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7800 hacks to play on XL/XEGS


Swami

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I have recently bought an XEGS and I am wondering if any 7800 or 5200 games have been hacked/ported to work on the XL/XEGS systems. I've hunted around but don't see anything which may mean everyone just buys multiple systems or emulates, but I wanted to check. Especially light gun games Meltdown for NTSC, Sentinel and Alien Brigade that actually use light gun. Ports I found for Sentinel said joystick/keyboard for controller.

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No on the 7800 games. It's a completely different incompatible architecture.

 

 

Lots of 5200 hacks (since they're mostly the same hardware). Back in the day, Glenn the 5200 Man was the main source of 5200 goodness.

 

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-90-glenn-the-5200-man

https://computingpioneers.com/index.php/Glenn_The_5200_Man

Okay, thanks for the information folks. At least some of the 5200 games have ports.

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But some 7800 games have XEGS ports, too! XE Mean 18 is just about the worst commercial WIP that I've played for the A8 and Jinks is a horrible mess. But still better than the 7800 version! I've always liked Barnyard Blaster, Dark Chambers and Crossbow though, so I suppose that's something. There was actually a fair bit of overlap in both libraries: by my count, 28 of 71 games released for the 7800 were either released for or exist as playable prototypes on the A8. That's not a bad ratio at all.

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7800 is so different and more powerful in lots of graphical respects (lots of sprites but not so good at scrolling or fullscreen graphics) that the program code for rendering would be way different.

 

I ported Moon Cresta which was a homebrew on the 7800 by Pacmanplus, he gave me the source, but it need VBXE to run.

Whether any 7800 games released by Atari share program code with the computer version, hard to say. I would guess probably not in most cases.

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I don't know the 7800 games - especially late homebrews to know - is anyone pushing the 7800 as far as it can go? Doing anything that seems to showcase what the 7800 can do well? Or is it only the games developed back in the 80s/90s showing this kind of thing?

The 7800 does have Galaga and Xevious - which I don't think can be done as well on the A8 hardware? The 7800 has no equivalent Dropzone, Blue Max (Desert Falcon looks rather standard than brilliant) - etc?

 

Harvey

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I don't know the 7800 games - especially late homebrews to know - is anyone pushing the 7800 as far as it can go? Doing anything that seems to showcase what the 7800 can do well? Or is it only the games developed back in the 80s/90s showing this kind of thing?

The 7800 does have Galaga and Xevious - which I don't think can be done as well on the A8 hardware? The 7800 has no equivalent Dropzone, Blue Max (Desert Falcon looks rather standard than brilliant) - etc?

 

Harvey

 

Plutos and Sirius were commercial-era games that were developed by TyneSoft and never released by Atari. They're superlative efforts and leagues away from the first 7800 games in terms of gameplay and graphics -- they're just too damned hard. It's like comparing commercial A8 efforts from 1979-82 and 1988-1993: it's like playing on completely different systems.

 

The 5200 version of Xevious was hacked in the '80s to play on the A8. I'm not sure that the A8 would make an optimal platform for Galaga, but, as Bosconian shows, much is possible with the system.

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