Shawn Jefferson

February 12, 2003

I would not do it. You are risking hardware damages.

It seems pretty straight-forward, except I have no idea what they mean by a "mass." Anyone know?

I recommend you to use HANDY for developing. Its the easiest way
to debug programms as you do not need any additional hardware.

Do you (or anyone) know if HANDY can deal with writes to an EEPROM? I'm thinking of working on a RPG type game... an EEPROM would be required.

February 11, 2003

Me and two other guys bought lynxes in 1991. it was the Lynx II. All three Lynxes broke within a year allthough we were all very carefull with our Lynxes. I allways thought that they brake very easily. I´ve got mine repaired three times..

What was the problem? Power supply connector?

February 11, 2003

One of my favorite games was David's Midnight Magic

That was a great game! Did you like it better than "Night Mission Pinball", though?

Yes, I could never get into Night Mission Pinball. I guess I preferred the simplicity of DMM and the ball action seemed better to me. All this is going by memory though.... I also owned a legit copy of DMM and only had a pirated copy of Night Mission Pinball.

The key to DMM is to fill the ball hopper and then start racking up the multipliers. I think I've played that game thousands of times since I bought it, and my highest score ever was attained just recently after fixing my old modified TAC2 joystick to make better contacts on the buttons.

February 10, 2003

Wow, I forget how many great games there are on the 8-bit.

My list goes like this:

Ultima IV

AR: Dungeon

Realm of Impossibility

MULE

Ballblazer

Lode Runner

(and all the other ones mentioned really...)

One of my favorite games was David's Midnight Magic. Of course the game didn't really come alive until we broke my TAC2 joystick playing Decathalon and I decided to wire up the two buttons to play David's Midnight Magic. I've had some insane scores on that game over the years using that joystick. I think my lifetime high is around 750,000... haven't seen a dumped game from the net with a higher score yet. Anyone play this much?

February 7, 2003

It's a nice looking machine and from what I heard, the 800 series is better than the 1200 series but I'm basically clueless.

That's a matter of opinion. Some people like the 800s keyboard, but the 1200XL has a nice one too. I think in the end it comes down to what you had when you were originally in the scene. The 1200XL has the ability to be upgraded with extra memory and use that memory in the standard XL manner. It also has a lot of room in the case for modifications. It doesn't have a PBI interface though, which may or may not be a big deal for you.

Any help would be appreciated. It's NOT for sale or trade cuz I want more info on Atari computers.

What do you want to do with it? I would suggest looking into a SIO2PC cable and the APE software. That way you don't need a disk drive and you can take advantage of software that is available as ATR images. You can even build the interface into the computer if you are not shy about cutting a hole in the case.

You can also get cartridges for the computer, but I don't think that really gives you the "computer" experience that using a disk drive and DOS does.

February 6, 2003

Well, I'm an old Atari 8-bit fan and I've been contemplating collecting other Atari products. I never owned a 2600 (we had an Intellivision) and it takes up a lot of room and I doubt I would play it often as it needs to be hooked up to a TV. The 5200 is interesting since it is basically an 8-bit computer, but the joysticks are analog (blech!) and most every game released on the 5200 I have access to on the 8-bit. The 7800... well I never really considered it, but the same issues around it as the 2600.

To make a long story short, I decided to get into the Lynx market. I found one in my city that was for sale. I paid $50.00 CAD for a Lynx I with California Games (Flat cartridge style) and Blue Lightening (Curved). Did I overpay? Some slight scratching on the plastic and one streak that I don't think will come off.

I'm interested in putting in a 24 Mhz crystal just for kicks and was wondering what they mean by "a mass" in the instructions for that upgrade?

The lynx is a very cool little machine and uses the same processor as the 8-bit computer which leads me to my next question. Programming for the lynx. Can someone point me at some good information about doing this? I've seen the hardware spec on the net and read through it... it's difficult to follow however. I'm interested in using cc65 to do stuff on it, since I have experience with that compiler already.

I know that it is possible to upload your code to the lynx from the PC, with a special BLL-loader cartridge. Is there any information on the internet about put code into an EPROM and running it from there? How does your code access the cartridge to get game data, etc..?

February 3, 2003

Check this thread:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.p...ght=vector+8bit

I guess he did not get the level designers he was looking for. IMO, he should release the engine and the level-design tools with some instructions and any completed levels. The community will either build some nice levels or not. But it is his code and hard work and if he does not want to do that, it is his decision.

