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I got the Atari 2600
Today I got the atari. going home with 120 in my wallet (christmas money) we parked in the lotb that contained GAMEOVER in the rows. this place sold all retro. also the people knew everything there was to know about anything retro. Right in front was the huge shelf containing 100 or so games. as i checked my list, a clerk id know for a year or so asked if we were looking for anything inperticular. my excitment boiled up as i told him atari 2600 and he showed me 2 models in the display case a darth vader and the 4 switch. i chose the 4 switch(not sure) he took one out i looked at the shelves of games until finnally picking out donkey kong and jungle hunt . while idid this i also picked an extra joystick(it came with one). while i was going through this proscess my dad and the guys were playing astroids on my atari( for testing). after 20 minutes or so i went to the line and a guy about 20 or 25 asked me what i was getting. i told him atari 2600. he looked happy and i said i love atari . he said yeah! and fistbumped me. i finnally bought it. it was 95 bucks al together. my dad loaded it into th box. Now that i had it ill skip to getting it up and running. we moved the ps1 and hooked it up. i hataed the joystick at first but learned to like it. i played donkeykong for an hour or so. i beat it 30 times. i already had a bunch of atari games at my other house. so im getting a homebrew but im not sure which.
**LEAVE A COMMENT RECOMMENDING WHICH HOME BREW TO BUY**
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Latest Entry
Programming is hard...
Stages of programming:
1- Come up with an idea for a game.
2- come up with details and features for the game.
3- Try to program, realize some features just won't work on the 2600.
4- devise workarounds, or delete features.
5- run out of ROM, cut back more features.
6- learn bankswitching, put features back in.
7- run out of RAM, scratch head a lot.
8- search forums for help ideas.
9- set game code aside for awhile.
10- come back and look at code.
11- start code from scratch because you can't figure out what you were trying to do because you didn't add comments.
12- scratch head again
13- curse at the compiler
14- reread code and find the one non-indented thingie or miscapitalized whatnot
15- play pacman
16- lock yourself in a room with a ton of notes and don't come out until it works.
I am finding programming to be like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle in your head without physically moving the pieces around- by the time I get some bits to fit together, I forgot about the first bits- it's just too much to remember at one time. Working a few minutes here and there doesn't help much. If I manage to get to a playable stage, there will be some sort of announcement in the forums somewhere.
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Latest Entry
removing alien dead body..
ok, in future i want some new HW upgrades in my atari, this bag take some free space.. what is it? lets look..
problem is also visible in the photo, the alien bag is stuck on the bottom side, everything is ALL-IN-ONE only on cables..
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Happy Thanksgiving
I want to wish Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. This is a time to be grateful. I'm about the get married (dec 16) and my life is good. Simplicity is at the essence.
Outside of my personal life, I'm grateful to have such a committed Atari community and in special, to all of the Atari 8-bit fans!!!
One may not always agree, but we are few, we are strong!
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Developpement diary
Want to see the development of an Colecovision game step by step ? (In french sorry ...).
Only at :
http://bfg-gamepassion.blogspot.com/
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I stayed with the tutorials on Random's website for a couple of hours and got to lesson 12 understanding most of what I was doing but I found myself constantly confused at some portions of the code I would be looking at.
While the tutorial I'm currently going through is good, and very informative, I feel it was missing some key elements/just brush over them with minor detail that I still need to study up on and get clarification on as well. The following information I feel should have been the first thing taught and really hammered into the student, if you have a solid understanding of the following, I feel the rest will come very easily.
From my current understanding, which could be incorrect as I am still learning, the 6502 has 3 registers (I consider them variables, but that is just how I think about it) that you can us, A, X, and Y. The operations you have for each variable is as follows:
A:
sta <- store a into the following
lda <- load a with the following
ina <- increment value stored in variable a
dea <- decrement value stored in variable a
A has other oprerations as well, and as the author discribed it, its the "workhorse" of the 3 registers available on the 6502 (really the 6507) CPU.
X:
stx <- store x into the following
ldx <- load a with the following
inx <- increment value stored in variable x
dex <- decrement value stored in variable x
Y:
sty <- store x in the following
ldy <- load x with the following
iny <- increment value stored in variable y
dey <- decrement value stored in variable y
The other thing I'm still trying to wrap my mind around completed is how you use these registers with the registers from vcs.h. Such as the following:
ldx #0 stx COLUBK
I guess for me I have to reverse my thinking of how these registers work. I'll explain with the following example:
ldx #0 really means the following in x = 0 stx COLUBK really means the following COLUBK = x
However in my mind, I would think ldx would be used to retrieve the value of x. Same thing for the stx which really means "store x in" and is used to take the value in the register x and put it int he following register COLUBK, in my mind it would be reverse, I want to think of it as storing a value into x.
