's coarser volume resolution. If you spent your early years playing Serpentine on A8 you might notice those differences.

 

[Jaden (JRH)]

Having a list of all games on cartridge in general would be helpful. I've tried to come up with one, but it's somewhat difficult as there are some games that are sold via independent sellers and not through AtariAge.

[+DrVenkman]

1 hour ago, Jaden (JRH) said:

Having a list of all games on cartridge in general would be helpful. I've tried to come up with one, but it's somewhat difficult as there are some games that are sold via independent sellers and not through AtariAge.

That's not the point of this thread, though. Rather, Rafal is trying to see what games are out there specifically requiring POKEY or Yamaha sound that can take advantage of a pass-through audio expansion device like he's designing.

[Jaden (JRH)]

I know it's not the point. I'm just saying it would be helpful. Maybe I should've posted elsewhere.

[juansolo]

17 hours ago, Trebor said:

In harmony with DrVenkman's comment respecting upcoming games...

Millie & Molly and Arkanoid both support POKEY.

I've got a pair of POKEY's set aside for those two

 

17 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

...plus there are upcoming games like Popeye, EXO and probably a few others.

Bugger, didn't realise they were POKEY games... Better start harvesting Ballblazers again!

Edited May 31, 2021 by juansolo

[+DrVenkman]

6 hours ago, juansolo said:

Bugger, didn't realise they were POKEY games... Better start harvesting Ballblazers again!

That’s the whole point of a pass-through audio device - put the chips on the 7800 rather than needing an entire chip per cartridge. Not everyone has tubes of POKEY’S or a dozen old BALLBLAZER carts to harvest from. 

[juansolo]

...Or I could get a POKEY adapters and save money

Edited May 31, 2021 by juansolo

[Trebor]

Or...

[+Muddyfunster]

On 5/30/2021 at 1:07 PM, DrVenkman said:

Pretty much all the POKEY games in the AA Store have a supply-your-own chip. Off the top of my head: Beef Drop, Froggie, Super Circus AtariAge, Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest, a few different earlier versions of Bob’s PAC-MAN collections, plus there are upcoming games like Popeye, EXO and probably a few others.

Confirming that E.X.O. is a "POKEY Game". 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

2 hours ago, Muddyfunster said:

Confirming that E.X.O. is a "POKEY Game". 

And POKEY only game at that...

 

[christo930]

On 5/30/2021 at 4:07 AM, rj1307 said:

As promised earlier, I am starting work on a pass-through cartridge containing the Yamaha chip, created for the Pac-Man Collection game cartridge. But I also wanted to add Pokey support to it at $4000 and $0450 addresses. Are there and how many cartridges have been issued (or will be issued) that do not have Pokey, but will support it when they detect it?

 

Games list:
1. Pac-Man Collection - Yamaha 

Would it be technically possible to make such a thing where it can "share" the POKEY from a cartridge that has it?  A kind of Y splitter for the cartridge port where there's a slot for a game with the chip and then the other slot has the game you want to play?

[+Muddyfunster]

1 hour ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

And POKEY only game at that...

 

The SFX are TIA.

[CPUWIZ]

Almost all games that support POKEY can be changed to run from a different address and without POKEY on cart (my board [AA] can put them all on cart, in fact you could make a 1MB game with POKEY, but POKEY external with that board), I have all that were available to me at the time, running with the POKEY at a different address on my MCP kit (RevEng credits here).  In fact, I have 90+ ROM's that run on my kit, either via external WiFi/USB or SD card accessory, including BBCQ (Bob is the reason my board exists, if anyone remembers!) and DKPK, for instance.

 

I only bought the Mateos, Concerto, Dragonfly, Harmony and Harmony Encore to support the authors and get my hands on Yamaha and POKEY MAX.

 

[TailChao]

On 5/30/2021 at 7:15 AM, MattelAquarius said:

Could a product like this include the mapper functionality* from Rikki & Vikki?  (Bupchip would be nice also, but perhaps not practical.)

While I'd like to see more widespread use of any mapper which offers enhanced graphics paging, it's not really ideal to implement as an optional passthrough. You'll get the most potential for improvement by allowing it to directly affect Sally and Maria's accesses to what's inside the cartridge. This is basically why the Aladdin Deck Enhancer took proprietary cartridges instead of acting like a Game Genie.

 

I get the impression there's a desire for passthrough devices in the spirit of cost reduction, but it's somewhat nonsensical for this particular application - especially with component prices now. SOUPER uses a CPLD which was around $2 - $2.50 NOS (new equivalents are maybe $3 - $4.50) and the BupChip adds around $4 - $5 in components, when you're developing games large enough to justify using them - the software is where the actual expense is.

 

However, putting all the RARE RARE RARE - NO LONGER MANUFACTURED - COUNTERFEITS RAMPANT sound chips in one box which you access through a few fixed addresses, as proposed here, does make lots of sense.

[+DrVenkman]

2 hours ago, TailChao said:

However, putting all the RARE RARE RARE - NO LONGER MANUFACTURED - COUNTERFEITS RAMPANT sound chips in one box which you access through a few fixed addresses, as proposed here, does make lots of sense.

I don’t think POKEY or the YM2151 are quite to to that level of rarity that counterfeit chips and rebadged IC’s is a problem, unlike say C* SID chips, but the day may come when they become so. 

 

Of course, if Commodore hadn’t had idiot board designers that required both 9VAC and 5 VDC on the same power DIN, and then generated an entirely separate fucking 5V DC power rail inside the machine with a rectifier and 7508, then packed their overly complicated PSU inside an epoxy brick that fails hot, maybe SIDs would not be so rare today.

 

I may be biased in my views, since one such brick took out my Breadbin a couple years ago, bringing down the PLA, SID and at least one or two DRAMs with it. I forget the details at the moment but I could go look them up if I had to. 

[TailChao]

12 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

I don’t think POKEY or the YM2151 are quite to to that level of rarity that counterfeit chips and rebadged IC’s is a problem, unlike say C* SID chips, but the day may come when they become so.

The SID is always going to be the most visible of the lot because it's the one buyers are willing to pay the highest for. But Yamaha's sound generators are already experiencing heavy rebadging and it's only going to get worse as we get further from their actual production dates.

[+DrVenkman]

13 minutes ago, TailChao said:

The SID is always going to be the most visible of the lot because it's the one buyers are willing to pay the highest for. But Yamaha's sound generators are already experiencing heavy rebadging and it's only going to get worse as we get further from their actual production dates.

But let’s be fair. FM synthesis is a solved problem. You can create a perfectly cromulent - enhanced, even - replacement from commodity microcontrollers. Unlike, say, a SID with it’s partially analog oscillators.