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I realize some folks are "hopefully pessimistic" instead of "cautiously optimistic" but it feels like the angst is somewhat more than I expected when I heard the news. I was vaguely positive with a bit of wait-and-see because it was clear to me that @Albert's role and AtariAge was completely unsustainable, and this felt like a lifeline to keep this place alive. I for one, appreciate that aspect of this. The current management at Atari: inherited the VCS, and turned it into a recharged (new), and homebrew (old) device that people that have one seem to like now (There's a modern Atari console, right now, that owners now seem to be happy with!) started putting AtariAge 2600 & 7800 homebrews on the VCS store, with the lowest fees of any online store and most of the money going to the developer launched a sequel to H.E.R.O. from the OG developer on the 2600 on the VCS with Stella got Polymega to commit to a cartridge device for the VCS, one of the primary wishes on the forums developed the 2600+ as a "better Flashback except with a cartridge slot and 7800 compatibility and HDMI!" which is what folks in the forums kept asking for announced they'll be selling new 2600 joysticks and paddles! launched unreleased game Atari 2600 cartridges (albeit some physically backwards, but then made it right with free replacements and bonus collectable pins) and are launching a new Atari 2600 cartridge where they fully bought the rights and not just a royalty agreement to publish something launched Atari 50, an award-winning tour de force game/celebration of all the Atari arcade and console heritage on every platform that matters, including the VCS reached out to the Stella team for collaboration, offered to pay them (and got turned down), and used their work respecting the license, work, and team paid to keep MobyGames running and did nothing but keep it as-is paid Albert to keep running AtariAge as-is, just as he was looking for a way out, including him considering turning it off (and Albert has noted his choice to remove legally dubious IP was his choice, and happening regardless, and I can't blame him) effectively retroactively legalized all Atari-owned IP in the AtariAge store, turning essentially a "grey area" (ridiculously optimistic view) or pirated games (lawyerly view) into a legit one overnight made Albert the official historian of the past and gave him a seat at the table for the future bought a bunch of IP including Stern (Berzerk!) and M Network so it's part of Atari attracted and received the advice and endorsement of Nolan Bushnell who noted the current incarnation and CEO is a modern connection to his original Atari (unlike some of the interim management teams) interacts with the community on Discord, ZPH, and these AtariAge forums in plain English without corporate or marketing speak, including saying "I don't know, I'll find out" Honestly, I think they've earned the right for a "wait and see" attitude instead of "they suck". Change isn't always bad if it's growth. The current Atari management team feels like it's on a roll. They may, and probably will, screw up and do dumb things, but if they made great games (I think Atari 50 and the Recharged series count) and connect to the brand from our childhood (with things like a modern plug-and-play 2600 that plays cartridges on modern TVs) then I'm interested in what's next.

My stomach feeling here is, that us older, long time members are more pessimistic than the never ones. Which could be due to multiple reasons: We are old and afraid of change (that's what younger people usually think, and which is only partially true, IMO) We have more 1st hand experience with Atari (we were there when "things" happened) We have more experience with acquisitions (even personally, even multiple times) We have more experience with broken company promises (personally here too) We have more experience with all kinds of PR blah blah (personally of course) Overall, I think life has killed a lot of our illusions since when we were young. We have learned that words usually mean nothing when money is involved.

Because people have already forgotten that the purge of the store was caused directly by Atari (that many of us suspected at the time). That some developers have been pushed from this platform and some have decided to stop development for the platform. Yes there are some that are optimistic, but to say that this has had an entirely positive impact on the community as it stands is disingenuous. This itteration of Atari has done some shady stuff in the past and are telling us that they're better now and we're supposed to believe that. The words are nice, but it takes more than words. Again this is why a lot of us aren't particularly positive about this whole thing. Then there's Atari legal, that needs to be controlled for it to work with this community. Watch the ZPH stream regarding Mr Run&Jump, there's still issues to be sorted there. The management need to get a handle on that shit pronto because that's where a LOT of the animosity between this version of Atari and this community is rooted. There absolutely have been positive effects too as AA may continue as Atari essentially lessen the load on Al. That I cannot stress enough as being the one reason I hope this works out. I wish only the best for the dude. This is the part where I accept that this change might be neccessary for AA to survive. Some developers are going to have oppertunities to work with this Atari and good luck to them. I also hope Atari don't screw them over. These are my only real sources of optimism regarding the deal. Finally, probably the most important bit: Corporations are not your friend. They exist for a single thing only and that is to make money. This community existed to keep our hobby alive. Both the hardware and the software. It's been doing it for 25 years without any help whatsover from Atari and they've essentially come in and bought something that was never about making money. There is going to be a conflict of interests. A lot of us are old people saying old people things. This is entirely true.