Personally, I am saddened that this may never be released, even in an unfinished form.

January 31, 2003

Rare 1200XL in good condition

- SuperVideo 2.1 Upgrade (very sharp chroma/luma or composite video)

http://www.retrobits.net/clearpic.html

I think Bob Woolley's new ClearPic upgrade may be better than the SuperVideo 2.1 upgrade. Has anyone done both to a 1200XL and checked the difference?

I've done the SV2.1 on the 1200XL and it was nice, but haven't done the ClearPic yet. I will do it eventually, but unfortunately I canabalized my SV2.1 1200XL for another project. So I can't compare the two...

January 28, 2003

The general idea behind 'shadow registers' was to allow Atari to update the OS but at the same time have older programs still work. If your program used the 'shadow register' it would be garenteed to work because Atari would never change the address of where they were. On the other hand, the 'hardware registers' could be changed at any time and if your program used these instead of the 'shadow register', it might not work on newer OS's. This way Atari could pretty much move and change the OS in a lot of different ways and still have all the old programs work. Of course this was the theory but since many people broke the rules (including I think Atari also)....well, you can figure out the rest.

That sounds like the reasoning behind having published vectors but not shadow registers. Without published hardware registers you cannot do anything interesting in a DLI, for instance.

I was under the impression that the concept behind shadow registers was that changing the hardware registers during screen draw would produce funny results, thus the OS (VBI) moves the values during vertical blank. This was probably mainly to support programming in BASIC.

???

January 16, 2003

Pretty difficult to make a convertor since there are fundamental differences in the memory address used by the hardware chips and OS. Besides, most (almost all?) of the unique 5200 games have been ported to the 8-bit computer by Glenn the 5200 Man haven't they?

January 8, 2003

Can anybody suggest some good tools for programming games on the Atari 8-bit in the following categories (I'll list the ones I know as well...)

Character set editor:

- Envision

- Taquart char animation editor (can't remember the name...)

PM graphics editor:

I'd like to see one that allows you to edit each player/missle and also position these in various ways to build multi-player sprites, and multi-color sprites. Does such a utility exist? I've thought about building one, shouldn't be too hard, but don't want to do it if it already exists.

Playfield graphics:

Know any good utilities for doing this?

Member Photo Gallery Now Available · January 7, 2003

What the hey... I'm in... I cut myself out of a picture of me and my buddy at our HS reunion.

December 31, 2002

In addition, I believe that there is an active Atari group in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; the Toronto Atari Federation is, well, on life-support.

I don't believe that the club in Victoria is still active. I live there/here and I haven't been able to track them down. The information on the freenet website is very old. The BBS is down and the library were it is said they meet doesn't even remember who they are/were.

If anyone knows if they exist anymore, let me know! I used to be a member about 10-12 years ago.

December 18, 2002

January 4th.

December 17, 2002

Wow, I didn't think there was anyone left on the internet who hadn't heard of "All you base are belong to us".

LOL! There's one on me! I've never heard of it, but then I've never even seen a Genesis game before. I have seen about a dozen Sega Genesis machines in my local thrift store though... not too popular around here I guess.

Disregard my well-intentioned criticisms, Tempest.

December 17, 2002

Matts got a lot of his plate though

I just visited your site and it is great! Unfortunately the 8-bit section is not yet up, so I had to look at the 5200 section instead. Really neat stuff there.

You have to do something about your motto/slogan though (All Your Prototypes Are Belong to Us). I'm assuming that either English isn't your mother tongue, or your slogan was translated from another language. It doesn't make any sense.

December 13, 2002

I wanted to see some screenshots too. Lance's site had none, so I searched and found this:

http://www.napri.sk/web/satantronic/Screens.htm#JP2

December 9, 2002

Not necessarily' date=' if I understand collision registers correctly. After the scanlines (containing the urn or object carried) have been displayed, you could clear the collision register. This point in the program would also be at or near the same point that a DLI changes the color register (to give the player character it's own color). Therefore, you could only allow the collision register for the character square to be checked FOLLOWING that point. Any collision preceding that point would belong to the object carried (for cases when the bat steals it).[/quote']

Wouldn't your DLI then have to go into a loop waiting until the vcount register value is the same as your player, and then clear the collision register? That wouldn't leave a whole lot of time for mainline code processing, which may not be a problem with this game. I'm just trying to understand these more advanced A8 programming techniques.

