Imagic Kiosk Menu - Change to display AtariAge Logo?

[Albert]

The Imagic Display Kiosks allows you to select from 24 different Atari 2600 games. When it powers up, it displays a splash screen of sorts (which you can see pictured at the above link). I intend to use at least one of these kiosks at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. I opened one up today and there's a single EPROM containing the boot binary. It'd be awesome to change this to display the AtariAge name/logo and "Please select game to play" or something along those lines.

 

I know this can certainly be done, but I'd need it done by next Friday.

 

You can grab Version 2 of the Imagic kiosk binary here at Atarimania:

 

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-imagic-selector-v2_15741.html

 

Don't know if the original version has been dumped--if it hasn't been, I can do that. It looks to just be a 4K binary, and presumably it has no bearing on the operation of the kiosk (there are three buttons on the kiosk to select a game and reset the console).

 

Anyone up to the challenge?

 

..Al

 

 

[+Omegamatrix]

I'll take a look for you, Al. So you're looking just for a black screen, with the AtariLogo, and then "Please select game to play"?

 

Maybe dump the rom if you can. You never know if there is an alternate out there.

[Joe Musashi]

I've given this a shot, too. Rather than hacking the original ROM, I re-programmed the splash screen so that it would be easier to add different effects. I made the black area a bit smaller to be able to add a "SELECT GAME" text line at the bottom.

 

There's a lot of room for improvements. E.g., the AtariAge logo would probably look better if Atari and Age were bigger and on separate lines. It might also look good to make the text at the bottom a scrolling text. I would, however, suggest to add more elaborate effects only in the black area and otherwise keep the Imagic theme so that it fits better to the kiosk.

 

Omegamatrix, why not work together on this? I'm done programming for the day. I've attached the source, if you would want to use it as a starter.

 

AtariAgeKiosk_20120922.bin

AtariAgeKiosk_20120922.zip

[+Omegamatrix]

I started disassembling the rom, getting all of the pointers mapped, etc... and then stopped because I figured it'd probably be all scrapped anyhow. The rom is curious as the lower 2k is not accessed in Stella, and clearly tries to jump into places where there is no code. I'm not sure if that portion gets called somehow by an external trigger, and maps some code to ram etc... or if it really is unused.

 

 

For now I just left it as is, and disassembled it as data so that the false labels don't interfere with the 2nd half of the rom. I wasn't sure if Al wanted the logo hacked in or a new screen built. I started playing around with an Atariage logo like in StarCastle, and right now I'm working on a way to implement the two colors.

 

 

I don't want to use VBLANK to hide the colors as on some screens you can see the blacker then black blanking. So the current idea is to use the two color routine I developed with missile masking to hide the repeated playfield bits. I'm also putting it into a loop to save a lot of rom which I probably couldn't afford in just 2K. So I've developed a loop that works, and the code executes in zero page ram, and makes use of the LDY TIM8T trick I found to have a quick decrement reload loop.

 

 

Current problem right now is the data is well over a page. So I'm looking at probably two unwound lines mid logo to remodify the ram routine.

 

 

 

 

Anyhow, I was just playing with this as I like try new tricks. I'm not sure if Al even wants this though.

Jeff

 

 

Here also is the rough disassembly I did, if it helps.

 

ImagicKioskMenu(re).zip

Edited September 23, 2012 by Omegamatrix

[Albert]

You guys rock!

 

Would it be possible to add the round AtariAge logo above the 'AtariAge' text? This could even be a solid color, like the blue used for the logo on this page. Attached is a file containing vector and bitmap versions of the logo, if that helps at all..

 

Thanks!

 

..Al

AtariAgeLogos.zip

[Albert]

There's a lot of room for improvements. E.g., the AtariAge logo would probably look better if Atari and Age were bigger and on separate lines. It might also look good to make the text at the bottom a scrolling text. I would, however, suggest to add more elaborate effects only in the black area and otherwise keep the Imagic theme so that it fits better to the kiosk.

 

I'd prefer to keep "AtariAge" together on a single line, since it is normally written as one word. Originally I was thinking of doing away with the Imagic theme, but I think that is fine, and does fit the theming of the kiosk.

 

..Al

[Albert]

I just dumped the EPROM on the kiosk. It's only a 2K binary on a 2716--not sure a 2732 4K part will work or not with this board. I've attached the binary.

