doctorclu Posted June 28, 2009 Author Share Posted June 28, 2009 Sauron old friend, most of that I will address in PM since this thread will have to wait till Al gets a few things tackled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chickybaby Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Nevermind them, What's wrong with us? LOL! Doc, give it a bit of time. As you can see from this single thread alone, the amount of babysitting this forum requires due to the endless carrying on of relatively few, is enormous. The fact that anybody wants to deal with it all, is quite frankly amazing... My thoughts exactly. Of course, I'm one of the ones who volunteered to actually deal with it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Nevermind them, What's wrong with us? LOL! Exactly. You're a nutty bunch, but I love y'all for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted June 28, 2009 Author Share Posted June 28, 2009 Thank you for the input, that's all we've been asking for... who do we talk to, who will decide, etc. Doc, give it a bit of time. As you can see from this single thread alone, the amount of babysitting this forum requires due to the endless carrying on of relatively few, is enormous. The fact that anybody wants to deal with it all, is quite frankly amazing... Al *JUST* established he needed some time, granted not before getting agitated, but happy to give him time to get some things straightened out. I would like to get back to this after that of course. You know, I may have started a thread, but I did not start a revolution just vocalizing what many have felt for quite some time. And what I have seen is really a lot of good people wanting to enjoy the Jaguar like they enjoy their 2600, 5200, etc. We've seen Atariage do some great things, and give a lot of room for creativity, and we want that creative room here as well. This is just the half-time talk really until that time at some point when Al has time to talk about this again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Morden Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 A few replies. Gorf. I've stated ALL THE WAY THRU THIS that Indie developers have the right, EXPLICITLY, to say they are selling their products. This is not about that. If someone wants to make a game and sell it then good for them. If someone wants to make a free game (like us) - they hey, great for everyone, isnt it? NOBODY is attacking people for that right. What is being asked is for the censorship of topics to be removed. The attitude you stormed in here with is exactly the point this thread is trying to tackle. Now, thats not a general attack on you, its just the way things are. There is no big "Jolly-Roger Piracy revolution" coming regardless of what happens here. Al. Thanks for posting. Yes, this topic is a hot potato, and I'm sure it is irritating in many ways, however it does need to be discussed. I can see moderation could be a problem for a period of transition, but like everything worthwhile it would yeild good results in the end. If not now, then in the future. Might I suggest picking a moderator from each of the other forums (systems) who possibly has no specific interest in the Jaguar to oversee this area without bias or pre-formed conceptions? Most certainly don't let anyone from here moderate, that would just cause another rift in "sides". Sauron. Thanks for the pointers. Again, I'm sure it will have to change in order to survive and thrive. And I think you can bet on the fact that the userbase of this forum will be ready to discuss it when the time comes. Everyone. Calm down, be rational, and BE POLITE. We're all here because we love Atari, because we love the Jaguar, and because we feel strongly about it's future. Isn't in-fighting and bitching very counter-productive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaryH917 Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Wow... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Elliot Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Does anyone know what happened to Mr. Morden in Babylon 5? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LS650 Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 (edited) An interesting discussion so far, I think, but it doesn't really sound like any minds have been changed. Too bad. I'd love to have a good Jaguar emulator so that I can play me some Iron Soldier or Super Burnout on my laptop while travelling for work. Edited June 28, 2009 by ls650 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted June 28, 2009 Author Share Posted June 28, 2009 Does anyone know what happened to Mr. Morden in Babylon 5? First off, love the avatar. Secondly, yes I do, and that was uncalled for and off topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted June 28, 2009 Author Share Posted June 28, 2009 An interesting discussion so far, I think, but it doesn't really sound like any minds have been changed. Too bad. I'd love to have a good Jaguar emulator so that I can play me some Iron Soldier or Super Burnout on my laptop while travelling for work. Thank you, it has been an interesting discussion, and I disagree, there have been a lot of people that have chimed in interested in change. The person we need to work with has asked for more time, so the end result of this thread will not happen till that other person (Al) has time to get back to this. Don't loose heart ok? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyBuddies Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Does anyone know what happened to Mr. Morden in Babylon 5? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Morden Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Morden Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 (edited) *deleted* Sorry, I saw the quote was from someone else. Retracted! C'mon people, BE NICE. Edited June 28, 2009 by Mr Morden Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kool kitty89 Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 (edited) What i meant by historical was that for example , Jaguar Doom doesn't feature music , has differences and feels different than pc doom or 3do doom or any other doom out there. That's a trickey end of things, if you own one (or even several) versions of a game, it's still not technically legal to "obtain" an "unofficial" copy of a version of said game on another platform, even if it's from the same developer. (though often other developers have the job to reprogram the game) And how about something that's a relatively legitimate problem (not just some enthusiast that has to play/beat every version of a game), but has a game for a platform, but no longer has a working platform to play it on, or the media it'sself is broken. (in the case of broken media it should be perfectly lega to download the program) However, let's say I've got a funky Win 9x (or god forbit win 3.1) game that won't work on modern windows, has issues with 9x emulators, and has no patch availble. But there's a DOS version available that works well through emulation (DOSBox, or VDMSound for XP or older OS's), not to mention a MAC version (if you've got one). Do you download one of those versions, or go out an find one and pay for the product again? (which you might even be downgrading from the 9x version) Of course the game may be available on a commonly (and reliably/authentically) emulated console, or a port from that console in the first place (like many Sega PC games, which ofen have problems, at least in my experience) Do you get the rom immages for the Genesis versions of said game(s), of shell out more money for a more modern port available in a compilation for a platform you own? Or what if you've got a bunch of movies on laserdisc but no working player... (go out any try to find a working player?) Or you've got the hardware but want the convience of emulation, it's not very practical to have rom dumping hardware so host sites are necessary for even legal users. (same or old games on other obsolete media like 5.25" FD, sure external 3.5 inchers are common, but 5 1/4"?) Even for CD's there can be issues with emulating from a PC CD drive (I've had some issues with streaming audio in particular with Sega CD games), so you could either rip the disc, convert all the CD-DA to standard .mp3 and also create an .iso of the main portion (except for simpler games that just have a single ROM .bin file for the game). Or you could find a downoad of the program already converted to such. I repeat i m not asking for free betas or games that are still in production , just the commercial roms . I think betas of historical, unreleased (unfinished/unreleased) games should be dumped, and honesly I think they should be shared for people to enjoy, particularly something impressive like Phase Zero. Additionally, if unfinished games are made public (leaked), homebrewers have the opertunity to complete them. (Star Fox 2 being an example) Wouldn't it be cool if Phase Zero got completed? (or developed/expanded past its current form) There's no reason people should be into homebrewing on old systems to make money; it should be as a cumunity interest of likeminded people interested in a group hobby. Any cost should be paid if they want to produce the thing and release it. This latter bit is perfectly reasonable and it's understandable for cart based games produced in relatively small numbers to be fairly costly, but by no means should such groups expect significant monetary profit from this,,, (more break even for production+distribution and development tools/costs, which is rather costly in low production count as I mentioned, but probably nowhere near getting paid for time spent doing development) vs The biggest issue being overlooked wit the Jaguar it the cost, time and effort to make Jaguar games... The Jag tools SUCK!!!!! ... This is a ton of extra effort you will never have to deal with(or even come close) with any other system. The money any developer asks should never be a problem when you consider the Jag. the carts are not cheap to make and the work involved is ten fold of any other system. This is what I've found strangely fascinating about the Jaguar scene. On the one hand you have regular homebrew/scene type people doing their software & hardware things & expecting nothing in return other than a thank-you & a smile because they are doing what they like doing. On the other hand you have this kind of attitude where, you know, this shit is hard, I need remuneration. -kZa I should clarify a bit, I'm not personally a programmer (at least not yet, I didn't even decide to major in comp sci until recently), though I've considdered homebrewing (probably not for the Jag ) as a possible future hobby. (I'll have to see how that works out. ) I don't own a Jag either (I would considder it if it hadn't gotten so damn expensive recently, too bad I didn't get into this stuff 3-4 years ago...), I'm kind of a general retro games/electronics fan/nerd. (well, history in general too) I totally respect Gorf's opinion though, especially for new games designed from the ground up. Though cool homebrew ports are nice too, which