Also, the community wants answers to the Stella question(s). Hear loud and clear. I don't want to get ahead of our hardware team or our partners at Plaion. We will address this ... just give me some time, I do not want to shoot from the hip.

I'm pretty sure he's joking. ..Al

My overall 2 cents are that there is simply nothing Atari SA can do to win over some individuals in our community. I've been a member since 2002 (Jesus...), and there has always been a sizable negativity associated with Infogrames iteration of Atari (some of which is rightfully so). I fully supported the publisher in 2007-2011 under Gardner and Harrison because the output of new games was phenomenal (Ghostbusters, Test Drive: Unlimited, Riddick, heck, even Alone in the Dark 5 was innovative and felt "next gen": mechanics that wouldn't be seen again until Alan Wake some 2 years later, albeit more refined). People here rightfully called out the gambling and crypto stuff that Atari focused on under Fred Chesnais (spelling?). Under Rosen, the focus has shifted back to game development and away from gambling and crypto -- this endeavor gave the company a spot on Metacritic's top publisher list for 2022. People here are still not happy and won't even give the Recharged lineup a chance. And I believe even if Atari SA gave a donation or did everything that was demanded of them, a sizable part of our community here would still hate them because "they're raping the IPs" or "the donation wasn't big enough!". It just strikes me as a fruitless endeavor. If the current Atari folds, would AA go with them? IDK, it's possible. Not trying to be morbid, but we're not going to last forever, and I don't know if Albert wanted to keep going on his own. I'm glad he is now part of current Atari as their go-to historian for accuracy, and I wish the company success, because I'd like to see them as a respected publisher again.

Same here and I agree with a lot of what you said. One thing that is for certain in my world, Albert has for decades been the face of Atari for me, even as "legit" Atari existed in other places on the internet. It's hilarious that after all these many, many years, he's actually an Atari employee! I'm excited to see where this all goes, but if it goes no-where, nothing will change. Albert IS the man that brought us all together and gave everyone here all the Atari they could ever want. Nothing can take that away. I personally don't see it dying soon even if "legit" Atari does "die"... rabid classic video game freaks will always have a place in this world. That said, this merger is a positive thing. I'm baffled as to why anyone would say otherwise. I think the older people get, the more of a negative outlook they acquire. "Change of any kind is a bad thing." All the negative comments might just be old people saying old people things?

Yes, I need to go through the thread and copy some of the questions and answers into the first post. I do agree that many posts in this thread have gone beyond the intended scope of the conversation and into many Atari-specific areas that don't have any direct bearing on AtariAge (such as all the questions about the 2600+ and Stella). While I understand the answers to some of these questions may influence how people feel about Atari, those really should be discussed in other threads. That's an interesting idea, and probably makes sense to do now, even though the console isn't out yet. Might also be a good place to host a homebrew compatibility list for the 2600, and we could have a more comprehensive FAQ pinned in such a forum as well. ..Al

Tower of Babel:

Hi all, I'm please to announce that the Atari 8-bit port of my game Tenebra is ready! Get it from https://h4plo.itch.io/tenebra It has been quite successful on other platforms and has won multiple awards. I hope you will enjoy playing version too. Tenebra is an atmospheric ad minimalist puzzle game with rogue-like aesthetics. Guide the hapless protagonist to the exit. Poor guy is afraid of darkness and refuses to walk in the dark areas. Move torches around, push lights on rails, find keys to doors, light up cold braziers, pass through archways that collapse behind you, find oil barrels to make your torches brighter, squeeze through cracks in broken walls, fix broken rails with a hammer, illuminate the sensors to open the exits... do whatever it takes to get out of there! The game contains 31 levels and works on both PAL and NTSC machines. This port was a lot of fun, I ended up learning quite a lot about the Atari 8-bit machines. I hope you will enjoy it!