 

..Al

imagic_pop_11-4-82.bin

[+Omegamatrix]

I just dumped the EPROM on the kiosk. It's only a 2K binary on a 2716--not sure a 2732 4K part will work or not with this board. I've attached the binary.

 

..Al

 

I'm glad you dumped it Al, as that rom dump was missing.

 

 

Now I've finished my work, and I'm going to post it in case you want to use it in the future. Basically you can have a the two toned color AA logo as seen in Star Castle with any color background, and no HMOVE lines. Lots of room is left in the rom too. Even though I have left the binary as a black background, you just need to change the color in the assembly and recompile.

 

 

 

AtariLogo.zip

 

 

Also, I blatantly copied the bits for the logo straight from the Star Castle rom, as it was a sweet looking logo. So thanks to the artist (Nathan, Chris, or whoever did it).

Jeff

[Albert]

Jeff, that looks nice, how large is

I'm glad you dumped it Al, as that rom dump was missing.

 

Yeah, I saw that a day or two ago when I was looking, so I figured I should dump it, especially since I had torn a kiosk completely apart. Well, torn isn't the right word, but they do require a fair bit of disassembly!!

 

Now I've finished my work, and I'm going to post it in case you want to use it in the future. Basically you can have a the two toned color AA logo as seen in Star Castle with any color background, and no HMOVE lines. Lots of room is left in the rom too. Even though I have left the binary as a black background, you just need to change the color in the assembly and recompile.

 

Looks great, how much space does that take up? I like the black background, although the blue background pictured above is also nice. If we don't use it for this, I'm sure it can be used in future games!

 

Thanks,

 

..Al

[+Omegamatrix]

It uses very little bytes. Currently it uses ~ 483, but that includes everything like the rom initialization, and so forth. There are also a few bytes that could be reclaimed, but not a lot.

 

 

It's main drawback is that it is using 59 bytes of zero page ram. Maybe it could be made to run in rom (not too sure!), but I was too tired to figure out a solution tonight.

 

 

The height of the logo was a good size to fit within one page of data. Again I would like to give credit to whoever designed the logo graphics as it is pretty cool job. The circle AA came out great.

[Joe Musashi]

You guys rock!

 

Would it be possible to add the round AtariAge logo above the 'AtariAge' text? This could even be a solid color, like the blue used for the logo on this page. Attached is a file containing vector and bitmap versions of the logo, if that helps at all..

 

Thanks!

 

..Al

 

No problem. Here's how it looks with the logo on top. The logo is a bit bigger in relation to the 'AtariAge' text than usual. It could certainly be made smaller, though we need to keep in mind that the horizontal resolution on the 2600 is quite limited, so it would become more blocky.

 

Below are a couple of test screens with different coloring. Also the ROM is now only 2K.

 

Regarding the colors, I think there would be enough RAM left for a per line color buffer, which means that the colors could change dynamically and we could blend between different color schemes on the fly.

 

 

The source is currently a whole mess. If I have some time later, I'll clean it up and send it around.

AtariAgeKiosk_20120923_1.bin

AtariAgeKiosk_20120923_2.bin

AtariAgeKiosk_20120923_3.bin

[Albert]

Below are a couple of test screens with different coloring. Also the ROM is now only 2K.

 

I think the logo size is fine. Of the three examples, I like the one in the middle the best, although it does make the text perhaps a bit harder to read.

 

Regarding the colors, I think there would be enough RAM left for a per line color buffer, which means that the colors could change dynamically and we could blend between different color schemes on the fly.

 

If you want to experiment, by all means do.

 

Thanks,

 

..Al

[+Omegamatrix]

I made a second version of the Atari Logo. It only uses 1 byte of ram, and it uses less rom then before. I pulled off a few tricks to get it all in a rom loop, but managed it with zero cycles to spare.

