Atari 2600 emulator for the Jaguar

[cobracon]

Just curious if there has been any more work / research / etc. done on this?

 

A question for those of us without alpines (and might encourage further work on this) what would it take to get this working on the BJL setup, or as a CD image?

 

 

I agree that a cd image would get more peoples blood pumping about this project.

 

Robert

[justclaws]

I've asked before, but times change...

Has anybody ever examined Pitfall to see if the original 2600 ROM is included in that?

The hidden "egg" in Jaguar Pitfall is the original 2600 Pitfall - it is emulated or simulated?

If it was emulated, there could be a fully working 2600 emulator from Activision already!

I would really like to examine a ROM image of both games (I own both on cartridge) to

see if the original game ROM is included - I will do this some time - it's a long shot, but...

Anybody else looked or up to looking? (How many people even found the egg?)

Cheers,

JustClaws.

[jaysmith2000]

I've asked before, but times change...

Has anybody ever examined Pitfall to see if the original 2600 ROM is included in that?

The hidden "egg" in Jaguar Pitfall is the original 2600 Pitfall - it is emulated or simulated?

If it was emulated, there could be a fully working 2600 emulator from Activision already!

I would really like to examine a ROM image of both games (I own both on cartridge) to

see if the original game ROM is included - I will do this some time - it's a long shot, but...

Anybody else looked or up to looking? (How many people even found the egg?)

Cheers,

JustClaws.

 

That's a heck of a good idea JC! Keep us posted if you find anything out. I would guess they wrote Pitfall on it from scratch, but emulation sure seems to make more sense...

[badcoder]

Soon.

Have fun!

BadCoder.

Edited July 4, 2006 by badcoder

[justclaws]

Hello,

That's a heck of a good idea JC! Keep us posted if you find anything out.

I've had this on my mind for ages as I said, but the trouble was that as an Alpine/BJL owner I never had a means to look at cartridge contents.

 

I would guess they wrote Pitfall on it from scratch, but emulation sure seems to make more sense...

Well it seems optimistic, but only the PC version has the same feature as far as I recall, the other versions omitted it. (Perhaps they weren't powerful enough?)

 

Now if somebody could just point me at how to get a pure 2600 Pitfall binary...

(Ah: I think somebody is going to help.)

 

Cheers,

JustClaws.

Edit: I messed up the quoting first time.

Edited July 4, 2006 by justclaws

[walter_J64bit]

Hello,

That's a heck of a good idea JC! Keep us posted if you find anything out.

I've had this on my mind for ages as I said, but the trouble was that as an Alpine/BJL owner I never had a means to look at cartridge contents.

 

I would guess they wrote Pitfall on it from scratch, but emulation sure seems to make more sense...

Well it seems optimistic, but only the PC version has the same feature as far as I recall, the other versions omitted it. (Perhaps they weren't powerful enough?)

 

Now if somebody could just point me at how to get a pure 2600 Pitfall binary...

(Ah: I think somebody is going to help.)

 

Cheers,

JustClaws.

Edit: I messed up the quoting first time.

Try here for 2600 roms

[GrizzLee]

Just curious, is this the same code you already have, or is it a separate project?  If it's the same, do you have any rights to produce it in commercial form if you follow it to completion?  Can someone post a brief history of this project?  

 

..Al

 

Sorry I didn't clarify. Several years ago I purchased the source code and associated rights from a third party developer who was working on a Jaguar project called Virtual VCS. They got the emu working at about 40% completion or so; no audio and no collisions, for example, but it does display playfields and you can select game variations and move around the screen on several different games.

 

So, yes, I do have rights to commercially produce a 2600 emu based on the VVCS code, although of course it could not include any unlicensed ROMs. But on a more practical note, I don't have the time nor the 2600 skills to finish this project on my own, so it's been a moot point for the last few years.