While this might seem minor and trivial, it was a small yet important concept for me to wrap my head around last night and this morning. I guess this just shows how I have to learn different from others which is fine.
The more I think about trying to program in machine language, the more I'm applying natural language to each statement to help me retain this information in my memory.
ldx is "load x with the following"
stx is "store x in the following"
I'm thinking of going through my books tonight to learn how loops, if statements and other basic operations that are pretty much universal in all languages, meaning Java, BASIC, C, Assembly all have IF statements its just learning the way the specific language requires you to setup the statement, before I continue with the rest of the 2600 programming tutorial on Randoms website. I think I will have a stronger grasp of the Machine Language if I go about it in this manor.
If I've made any glaring errors in this please let me know so I can correct myself and learn!
Thanks
Disjaukifa
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Madalaine's Jello
I was all set to take a bunch of pictures of Madalaine and some ice cream because she beat me at video games, but then I found out that I no longer had any ice cream! But I did find something else she likes...
Chu: I'm sorry, Madalaine. I don't have any ice cream for you! But I did find some Jello!
Madalaine: Yay! It's my favorite flavor, too. Thanks, Daddy.
Madalaine: I'm so happy that I get to share some Jello with Daddy. Make sure you leave me my share! I did beat you, after all.
Chu: I'm sure you'll be full long before I'm done.
Madalaine: Thank you, Daddy. I'm so full.
Chu: You're welcome, Madalaine.
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My Jaguar Collection as it stands 07/10/11
ok guys so I've been aggressively going after more stuff for my Jaguar collection over the last month or two and I'm finally getting a respectable collection together. Heres a list of my activity recently:
Items bought and awaiting mail delivery:
Jag CD Drive
Mem Track
Pro Controller
Power Drive Rally
Hover Strike CD
Blue Lightning
Items I received since joining Atari Age:
Hover Strike (cart)
Brutal Sports Football
Missile Command 3d
Pitfall (arrived today... yay!)
Battlemorph
Atari Jaguar power supply (for CD)
replacement Cybermorph cart (2meg edition)
currently watching/bidding on:
Ultra Vortek
==================================================================
Ok so that moves the grand total of games I own now up to 25 if you include the ones I've already paid for and am just waiting to receive.
I would like to get a few more retail titles but honestly can't justify spending the money required for games like:
Robinsons Requiem
Skyhammer
Worms
Iron Soldier 2
I've decided I wont buy Bubsy, Highlander and a few others such as Dragons Lair, Space Ace or Brain Dead 13 (I can't even FIND these 3!!), for the price they go for I just can't justify buying them as I don't think I will enjoy them in the slightest.
I'm interested in getting world tour racing, is club drive better or worse? I saw that Club Drive, looks pretty abismal lol.
Anyway I just wanted to update you all and see what you think, have a look at my latest video on youtube if you haven't already done so, here is a list of the games I have, if anyone wants to make a suggestion for more retail purchases please feel free!
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- Alien Vs Predator
- Battle Morph
- Blue Lightning
- Brutal Sport Football
- Cannon Fodder
- Cybermorph 2mb
- Doom
- Evolution Dino Dudes
- Hover Strike
- Hover Strike Unconquered Lands
- Iron Soldier
- Kasumi Ninja
- Missile Command 3d
- Pitfall
- Power Drive Rally
- Protector SE
- Raiden
- Rayman
- Super Burnout
- Syndicate
- Tempest 2000
- Theme Park
- Ultra Vortek (assuming I win it!)
- Wolfenstein 3d
- Zero 5
- Zool 2
latest video on youtube:
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Atomic Meltdown Re-Write Part: 2
Well, after working on it for a few hours, I have another build for you! Two in one day. I have collision detection set for when you hit a wall, the player sprite disappears and you get two options. If you press the reset button it takes you back to the title screen. If you press the fire button, it will immediately start a new game.
Not quite sure what I'm going to implement next, been fighting to wrap the logic behind Bit operators in my head. I will this however, this game is tiny compared to my older version and I'm not even really using any variables yet, so I'm not sure what I was doing the other time, but I can say I'm having a lot more fun because I'm not under such a huge constraint to have variables available.
Heres the latest build:
Atomic_Meltdown_2011y_09m_12d_2322t.bas.bin
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Thanks!
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Review Four: A Capital Venture: Trust Me!
Review Four is posted for the 12 Turn Program! Parker Brothers' "Trust Me"! Is it a boom or a bust?
