jeff_a Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 but if that happened it would probabally be a pack of 15 or so activision roms, i wanna load my collection of homebrews on to this baby too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 And I don't know how you'd go about mapping the video output of the 2600 on a chip to the GBA. You'd almost be writing an emulator just to take the video signal, do some kind of A to D sampling and drive the GBA display from it. The 2600-on-a-chip (as the TIA) provides digital video and sync output. This stream can be used to fill a video buffer on the cart, convert the luma/chroma values to RGB using a table, and then use the capabilities of the GBA to resample/scale this image to the 240 x 160 screen. One 'gotcha' here is that the GBA doesn't do interpolation... it just picks every nth pixel. If you're reducing images to screen size, you simply drop pixels, and it looks very so-so. So if you want bilinear interpolation... which you probably do.... you can't expect the GBA rotation/scaling to do that for you. BTW, Having written both GBA stuff and '2600 stuff.... I'm putting my hand up if you need any assistance on either end of the chain Also, I'm an all-powerful moderator on many of the GBA sites/lists, so I know 'who to ask what' if you need assistance/information. Cheers A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff_a Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 Andrew, that is awesome that you are willing to help out. So in your professional opinion, do you think the 2600-on-a-chip and gba can work together? Thanks, Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 I agree. Even Thrust looks surprisingly good There might be a problem with the visibility of flickering shots and I wonder how the vertical scrolling might look like (blurry?). The big questions is, how costly would an adequate filter be? And would it be done in soft- or (as I assume) in hardware? Since Andrew has some experiences from his GBA project, he might also know which filter would look best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 I agree. Even Thrust looks surprisingly good There might be a problem with the visibility of flickering shots and I wonder how the vertical scrolling might look like (blurry?). The big questions is, how costly would an adequate filter be? And would it be done in soft- or (as I assume) in hardware? Since Andrew has some experiences from his GBA project, he might also know which filter would look best. It would be straightforward to do the filtering code on a block of memory which already contains a '2600 'image'. It's generating the actual image that took most of the time for my emulator. So I think a software filter is feasible. My emulator actually cheated by displaying only selected scanlines of a '2600 image - and the scanlines displayed depended on the particular ROM. So, for example, I might skip the first 5, then display every 2nd one for 10 lines, then all lines for the next 30, etc.... just whatever it took to make a game look good-ish. It was a real hack... I had plans for a software scale, but abandoned the project before I investigated that much. I think the idea of a hardware project (ie: cart) for GBA is moot anyway. Nintendo's lawyers would jump on any homebrewer attempting this. It's a dead project before it starts - the only possibility is a publisher would pick it up, and there we go... not available for the use of general ROMs anymore. So, in my opinion... a dead duck in the water. Cheers A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 Andrew, that is awesome that you are willing to help out. So in your professional opinion, do you think the 2600-on-a-chip and gba can work together? Thanks, Jeff Tecnically, possibly. Legally, as a homebrew project... not a chance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaManFan Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 Tecnically, possibly. Legally, as a homebrew project... not a chance. I'm sorry Andrew, but I begin to find this a bit frustrating. Every time a great idea comes up - yeah sure that'd be cool, heck I could even program it myself - but oh wait it's not gonna be legal can't do it. It's like you think there's a pack of lawyers trolling through AtariAge waiting to pounce like wolves on everything. If you think there are legal issues to begin with, why express interest at all? Why propose things to the community that we'd all like to see and later tell us "nope not legal" and get us worked up for nothing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos_Lopez Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 BTW, Having written both GBA stuff and '2600 stuff.... I'm putting my hand up if you need any assistance on either end of the chain Also, I'm an all-powerful moderator on many of the GBA sites/lists, so I know 'who to ask what' if you need assistance/information. Hey Andrew thanks for your offering I might need your help. I think the idea of a hardware project (ie: cart) for GBA is moot anyway. Nintendo's lawyers would jump on any homebrewer attempting this. It's a dead project before it starts - the only possibility is a publisher would pick it up, and there we go... not available for the use of general ROMs anymore. So, in my opinion... a dead duck in the water. OK, kind of confused then if you are willing to help me. I'm sorry Andrew, but I begin to find this a bit frustrating. Every time a great idea comes up - yeah sure that'd be