baktra

We would need to see one of your .cas files. I don't believe the SDrive supports the "fsk " blocks that might be present in your .cas files. Correct me if I am wrong, of course.

The http://baha.webowna.cz/2020/12/26/train-123-for-atari-5200/ URL is no longer valid. The new URL is as follows: https://baktra.wz.cz/baha-software/train-for-atari-5200/

Well, the cake is out of the oven now. https://github.com/baktragh/train_5200_ose/releases/tag/v1.2 I would like to thank all of you for your suggestions and feedback. All that helped to make the game better.

Now we also have the open question of the "START" button. The "START" button should start the game from the main menu. With emulators, this works. Does it work with the real 5200 too?

There is v1.2_proto2 with different dead zone sizes for playing with. Let me know what plays better. train1_5200_v1.2_proto2.bin

Another contribution to the cc65's _atari5200os.h. The pot shadows.

This is v1.2proto1 It offers three dead zone sizes, you can choose the size by selecting the menu item and pressing the primary fire button. Let me know how the game plays. train1_5200_v1.2_proto1.bin

Baking...

Thank you for playing. I actually originally released the game for the 8-bit computer line. I decided to port it to 5200 later. I had to make some compromises, i.e. remove the in-game music, but it still plays well. I am planning one more update - configurable joystick dead zone.

AVGN is supposed to be funny and inevitably superficial. I don't mind AVGN, I would say I even like him. For a serious review, I would look somewhere else. His 5200 review was nothing but a parody.

The likes feel good, but I do not or rather did not write code for them. The 5200 community is small, given the fate of the console, so one cannot expect that much traffic here. I would say, code and create for your own satisfaction and do not bother with feedback too much. By the way, is there any website that lists all 5200 homebrews? Forum threads are foggy.

If we are speaking about TT-BASIC 2.0, where the initial banner says something like "Jiri Richter" or "JRC", then it is a special version to be used with the Czechoslovak Turbo 2000 turbo cassette system. This versions installs the T: SIO device, which allows reading or writing data using the Turbo 2000 - Kilobyte blocks file format. The DOS command displays a menu that allows to load/save/verify TB programs using the monolithic Turbo 2000 format. There are no new programming language commands indeed. I would avoid using this version, unless you are going to use it with a cassette recorder upgraded to the Czechoslovak Turbo 2000 system.

That is going by the book, and a generally recommended practice. In my case, the binaries are small and the building process is complex for the target audience (Install Java and CC65, modify .bat file, run the .bat file), so I have the binaries in the repo on purpose. And it is not by the book. The same I am doing for the TURGEN project. Pushes are frequent and I do not want to have automatic release builds. So I push also the binaries. Who wants to be on the bleeding edge, downloads the turgen.jar. Perfectly fine for a hobby project, most likely unacceptable in a company.

I believe the answer is… it depends. For projects that have a rather small binaries, having them in the repo is acceptable. If a release is nothing less than a huge docker image, then I wouldn't include it. In any case, back to the primary topic. The train arrives in Releaseville: https://github.com/baktragh/train_5200_ose/releases/tag/v1.1

You can try atrcompiler, which can do that from the command line.

That could help to a certain extent, still doesn't fully prevent making the mistake with downloading webpages. Unless… I remove the binaries from the source code repository and publish them only as a release.

Aha. A decent native assembler. Doesn't beat any of the cross-platform ones, though.

Sure. I will be around. I am afraid to ask in what assembler was the game written originally. In the meantime, I would encourage real NTSC Atari users to test and report back here.

A funny little game. Polished look and feel. Reminds me of Scorpions.

@olix, if you decide not to do the port to 5200 yourself, I would be willing to try. This is how it can be done. 1. We need to ascertain that the current game works on NTSC 8-bit Atari. If not, the conversion cannot be done. 2. I take the source code and keep it confidential 3. I assess the source code to see if the conversion is viable. If not, I report that and destroy my copy of the source code. 4. I work on the conversion 5. When the conversion is done, I publish a beta nn binaries, so that the game can be tested with real hardware (I do not have 5200 either) 6. Rinse and Repeat #5, until the game works 7. I pass the source code back to you and the final binaries can be published

The original ATARI BASIC for sure doesn't support the BLOAD statement. Neither does Altirra BASIC.

The attachments are .html pages, not cartridge images. I believe it is a result of incorrect download procedure. It was probably as follows: 1. In the list of files in the repository, right-click the file 2. Select the “Save linked content as …” menu item 3. The linked content (which is actually a webpage) is downloaded The correct procedure is the following: 1. In the list of the files in the repository, left-click the desired file 2. A new page displaying content of the file and details appears 3. Click the “Download” button to download the desired file.

This is a misunderstanding. I was referring to the .zip archive size. The cartridge images are all 32 KB.

To conclude this bug fix I've made one more update to the game - the title screen now shows "v1.1", so it can be easily distinguished from the buggy version. Both repository and the project page were updated. The latest development version of Altirra updates the POKEY emulation, so that the buggy code results in no controls, like with the real hardware. A fun fact. My previous conversions to Atari 5200 had the controls right 🙂 So, in the end, we have one bug fixed, more precise POKEY emulation in Altirra, and one programmer's ego bruised. Not bad.

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