Shawn Jefferson

After playing Bard's Tale, Wasteland, Legacy of the Ancients, Ultima V, etc...

Use one of the flash carts that are available? The benefit is they already exist, and many people already have them.

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And if you are trying to write code that is cross-platform, and intended to run on Windows, Mac, Linux (x86 and ARM), etc... You sort of have to write your own GUI. I'm glad it is written that way, since I ported it to my old Nokia n900 easily. Altirra is installed on my windows machine of course.

Guess no one has those carts you need (that's my case), or if they do they don't want to part with them. That doesn't seem unexpected really?

I still think the gold standard for joysticks, were and still are, the Wico Command Control sticks, either bat-handle or ball, depending on your preference (i prefer the ball-handle ones, just easier to control, but I have both.) These are relatively easy to find used as their were a lot produced in that era.

That was my vision. I have to admit at having a lot of doubt now about whether porting Frotz will be too slow after this discussion and reading the Zeugma blog post. Then again, I thought porting Moria might be impossible... but spent a lot of hours doing it anyway until it became clear it was possible.

Yes, you are probably right about the speed issue, and most certainly about code size! Which is why I'm glad you are working on it as well. I guess we'll see if it's even possible to port Frotz. That Zeugma looks interesting, but there does appear to be a lot of platform dependent pieces to it, and i see they are using a virtual memory model as well, preloading the data into the REU ram. Most z-machine games are too big for 64k, so that makes sense.

That's awesome, and I think a great way to get some games that otherwise weren't on the Atari. I have taken a look at frotz, and read the z-machine standard documentation front to back, and I may take a stab at trying to port frotz to the Atari. I'd have to implement a virtual memory system though, and probably require extended RAM to do this (I don't want to mess with loading pieces from disk... too many downsides/complications.) I think it may be possible to support all versions of the z-machine version 1-5 (maybe without sound. The interpreter signals to the game what features it can support and vice versa, and not all stories use all the features or need to use them.) Version 6 seems problematic, but it may be possible to a certain degree... unsure of that. There's tons of interactive fiction out there that you could then load up and play that should work, if you have enough extended memory. I don't believe this will conflict with your efforts... and I'm sure everyone will hate it for requiring extended memory to load the story file anyway! The regular disclaimers apply: no promises, it may not work, timeline is indeterminate, the virtual memory system may be too slow, etc, etc... Some compromises would have to be taken. Z-machine stack would probably be limited to 1024 instead of 65535 like most interpreters on "big" machines. Unicode printing would be out. Font 3 (character graphics) may be an issue, or at least require some thinking about solutions/kludges (Beyond Zork uses it apparently?)

Personally I think that you could probably find around 100 people to contribute towards this, regardless if they are getting cartridge shells or not. I have no need for 80+ cartridge shells and no where to store them, but personally, I'd contribute something to this just to see cartridge cases being made for all the developers here, on some conditions: 1. The community "owns" the cartridge case molds (ie. "we" could order a new batch anytime stocks run out.) I have no idea how this would work logistically, nor how you manage a new order and who could warehouse them. 2. Ideally, someone (AtariAge/Albert? Lotharek?) would stockpile/warehouse the cartridges, or a large number of them and sell them to developers at cost (+handling costs, etc..) Maybe that wouldn't work, and getting 25 or 50 people who actually want cartridge shells together for a one time purchase is a better idea. Certainly easier I guess. If something could be worked out with cartridge shells, then maybe SIO plugs and/or full SIO cables could be next?

What I meant was build quality. The thing was a flimsy piece of junk with all the aesthetic appeal of a Soviet-era apartment building. Jack Tramiel brought that to Atari with the "XE" series. I have to admit being somewhat jealous of some game graphics on the C64 (Racing Destruction Set was one we played on the C64 instead of the Atari for instance), and especially jealous of it's long support by software developers.