cool, heck I could even program it myself - but oh wait it's not gonna be legal can't do it. It's like you think there's a pack of lawyers trolling through AtariAge waiting to pounce like wolves on everything. If you think there are legal issues to begin with, why express interest at all? Why propose things to the community that we'd all like to see and later tell us "nope not legal" and get us worked up for nothing? Don't worry MegaManFan, I really like this idea and I plan to develop it. Legal issues always can be solved, and I haven't said that I'm planning on selling this, so I see no legal issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaManFan Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 Don't worry MegaManFan, I really like this idea and I plan to develop it. Legal issues always can be solved, and I haven't said that I'm planning on selling this, so I see no legal issue. Ahh! Now THAT'S the spirit. Huzzah! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff_a Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 Just to see it done would be enough for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 Tecnically, possibly. Legally, as a homebrew project... not a chance. I'm sorry Andrew, but I begin to find this a bit frustrating. Every time a great idea comes up - yeah sure that'd be cool, heck I could even program it myself - but oh wait it's not gonna be legal can't do it. It's like you think there's a pack of lawyers trolling through AtariAge waiting to pounce like wolves on everything. If you think there are legal issues to begin with, why express interest at all? Why propose things to the community that we'd all like to see and later tell us "nope not legal" and get us worked up for nothing? I think you might have misunderstood me slightly. I'd be happy and willing to work on this project - it sounds like fun. But I don't think there's any chance that whomever makes it will actually be able to sell it. Nintendo would stomp on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaManFan Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 I think you might have misunderstood me slightly. I'd be happy and willing to work on this project - it sounds like fun. But I don't think there's any chance that whomever makes it will actually be able to sell it. Nintendo would stomp on it. Assuming they would before they did is self-defeatist. Why not sell them on the idea? Form a corporation, get a nice suit, put together a package and fly to Japan to present it to Nintendo corporate headquarters. You invest a few thousand dollars at the start and you never know what they might say. If they realize they could tap into a huge pre-existing library of Atari games and quadruple the amount of titles the GBA can play they might really go nuts for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord-Chaos Posted February 26, 2003 Author Share Posted February 26, 2003 AFAIK there were some other handhelds in the 90s. The Sega Game Gear Sega Nomad this portable PC Engine (don´t know the name) and some portable Neo Geo AFAIK (don´t know the name) Maybe more.I don´t have them except the Game Gear , which was similar to the Lynx. Thimo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slapdash Posted February 26, 2003 Share Posted February 26, 2003 AFAIK there were some other handhelds in the 90s. The Sega Game Gear Sega Nomad this portable PC Engine (don´t know the name) TurboExpress in the US and (I think) PCE GT? LT? elsewhere. and some portable Neo Geo AFAIK (don´t know the name) Neo Geo Pocket. There's also the Wonderswan and the GP32. I don't know if any of them have the proper resolution... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsoper Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 Ben Heckendorn and I were talking at CGE once. We had both made portable 2600s with RCA 2.5 inch lcd TVs because the screen is attached to the main board by a ribbon cable and can be moved around. Anyway he told me that one of the signals on the ribbon cable was composite video, so it may be possible to just use the screen and its small board as a stand alone display. Don't know if the other ribbon cable signals are anything funky, hopefully just dc. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindog Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 The GP32 is 320x240, so would be just about ideal for playing Atari games. Of course it's also got a 133MHz processor so an emulator would probably be the more ideal approach, sorry to all the purists out there There are plenty of unauthorized devices that plug into the cartridge port available for the GBA, and the only ones that Nintendo have actually cracked down on are the ones that let you dump GBA games. Not saying they wouldn't threaten a homebrewer with a lawsuit just because they figure they won't be able to afford to defend themselves, but historically they have not done this yet. Finally, you could emulate the 2600 at full resolution by turning the GBA sideways. The aspect ratio would be screwed up but considering that most 2600 games have sprites that appear horizontally stretched due to the rectangular pixels, it might actually be better that way Someone else besides Andrew has done a similarly unfinished 2600 emulator which has an option to play sideways as I described, and it seems to me they may have even released the source. I'm new to GBA programming though (waiting for my Flash2Advance to arrive, since my Flash Linker Extreme cart isn't compatible with my Smartmedia GameWallet and I run Linux so the Extreme's USB support does me no good anyway) so I don't think I'll be the one whipping that into shape. For what it's worth, though, the NES emulator I've played with on the GBA has a number of modes for fitting the NES' 192 lines into the GBA's 160, and one of them is a flickery mode that looks poor on an emulator but great on the real hardware. It plays at full speed despite the NES being faster than the 2600 with an otherwise similar processor. I think that's another option if software filtering proves too expensive. Don't know if that thing's 6502 core has source available or not. Andrew is doubtless aware of this emulator since he's active in the GBA world. Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackbird Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 Hi, I'm new to the boards. Just wanted to post my thoughts. I was thinking about this. What if an Atari 2600 emulator was provided as an addon to the E-Reader? I've thought it out, and here's how it goes: The emulator (I'm going to use z26 for the example, but choose what you want) would be programmed into a chip, inside a small plastic attachment on top of the E-Reader (the same width, and a half inch high). When you start the E-Reader up, you would begin by scanning a startup card (which could be made from plastic so it would last longer). It would then start a GBA program where it detects the z26 attachment, and then copies all the info on the chip through the link cable ports and into the E-Reader's 1Meg Flash Memory (z26 is only 129k, and even porting it to the GBA will leave at least .5 megs to work with). Then, you would go to the z26 startup screen. It would have all the normal settings to choose (-!, or -g11, or whatever). Then, under Load Game, you'd be allowed to scan a card, which will then tell you the name of the game, the number of cards, and how many to go, while still being under the z26 menu (like in the weird Pokemon music box cards). You load up the required amount of cards, and instant Atari 2600 joy! The cards can have two long strips, and with each being 2.2k, most games can be put into one card. 4k will fit in one card, 8k in two, 16k in four, 32k in eight, and 64k in sixteen. Needless to say, it's a far cry from the NES's emulator, which most games need five cards just to play Mario Bros! So there you have it. I think it's possible, and it wouldn't look to bad, either. The only problem would be getting someone to make the cards, which is an impossability at the moment, until people crack the code. But I think it would work, and be very cool at that! Though the legal issues would be tremendous... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff_a Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 im thinking with the composate a/v output to the screen (if the chip is installed internally) would be ideal IMO. Like I said earlier, I have an extra GBA that is screaming to be experimented on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 What if an Atari 2600 emulator was provided as an addon to the E-Reader? Are those displays fast enough? I guess they might not be very good at displaying fast animated graphics. And how many colors do they have? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackbird Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 Well, the E-Reader has a built-in NES emulator, which runs very well under multiple games, so the GBA could handle the Atari. The E-Reader also has a regular game mode, which many people seem to ignore... so the port of the emulator would have all the functions of a regular Gameboy game. The GBA can display 65,536 colors, and 256 colors for the Background palette (256 for OAM, also, but it probably would use it). The screen should work fine, it does action very well (unlike the first gameboys, with dot-matrix technology). Of course, the emulator could just have all the roms from AtariAge built in, but that wouldn't be any fun, would it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos_Lopez Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 The GP32 is 320x240, so would be just about ideal for playing Atari games. Of course it's also got a 133MHz processor so an emulator would probably be the more ideal approach, sorry to all the purists out there That's a very good resolution to start with. AFAIK the GP32 loads the roms from a SmartMedia, I'm not sure if it would be possible to send the video stream from that (regarding the GBA cart idea). So I agree, with that fast processor a 2600 emulator might work at full speed. Well, the E-Reader has a built-in NES emulator, which runs very well under multiple games, so the GBA could handle the Atari. If I understand your statement, you are assuming that since the E-Reader is capable of emulating the NES, it should be capable of emulate the 2600. I wouldn't go that far. You have to remember the machine-cycle dependency of the 2600 because of the lack of a video memory. I don't have knowledge of a 2600 emulator for the GBA that can run at full frame speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackbird Posted February 28, 2003 Share Posted February 28, 2003 Well, I was just using that as a reference. Maybe it's not possible, but the GBA can do quite a lot of things... you'd never know, maybe someone someday will figure out how to get it at full speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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