would not be legal to sell anyway, still there are some games that would be cool to see on some of these neglected systems. (like that Space Harrier one for the A8-bit, or Wolfenstein 3D for the 32x) It would seem rather eccentric to me though to put so much work into something so impratical to profit from, though getting at least some monetary retribution would be understandable. Honestly though, it would make more sense to do this stuff solely as a hobby and get payment for any actual costs for a solid product, then releasing it freely after a certan amount has been regained. Then again, I could see frustration from people buying a product only to have it later released in digital form, though It's kind of the same as buying a repro cart for a rom immage that's widely availble. (though unofficial repros are technically illegal as well, but I still think that's a cool thing for unreleased games, like Star Fox 2, MM Wily Wars in the US, NWC, and DarXide would be cool to see too, owning/selling Betas is often just as illegal as those were supposed to be returned/destroyed) On the topic of developers however, if they really wanted to recoup some of their labors, they could make the games available to other platforms, this is where a good emulator would come in. Port it to PC in digital form, or on disc (far cheaper than cart, and Jag CD would probably be pretty attractive comparatively if it wasn't so excessively rare). You could use a modified version of an umulator included (intagrated in a single executable) with the game and set it up to launch automatically, futhermore you could have the game encrypted (and use a propritary modified version of the emu) to circumvent distribution of the bare "rom" immage. (though smart hackers could still get around this, I'd immagine it would be toughter than ripping a game from a cartridge, of course the latter requires phyical resourses/hardware the former would not) In the Sega world, I know there's Pier Solar, that's pretty significant and they're doing a downright professional job, though I'm not sure if any of the developers are actually making very much money from it. (given that the price is equivlent to the average new game, and relatively small scale production at high quality, it would seem that they wouldn't be making too much more than breaking even, probably significantly more than production/distrubution costs, but I doubt anywhere near the value of the development work) Still $35 (with shipping, complete box and manual) is pretty nice, plus there's a $50 deluxe vspecial edition that added a companion CD that added in-game CD audio from the Sega CD. Of course the Genesis/Mega Drive is a much more realistic system to do this for given the wide popularity (and continued support of clone hardware), being the most popular syste of it's era in Europe (the location of some of the main developers of PS) and lacking the lockout issues of the SNES. (not to mention the hastle it would be to get permission from Nintendo, being notoriously tight abou this sort of thing) Edited June 28, 2009 by kool kitty89 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 And Gorf, I don't see anyone here advocating the copying of homebrew games, most especially in the case where developers are selling their games and/or have expressed that they do not want them copied. I think your statement is out of line in that regard. I dont think it is at all since I was attacked with another lubed joystick and some one brought up developers charging money to cover costs as criminal. It is usually from the ROM dudes...they(and you) know who they are still come across to me as people who feel they have it coming and extremely unappreciative. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubQMod Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 I'm a very occasional visitor to AA but after reading this thread I though I would add a few notes: (1) As a regular, and lifetime VIP, at JS2 I can tell you that most of the downloads available can be found elsewhere, for example; the Atari HQ CD from myatari, Jaguar Source Code Collection from Jaysmith etc. So the exclusivity of these roms is not a rigid as it seems. If Jason wants to set limits on posts before download then that is his perogative as the site admin. The downloads that are not *easily* obtainable, such as Tinytoons for example, are posted with the permission of the person who has the rights to them. (2) Following on from my last point, that of posting/hosting Jaguar roms. I personally have not problem with hosted roms *IF* the rights owner of the software has given permission or the individual owns the rights to the software. (3) I think belobnoz has already covered this but legacy roms can be run on Skunkboard as long as you cut off the first $2000 bytes of encryption and load to $802000. This is knowledge that anyone with a small amount of Jaguar knowledge should know. (4) The Jaguar toolset is not great. I'm hoping to improved this over time and have already released, and continue to improve, SMAC and SLN. There are other replacements for the legacy tools in the pipeline and I am always open to requests for other tools. I *WANT* the Jaguar to be developed on and will help as much as I can. (5) Authors charging for software. I believe this should be down to the individual who wrote the software. I chose not to charge for development tools as I want to support the community and push further development. As far as hombrew/commercial dev's go this is down to personal choice. If they spent a lot of time working on it and want some pay back then so be it. To release and half decent packaged Cart or CD costs money so if profit is to be made for time spent then go right ahead. On the flip side if a homebrew dev wants to write software and release it free, then great. There is no right or wrong here, just personal choice. Just my two cents.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