It is not often I pipe up on the forums these days. But as a long-term hardware and software developer for the Atari ST platform for the best part of 30 years, I do understand some people's concerns about various topics, to be honest I probably do agree with a lot of them myself . But I think a lot of people are really trying to focus on too many negative things here. In my opinion people should be focusing on what Atari can bring to the table. I mean they seem to be talking about publishing people's homebrew games and that seems to have been totally forgotten like 40 pages ago. They are literally funding Albert to do some good work in updating various parts of the site. This also seems to have gone out of the window in the discussion. I'm sure there are many other things I have missed as well. I'm not looking to start any arguments or fuel any sort of arguments, but just wanted to state that people need to realise there are huge opportunities to be had here. This is what people should be focusing on in my opinion. I personally was not a fan of the flashback consoles. Though I have purchased one of the 2600+ consoles this past week. I do have a original 2600JR which I have owned since my childhood. I am planning to take it to the Cyber Legends UK retro event next month in fact. I also found it rather fitting that the first console I purchased was a Atari 2600. And the last console I purchased was a Atari 2600 ! I have only ever purchased Atari stuff! I personally like the idea of being able to play original cartridges and hopefully have the option to buy new ones in the future. People can show off their cartridge collection as they often do . Not as impressive to have a huge list of games on a hard drive , at least for me anyway. I prefer to buy the physical games and be able to play them years later simply by plugging them in! Something which is sort of a lost art with a lot of things these days with all short term DLC type stuff. In fact I rarely buy anything on steam because my favourite games always get discontinued and I can no longer play them online. While all the new fancy graphics and sound is always impressive, I'm quite happy just to plug in a cartridge and play Pole position or Phoenix and just go and kill things. It's all just a bit of fun and time wasting at the end of the day. Anyway, I think the relevant saying here is, "help Atari to help us". exxos

I just read the SmashJT article on Limited Run's Three Stooges release, trying to do some research on the question M-S asked. The article makes no sense at all to me. I need to be careful here ... but good grief. The author is claiming LRG is trying to manipulate people into buying their games in the hopes they will appreciate in value. That isn't a scam. Limited Run ... it is the name of the company. It is right out there. Limited Run. If you want to buy the game at the advertised price, buy it. Some people buy the games to play them. Some people buy them as part of a massive collection, which their children will likely have to liquidate when they pass (my poor children, so many collections they will inherit). Some people buy them as an investment, to resell them assuming they will increase in value. Whatever. Isn't that true of anything produced in limited quantities? Where is the scam? It is ascribing some nefarious intent where it doesn't exist. I read some posts on Reddit that argue every game Limited Run and the other small batch publishers make should be made in unlimited quantities and sold at mass retail. People think Walmart is going to place a big order for a relatively obscure, discontinued Game Boy Advanced title and stock it on shelves across the globe? T H A T I S R I D I C U L O U S. The only way a lot of these titles make it to market is in this ecommerce, limited production model. That is not a comment on LRG ... just the reality of the retro games market. Major retailers are incredibly risk averse. They aren't going to go anywhere near niche retro tiles that have been out of circulation forever. Super Rare. Strictly Limited. Pixel Heart. I Am 8-bit. There are quite a few companies in the same space as Limited Run. They make cool physical versions of games, which is awesome. Remember, most of these games are available digitally. So why do people buy them? A lot of us like having a cool physical edition, especially if it has neat packaging and interesting extras. Leave us collectors alone. Let us collect what we want in peace. (sometimes Reddit makes me crazy)

"Locking" was a poor choice of words. I'm looking to Al and the mods for guidance on how to focus and distribute. We are def going to expand the Q&A/FAQ ... might help a little. I can also just start linking back to previous answers. If I keep answering the same questions again and again fatigue is going to set in ... maybe I am just need to better define the questions I am willing and able to answer and start redirecting some of the off topic questions vs trying to respond to them.