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Karyyk.com
I've started a new site/blog of sorts. There's not too much there yet (have updated a few of my old reviews), and the scope might be a bit wide, but it's just something I want to do (haven't really dabbled with anything site-related since my old Jaguar's Lair site, Anoxic Games and then StaticGamer...that's like almost a decade ago on the most recent...getting old). If anyone has any feedback, I'd appreciate it.
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Latest Entry
Yeah I didn't even seem like I was trying.
I just want to say this, but I've also kind of left because I seriously dislike how I've gotten my reputation here. I just seem like some oblivious kid who gets angry at certain posts for opinions even though I'm not usually like that. I've gotten better, but I'm not sure how much I like to visit somewhere where I don't know many of the userbase. The community just seems uncomfortably big sometimes, compared to my other one.
Don't consider this to truly be a bye, just kind of an admittance.
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Newest version of my game
here is the newest version of "Desando Joe!"
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Want list...
So here's a list of games and controllers I'm looking for, some ultra-rare, some not so rare.
Games:
Millipede
Kool-aid Man
Basic Programming
3-D Tic-tac-toe
Dragster
Asterix
Plaque Attack
Star Wars: Jedi Arena
Star Wars: Death Star Battle
Star Wars: The Arcade Game
Swordquest WaterWorld
Music Machine
Secret Quest
Phoenix
Snoopy and the Red Baron
Checkers
Chess
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Home Run
James Bond 007
Chuck Norris Superkicks
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns
Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man
Star Strike
Bump 'n' Jump
Burgertime
International Soccer
Super Challenge Football
Tunnel Runner
Omega Race
Atlantis (Day scene label)
Controllers:
Tron controller
Keypad controllers
Video touch pad
Track and Field Controller
Trackball
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Time to make some Enemies!
Reading fellow member Mili's blog made me realize that the Politics and Religion ban doesn't extend to my personal blog. So I'm going to vent!
For the most part, I'm a fairly left-leaning guy who doesn't like the fact that both the United States and Canada are drifting steadily further to the right. Part of the problem for me is that the political right doesn't even stand for the things it was conceived to stand for historically. If you've taken any Political Science courses at school, you know that on paper, principles of the classical right should include smaller government. So what does that mean exactly? It means that the government keeps its hands off as many things as possible. This policy of non-interference can be broken down into two broad categories: economic non-interference and social non-interference.
Economically, a classical conservative believes in a free market, with as little government regulation as possible. Businesses are allowed to create a natural environment of competition, where in theory they will compete to offer the best products and services to the customer at the best prices. Some people believe this philosophy works, and some don't; that's not where I'm picking a fight.
So far it might sound like contemporary conservatives are sticking to their guns; after all, vehement Republican opposition to things like universal health care and government takeovers of bankrupt corporations and financial institutions rings true to the principles of the free market, right? The problem, however, is that conservatives don't just support the freedom of the corporations; they support the corporations themselves. As in, financially.
In both Canada and the United States, conservatives are in the pockets of corporations. Tax break after tax break for oil companies, banks, multiconglomerates and the super-rich are a continuing conservative mandate, even during an economic recession where those tax dollars should be allocated to the relief of struggling working-and-middle-class families. In states like Wisconsin and Ohio, the scale has been tipped in favor of corporations over employees with the stripping away of collective bargaining rights and the crippling of unions. Big corporations get richer while small ones and individuals suffer. Markets are no longer truly free when the biggest businesses have the political and financial backing of the government, at the expense of small businesses which either go belly-up or are bought out by the big guns.
The principles of small government also extend to the social sphere. A small government keeps out of your home, out of your place of worship, and out of your bedroom. Modern conservatives, quite obviously, do none of these things.
Both American Republicans and Canadian Conservatives support practices like wiretapping, arrest without a warrant, and legislature that discriminates sexual preferences. Information is collected and used against you when they don't approve of your behavior. Two weeks ago, two girls were thrown out of a Conservative Party rally in Canada by the RCMP solely because a Conservative employee had screened their Facebook profiles and found photographs of them with the rival party's leader. At the same time, while conservatives want all of your information, they do not want you to have any of theirs. This is why Julian Assange and Wikileaks, who have tried to expose the international crimes of governments and businesses, has been vilified by both the American and Canadian governments, and slandered with false charges to tarnish his name.
Both of our constitutions promise freedom of religion and equal rights to all peoples regardless of background or belief. But some beliefs, as you know, are more equal than others. Evangelical Christian denominations exert a disproportionate amount of influence, while minority groups like Muslims are continuously demonized and discriminated against. If I am to judge all Muslims by the actions of Osama bin Laden, shouldn't I judge all Christians by the actions of Ted Jones, or Fred Phelps? Furthermore, guess what American leader is responsible for hundreds of times more civilian deaths than Bin Laden? I'm not going to give you the oft-repeated contemporary answers; try Harry S. Truman.