In the consumer space, I don't think "quality sells" is actually true, or at least maybe we have different definitions of quality, or there's some nuances there. The C64 was very poor quality, but it was just that step ahead technically, and cheaper, which allowed it to excel (IMO). I think in hindsight, Atari should have been pushing their technology forward as well as cutting cost, where it seems to me at least, that pre-Tramiel Atari didn't do either, and Tramiel Atari only did one of those. Pre-Warner Atari seemed to have it right for the time, but just couldn't keep going without more business acumen on board-they were destined to collapse under their own weight and success.

Ultima II is also available for Atarimax 8mb flashcart.

Please add me to the list, I'll take one. Thanks!

Yes it should work on an 800 with incognito with an atari max flashcart.

I've started on the conversion to native 40 column mode. Memory configuration was the first thing I had to tackle. I was able to carve up the data structures that are currently being held in VBXE memory and banked into $4000-9FFF, to fit in the extended banking window of $4000-7FFF instead. I was able to keep all monsters and items, and keep the total size of the map the same as in the VBXE version, although with a slightly different horizontal and vertical size (88x66 in the 40-column version, 22x22 visible on screen, versus 132x44 in the 80-column version, 66x22 visible on screen.) The game will still require an Atarimax 8Mb flashcart, and an XL/XE computer since I'm using RAM under the OS. There are still some major issues to work out, mainly regarding trying to squeeze onto the screen the information that Moria normally presents in 80-columns. I'm going to have to make decisions around some things, and I hope to keep the changes to a minimum. I'm currently working on getting everything working correctly with the new screen sizes and memory layout. Some functions will need to be rewritten, and some object names may need to be shortened, for instance the "Holy Book of Prayers [beginner's Handbook]" is over 40 characters, and there are a few other examples like that. I hope to have a demo/beta version soon! This game was never designed to be run in 40-columns, that's for sure! But then again, it was never designed to run on a 6502 with 64k either.

Or just show 40 chars on the 80 char screen,indent 20 chars on each side.

Really, there was an interpreted CC65 on the Atari? That's surprising, but then again, I never did use the original cc65 that ran on the Atari, and only the PC cross-assembler/compiler/linker suite.

I know you've closed orders for now, but I'd be interested in a couple of boards when/if you do another run, or offer through the AA store. Looks great!

Maybe the LCD resolution is 480x102 (somehow), but as far as I know, there is no way to address the screen other than the 160x102 pixels as a programmer of the device, so the screen is effectively 160x102 only (but it would be great if you could abuse the hardware somehow to go beyond this...) Resolution is one of the drawbacks of the Lynx, but I guess for a handheld of the time it wasn't that bad. Developer Docs are here: https://atariage.com/Lynx/archives/developer_docs/index.html?SystemID=LYNX

Good to hear, I don't think it's worth the effort to build copy protection. Using the flashcart for saving is great, I've done several conversions with saving, and the latest project I'm working on saves to flash. It's a pretty specific set of writes you need to do, I'd be surprised if you hit it randomly. From the source of Moria for 8Mb Atarimax (borrowed from source that Steve sent me ages ago:) cmd_unlock: lda #$AA jsr wr5555 lda #$55 jmp wr2AAA wr5555: sta $d542 sta $b555 rts wr2AAA: sta $d541 sta $aaaa rts and there's an additional store you need, to erase or program (at least that's my understanding of the Atarimax flashcart.)

I think Pete's intention/suggestion was to have code that actually erases the flashcart, so that if a program is "pirated" from the EPROM version to a flashcart, the program would erase the flashcart. His quote: Perhaps he had already implemented such code in Tempest Extreme or one of his other programs? I wouldn't be surprised after some of his comments here on the board, but I don't own any of his software to check myself.

Hmmm. I liked the intellivision flashback myself! I didn't notice any glaring problems.

Also, there is a VAPI imaging software (Atarimania guys have it) that only requires a Happy drive to make a ATX disk, so not expensive at all. The things you are talking about are more about complete preservation of the copy protected disk.

huh? It's very much NOT deprecated and actively maintained. http://cc65.github.io/cc65/