 

 

AtariLogo2.zip

 

 

  ORG $9600

DoAtariLogo:
 sty  TIM8T              ;@65
 sta  PF1              ;@68


.loopAtariAgeLogo:
 ldx  #<COLUBK              ;@70  use JSR address to color BK, PF
 txs
 lda  AALogoTab,Y          ;@76
;---------------------------------------
 sta  GRP0
 lda  AALogoTab+1,Y
 sta  GRP1
 lda  AALogoTab+2,Y
 sta  GRP0
 lda  AALogoTab+3,Y
 sta  tempOne
 lda  AALogoTab+4,Y
 ldx  AALogoTab+5,Y
 ldy  tempOne
 jsr  ColorAtariAge          ;@41

 ORG $9627

ColorAtariAge:
 sty  GRP1              ;@44
 sta  GRP0
 stx  GRP1
 sta  GRP0
 lda  #COL_BACKGROUND
 sta  COLUBK
 sta  COLUPF
 ldy  INTIM              ;@65  use INTIM for quick decrement/load
 bne  .loopAtariAgeLogo      ;@67/68

;Y=0, X=$FF
 txs
 sty  GRP1
 sty  GRP0
 sty  GRP1
 sty  ENAM0
 sty  ENAM1
 sty  PF0
 sty  PF1

Edited September 23, 2012 by Omegamatrix

[Joe Musashi]

If you want to experiment, by all means do.

 

OK, I made an updated version that plays a little more with colors. It builds up a solid colored logo first, then fades to white, then to a multi-colored logo, finally back to black and then starts over. Kind of like a Sega Genesis logo. I cannot test how it looks on a NTSC CRT, but it seems ok in Stella.

 

Also, the code is now in a state where people can look at it

 

AtariAgeKiosk_20120927.bin

AtariAgeKiosk_20120927.zip

[Albert]

Thanks for this! I'll try it on a real kiosk tomorrow or Friday and let you know how I make out. I'll see if I can do it tomorrow in case there are any changes that need to be made. Will take some photos if I'm successful!

 

Thanks again,

 

..Al

[Gateway]

Very cool, guys!

 

Crossing my fingers for you Al, that there are no unforseen issues with putting the modified boot binary back in the kiosk.

[Albert]

Just wanted to post an update!

 

Unfortunately I ran out of time and I was not able to update the Kiosk I brought to the show with the special AtariAge version of the binary. It would have taken me over an hour to do this, and as it was I got maybe four hours of sleep Friday night before the show, and I was exhausted Saturday night. However, I will modify the kiosk when I get back home, and I'll post my results here. And I'll certainly use this kiosk again at future shows, as it was a great way to show off 24 different homebrew games!

 

Thanks for everyone's efforts.

 

..Al

[the.golden.ax]

I'd be tickled to get a copy of that on a rom chip to put in my Kiosk when you settle on something.

[Joe Musashi]

Unfortunately I ran out of time and I was not able to update the Kiosk I brought to the show with the special AtariAge version of the binary. It would have taken me over an hour to do this, and as it was I got maybe four hours of sleep Friday night before the show, and I was exhausted Saturday night. However, I will modify the kiosk when I get back home, and I'll post my results here. And I'll certainly use this kiosk again at future shows, as it was a great way to show off 24 different homebrew games!

 

Aw, that's unfortunate . But I would still love to see how a real kiosk would look like with a modified rom.

[Albert]

 

 

Aw, that's unfortunate . But I would still love to see how a real kiosk would look like with a modified rom.

 

You may get to see that later today! I'm going to open this bad boy up right now and try to swap out the ROM! I'm bringing it to the Houston Area Arcade Expo next weekend so I can have 24 homebrew games on display without fear of people stealing the carts (since I will be busy playing pinball and arcade games all damn weekend!)

 

..Al

[Joe Musashi]

Cool! Hope it works, fingers crossed.

[Albert]

Me too! I have it mostly apart, but stopped to eat some ice cream.

 

..Al

[+cmart604]

Me too! I have it mostly apart, but stopped to eat some ice cream.

 

..Al

 

Apart from stopping to eat bacon, I'm hard pressed to think of a better reason to stop doing something than to eat ice cream.

[Albert]

I just tested the kiosk with a 2732 (4K) EPROM (with the program doubled, just in case) and unfortunately it doesn't fire up. I popped the original EPROM back in just to make sure I hadn't screwed anything up while taking it apart, and it works fine. I'm going to try the 2732 in a 4K board in a moment to make sure it works properly.

 

These kiosks are a bit of a pain to test when they are not fully assembled!!

 

 

All the screws:

 

 

..Al

[Albert]

Just tried the new kiosk ROM on a 2600 on a 4K board and I get the same result, random colored vertical bars on the screen. I then tried the original Imagic Kiosk ROM and it works fine on the 4K board, so at least there is consistency. I'm going to try another EPROM in a moment, although the EPROM did verify after it was programmed, but you never know.

 

..Al