This appears to be an attempt to shutdown discussion (suggestion to 'lock the thread'). Yes it is repetitive, but it's still relatively on topic. People are upset about this. Let them vent. Otherwise you're leaning into the fears of censorship by Atari. Don't shoot yourself in the foot.

On the topic of the AtariAge acquisition: I would say my biggest fear would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If enough users are convinced that this is all going to end up being a disaster, then a mass exodus of users, or a change in the tone in the forums could cause that to become true. I'm not intending to criticize anyone who is pessimistic or has reason to have real concerns, but I hope most of those people will at least stick around and see what happens before calling it quits. I hope we don't lose too many good users after all is said and done.

This thread has largely headed waaaaaay off topic and it is getting very repetitive. I looks to me like we have exhausted the discussion around "what does this mean for AtariAge" and it has shifted into a lot of questions about the Atari 2600+, what hardware and games we might re-introduce in the future, what licensing partners we should and should not work with, etc. I'll speak with Al, but I am starting to think we should read through this and make sure we elevate the main questions and answers into the Q&A, and then lock the thread. That is going to be up to Al of course. One question that I see unanswered related to the deal is "will Atari archive a copy of the site/forums with a neutral third party." We are discussing that internally and I will come back with an answer (eventually). The other unanswered questions is "what if some trillion dollar hedge fund pays $800 billion for Atari or something else happens that fundamentally changes Atari's ownership structure and/or management team. Are there any assurances that AtariAge will remain perpetually unchanged if that happens?" We all know the answer to that is "no" ... that is just the reality of it for now. What could such a plan look like? Maybe start a thread about that? I think the discussion around the 2600+ should go into a 2600+ forum. All the discussion of what Atari should and should not do, what business decisions we should be making, who we should be partnering with, etc. Not sure how to parse that ... where it lives. Up to Al and the community. We are listening, and will continue to listen and engage. At the same time, as I have said before we are going to do what we think is best and not everyone here is going to agree with all of our decisions.

Whoa, this thread is as busy as a bee hive. To reiterate, because our point seems to get lost in translation every few pages: I accept that Atari is using GPLed software without compensation to create the 2600+, that's just what corporations do all the time, it is the cheapest way to get development done, and it is explicitly permitted by the license. What I don't like is the we're-dfferent-it's-all-for-the-fans vibe in their communication around the acquisition of AAge that people are trying to buy, despite them acting precisely like any other company building low-cost emulation hardware. If they cared about the community, I would at least expect credit to Stella in their communication, and a donation for using the project definitely would be appreciated. Imo they're milking their IP for profit and that's OK for me, but that's it --- don't try to sell it as anything else. As for any communication that might have happened with the Stella team during development, I would have promised to not give any details, and I won't. However, I can say that any communication would have been respectful and constructive. By the way, the same goes for Hyperkin during the development of the R77.

Being happy that the Jag got Fractured Furry Tales instead of Bubsy 3D is like being happy you got herpes instead of cancer. It's still not an ideal outcome.

