ndary Posted April 29, 2002 Share Posted April 29, 2002 Hi Sheddy, there are several XEGS 128k cartridges that where based on ATARI Stock roms, and there are few Polish ATRAX cartridges made from a PCB that old 128k eprom (27c010). i have seen a 1meg ram cartridge (i personaly have the 512k version one).. a ram cartridge is a cart that you can copy software into it (much like you would do to a floppy) with the correct parts you can make even a 16meg cartridge or more that can be 400/800 (255 x 8k or 255 x 16k) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianoid Posted April 29, 2002 Share Posted April 29, 2002 Agreed. That's basically why I never bugged Nir about it before. I realize the auctions would have been pulled. And I realized also that although he speaks excellent English, it might have been sort of cultural/linguistic to leave out that information. Frankly, I think he'd do just fine selling these in places like Atari Age, but you can't really get better seller exposure than eBay. -ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheddy Posted May 1, 2002 Share Posted May 1, 2002 Nice to know it's possible, guys. Maybe oneday the program will be ready to put in this big a cart! I know nothing about bank-switching carts though, that would be custom to each cart design I suppose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshleo Posted May 1, 2002 Share Posted May 1, 2002 Sheddy, I did get a bit of a shock when I realised Nir was being accused of being underhanded, although I am aware that your original post was not done out of malice and that Nir perhaps wasn't clear in his auction postings. I was in contact with Nir some years ago when I was running an Atari User Group. He was good enough to supply me with a program on the PC I desperately wanted (all 14 disks of it) and backed up my copy of the PL65 programming language for my 8-bit ... there were a couple of nervous weeks when I sent off my original to him - wondering if it would get there and back in one piece, which it did. Sadly I was unable to return the favour as this was about the time that my enthusiasm for the Atari died. However, my enthusiasm is returning and I'm looking at re-examining my old unfinished projects (which included some OFFICIAL ports of ST games). I'm looking at the possibility of rewriting them in Mac/65 and porting them to cartridge (the PL65 compiler, in which the originals have so far been written, creates compound files thus making it difficult to transfer them to cartridge). Perhaps Nir could help out at a later stage with his newly found knowledge of cartridge architecture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callipygous Posted May 1, 2002 Share Posted May 1, 2002 Another unsolicited testamonial for Nir . Maybe the following belong in a different thread, but.. What is the PL65 language? What is an "official" port of an ST game? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndary Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 as far as i remember... PL65 is a cross compiler on the ST.. it will allow you to compile 6502 code on the ATARI ST computers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshleo Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 PL65 was a disk-based programming language and compiler for the Atari 8-bit. It was, as far as I'm aware, only available from its developers (Noahsoft) via mail order in 1987/88. It came with an A4 manual and a sample version of 'Panic' written in the language. The programming language itself is similar to Pascal but has one or two really useful features. It was the first language I came across which contained pointers (things you find every day in C/C++ & Java), which are so easy to implement. Actually, I'm just wondering at this moment if it's possible to do linked lists with it - don't see why not. It also allows inline assembly. Another neat feature is the ability to define INTERRUPT functions, although I think all this does when it's compiled is save the register contents and add an RTI instruction at the end of the compiled code, rather than an RTS (something you can also do by using the inline assembler). The language is so versatile, it has to be seen to be believed. It's not the fastest compiler ever created (I think it's 3-pass) but it does create VERY fast code. The Editor that comes with it is also very slick. I definately prefer this language to either Quick or Action, both of which I have. If I could find the guy who wrote it, I'd be interested in re-releasing it. As for an 'OFFICIAL' port of an ST game, what I meant by that was that I had reached agreement with a software house (Audiogenic) a few years ago to port a couple of their ST games (Loopz & Helter Skelter) to the 8-bit. I gave the Loopz project to another programmer who tried writing it in Turbo Basic. He had to give up after running out of memory. I was disappointed by the graphics in his version since they looked like the game had been written in ... BASIC. When I briefly went back to the 8-bit in 1998, I had a go at writing it myself in PL65. Within a week, I had an almost fully working game that looked virtually identical to the ST version (except for the obvious lack of colour). This is a project I'd like to resurrect in the summer. Work on Helter Skelter never started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshleo Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 Oh yes, almost forgot. Another big plus at the time for PL65 was the fact that, unlike other compiled languages such as Action!, the runtime library is added to the compiled code at compile-time to produce a single executable file. This made your software look a little more professional ... some languages at the time needed you to BUY a separate runtime library before you could distribute your code in compiled format (I think Action! was amongst this category). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndary Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 i was confusing with some other title for the ST.. sorry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheddy Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 Just for complete clarity: I didn't start the topic. But I have had some pleasant previous e-mail conversation with Nir, and noticed he had joined this board to clear his name. Some of my projects may be "UNOFFICIAL" but the intention is that they will never be sold (but no license, still technically illegal, I suppose). I guess I was thinking out loud, with huge carts merely a hypothetical possibility of getting something working for 64k ataris. The prospect of Loopz development resurrected - Excellent! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted May 2, 2002 Author Share Posted May 2, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Sheddy: I didn't start the topic. But I have had some pleasant previous e-mail conversation with Nir, and noticed he had joined this board to clear his name. I started the topic and have changed the subject so the "warning" isn't as harsh, given that Nir (ndary) has explained his position and will mark these carts as copies in future auctions. I wasn't trying to go out on a witch hunt, but just wanted to let people know about these carts since we had already started to see the effects of them being on eBay (such as getting email about these "rare" carts no one has ever seen before). ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshleo Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Sheddy: Just for complete clarity: Some of my projects may be "UNOFFICIAL" but the intention is that they will never be sold (but no license, still technically illegal, I suppose). I guess I was thinking out loud, with huge carts merely a hypothetical possibility of getting something working for 64k ataris. Being "UNOFFICIAL" does not make it illegal as such (after all, how many clones of Defender were there?). However, if you were to release it under the name "Space Harrier" then SEGA *might* take notice - not really a good thing. The largest cart I know of is a 1Mb cart Commando cart that was never released but a handful of prototypes made their way out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndary Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 There are several titles i can think of.. that where ported from the C64 and to avoid Licencing problem it was released on atari in different games: like Operation Blood for atari is very similar to Operation Wolf on C64, or Bang! Bank! for atari is the same a West Bank on C64.. etc.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshleo Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 Operation Wolf for the C64 was an officially licensed arcade conversion. Operation Blood for the Atari was not. As a general rule, if you want to convert an old game to the Atari (or any other platform) without a license agreement, just rename it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avram Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 Very interesting discussion about copyright. Can any of you remember the Turrican rip-off that was Universal Soldier? I was a fan of Turrican 1 and 2 on the Commodore 64 and was shocked when I saw this direct copy playing in a branch of Virgin Megastore. Pictures of the game can be found at: http://www.nemmelheim.de/turrican/other/sega.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshleo Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 Well, the suggestion I made with regards to Sheddy making sure his ace WIP is not called "Space Harrier" seems to be a valid one. A new posting has emerged on the 2600 forum regarding Fox's *apparent* disproval of a fan hack being developed called Futurama, based on their TV show. The project has now been shelved as a result. To be honest, when I first found out about this hack a couple of days ago, the alarm bells started ringing. I play guitar a lot and have seen similar problems where large corporations have slapped bans on sites with TAB notation for artists under their labels. Such as an excellent Eagles site which had some of the best guitar tabs for Eagles songs, but which then had to take them all off after a threatening letter from Warner. So I know the score. No matter how innocuous the alleged breach of copyright, the big guy will almost always turn nasty if they see something that does breach it. Having said that, in gaming circles changing the name of an unofficial conversion is often enough to keep the wolves away (there are legal reasons which I won't bore you with unless asked ). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheddy Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 Some interesting (and slightly worrying) stuff there David, certainly it's something I would need to consider carefully too, if I ever got anywhere near releasing the game. Thanks for the info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callipygous Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 There is a general perception that classic games are old stuff and nobody cares about it. This notion comes from the old disks and roms being copied, passed around and downloaded for free. The owners probably don't care because they are no longer selling the game for the Atari anyway. When money is changing hands, however, there is a much greater chance to hear from rights holders. Video61, for instance, is very careful to track down who owns a game and get permission for their reproductions. Many of the old games still produce income. As an example, First Star Software licenses their old stuff. Still bringing in the cash 20 years later! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cx2k Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Mario's Other Brother: T When money is changing hands, however, there is a much greater chance to hear from rights holders. Video61, for instance, is very careful to track down who owns a game and get permission for their reproductions. I have to say that I don't believe this for one second! I'm not saying that they have never contacted an author but I think the majority of the time they don't bother. Case in point: At Phillyclassic, Curt was selling carts for Video 61. In the pile were carts of Montezuma's Revenge and other Parker Bros. titles. Are you going to tell me that Lance contacted Parker Bros. now owned by Hasbro?? Another example, they made a cartridge version of Dandy and when I saw the author at E-3 a year or so ago, I asked him about it and he had no idea that they were making carts and said he had never been contacted. I'd like to see some proof one of these days... John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 Avram said - "Can any of you remember the Turrican rip-off that was Universal Soldier? I was a fan of Turrican 1 and 2 on the Commodore 64 and was shocked when I saw this direct copy playing in a branch of Virgin Megastore. " Universal Soldier was the re-release of Turrican by Accolade on the Gensis etc - it was not a "rip off"... sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callipygous Posted May 2, 2002 Share Posted May 2, 2002 In the CSA8 ng, they seem to have gotten permissions from Scott Adams, Archer Maclean, Chris Crawford etc. Also posted about the whereabouts of various other owners. This is what I meant by being "careful". Have no idea about Dandy and Monty. Why not ask Lance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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