 

This is not the same source as what Curt posted (from what I understand)... I believe Curt has posted the in-house emu project from Atari. I think most Jag fans had thought this code was lost, so it's a very cool find! I would love to see a 2600 emu available on the Jag regardless of which project it's based on. That would make it the ultimate Atari system in my book.

 

 

As I understand it, Dave Stauges was working on this up until his last days. He told me he had VCS Pac-Man working when he left. I wonder if there is a more mature version?

 

-Lee

[lotek_style]

Developer for this emulator is Atari I guess?

[+CyranoJ]

You could travel back to 2006 and ask the people in the thread

[walter_J64bit]

Developer for this emulator is Atari I guess?

Curt Vendel had it most likely it was from Atari.

[TXG/MNX]

Yes this emulator was done by Atari. There are two versions floating around I believe from two different authors. But it was still much WIP

[Rick Dangerous]

You could travel back to 2006 and ask the people in the thread

 

Or back to 1994 to ask the people who worked on the emulator!

 

Cool idea though, it'd be great to have a pile of 2600 roms playable on the Jag. Oh well, guess i'll just have to keep playing them on my 2600!

[Atlantis]

 

Or back to 1994 to ask the people who worked on the emulator!

 

Cool idea though, it'd be great to have a pile of 2600 roms playable on the Jag. Oh well, guess i'll just have to keep playing them on my 2600!

Sounds like a great idea, there's nothing like playing original games on original systems, even though it takes some time to change and hook up a new system to the tv.

 

For the moment my 2600 jr is broken, and I hate it, but have a tech guy on the case so hope is high for some Dodge 'em soon.

[PeterG]

OT: Did we ever find out who Badcoder was? Just saw his name in this thread as something from the past long forgotten...

[PeterG]

Double post...

Edited March 15, 2016 by PeterG

[doctorclu]

Sorry to necropost but I've been working with VirtualVCS and getting a game working on it (minus the score and sound) has got me interested in playing with this 2600 emulator as well.

 

Looking at the source the 2600 binaries are different from the binaries in VirtualVCS. Tried to compile the code into a binary but my compiler must not be exactly right. Could someone please compile this emulator so I can try this out? If you do, I'd like to know what compiler it took.

 

Thanks all!

[Bryan]

I'll post the Virtual VCS story here real quick:

 

A friend (Damien Jones) and I had some contacts at Atari from our ST-era projects. We decided to get Combat running on Damien's TT030 and then show it to Atari to pitch the idea of an emulator for the Jaguar. We cheated and basically re-wrote Combat line-by-line from the 6507 code, but they rewarded us with an Alpine system and asked us to demo an emulator within 90 days. Our contact was J. Patton.

 

We cranked out the first Virtual VCS demo in a little over a month (not cheating this time) and J. said everyone was impressed and to keep working on it while they got a contract together including a $300K advance. Weeks passed without any word from Atari and without returns to our calls. Eventually, J. handed us to Bill Rehbock who didn't want us to work on Virtual VCS, but rather a driving game I can only describe as AtariKarts with weapons. We were a bit defeated, but we agreed. After that, Atari went silent and then cancelled all projects a few months later. We knew people who got advance money from Atari and were then cut loose, but we never got that far.

 

Later, we heard about the in-house attempt at a VCS emulator and found out from Dave Staugas that he had seen our emulator and was impressed at how fast it ran since he was having trouble getting past about 70-80% speed. I believe we would have delivered a quality product if we'd been given the chance.

 

Eventually we sold everything we had to Carl Forhan and somehow he didn't end up with a ready-to-run image of Virtual VCS and had to reconstruct it. I still don't know what happened, but it was a chaotic time.

 

I still use the tsd (temporary sanity designs) logo on my Atari projects.

[VladR]

Thank you for sharing this incredible story.

 

I, for one, can unfortunately relate from personal experience to the tension when you burn months of work (self-funded via loans) expecting a milestone/advance and then it doesn't happen.

 

It's a rich boy's club (or basically a lottery) world...

[Bryan]

Thank you for sharing this incredible story.