@TrogdarRobusto said a few pages back that everyone internally at Atari SA just calls it "Atari" and that they feel like we're disparaging them by calling it Atari SA to differentiate it from the "real Atari" that existed from roughly 1972-1996. He thinks of Atari SA as being the real Atari. Legally, in many ways, Atari SA is the "real Atari". Yet, the "original Atari" stopped existing at some point, and ceased operations. There was a break in continuity, where at some point when Atari's holdings were liquidated, Atari's intellectual property became the property of some other company, and none of the personnel came along with that intellectual property. That's the point at which I would say clearly and without any ambiguity the "original Atari" ended. From about 1996 until sometime in the mid 2010s, Atari was mostly just re-issuing its old back catalog on various platforms, and putting its logo on products, or lending its name to others, in business deals to make money. They weren't making new games, innovating, or inventing anything. And sometimes they were suing people who were. During most of that period, from 2001 to present, AtariAge, has been what I've come to consider the "true Atari". Legally, AtariAge doesn't own the name, the trademarks, the patents, the copyrights. But they took an essentially dead company's memory and kept it alive and gave it a rebirth and renaissance as a community-driven fandom, with homebrew development. Considering, AtariAge has been around for 20+ years, that's even longer than the commercial lifespan of the 2600, which was produced from 1977-1993, and almost as long as the "original Atari" which ran from 1972-1996. And during that time, the homebrew games that the community it fostered has developed and published have exceeded the quality of most of the original Atari 2600 catalog. To me, this gave AtariAge the "moral" legitimacy to a claim of being the "true heir" to Atari's legacy -- whatever the courts and the trademark laws and the business registry filings might have to say about it. This new Atari SA has been showing signs of being different from that middle-period Atari which did nothing but try to re-package old Atari IP. The 2017 AtariBox project that turned into the new VCS, the Recharged series of games, and so on, have shown that the company that owns the Atari name is once again interested in developing and releasing new games. And by acquiring AtariAge, they've (potentially) cemented their legitimacy by creating an allegiance to the only other entity that could have made a strong claim to it. So long as they protect and nurture that community that they just bought into, that legacy will live on and grow stronger. Although I've personally been a bit disappointed and underwhelmed with the new VCS, I have optimism that Atari are doing their best to revive the brand and turn it into something that would be exciting to people who remember the "Atari of Old" that was an industry leader in the 1970s and early to mid '80s. Mis-steps and mistakes can be expected along the way, and as long as they don't prove fatal, Atari can learn from them and begin to soar. We fans who grew up on the "original Atari" games have high expectations and high standards, as well as long memories, so it takes quite a bit to convince us, but I'm rooting for them to succeed.

I am proud to announce I have been accepted as an adjunct instructor with the University of Arkansas's Criminal Justice Institute in the Cybersecurity Defense Initiative. I will be traveling around the country giving four-day courses on cybersecurity, offensive and defensive. The final paperwork is being processed now, and I do not know when I will officially start. My first four classes are observation up to full instruction before I take on more classes. I cannot express how important this is for me as a culmination and beginning of the next stage of fulfilling my 25 years industry experience and training as an information technology and security professional, and degree as a computer criminologist.

Is there some weird timer I don’t know about? Like clockwork every few months someone rolls in, tells us to stop talking about Tommy (or mocks us) then rolls out again. Sorry man. Dude’s a garbage human being who stole money and destroyed a company. I’d say that if the end result is a bunch of random folks making fun of him on an Internet forum (that he also both almost sunk AND claimed influence over at various times) he’s gotten off very lightly.

Stop buying them. They wouldn't sell them if someone didn't buy them. If someone wants to buy them why should they not sell them? Indeed, if someone wants to buy them why should it bother you? You simply refrain from buying. No problem. I went to an auction once. There were a bunch of crusty old antiques at this auction and I thought nobody is going to want that stuff. Then some Mennonites showed up and started swarming all over the horse related items. At some point horse collars became conversation pieces for most people. Later they became junk in the far corner of the barn. To these Mennonites though, those horse collars mean they can ride in their buggy and not have to walk. Should I be scolding the owner of the horse collars and saying you should stop selling horse collars and give them away? I don't think so. Let people enjoy life as they see fit as long as it doesn't hurt anyone.

This. All of it.

Albert, this is reassuring, and thank you for that. Don’t know that I can speak for anyone else in this community, but my motivation for subscribing is to simply do my part to help sustain this site, ESPECIALLY after learning that AtariAge is your full-time job. The added perk of discounts on items bought from the Store is a nice incentive, but failure to receive that perk would not be a DISincentive to continue subscribing. If revenue from Atari made it unnecessary for you to maintain your subscription model, I would still like to have a way to contribute to AtariAge going forward. I hope there are others here who feel the same way.

