New Demo: AD:6502 - Arsantica 2 for 128k machines

[Heaven/TQA]

not sure if I can get away of the separate ANTIC/CPU access as I thought this is a damned cool feature and it works on 130XE as original hardware.

[Drummerboy]

Very nice Demo!. Congratulations!. Just as the younger Atari 8bit legacy... Amigas Demos.

[Mclaneinc]

Love the demo guys bar the over writing of text by the Alien, looks real cheap compared to the class of the rest of the demo..

 

The planet is amazing.....Not got a problem with the right edge blockyness, works for me..

 

And all hail Fractulas!!

 

Seriously, sounds great and looks great, thanks to all involved..

[Heaven/TQA]

can someone messure me loading time from real disc until part 1 starts? I am curious how Altirra differes in real drive emulation from "real drive".

[russg]

can someone messure me loading time from real disc until part 1 starts? I am curious how Altirra differes in real drive emulation from "real drive".

Not so easy to do. I have to make a real floppy from the .ATR. Your 'a' ATR has 908 128 byte sectors. This isn't 720 single density

and it isn't 1040 enhanced density. It is a density for some other DOS than double, single, enhanced I guess.

So, I managed to copy 'a' and load it. It took 50 seconds for the count down to blank screen and 27 more seconds for the initial screen.

This is using a USDBLR 1050.

Oh, yes. This is using a stock NTSC 130XE.

It crashes to a black blank screen after the flying left to right star and an attempt of a disk access.

It finished the flying over landscape and the flying star.

Edited December 8, 2014 by russg

[TheMontezuma]

Great demo! I'm really impressed.

I have just downloaded it with my Android Smartphone and was pleased to see it fully working with SIO2BT and my ATARI with Lotharek's 1MB Extension (in 512k CS mode).

[Rybags]

Looking forward to checking it out - only got tablets with poxy 3g data available to me ATM but I do have Altirra on the Win8 one.

 

The quandary of doing nice SIO loaders with proper sound... it becomes a sector/OK image based thing and won't play nice on modern IDE types - plus nobody wants to devote a partition just to a single game or demo.

[Heaven/TQA]

basicly 4 files are on disc plus xbios... so it is not a "disc only release"... xbios, xautorun (part1), ars2prt2, ars2prt3,ars2part4 and again xbios...

 

so dare to load xbios and then the other files?

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

Arsantica 2 is using a non-standard (shortened) ATR image again. There are several PC programs which can fix this, alas some fixer programs are limited to 90k and errm, Arsantica 2 diskside A has a length of approx. 112k and thus requires min. a 130k disk.

 

When copying the shortened 112k disk-image directly onto an A8 diskette, most sector-copy programs will detect it as being 90k only, so you will not be able to copy the whole program. There are a few programs, like e.g. Mycopyr 1.c where one can set "enhanced density" manually, but alas this program then tries to read sector 1040 to prove if it is really a 130k disk - and since the 112k Arsantica-2-image has only a little more than 900 sectors, this test fails, so the image is still detected as being 90kbytes...

 

Luckily, I remembered that there was a very old A8 sector-copy program which always copies 130k when you do not change anything in the setup (it does not try to detect the density). Its name is: Sectorcopy 2, old, outdated, slow (does not support any speeders), limited RAM (does not use XRAM), etc., etc. - but here it is good enough to create a standard 130k ATR image on the PC or a 130k diskette on the real A8.

 

Steps with one drive:

0) download the A.D. 6502 / Arsantica II demo and unzip it

1) create one or two disk-images with 130k, DOS 2.5 format (or on the real A8, boot DOS 2.5 and format one or two disksides with 130k)

2) boot/load Sectorcopy 2, use 001 as starting sector and 410 as ending sector; choose the number of copies you wish to create (01-99), if you want to verify written sectors (Y/N) and if you want to write blank sectors (Y/N); press Return on each choice;

3) when done with the setup, insert Arsantica-2, side A; now press START to start copying

4) whenever the destination is required, insert the formatted 130k disk or image and press START to continue; you have to repeat this several times;

5) whenever the source is required, insert the Arsantica-2 image and press START again; you have to repeat this several times;

6) sooner or later an Error will appear, while reading the source (since a lot of sectors are missing in the shortened ATR image), now insert your 130k disk and press START again - the copy program will now read the empty sectors of your 130k disk (still thinking it is reading the Arsantica image), when prompted for the destination disk, do not change disks/images but continue with the 130k disk; the copy program will write the last data sectors on the 130k disk (and if you wished, also the empty sectors it has read)

 

=> You now have created a standard 130k disk/image from the non-standard 112k image. You can do the same with Arsantica-2, diskside B, but since this is a standard 90k image, this is not a must (it might be useful to have Arsantica-2 on two 130k disks/images however, e.g. for the XF551 drive; the second 130k image/diskside could be used for this purpose).