Ultimately Evangelical churches are the wealthiest religious presence in North America, and so in this regard, conservatives are in their pockets just as they are in the pockets of corporations. As such, they attempt to dictate the social values of everyone.
Additional points of complaint: conservatives by-and-large don't believe in the perils of climate change, or at least profess not to because they are in the pockets of oil companies. I don't even have to prove climate change to demonstrate the dangers of this sort of ignorance. One side believes that human influence will ultimately damage our climate and environment to the point where even basic survival is not guaranteed. The other side believes that human impact on the environment is negligible. If we listen to the first side and make the necessary changes to our society and infrastructure to make it more sustainable, and that side later turns out to be wrong, are we really that much worse off? Either way, we are still alive. On the other hand, let's follow the naysayers and make no changes whatsoever to our sustainability. What happens if they are wrong? Simple: we die. Climate change thus becomes a better-safe-than-sorry issue.
Speaking of ignorance, I am terrified by the intelligence and qualifications of up-and-coming conservative politicians such as Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman. These people know about as much about political science as Avril Lavigne does about punk rock.
In closing, then, conservatism in its classical sense no longer exists. Conservatives no longer care about small government, free markets, and the rights of the individual. They support corporate theocracy.
Why my sudden frustrations? Canada is having an election, and for the first time, I am worried. The Conservative Party of Canada as it exists today is an amalgamation of the older Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance Parties. The Canadian Alliance was a re-branding of the Reform Party, which sprang up in Western Canada in the late 80's as a response to growing sentiments that Western Canadian interests and values were under-represented at the federal level. Throughout the Reform party's existence, they support and attracted the support of racists, homophobes, sexists, religious fundamentalists, and oil companies. That same party now occupies most of the positions of power in the modern Conservative Party; the old Progressive Conservatives were the last true "Classical Conservatives" insofar as they support market de-regulation, social non-interference, and small government. Most of those "Red Tories" quit when the corporate Evangelicals moved in.
Stephen Harper, the leader of this Conservative Party, is now asking Canadians for a majority government. He supports stripping the funding from other political parties, the de-regulation of banks to mirror the US model that collapsed in 2008 and took much of the economy with it, he has rolled back Canada's commitments to international environmental pacts, he won't let the same-sex debate die, he has slashed funding to liberal arts programs, he has ignored both Aboriginal and Francophone issues, he turned Toronto into a police state for the G20 summit and arrested 900 people without charges, and he tries to keep media coverage out of parliament. His party supports wiretapping and has left a Canadian who was arrested as a child solder in Afghanistan at age 14 to rot in Guantanamo Bay, where he faces torture, terror, and hopelessness. He downplays the environmental disaster that is the Alberta Oil Sands, he wastes money on bleeding-edge military jets, and avoids direct questions. Four members of his party are facing charges of election fraud, and his government was found to be in contempt of parliament. He is continuously voted in by the zealous, the wealthy, and the ignorant.
If he wins a majority, I can no longer be proud of my country. Canada will just be another corporate theocracy.
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Sonic X Blog: Depths of Danger (Season 2, Episode 3)
It's been almost a week, but here's the Sonic X blog again. In Depths of Danger, Sonic and his friends try to retrieve the fourth chaos emerald from a sunken ship. However, Robotnik has his heart set on the emerald as well, and Sonic's dislike of water presents problems.
What's to say that hasn't been said? It's another worthy episode, and it's got a few unexpected things in it. Seeing Sonic trying to overcome his hydrophobic tendencies was pretty entertaining, too.
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A Plea to the Jaguar Community and a Call to Action
Ah the Jaguar community. Without a doubt, the most hostile of all the gaming communities... this is my personal story of the Jaguar community. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
I've been a member of AA since 2005, and for 6 years managed to weave and dodge my way around all of the foolish nonsense. From double accounts, to heated discussions regarding roms, a blind loyalty to the system and it's games, and the constant bickering and antagonizing of members that don't fall in line with the "norm." At times it has been downright toxic.
Two forums emerged from the 2 "factions" of the divide, one being FreeJag and the other being private. Neither has picked up any steam. Leaving AA the premier place for Jaguar enthusiasts, which seems appropriate.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Since I had the internet, approximately 1998, I've loved the free flow of information and the sharing of knowledge. One of my earliest obsessions was with the Sonic community, and I was huge into that scene around the time the Sonic 2 Beta was released. There was so much information being shared and discovered. And the rom was released to the public! Instead of an elite few controlling the flow of information, it was available for the whole world.
