Get Lost!

[+Propane13]

On 4/3/2021 at 12:58 PM, RevEng said:

One more thought... you could run the "Cart Integrity Test" in the 7800 Utility Cart rom, to see if your CC2 is giving up the ghost.

 

 

7800 Utility Cart (20161210).bin 32 kB · 3 downloads

Done.  What's the output supposed to look like?

 

I have a bunch of green bars, but a few dots.

 

 

[RevEng]

Yep, that's a clean result. If you have problems with ROM on the device, some of those blocks might turn red. It may be worthwhile to leave it running for a bit.

 

The missing blocks are normal, and just ones I can't check for technical reasons.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, Propane13 said:

Done.  What's the output supposed to look like?

 

I have a bunch of green bars, but a few dots.

 

 

The real test is to let this run for like an hour to make sure your 7800 is nice and warmed up and see if any red blocks appear then. If not, then I would say your are good to go.

 

Far as I know, I believe the dots in the lower right are reserved RAM that isn't really able to be written to and used I thought?

 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Get Lost! on tomorrow's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch! Hope you can join us!

 

Fri Aug 30, 2024 | LIVE @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 1AM GMT+1Day

WATCH LIVE: https://twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• Space Peril! (2024 Exclusive WIP Update | 7800) by Karl Garrison @Karl G
• Osotos (2024 Final | 7800) by Inufuto
• Get Lost! (2021 WIP | 7800) by John K Harvey @Propane13

 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

Great news @Propane13! Get Lost worked without ONE crash on the 7800GD! Here's the stats from our stream tonight:

• Crashes: ZERO
• Deaths: 254
• Time Played: 1:30:39
• Loot: 47

I hope you consider implementing the SaveKey feature you had planned as it's a LONG game and I'd really like a shot at getting to the end one day during one or more After Dark streams. 🙂

 

This is such an amazing game and I really think it deserves a physical release at some point!

 

- James

[+Zeptari]

On 8/31/2024 at 12:51 AM, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

Here's the stats from our stream

Only made it 30mins or so, was falling asleep with my phone in hand! Was so tired. My fault, not the streams. Finished watching late yesterday. Great 7800 coverage! Loved all three games tonight. Just dug my AV modded 7800 out, I'm totally getting back into it again. 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

20 minutes ago, Zeptari said:

Only made it 30mins or so, was falling asleep with my phone in hand! Was so tired. My fault, not the streams. Finished watching late yesterday. Great 7800 coverage! Loved all three games tonight. Just dug my AV modded 7800 out, I'm totally getting back into it again. 

 

It's definitely the right time to get into the 7800 homebrew scene, there's a ton of amazing games coming out every year! Here's the list of games that have been worked on so far in 2024 and the full master list of all the aftermarket games for the 7800 maintained by @Trebor and here's the newest compilation to download all the publicly available ones, also from Trebor!

 

Have fun!

 

- James

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

Played the game again last night on ZPH for 2h and was able to collect every piece of loot in the top section of the game. Wow, is the game ever challenging but so much fun and rewarding. There were two gems that were incredibly difficult but in different ways.

 

This one was VERY hard to figure out how to get it, quite a head scratcher!

 

 

This one was easy to understand how to get it, just SUPER challenging with the timing. Many deaths occurred!

 

 

I wish the save feature was implemented so we could eventually see the end of the game but we'll probably continue on playing by working separately on the second section of the game and then the third in a third stream.

 

@Propane13 Maybe the save feature can be implemented with the AtariVox instead of the planned VRAM?

 

- James

[+Propane13]

That's fantastic!  Congrats on getting all of the gems on top.  That is no easy feat!

 

I'll try to dig up the spec on the SaveKey and maybe see if there's a way to make it work.  Things are definitely different than they were years ago.  My original intention was to have a custom PCB board that could do POKEY sound effects and essentially a writable/saveable RAM.  That didn't exist, so I waited.  At the time, the SaveKey was helpful, but game and community adoption was low, so I figured the best approach was just to wait and see.  And then... well, almost a decade passed.  On the other side of things, there still isn't a PCB board that does what I need, and worse yet-- when I checked in 2022, the header files slots for the .a78 file format are all used up, so there is no room for me to make a custom configuration anyway.  So, my waiting kind of means I missed the boat.  Here's that thread:

 

 

Apparently, there are updates on that thread since then, so I should probably dive into that again and see if there's anything new.  But, you're right.  Maybe the SaveKey is a better answer instead of perpetually waiting.  I haven't looked into the SaveKey spec in years though, so I'll need to do some digging.  If there's anybody on this discussion that knows where I can find development / integration info on that, I would welcome it as it would save me some time.

 

For what it's worth, I do still have the source code, and it's compilable.  So, I do have the ability to sneak in small things if I need to.

All the major stuff that's left are:

 * Making saves work

 * Making a better splash screen on power-up.  Ideally, I'd like to translate the cart label proposal from this thread into a splash screen.  I don't have great tools for converting that into a mock-up; maybe that's something somebody would have an interest in

 * Making an ending screen.  Currently, if you win, you know.  But, it's literally the minimalist thing I could do

 * Add music.  It's funny-- I have had some of the background music planned out in my head for years, but implementing a new sound system from the ground up is more tedious than I'd hoped.