 

You can also use this trick and this old Sectorcopy-2 program for shortened ATR-images that are shorter than 90kybtes, just set the start sector to 001 and the ending sector to 2D0 if you want to create a 90k disk/image or to 001 and 410 if you want to create a 130k disk/image.

 

Last not least there are medium/enhanced ATR-images out there with a length of 140-145kbytes, this was due to a bug in SIO2PC 3.x which saved medium/enhanced density as 140-145kbytes instead of 130kbytes. Most of the time these disk-images are also recognized as 90k, so you may use this trick and Sectorcopy-2 here as well.

 

It would be nice, if programmers would always use standard ATR image sizes and not these awful shortened ATR images...

 

 

P.S.: The "new" Arsantica-2 version attached here uses two 130k ATR images, it still requires the sep. Antic access (meaning a 130XE, or a 64k/128k/256k/512k RAM extension that is Compyshop compatible and has the sep. Antic mode)...

Arsantica-2_130k.zip

sectorcopy2.zip

[Heaven/TQA]

Thanks Andreas. I am just updating my build scripts as I am using dir2atr by hiassoft.

 

del makeatr\*.*

copy xbios.com makeatr\xbios.com

copy ..\Atari800\arsantica2\sphere\ars2part2.xex makeatr\ars2prt2

copy ars2part1.xex makeatr\xautorun

dir2atr -B xboot128.obx arsantica2_rc1.atr makeatr

arsantica2_rc1.atr

and here are attachted side a+side b generated with

del makeatr\*.*

copy xbios.com makeatr\xbios.com

copy ..\Atari800\arsantica2\sphere\ars2part2.xex makeatr\ars2prt2

copy ars2part1.xex makeatr\xautorun

dir2atr -m -B xboot128.obx 1040 arsantica2_rc1.atr makeatr

arsantica2_rc1.atr

please compare with Andreas files... this is not the final version though with updated fx. Double Density version (without flip disc) and HDD version to follow.

dsr_ad6502_arsantica2_side_a+b_130kb.zip

Edited December 11, 2014 by Heaven/TQA

[Rybags]

Using Altirra 2.50 on my Win 8.1 tab.

 

Entire fractal section just jitters and has corruption which ruins it though you know what's going on.

Another quandary, these stupid tablets and many addon keybds omit ESC and the F-keys altogether which makes doing emu stuff a pain.

 

I found just booting disk2 it seemed to work but you just get blank screen with music after a while.

Other workaround was mnt disk2 then patch running program - seems the blanking still

happened.

 

Nice demo but seems disconnected and not continuous/flowing like first one, and bugs really detract. Also it should handle config better, so long as seperate CPU/Antic access is there then why any problems with >=128K?

Edited December 11, 2014 by Rybags

[Heaven/TQA]

fractal part should not have glitches when set to compatible XE ram-expansion.

 

the last part screen blank is due to looking at 559 <--> $d400 and some NMI but I fixed that prior compo. never appeared again in Altirra I have to admit.

 

demo run on 576 Ultra 1 MB machine (set to compyshop) so wondering why you get such glitches esp. in Altirra as it was developed with Altirra but I am using latest Altirra test build though.,

 

attachted a first 1 disc version (1040 DD sectors ATR, MyDOS format....) can someone test this?

 

 

dsr_ad6502_arsantica2_1disc_preview.zip

Edited December 11, 2014 by Heaven/TQA

[russg]

fractal part should not have glitches when set to compatible XE ram-expansion.

 

the last part screen blank is due to looking at 559 <--> $d400 and some NMI but I fixed that prior compo. never appeared again in Altirra I have to admit.

 

demo run on 576 Ultra 1 MB machine (set to compyshop) so wondering why you get such glitches esp. in Altirra as it was developed with Altirra but I am using latest Altirra test build though.,

 

attachted a first 1 disc version (1040 DD sectors ATR, MyDOS format....) can someone test this?