From there, FAQs, hex charts, and documentation was shared and more great things happened. With Hex editing alone (meaning no source code) awesome hacks of the Genesis Sonic games were released. Beta levels were restored, beautiful palette swaps were released, and previously undiscovered badnicks were restored. Sonic Mega Mix, which is a terrific hack of Sonic CD, is freely available for you to burn to a CD and fire up on your Sega CD. Nothing is required to play this gem. You don't need to be a member. You don't need to donate money. The community is still thriving, and Sonic Retro is a HUGE forum, and even has an official relationship with Sega. You read that right, a rom hosting, sonic hacking, IP violating, group of people have an official relationship with Sega.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are hundreds of examples of bending, and sometimes breaking, rules/laws resulting in wonderful things. A more recent example was a very dedicated chap who disassembled the original Super Mario Bros. (NES), reworked the code into a fully documented source code. I can't even fathom the amount of time and energy that went into this project. And it was released free to the community.
And you want to know what happened when some gave away there hard work asking nothing in return? Someone took the source, and ported it to the Sega Genesis. And you know what he did? Released it to the world, free of charge, free of obligation. And from there, people started helping with the project, donating source code and other files to help make the Genesis Mario even better, and more accurate. This is what happens when people share their work. Wonderful things happen.
But for some reason, these types of things quite simple don't happen in the Jaguar scene. Perhaps it's because the Jaguar is not terribly popular, and does not attract enough people to warrant the time and energy it takes to do such great things. But my gut tells me it's something else.
Avoiding the drama that was the summer of 2009, and to keep with this blog's terms of use (specifically, not naming anyone) let's just say there was a shake up. A perfect storm of sorts was brewing. And when the dust settled, there were casualties. Member of the Jaguar community started rejected the "norm" and Jag fans started wanting a piece of that community pie. People wanted to download roms without being shunned. People wanted to talk about emulation. People wanted to hack, crack, explore, share, the games they've loved for years.
But during this renaissance, there was resistance. The ugly term "piracy" reared it's ugly head.
Now I must take a brief break from story for a disclaimer. This story and my thoughts are not meant to offend, anyone. If you are offended I offer you my sincerest apologies. If you think any of my comments are directed at you personally, they are not. And now to continue our broadcast.
The term piracy reared it's ugly head. Yes, downloading roms of commercial games is illegal (unless the developer released it's rights... and speaking of that, check out the Amiga CD32 community, awesome). There is no doubt about it. But what does that really mean? I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Generally speaking, developers and publishers do not want their intellectual property released for free to the public. Piracy is a real problem, and does negatively affect companies. But this very website is host to thousands of commercial roms. The owner of this website has not been sued. Draw your own conclusions.
This leads me to my first problem with the Jaguar community. If you visit other game forums and mention how you played Darxide (rare 32x title) via an emulator, no one is going to berate you, no one is going to call you a pirate, no one is going to threaten litigation. In the summer of 2009, you couldn't mention you downloaded Rayman and played it on a Jaguar emulator. A vocal minority of the Jaguar community wouldn't allow such talk.
This leads me to a personal lesson. Live and let live. Not everyone agrees with you. You won't agree with everyone. Chances are very high that nothing you say will change the other persons mind. The point of debate is not to "convert" the other person. It's not even about persuading the other person to believe what you are saying. The point of debate is to understand the other side. Not agree with the other side. Live and let live. It takes all kinds of people to make the world go round. And yes, that means I empathize (but not sympathize) with those that disagree.
So here we are today. Coming up on the 2 year anniversary of the Jaguar's renaissance. Things are moving slowly, but I believe the community is slowly moving towards a new era of sharing and discovery. We've seen a few interesting hacks, including extracting Art and Voice files from the bubsy rom, and some work disassembling the code. Perhaps someday we'll have Bubsy hacks with tweaked controls, new sprites, and other things I can't even imagine.
We've also seen some hex editing (very crude hacking) of Checkered Flag to start to tweak it's horrid controls. Who knows, if enough people show interest, share there findings, maybe someday Checkered Flag could be playable, maybe even fun!
A Call To action
If you've made it this far, perhaps you are wondering what the point of all of this is. Up until this point, I've been bobbing and weaving my way through the Jaguar Community, only stepping out of line once and a while to voice my opinion. But some recent experiences have made me want to step out of the shadows. It's something that I, and many others, should have done a long time ago. It's time for the Jaguar community to be a community. You don't even have to do anything if you don't want to!