"Now all you need to do is to modify the routines pushing data to the screen to push the data to appropriate places in the character sets. You are losing 8*8 bytes per 3 lines, but it is generally a small price to pay. The next level is to rearrange the video memory bytes to better suit your needs and speed up soft-sprite routines. You also have these additional 8 chars that could be used for some purpose (normally these are scroll buffers and such). And now you can sprinkle the video ram with high bits set for the 5th color. " I considered this method and similar ones and decided for now they were too complicated to implement and track everything. But I did come up with a partial use of this, where I have multiple char sets in memory and move portions in blocks into the main c-set for things like a town, dungeon, etc. This extends greatly the variety of tiles that can be made. The other trick to go along with this is to meticulously arrange the main c-set so that it is in sections that you move in and out. So for instance, the first 35 or so chars are all universal and never get swapped. So like the chars for water, grass, trees, etc. Basically the main environment tiles. This allows uniformity on all maps since most maps/areas would use some of these. The very last block of chars in the c-set are reserved for swappable tiles for the actual characters (the onscreen tile pieces for like the monsters, npc, etc). Of course, with such a limited cset you can only have 4 or 5 unique chars per town/dungeon, but they could also be swapped on the fly once you dispatch a particular monster. So it would give the illusion that there are dozens of monsters, just not on screen all at one time. With these, I can make different types of maps. If you can see the screenshots, these are some of my test town and dungeon maps. I also have it set up that any of the locales can be any X by Y size. That last one for instance is supposed to be a mine or dungeon 128 tiles wide and 16 high.

I think you might be overstating the number of long time members who are more pessimistic about this... I'd say it more likely related to the percentage of a feeling of ownership of things, and being reticent to those possibly changing and/or being affected. I've been a member for a while, but a more casual one. I don't have any ownership (feelings or otherwise) for Stella. Yes, I've been a member for a while, but I'm not a programmer or haven't made any hardware. I'm a member / fan. And I think that might be at play. I've seen multiple video commentaries on YouTube about this, and a lot of the older guys (not all) are being cautiously optimistic. Some aren't, but they tend to have had a bad experience at AtariAge, so are starting with a bit of a bias. Or they just admit they don't like the new Atari. Now, that being said, I do think Atari SA, while not required too, should have done more in their outreach to the Stella team. I think that is a mistake they have made that I hope they address before too long. But, as some others, I still remain cautiously optimistic about this... Now excuse me, there are some kids on my lawn I have to go yell at...

@TrogdarRobusto If you find yourself answering literal frequently asked questions, a numbered FAQ could help everyone. Then they could be referred to the appropriate link instead of wearing down everyone’s patience. I do not think “what happens to AtariAge if Atari changes hands” is a question that anyone can meaningfully answer. I would hope everyone understands that everyone is doing the best with the skills, resources, and information they have at the time. Also, we need to accept that while “Atari” and “AtariAge” are important to the community, the community is important to A/AA, it’s reasonable to have boundaries. Nobody here is a financial or business stakeholder of Atari, no matter how much stock we hold or how many old cartridges we have accumulated. Just be gentle, we are old and cranky.

I don't understand it that way. There are just too many things discussed at once to keep track. Unless you are constantly following the thread. Asking for a bit more structure is a good idea.

Yes, Albert is making these decisions. More than once he has been called elitist due to this, but I think he is doing right here. Only @Albert can tell the numbers.

That's a good observation. I find this thread is circling into negativity, attracting people who chime in with even more negativity, fear and unfounded claims. I think the frequent posters in this thread by no means represent the avarage AA members. Thanks for listening. Just realise that there are also a lot of other AtariAge members which look at this with a more positive and hopefull attitude.