 

 

I can't test it. I've never heard of a 1040 sector DD floppy. That is 260k. I can only go 180k, 720 sector DD. Maybe MyDOS 4.53 can do this, but I don't know.

Maybe a double sided drive (xf351?) can do 360k. I think the xf351 is single density anyway.

Edited December 11, 2014 by russg

[Rybags]

Seems I had it on NTSC. So most of the issues go away with that little change.

One annoyance that lingers, I don't know for sure since I didn't full reboot - the emergency part where it just keeps adding text but doesn't get rid of any once the screen fills up, the second screen worth looks unprofessional and hard to read/follow.

[Stormtrooper of Death]

Thanks for this demo. I really dig it. One of the best demos lately. Cheers from the Netherlands.

[HiassofT]

attachted a first 1 disc version (1040 DD sectors ATR, MyDOS format....) can someone test this?

Just ran it on my PAL 800XL, seems to work fine!

 

2 minor issues:

- you might want to remove the "flip disk/press start" screen

- better create a 1440 sectors (360k) ATR so people can easily copy it to a real 360k disk (eg XF551)

 

Ah, and another minor thing (not sure if it was mentioned before): after the "flip disk" screen I hear a low frequency "hum" while loading the last part. Is that inteded to be so?

 

so long,

 

Hias

[_The Doctor__]

all of my xf551's including 3.5 inch have no trouble making the disk images, but I power cycle them and force the density change before creating disks...keeping them from getting confused. Formatting a flippy is another story entirely(3.5's can't flip)... it uses the timing index hole for that operation only.. I have some disks that have a hole on both side of the hub(allows formatting avoids the problem entirely)... if you format a flippy with another drive the xf figures it out and works just fine reading writing etc... It can be confused by a flippy that has two different density format on it... the drive remembers the last density it read at before writing, if the disk gets flipped and the first thing it does is a strange write method... it might fail... again if you cycle power at the flip it usually figures it out and chugs along just fine.

Edited December 11, 2014 by _The Doctor__

[Heaven/TQA]

Thanks hiass... Never had a xf so no clue. Will fix that with final release.

[peteym5]

Wow this demo looks great and show you what can be done on the Atari 8-bit. It would be interesting to use some of those routines in games.

[Heaven/TQA]

Peter, thx.

 

following routines:

 

the fractal routine itself in that form takes only few KB. I can post a "free ride" version where you can grab joystick and "fly around". Though a "grid" is missing and drawing not optimized at all the frame rate is quite reasonable.

 

not sure what kind of extra routines you might have in mind...

 

- LZ4 depacking while loading

- using complete memory (excluding $0800-$0bff and $d000-$d7ff)

- spread of CPU/ANTIC access

 

but not sure how a 50 fps rotozoomer would be a use in a game

 

I think Arsantica 1 and Arsantica 2 give you some ideas for combination hardware features... and always look at gameboy or other japanese console games how they present a story...

Edited December 12, 2014 by Heaven/TQA

[Heaven/TQA]

here you go... Hiass...can you test this 360kb disc?

 

if it works... next release will be the final with improvements.

 

 

dsr_ad6502_arsantica2_360kb_compo.zip

[Heaven/TQA]

as people requested Triace to release the RMT of the endtune... here you go...

 

 

dsr_triace_ad_6502_endtunev5.zip

[Rybags]

Is there a single file image without need to diskswap? Probably a good idea since many people just use image/emulation anyway.

 

Just looking at it, on the YT video. Have to reiterate my own and other expressed hate at the part around 3 mins where it's just plotting new text over what's already there instead of clearing the screen.

 

The near to end part with music, scrolling stuff in PM - great music, love the lens flare type effect going on. So many places that type of thing could add to other games or demos.

[Heaven/TQA]

It's on the list for the final... Feedback much appreciated (and yes flip disk will of course vanish)

[Rybags]

Just been listening to the end tune in RMT... good way to evaluate game/demo music is do so in a detached form, let it live only on it's own merits:

 

. as a technical feat, uses stereo and probably near nothing in the way of synth tricks. Probably nothing in there that hasn't been done technically in the last 5 or maybe even 10 years.

 

. as a musical feat - Wow factor=maximal. The emotion and atmosphere generated by this song is rarely matched by anything on the Atari. If a list of the best 10 musical pieces ever done for the A8 was done, this would have to make it.