1. Be civil, not everyone agrees with you, and you can't change there mind. That is ok!
2. Support emulation. Piracy and emulation are NOT the same thing. Emulation makes programming and debugging easier. Emulation can give you a way to play freely released games without dedicated hardware. You can support emulation by supporting those who are writing emulators. Get involved, test them, offer feedback, offer support.
3. SHARE I can't express this enough. Share your findings and your discoveries. The more you share, the more others will share. The more they share, the more you get. Some people will object to sharing for "legal" or "moral" concerns. And that's fine, everyone is entitled to there own opinion.
Dig through roms and find sprites that were never used in game. Take those sprites and make animated gifs and share them with the world. Find hex edits to give games unlimited lives. Find sound clips. Document and share. If whatever you are doing violates forum rules, then start your own website! Blogger and Wordpress (among others) make for great ways to document and share.
As I said at the beginning of this blog, there are 2 factions of Jaguar fans. Those who like the status quo, who refuse to allow any new ideas, and stand on what they perceive as the moral high ground with a firm stance against any sort of "hacking." The other side wants to see the Jaguar flourish in it's after life, like most classic gaming systems.
Which side should you be on? Neither. There is room for everyone. If you strictly want to play commercial games on your actual system, and nothing else. That is fine! I support you! There is room in the community for you. I will not try to change your mind. And you should not try to change mine. If you want to see emulation, rom hacking, sprite ripping, and game modifying, there is room for you to! All we have to do is respect each other, from the people on the extreme ends, to the the quiet majority in the middle.
So please, end the hostility. Who knows, maybe we'll see the Super Mario Bros. source ported to the Jaguar. Now wouldn't that be awesome?
-Kris
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Played some TETЯIS today.
The Tengen version, of course.
Well, it's a lot better than the cruddy NES version that Nintendo made, and I got about 30000 on my first try. Just need to make my emulator save information.
Graphics are nice, sound is nearly perfect (I want the theme A from the Nintendo NES version in it and for it to increase in tempo if you're too high), and controls are decent. Pick this up if you want a good Tetris game.
Or to increase your collection, these are R5.
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bB 1.1 beta build release B
Here is another release that should be close enough that programmers can get started on some games.
This release requires a test version of Stella, posted in the previous blog entry.
Included in this release:
- Support for 10 sprites (player0-player9)
- pfcolors: now works
- Background colors per line supported (uses new bkcolors: command)
- scorecolor: command to define score colors per line
- Comments with semicolon now supported
- C-style multiline comments with /* and */
- Use of extra RAM in DPC+ (described below)
A demo is included that shows some of the above features, except the extra RAM.
Sprite 0 is flicker-free and uses player0, while sprite 1 is flickered as needed for player1-player9. Use the left joystick in the demo to move the sprites and the button to change the sprite to move to see the flicker engine in action.
pfcolors: can specify from 1 to 255 colors for the playfield. Use DF4FRACINC to determine when the colors will update (the number of lines is determined by 256/x). For example: to update every 8 lines, use DF4FRACINC=16.) DF4FRACINC=0 will show the whole playfield in a single color, while DF4FRACINC=255 will update every line (but needs a "priming read" - more about that another time.) In the demo, use RESET to change DF4FRACINC.
In a similar fashion, DF0FRACINC-DF3FRACINC control how often each 8-pixel swath of playfield columns gets updated. In the demo, use the right joystick can independently control these.
bkcolors: works like any other color command. It uses DF6FRACINC to determine how often to update. In the demo, use SELECT to change DF6FRACINC.
Some other things that RevEng pointed out have been fixed (though I'm not sure if all have.)
Lastly, use of the extra RAM is via a stack as that's how the RAM is structured. You have a 256-byte stack. You can push and pull variables from the stack to effectively increase your available RAM, as follows:
push a monsterX t
will push variables a, monsterX and t to the stack, and you can use them for other purposes. To get them back, use pull:
pull a monsterX t
You can also push or pull a range:
push a-f
will push variables a-f. To get them back, use pull a-f.
When you push variables, the pointer is decremented and pulling will increment. A third command to handle the stack pointer is also available. The default value for the stack pointer is 256. For example:
stack 200
will set the stack pointer to 200. You can also use a variable here.