belboz Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 And just to further repeat some of my previous statements. The Skunk was not limited or made crippled because of any commercial title. It wont run a few commercial titles because of a request from those author(s), but that check against those titles is done by the bios and does not limit developers in anyway. The $800000 - $81ffff range of memory is not available to skunk developers, but it is also not avaible to Atari made Flashcarts, it is not made available to the Alpine users unless you boot into a special mode that loads the stub into low memory. As a developer the skunk gives you all you need to make your ROM based title and flash it to the Skunk and run it. When you are happy with that code and want to release it onto a real jag cart you can run the encryption tool and have a ROM image with encryption header in the $800000 - $81ffff range. The only issues a developer would have with running ROM stuff on the Skunk is if they need 32bit access to the ROM space, or they specify 32bit access mode in their code while running on the skunk. Also just some more detail on what SubQ has stated. I think the jcp tool will strip the header off the ROM image before flashing (it might do this for full 4MB images only). But as he states it is best to strip any encryption header when working with the skunk, it isn't needed. (3) I think belobnoz has already covered this but legacy roms can be run on Skunkboard as long as you cut off the first $2000 bytes of encryption and load to $802000. This is knowledge that anyone with a small amount of Jaguar knowledge should know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fadest Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Also just some more detail on what SubQ has stated. I think the jcp tool will strip the header off the ROM image before flashing (it might do this for full 4MB images only). But as he states it is best to strip any encryption header when working with the skunk, it isn't needed. (3) I think belobnoz has already covered this but legacy roms can be run on Skunkboard as long as you cut off the first $2000 bytes of encryption and load to $802000. This is knowledge that anyone with a small amount of Jaguar knowledge should know. So a skunkboard may be able to run all commercial software, except those that authors have specifically ask for a protection (and the upcoming one that will detect Skunkboard and don't want to run on it of course) ? I thought Skunkboard didn't provide commercial rom support and that every commercial running on it would be a kind of "luck" (I don't know if luck is the best term,but my english vocabulary doesn't have the term I have in mind)... Interesting... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-kZa- Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Just my two cents.... Thanks for the input, I know you mean well, but this thread needs to stay on target & it keeps getting derailed. The policies of restrictions of certain topics in this sub forum. JSII are actively discussing their own policies in their own topics on their own board, that's the way it should be & I wish them well with that. btw, just a personal msg while you're here, I'm not saying what you said isn't helpful in any way. "This is knowledge that anyone with a small amount of Jaguar knowledge should know", fair enough, but you can't instalearn everything jaguar in a matter of weeks & expect to get everything right first go, until you read it, until you find out, you are on your own pretty much. Some of the people who don't know everything yet are the very same people who have been helping you fix your utils. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LS650 Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 I thought Skunkboard didn't provide commercial rom support The Skunkboard developers have said they won't provide support for the execution of commercial ROMs on the Skunkboard; that doesn't mean they won't run, just that Kskunk and Tursi aren't providing support for any issues encountered. In my experience, most of the Atari-era ROMs do run, though I've found a couple that don't. My guess is that the dump is bad, and that the Skunk would run a valid dump of said cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubQMod Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Also just some more detail on what SubQ has stated. I think the jcp tool will strip the header off the ROM image before flashing (it might do this for full 4MB images only). But as he states it is best to strip any encryption header when working with the skunk, it isn't needed. (3) I think belobnoz has already covered this but legacy roms can be run on Skunkboard as long as you cut off the first $2000 bytes of encryption and load to $802000. This is knowledge that anyone with a small amount of Jaguar knowledge should know. So a skunkboard may be able to run all commercial software, except those that authors have specifically ask for a protection (and the upcoming one that will detect Skunkboard and don't want to run on it of course) ? I thought Skunkboard didn't provide commercial rom support and that every commercial