November 28, 2002

If you're seeing a Red screen I would say its hooked up - sounds like something inside the 600XL isnt very happy - Try to get the self test running and see if it complains about a RAM chip or something.

The XL OS does a quick memory test on startup and if it finds a problem it is supposed to dump you into the Self Test / Memory test automatically. In fact, you won't be able to get it to do anything else.

Sounds like it is something more serious is wrong.

Have you looked at the motherboard yet? Maybe you can see something obviously burnt.

November 27, 2002

I know I have it hooked up properly because I tried the same cord with my master system and it works great. And before anybody thinks it's an automatic switch box, it's not. It's just an RCA cord that came with the computer, it has a little box that says Atari on it.

Are you sure it is hooked up properly? No offense intended, but I believe that the Atari cable you mentioned is for hooking the computer's RF output to an RF-modulator thingee box (what is that thing rightfully called? switch with TV-Computer on it) and up to your TV's cable-in/UHF connection.

I know nothing about the master system, so I don't know that you have an RF-switch box on your TV or not and couldn't tell from your message. I also can't tell from your post if you are trying to hook it to your TV with a composite video in connection. If so, you need to use the monitor jack for that.

You should get the basic ready prompt as mentioned (and depicted.)

November 26, 2002

It's not totally worthless. Missile Command is built-in. Just turn it on without the keyboard attached or a cart plugged in.

Don't you have to hold down Select when you turn it on to get Missile Command? IIRC.

November 23, 2002

"Best" would be hard to say.

There are some commercial ones:

ICD/FTe Multi-I/O (SCSI hard drive interface, extra memory, RS232 ports, Printer port? not in production any longer)

Black Box (SCSI interface, floppy interface available, RS232, Printer) Still available from CSS/Bob Puff. Pretty expensive.

Homebrew ones:

SmartIDE (Bob Woolley) allows connection of an IDE interface inside your computer, with a battery-backuped RAM Operating system. Pretty difficult to build yourself and you will have to change your PS in your system to run the hard drive if you want to mount it internally. I like the concept of this setup, and have started building one and written a partition manager for it.

MyIDE is a much simpler interface that only worries about giving you a IDE drive. Put it in your computer, or run it through a cartridge. The guy who designed this is selling some PCBs. This is probably the easiest way to get a hard drive to your 8-bit. The handler for MyIDE copies the OS to RAM and patches it, so if you want to run your hard drive with SpartaDOS or Turbo Basic you will need to buy or burn yourself a new OS ROM.

SIO2IDE is an interesting project that allows you to have a hard drive interfaced to your computer via the SIO port, access the hard drive from your PC (all partitions on the drive are actually ATR files.) Upcoming versions supposedly have a USB interface on them as well. I've looked at this project's website and I don't think I would use it. It doesn't appeal to me.

There are a few other ones that have been available at one time or another, but I haven't seen much information about them around.

November 18, 2002

There aren't usually too many chips in the 800XL models that are socketed.

I would also try a different method of hooking it up to your TV/monitor. Use the RF cable and a TV, or use the monitor jack and a composite input on your TV/VCR.

Also, inspect the motherboard for burnt out components. I bought a 800XL on eBay only to find that it had a capacitor that was blown (it was very obviously toasted!) I replaced it and everything works fine.

You should be able to turn on the 800XL without a cartridge and get Basic's READY prompt.

November 14, 2002

Correct. The stock 800XL does not have Chroma.

Some of the later model 800XLs did. I was emailing back and forth with someone who had an 800XL with a freddy chip and he said it did have chroma at the monitor jack.

The 1200XL also did not bring chroma out to the jack. The North American 600XLs (IIRC) did not even have a monitor jack!

Long story short is that for most people the SuperVideo modifications for the 800XL/1200XL are *required* to bring out the chroma signal on those models.

November 8, 2002

That ram cartridge looks very nice ! How gets the information in it ? is there some sort of programmer needed ?

That ram cartridge looks great! Can we expect to see instructions for reproducing it on your website, Nir?

I imagine that you would write to it through the catridge bank area $8000-A000. You would have to bank in the memory like you do with the additional 64k in the 130XE.

I guess software has to be specifically written to work with a cartridge though? I'm thinking of the software that I have written for the SmartIDE interface... it is a little bigger than 16k, and one utility uses the $4000-7FFF window to access extra memory... so I am using $8000-B1xx for program code. That means banking some of it in when needed... not impossible but the code would have to be hacked for a cartridge version.

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Posts posted by Shawn Jefferson