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Fish and Chips and Mario
Lent, 1981....The video game craze is in full force and my brother and I are relentlessly pummeling my parents to get us an Atari because it's educational, everyone has one and whatever other brainwashing tecniques we could think of....an effort that would pay off at Christmas time. As per usual for us at the time we headed down to my Grandparents house in Lorain, Ohio for Easter weekend....a 3 hour trek from our suburban Detroit home. We arrived on Thursday night at 9:30, my brother and I consumed the usual over teh top sanwich platter my Grandma would prepare for our arrival and headed off to bed. The next evening we all went to the Slovak Home in Lorain....which can best be described as a VFW hall kind of place with the atmosphere which you would expect from a place like this. They had a good fish fry according to the locals. We walked in teh place and immeiately the smell hits you....I love fish fries to this day and I could tell this one was going to be top notch. We went down a worn carpet staircase to reach the basement. From a sensory standpoint it could be described as uber smokey, loud, wood paneled and packed to the gills (pun somewhat intended) with mainly 40+ year old locals getting after it hard as you do when you see the words "all you can eat". We sat down at the checkerboard covered round table for 6 and I was just about to pick up a greasy dirty menu when I noticed it. A Donkey Kong. Holy cow....A Donkey Kong!!! Let me stop right here and mention that allthough we lived a non deprived childhood...my brother and I were yet to play a video game of any kind. Pathetic...I know...but what are you gonna do? I immediately shifted my attention from the glorious batter dipped golden heavenly fish to the electric joy of the light blue stand up arcade machine less than 20 feet from my clutches. I blurted it out without thinking like ralphie going for the Red Ryder..."can I have some quarters?"...before my parents could even look, my Grandma gave my brother and I 6 of them....oh baby it was on like....Donkey Kong! I being the oldest went first....the first video game I ever played! I was just happy to be there...taking it all in....and the game went predictibly. Turn 1 - I watched in amazement as Kong ascended the building with his hostage....the graphics made my jaw drop. I took some steps got stuck on a ladder and got hit by a barrel. Turn 2 - this time I got up to the second floor and a really poorly timed jump caused my demise. Turn 3 - OK...I have the hang of this thing...I made my first successful barrel jum and then my second...got to the middle somewhere when fate dropped one on my head. GAME OVER. But I was hooked. Although my brother...only 7 at the time had no success, I, on my last game of the night, cleared level 1!.....And the fish was great
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Chapter 8
Several weeks have passed. Tom sits in his dimly lit dorm room. His eyes scan the digicenter for the time: 5:40 P.M. He feels slightly sick, his bones weak. His wrists feel numb. He wishes he could disconnect his hands from them. If it could free him. In his mind he screams. There is nothing to be desired. He has already looked upon the face of God. Or is it just that he cannot decide? Paralyzed, no movement of the body but no peace of mind. Only scratching and screaming. The darkness is coming down again. Like the flick of a switch, the heavy veil casts its shadow upon all his thoughts and perceptions. There is a small fire burning in the center of his chest. Here where old Light once sat a false light burns. The animal hatred reigns. Let it come upon you and have its way with you. Biting flesh. His head is on fire. Sweat and rage. He wants to kill his family. He wants to kill his roommate. Sit there. Sit with it. Watch the tiny snake, the size of pinpoint, squirming through the wood in the floor. Bite. Bite. You feel the wounds of Christ. You are my stinking flower. Pleasure – beast – pain – rebirth. You’ve destroyed your religion, you’ve destroyed your mind. He glances at the clock: 5:50 P.M. as the digits crack. A shattered diamond. Hear me backwards: Raul med sin. Climb. Wire. Belt. Symbol. Crack. Shatter. High. Get up on the bed. Worship me. Worship me.
“Tom?! Are you ok, man?!”
His roommate Chris interrupts.
“You look pretty sick, dude. Maybe we should call someone…”
“FUCK OFF! GET AWAY FUCKER!” Tom snarls.
“Alright, man, I was just going to ask you to come out to the bar...Jeeze...what’s up your ass?”
“YOUR FUCKING MOTHER’S CUNT!” he screams.
“Dude, you really need to relax. I’m leaving. Fuck off.”
Tom just sits there growling, occasionally barking, biting the flesh off his lower lip, causing it to bleed into his mouth.
“Piss, fuck, cunt,” he grumbles softly.
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My Pool of Radiance Quest Comes To An Unexpected End
I was just starting to really get into it. I was originally worried about how much grinding would be needed - I mean, the D&D ruleset doesn't exactly let you level up quickly. My mage with 3hp was always a sitting duck as well. However, I made it in and out of several treks through the slums, and even completed a fetch quest for a wizard named Ohlo.
I levelled up my fighters and clerics (I had 2 of each in my party), and only needed a few XP more for my magic user. I decided that my Fighter/Thief was just a bad choice, because those dual class characters take so long to level up. It only took a few play sessions to get almost everyone to level two, and I only had to restart a few times. That's not bad. I also started getting some nice magic items - a Bracers of AC 6 and Ring of Protection +1 - perfect for the mag -and a few enchanted swords and bows. Good times. I like the fact that you don't really know what you have right away. It adds some mystery and suspense.