 * A small text-overlay bug nobody ever notices needs a tiny fix due to emulators acting differently than real hardware

 

With that, I could ship it.

 

So yes, I can take a peek at Save Key support.  If it's not that bad to implement, I'll see what I can do.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to play 'Get Lost'!

 

 

 

[+Zeptari]

23 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

Wow, is the game ever challenging but so much fun and rewarding

So I finally played it last night. You're right! This is an amazing little game. Helps with the loss of not having Montezuma's Revenge on the 7800, I love exploring games like this.. and not having to worry about how many "guys" you're lost is a major plus.

 

Atari should pick this up and have @Propane13 polish it up (music,title screen,more sound effects etc..) for an official release! Great job! 

 

I'll try to find some time for a mock up splash screen... 

[RevEng]

22 hours ago, Propane13 said:

Apparently, there are updates on that thread since then, so I should probably dive into that again and see if there's anything new.  But, you're right.  Maybe the SaveKey is a better answer instead of perpetually waiting.  I haven't looked into the SaveKey spec in years though, so I'll need to do some digging.  If there's anybody on this discussion that knows where I can find development / integration info on that, I would welcome it as it would save me some time.

Here's Alex Herbert's AtariVox Programmer's Guide. (SaveKey was created after AtariVox, and is a clone of the EEPROM bits of the AtariVox)

 

I had to adjust the timings of Alex's original drivers a bit for reliability on the 7800, due to the faster clock on the 7800. That version of the EEPROM i2c.inc driver can be found here. Alex's driver is very low level, so I wrote some Higher level functions here to detect the device, and to read/write a number of bytes using buffers.

 

I think picking savekey support for your project is sensible. A good deal of homebrews are now using the 7800basic unified HSC/saveKey driver for high scores or save data, so at least some players are likely to own them.

 

[+Propane13]

11 hours ago, RevEng said:

Here's Alex Herbert's AtariVox Programmer's Guide. (SaveKey was created after AtariVox, and is a clone of the EEPROM bits of the AtariVox)

 

I had to adjust the timings of Alex's original drivers a bit for reliability on the 7800, due to the faster clock on the 7800. That version of the EEPROM i2c.inc driver can be found here. Alex's driver is very low level, so I wrote some Higher level functions here to detect the device, and to read/write a number of bytes using buffers.

 

I think picking savekey support for your project is sensible. A good deal of homebrews are now using the 7800basic unified HSC/saveKey driver for high scores or save data, so at least some players are likely to own them.

 

Thanks for the info!  Is it all right if I pick your brain with a few basic questions?

 

1) Compatibility

 

So, if I understand what you're saying correctly-- the functionality of the SaveKey matches the AtariVox, minus the voice synthesizer bits (and probably other features)?  If that's the case, what happens if I buy an AtariVox and use it on my Atari 7800?  Are there potentially scenarios where it doesn't detect, or fails to save (i.e. corruption)?  Part of my question is out of curiosity, but the other may be out of necessity.  It seems that the AtariAge Store is out of SaveKeys.  So, if I want to develop, I may need to buy an AtariVox due to its quick availability.  If I can source a SaveKey another way or if there is a new batch headed to the store, I'd happily buy one.

 

Also.. I'm guessing that maybe some of the later revisions of the AtariVox made fixes for better 7800 compatibility (looking at https://forums.atariage.com/topic/304233-about-the-atarivox/ for reference).  Maybe that's not true-- I'm not sure if anybody would know.

 

2) Reserving slots

 

It looks like the memory tables are here: https://atariage.com/atarivox/atarivox_mem_list.html, and it sounds like I reach out to Atari Age to reserve slots.  Once I do that, I assume that besides running special code (which I need to look at), I define my slot in my source code (matching the reserved area identified), and that's how it works?  It seems that this would be the simplest way to work with the hardware/emulators without reflashing hardware or creating new emulator releases every few months when new content comes out.  Just trying to understand the basic architecture / reservation procedure as a starting point.

 

Thanks!

[+Propane13]

Looks like I may have found what I'm looking for!

 

[RevEng]

11 hours ago, Propane13 said:

Looks like I may have found what I'm looking for!

 

For sure, looks like that's a good resource!

 

Yes, a SaveKey is an AtariVox without the voice chip, essentially. (it also lacks Vectrex compatibility) You can buy an AtariVox and use it on your 7800 - the compatibility issue with the 7800 is the Vox case design, which interferes with the 7800 case. So you need an extension cable, or you can also just remove the vox case. 

 

Corruption isn't super likely, unless someone knocks the device out or turns the console off mid-save. It's a good idea to validate the data though, in some way.

 

I'm not sure that anything shipped from AA right now will have "quick availability", with Al recently doing massive numbers of shipments of discontinued titles (not sure if those are on-going or not), and PRGE around the corner. SaveKeys are simple devices and the circuit is documented. That opens the door to diy or an independent seller as options.

 

Your implementation thoughts are right, but I should point out that no 7800 emulator currently supports SaveKey emulation.