Thanks for spotting this! It was a copy/paste mistake. I have uploaded a new binary. Sure, if there is enough interest I'll port it to Atari ST as well. By the way, I already have one ST game: https://h4plo.itch.io/toop And thanks everyone for your comments! I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

What specifically would be an “appropriate donation”, because that would subjectively vary from individual to individual. I’m sorry, some of this is coming off as unreasonable demands. No one is forcing anyone to buy a product or stay on a site, and I don’t believe there is anything Atari SA could do to change anyone’s mind here. Every iteration of Atari had its own issues, and not everyone will ever be satisfied.

the TI99 forum is the 4th largest, per post, forum on Atariage behind the 2600, Atari 8-bit and, oddly enough, the Intellivision. And I be willing to bet a lot of us with the TI99 also have a 2600, 7800, 8-bit (I have a 2600) too and buy Atari games for other consoles & PCs. So I doubt Atari is going to screw with us unless they are really, really stupid which I doubt they are or @Albert wouldn't have made a deal with them.

It just happens you choices are different combat variants.

I just wondered if anyone informed Atari that this is the year the forum owner is giving everyone who enrolls in Secret Santa a free game of their choice?

Apparently some fans of other consoles see my 7800 "101 sprites demo", and conclude that a large number of sprites is only possible when the background is black/solid. It's the same old shared-bus cycle-stealing rhetoric from people that haven't coded anything for the 7800. They look at a single 7800 wiki page, stay at a Holiday Inn Express, and all of a sudden they're 7800 gurus who "know" it's impossible that the console has any useful strengths. As a response I put together this Sixty-Nine Eighty-Six Sprite tech demo, which has 86 animated sprites, a detailed background, rmt music playing, and a scroller. Enjoy! Play it live in your browser thanks to JS7800! (if it doesn't play music, hit the reset button - some browsers mute sound until you interact) Or download it to play in your favourite emulator or flashcart... EightySix.a78 [rom update 1 - changed one of the sprite palettes] [rom update 2 - fixed the spelling of Gollum. Whoops!] [rom update 3 - updated from 69 to 86 sprites] [rom update 4 - minor typo]

Hi everyone, I'm Mark, I'm new here so thought I'd say hi. My first home computer was a '99 in 1982 and I learned to code TMS9900 assembly with the mini-memory cartridge. It's still in the garage somewhere but I haven't powered it up in decades. I have some time on my hands now (semi-retired) so decided to dust off my TI99/4A emulator written in C that I started writing for Windows 23 odd yrs ago. At that time, it could boot from console ROM and basic video was working, but then I parked it. I haven't used Windows in over 15 yrs - I work exclusively on Linux these days (debian and ubuntu) - so I ported it to Linux using GLUT to create display a framebuffer. I also added sound emulation with pulse audio, tms9901 timer support and recently added cassette SAVE sound output emulation. I'm thinking of creating a .wav file from cassette output, now that I have audio samples, and then see if I can OLD programs back in from .wav files. This emulator is just for fun. There are many superb emulators already out and I have no interest in trying to outdo or replace any of them. If you want to know what's different or unique about my emulator, the answer is nothing that I know of, except I wrote it myself, which was as I said for fun. Also, it isn't nearly as complete as some of the others. It does have some useful (to me anyway) features for debugging such as runtime disassembling tms9900 and/or GPL code and showing comments beside them which was very useful for finding compatibility issues with games etc. I've tested munchman, TI invaders, tombstone city, the attack and all work fine AFAICT. Parsec might work whenever I get around to implementing bitmap mode. I haven't tried implementing any additional hardware, disk drives, RS232, etc, but as an EE that to me is the most interesting part, so I will probably have a go at emulating legacy peripherals at some stage. If anyone wants to browse the code it's on github here under MIT license: https://github.com/mburkley/ti994a Comments or suggestions welcome. Oh and I'm happy to help with any other current projects that need help too now that I've built up knowledge of the internals of the tms9900 and family. Cheers, Mark