running on it would be a kind of "luck" (I don't know if luck is the best term,but my english vocabulary doesn't have the term I have in mind)... Interesting... Before this kicks off into a piracy flame war (which I can see that it might) I would like to state the following from Page 2 of the Skunkboard manual "Skunkboard is not authorized to be used in a manner that violates any local laws". kSkunk and Boz condone piracy and would never promote SkunkBoards for this use. I mearly pointed out that stripping the header would remove the problem highlighted by the reboot team member in relation to their own .rom file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-kZa- Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Also just some more detail on what SubQ has stated. I think the jcp tool will strip the header off the ROM image before flashing (it might do this for full 4MB images only). But as he states it is best to strip any encryption header when working with the skunk, it isn't needed. (3) I think belobnoz has already covered this but legacy roms can be run on Skunkboard as long as you cut off the first $2000 bytes of encryption and load to $802000. This is knowledge that anyone with a small amount of Jaguar knowledge should know. So a skunkboard may be able to run all commercial software, except those that authors have specifically ask for a protection (and the upcoming one that will detect Skunkboard and don't want to run on it of course) ? I thought Skunkboard didn't provide commercial rom support and that every commercial running on it would be a kind of "luck" (I don't know if luck is the best term,but my english vocabulary doesn't have the term I have in mind)... Interesting... Hang on, are we now discussing what we are supposed to be discussing whether we should be discussing or not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fadest Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Before this kicks off into a piracy flame war (which I can see that it might) I would like to state the following from Page 2 of the Skunkboard manual "Skunkboard is not authorized to be used in a manner that violates any local laws". kSkunk and Boz condone piracy and would never promote SkunkBoards for this use. This is not my intention to turn into a piracy flame war debate. I just find interesting that a proposition made a long time ago for the Jag CF (don't care if commercial ROM run or not, but explicitly forbid some requested by author) that have been fight at time is now commonly admitted as a good solution. So basically, it just proves that minds are changing. Nothing more has to been interpreted from my post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubQMod Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Just my two cents.... Thanks for the input, I know you mean well, but this thread needs to stay on target & it keeps getting derailed. The policies of restrictions of certain topics in this sub forum. JSII are actively discussing their own policies in their own topics on their own board, that's the way it should be & I wish them well with that. btw, just a personal msg while you're here, I'm not saying what you said isn't helpful in any way. "This is knowledge that anyone with a small amount of Jaguar knowledge should know", fair enough, but you can't instalearn everything jaguar in a matter of weeks & expect to get everything right first go, until you read it, until you find out, you are on your own pretty much. Some of the people who don't know everything yet are the very same people who have been helping you fix your utils. Ok, maybe I didn't word that correctly and I apologise if it came across the wrong way. In a way I was referring to when I first started working on the Jaguar. Before I did anything I researched the hardware which is an approach I have used for nearly 20 years in the computer/IT industry and before that, nearly 10 years as a hobby/enthusiast programmer (yes, I did indeed start playing with computers from the age of around seven - god I feel old). I realise that not everyone has the same approach as I do to this kind of project work. You are right that promethea has been assisting with the development of SMAC and helping remove some annoying little bugs. As with your team, SMAC, SLN and the upcoming tools are all done in my spare time so every bit of help is always appreciated. Fitting in this kind of development around a career, and more importantly, family is hard. I do it as a hobby and something that I enjoy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Before this kicks off into a piracy flame war (which I can see that it might) I would like to state the following from Page 2 of the Skunkboard manual "Skunkboard is not authorized to be used in a manner that violates any local laws". kSkunk and Boz condone condem piracy and would never promote SkunkBoards for this use. Fixed for you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubQMod Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Before this kicks off into a piracy flame war (which I can see that it might) I would like to state the following from Page 2 of the Skunkboard manual "Skunkboard is not authorized to be used in a manner that violates any local laws". kSkunk and Boz condone condem piracy and would never promote SkunkBoards for this use. Fixed for you Thanks, its been one of those evenings. Suffice to say I now have a cold beer in my hand so normal service will resume... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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