I also like how the map view doesn't really show you everything. I stumbled on that wizard by chance, and had to find my own way to the rope guild based on his instructions (it's SE of here). Most modern games would put a waypoint marker on the map, or show the door to his room in a different color or something. The fact that you don't see details is kind of a plus in some ways because it makes you explore. You can't just look at a room and say "that floorboard is a slightly darker brown, of course there's something in there." In PoR you just have to walk around, search, and see what happens. In a way, the lack of detail makes for a more realistic game.
On the downside, the interface still seemed clunky after a couple weeks. You can't just cycle through your players when at a shop, to see what each one has, you have to back out, pick the new guy, then go back into his "view" screen. And of course, it hits the disk every time it has to load a player picture. If they had an option to not see the pictures by default, it wouldn't be nearly as bad.
Another frustrating aspect is that if you're in a hopeless encounter (like a half-dead party getting attacked by 20 orcs), there's no option to quit. You either have to reboot (ugh) or bide your time while all 20 orcs attack your party, and hopefully kill them quick so you can reload.
On that topic, I do like how you can save anywhere you can camp. It's a long enough process that you don't just save every few steps, taking the consequence out of exploration (like trying to bash down the door I should have left alone), but it's convenient enough that I don't have to sit there and tool around trying to find a save point. I'm busy, I don't have tons of time for gaming, so when I'm done I need to be able to save, quit and stop playing.
Anyways, I trekked back into the slums, killed a few more kobolds (including one big party that was a great strategic battle) and got enough XP for Wyzria to hit level 2. I sold a bunch of stuff, levelled her up, got my new spell, and started walking back to the slums to explore deeper.
*beep*
Guru Meditation Error.
Huh? Crap, game crashed. Well, it wasn't that long since I saved - I think I did it right before I levelled up my mage. So I power cycle the Amiga.
*unexpected disk error 103 - unable to load program*
Huh? Let me try again.
*unexpected disk error 103 - unable to load program*
Well, apparently my disk is fubar'd. I can no longer boot the game at all. The internets say error 103 is "out of memory" but I'm not sure how that could be booting from the PoR disc. Something got really screwed up. I don't think the boot disc was in the drive at the time, so I'm pretty confused... I may keep poking around with things - if anyone has any ideas, please let me know. But for now, my adventure has come to an end. Too bad, since the game was just getting good.
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An Idea for a new pacman game
I have no problem with the various pacman games (original, ms pacman, pacman jr etc), however i noticed the one failing in the game, it's too samey and linear
My idea is to tweak the original (and variations) by adding somethings and making it more challenging
I like to call the new pacman game, pacman X, pacman TNG or Anti pacman
The main difference between this pacman and the original trilogy is that not only pacman can eat the dots (pills), the ghosts can eat the pills too
Additionally, there will be several modes of difficulty, at the basic level only pacman can eat the power pills, but unlike the original trilogy where the ghosts turned edible for some seconds, in the new version the power pills can have differing affects, like level skip, invincibility (for a few seconds), ghosts become edible (like the oroginal) and no ghosts (they stay in the centre for about a minute) in the next level of difficulty the ghosts can eat the power pills to give differing affects to the game like sudden death pacman (pac looses a life), invisible ghosts (for a few seconds) , disabled pacman (pac stays still for a few seconds) and faster ghosts (for a few seconds),,,obviously the power pill effects will be random for each power pill and for each completed level (both for pacman and the ghosts) and for the highest difficulty level there are no power pills
Another twist in the pacman game would be the use of bonus items (in the original it was placed underneath the ghosts home in the later pacman games it scrolled in from the left and exited through the right) in the new pacman games bonus items will be replaced with power ups that will benefit either pacman or the ghosts (depending who reaches the power up first)
Another twist in the game would be random effects from eating certain random numbers of dots/pills in each level, in that these effects either speed up or slow down or remove pacman or a ghost (remove pacman/ghost means you/the ghost become invisible but can still be eaten) pacman or the ghosts (whoever eats that pill/dot with that side effect)
The level completes when one of two scenarios happen, pacman has eaten more dots on the level then any other ghost (individually) or if pacman has not eaten the most dots he can still complete the level after the last dot is eaten by finding the randomly placed exit within a set time (about 30 seconds) since after the last dot is eaten, if pacman hasn't eaten the last dot the normal pacman exits are closed and one exit is randomly opened, if pacman exits within the time limit the level will end and new one begins, if pacman doesn't reach the exit in time, the four ghosts will re appear one circling the exit and the other three coming after pacman moving at super spped
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