 

I, for one, can unfortunately relate from personal experience to the tension when you burn months of work (self-funded via loans) expecting a milestone/advance and then it doesn't happen.

 

It's a rich boy's club (or basically a lottery) world...

 

You're welcome. Somewhere I've got my documents from that time. I may have even posted some of them, I can't remember.

 

Did your project have anything to do with Atari?

[VladR]

 

You're welcome. Somewhere I've got my documents from that time. I may have even posted some of them, I can't remember.

 

Did your project have anything to do with Atari?

Nah, it was PC. I couldn't have known at the time, as I happened to be there at a really, really bad time, in terms of PC market (My friend showed me the retail sales from Europe for last 2 years, and publishers were dropping devs left and right). Probably the worst 2 years in last 2 decades, in terms of sales and overall market behavior. My timing was simply impeccable

 

I didn't quite understand at that time, you have to behave like a shark, even as a developer. Once publishers see you need them, well - you know how it works

[Bryan]

Nah, it was PC. I couldn't have known at the time, as I happened to be there at a really, really bad time, in terms of PC market (My friend showed me the retail sales from Europe for last 2 years, and publishers were dropping devs left and right). Probably the worst 2 years in last 2 decades, in terms of sales and overall market behavior. My timing was simply impeccable

 

I didn't quite understand at that time, you have to behave like a shark, even as a developer. Once publishers see you need them, well - you know how it works

 

Well, the next things I worked on were some PC projects with Tom Harker of ICD. None of them panned out, though.

[walter_J64bit]

Later, we heard about the in-house attempt at a VCS emulator and found out from Dave Staugas that he had seen our emulator and was impressed at how fast it ran since he was having trouble getting past about 70-80% speed. I believe we would have delivered a quality product if we'd been given the chance.

 

Atari dropped the ball on The VCS emulator just think of it we could had good chuck of the 2600 library on one Jag cart.

[doctorclu]

Atari dropped the ball on The VCS emulator just think of it we could had good chuck of the 2600 library on one Jag cart.

 

That is what I'm shooting for. Yes Atari dropped the ball but wow what this emulator showed was possible. Not every game requires hit detection so we could probably get multipacks of games on a cartridge going.

 

And if this is what Carl put together, and we have source code, that would be fun to play with.

 

 

Well, the next things I worked on were some PC projects with Tom Harker of ICD. None of them panned out, though.

 

Yeh, sorry Atari didn't throw more cash your way, looks like the emulator was coming along.

 

As for ICD, I have a catbox from that time. A great little device. Lots of days jaglinking Battlesphere and Doom.

[Bryan]

As for ICD, I have a catbox from that time. A great little device. Lots of days jaglinking Battlesphere and Doom.

 

I was there during part of the CatBox debacle. I went with Tom to the factory who made the metal cases and I saw stacks of unfinished parts at ICD. Tom says that he lost his database after taking preorders, and maybe that's true, but I know he was also running on a very lean budget and he probably needed more money to finish another batch. Several people have contacted me over the years asking me what happened, and all I know is Tom always told me he was going to finish them and figure it all out someday, which of course never happened.

[doctorclu]

 

I was there during part of the CatBox debacle. I went with Tom to the factory who made the metal cases and I saw stacks of unfinished parts at ICD. Tom says that he lost his database after taking preorders, and maybe that's true, but I know he was also running on a very lean budget and he probably needed more money to finish another batch. Several people have contacted me over the years asking me what happened, and all I know is Tom always told me he was going to finish them and figure it all out someday, which of course never happened.

 

Luckily I entered the Jaguar scene in 1999, a great point as I was only a year away from the release of Battlesphere, I could get equipment and games for real cheap, and I wasn't there the whole time everyone was waiting for Battlesphere and Catboxes. Honestly didn't know about the Jaguar till 1999 so not like all that was planned, just worked out that way.

 

A confusing part of Jaguar history for sure, but those that did get catboxes I assure you have enjoyed them. If nothing else, for connecting to RGB monitors and better displays.