No shmup without a good explosion, which requires big sprite display. And big displays is one of the nice features of Maria ! So here are the explosions (examples/example_explosions.c) using the new multisprite_display_big_sprite macro (which optimizes the big sprite display by chaining the display list entries) : #include "prosystem.h" #include "multisprite.h" #define NB_EXPLOSIONS 5 ramchip char xpos[NB_EXPLOSIONS], ypos[NB_EXPLOSIONS]; // Generated with sprites7800 explosion.yaml holeydma reversed scattered(16,6) char explosion1[96] = { 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, ... 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x08, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00 }; void main() { char i, j = 0, k, l = 0, x, y; multisprite_init(); *P0C1 = multisprite_color(0x1c); // Yellow *P0C2 = multisprite_color(0x37); // Orange *P0C3 = multisprite_color(0x43); // Red // Initialize explosions x = 0; y = 0; for (X = 0; X != NB_EXPLOSIONS; X++) { xpos[X] = x; ypos[X] = y; x += 160 / NB_EXPLOSIONS; y += 224 / NB_EXPLOSIONS; } // Main loop do { multisprite_flip(); char *gfx = explosion1; for (X = j; X != 0; X--) gfx += 18; k = j; for (i = 0; i != NB_EXPLOSIONS; i++) { x = xpos[i]; y = ypos[i]; multisprite_display_big_sprite(x, y, gfx, 6, 0, 3, 0); gfx += 18; k++; if (k == NB_EXPLOSIONS) { k = 0; gfx = explosion1; } } l++; if (l == 5) { j++; if (j == NB_EXPLOSIONS) j = 0; l = 0; } } while(1); } Next will come the integration of sparse tiling with vertical scrolling, in order to make nice shmups and run & guns. And then pixel-perfect collision computation, which is also required for a good shmup... Maybe (if I've got enough time) will I turn the sparse tiling into bitmapped display (immediate mode) in RAM - at the moment it only uses ROM -, in order to save DMA/CPU for more bullets on screen... Let's see... example_explosions.mp4 explosion.yaml

Why would a company willingly make one of their revenue streams free? That makes absolutely no sense.

Not at all.

I too am a business owner and there is no way in hell I could find the time to run this group. I barely find time to simply participate.Vocelli must've stolen that magic item from Hermione that slows down time or something. Vocelli does an amazing job. 🙏🙏🙏

Atari 50 was a transformative work, the best interactive game museum ever made. If they were giving it away for free, it would not have been made. Not only that, if they released the binary roms into the public domain, Steam and the Switch would be flooded with “2600 collections” from shovelware developers selling the games in bad emulators with no historical context and with atrocious quality control. id Software released the engines for Doom and Quake, not any trademark or copyright on the actual games. They are still making millions of dollars on those games every year. Nobody is allowed to sell them without a license. Nobody is allowed to distribute any of the official wads without a license except for the original shareware ones.

I guess? Because they offered to pay for support instead of a “donation” it’s ok to hate them? I’m confused by that, if that’s the argument of why we should be suspicious of their motivations. Actions speak loudly and they’ve been racking up a bit of a track record of actions that are what people have been asking for. (Cartridge console, hire Nolan Bushnell as advisor, release new carts, make new games on popular platforms, make the VCS relevant to homebrew, join AtariAge, respect the past, etc.)

The $5 USD ROM package has been made available for purchase at: http://intellivision.us/roms.php#intelligentvision_pay I hope you all have been enjoying the game.

Very nice demo Mike! And another sample with some useful tips and tricks to learn from! I really need to make these accessible from ADS.

If it's any consolation to anyone else reading all 40 pages (and counting) of this thread, Atari's history is far less messy than that of Commodore's when it comes to who owns the brand, company, and/or intellectual property -- and I say this as someone who grew up using Commodore computers (and I still have my C128). If you think modern day Atari is dog shit, you've not seen the number of stupid things the Commodore logo gets stuck on, legally or illegally. The current iteration of Atari whatever it may be is WAYYYYYY better than that.

Next problem. I had a bunch of these made up to go with them, but now I realize the Atari logo is an issue since recent news. I originally included it for fun, part of the original alternate history motif, but will have to remake them I guess.

If you want ET you are going to have to bring a shovel.

Here's an ultra high res professional scan, ready for re-printing on glossy paper! LQQK! R@RE! ETA: I actually did crank the JPEG quality down just in case...