Heaven/TQA Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 When looking at the first page of general forum.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 (edited) Nope. - Hardware development is expensive. You have to assure that there is at least a bit of interest in the development to assure some cash flow back into your expenses. So better make the development public. Software is created without this bit of "advertising" because it often published for free. - Hardware development takes more time / short projects do not make sense. So the visibility of a single project is longer than for a software project. - Compare the number of entries for the ABBUC software and hardware contest... Edited October 28, 2017 by Irgendwer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 When looking at the first page of general forum.... In my opinion this was one of the (not the only) conclusion of that braindead 'is the a8 uninspiring thread' we had some time ago here. There are still great titles developed, but I must agree that there was a time (not so long ago) that there were more new titles released. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 In my opinion this was one of the (not the only) conclusion of that braindead 'is the a8 uninspiring thread' we had some time ago here. There are still great titles developed, but I must agree that there was a time (not so long ago) that there were more new titles released. People who tend to come to false conclusions should go for a doctor. - Compare the number of entries for the ABBUC software and hardware contest... That relies more on the fact that hardware developers weren't that interested in the Software the ABBUC offers. People mostly join ABBUC for some nostalgia, some new software helps out there. The HW-Repair service might be a good cause too, for joining ABBUC. Not to forget, ABBUC is the only Club that defines the Atari as it is . Expansions were accepted , but everything has to run on stock Hardware. So there is no cause for "HW developers only " to join ABBUC at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 (edited) When looking at the first page of general forum.... Why would you look at the general forum only to get a comparison between software and hardware? In my opinion this was one of the (not the only) conclusion of that braindead 'is the a8 uninspiring thread' we had some time ago here. There are still great titles developed, but I must agree that there was a time (not so long ago) that there were more new titles released. What time would that be?? I think you've both had too much to drink last night. Here's the latest Kaz Komp for Games. Add to those games all the: demos, music, and pictures (and lets not forget about the SpartaDOS X juggernaut, and also the thriving, yearly Ten-Liners competition), how does one conclude that hardware is anything in excess to that? Hardware is flourishing now, which is great, and I hope it continues. I see it as additive, not taking away or diminishing software in any way. Edited October 28, 2017 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 28, 2017 Author Share Posted October 28, 2017 It was just my impression that 20 threads at least tailored to hardware mods.... on first page. Compared to C64 I might dare to say there its vice verser... I have not say its bad but... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matej Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 Heaven - We need deluxe paint like for VBXE. We need 2xpokey + covox tracker for VBXE. We need 3D game for VBXE. We need demo for Rapidus+Vbxe... On C64 there are 1000+ coders on A800 there are 10+ active coders... I am still waiting for 3D Doom like game based on Numen fps engine. I will do WAD files when someone will do it for real... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 (edited) It was just my impression that 20 threads at least tailored to hardware mods.... on first page. Compared to C64 I might dare to say there its vice verser... I have not say its bad but... Things are as they are. Software is far more fetched due to the fact that it can be done as some side product on the PC , or the available Atari HW. Then it can be thrown out, even if not finished. Hardware HAS to be finished to a workable product, otherwise it don't make sense, and could even break other connected computer hardware.... Not sure also, if some "basic 10 liner contest" substitutes a workable game with great graphics, sound, and playability. As still full genres of games were missing on the A8... Edited October 28, 2017 by emkay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 People who tend to come to false conclusions should go for a doctor. You must haven't been there enough yet. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 It was just my impression that 20 threads at least tailored to hardware mods.... on first page. Yeah, quite a bit of action on the hardware side these days; I think it's great. Compared to C64 I might dare to say there its vice verser... I have not say its bad but... You have to consider that the 8-Bit line extends across a broad range of machines: 400, 800, 1200XL, 600XL, 800XL, 65XE, 130XE, & XEGS. All different enough to require their own specific modifications. There was also a broad range of drives, etc. The C64 range if far more shallow in hardware, and thus... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 (edited) Honestly, I have enjoyed your works and the Atari is the scene where you can do what you like and be appreciated... you will get a couple people telling you it's not possible what your doing and all that crap but remember all those not possible things are being done... and a few persons who keep saying not possible can't seemingly accept that someone tried and made that possible... they still haven't seen the doctor they keep referring everybody to themselves but maybe should... Atari has seen some excellent graphists and musicians team up with a coder and knock a heck of a demo/game out of the park! Remember the ole' digitized sound can't be done with any kind of playable game and normal sound fallacy? Or how about the you'll never have a movie play on the Atari... or a movie with sound... or a color movie... it can't be done the hardware isn't capable... no one can code that... blah blah blah.... and it keeps on moving... working across a divers product line I am starting to think that 'impossible' isn't what you think it means emkay.... I'd tell ya tah go see the Doctor but you probably will tell us it's impossible.... The Atari software and demo scene is made up of only the best and most talented sort, pulling off the insane things many other machines and coders could only dream of... when you make it here you can make it anywhere.. the converse isn't true... hardware software firmware, and that as FJC might call it ... is The Last Word ... imho Having been involved in all of these machines in one way shape form or another... I have settled on the Atari because it was the most incredible machine design to my eyes then and has proven so over the years... You are the scene... be the scene... you will be seen... the most incredible group of people I have known.... I would love to see more cool renditions from Heaven/TQA I always find it fascinating when it all comes together, keep bringing it !! Atari 8 bit = Cycles of Scenes Edited October 29, 2017 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 Interesting to read from some people mumbling out of their bubbles. It's actually, the starter of this thread who did something really new and outstanding for the A8. So he's one of those lonely wolves in the scene. Video-Playback ? It was clear the Atari can do that right in the 80s. The missing part was the external device for that. Vice versa I had hard fights with people back in the 80s ... particular referring to POKEY sound and that there is a huge part of musical stuff possible. They always said "it's not possible"... ...funny.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 Who thought of using ANTIC DMA to read an external data stream for video playback in the 80s? There were plenty of hard disk controllers around at the time. What we didn't have was Phaeron's ingenuity. If that's not a modern example of pushing the limits, I don't know what is. Good way to piss off a lot of coders giving all their spare time for free, that kind of talk. Of course not all critics actually possess the skills under discussion, but learning to code and obtaining a deep technical understanding of the machine is not a bad idea nevertheless. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 Who thought of using ANTIC DMA to read an external data stream for video playback in the 80s? The Atari's hardware was build for that. You'd only had to read the books. There were plenty of hard disk controllers around at the time. What we didn't have was Phaeron's ingenuity. If that's not a modern example of pushing the limits, I don't know what is. Those sentences disprove your own point of view. As "PLENTY " of HD controllers were available. And in 40 years one guy managed to put obvious things together. This fits to the title of the thread. But, back in 1985/86 there weren't much of those interfaces available in local stores Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 (edited) The Atari's hardware was build for that. You'd only had to read the books. It's very easy to say in hindsight, but this attitude belittles the human factor required to actually make stuff happen. There always seems to be someone ready to say: "Yeah, it's cool, but I was playing around with that stuff in the 80s", but the same people rarely have anything tangible to show for it and are as a result completely full of shit. Those sentences disprove your own point of view. As "PLENTY " of HD controllers were available. And in 40 years one guy managed to put obvious things together. Yeah: one guy put it together because he's got a lot of talent and the benefit of everything which went before him to look back on and learn from. I can't figure out whether you mean everyone before him was incompetent, or that his attainment is not a big deal. But, back in 1985/86 there weren't much of those interfaces available in local stores That's true: HDDs were prohibitively expensive in those days. But we knew they existed. I would love to see the document from 1985 which discusses a theoretical DMA video player using a SCSI controller of the time. EDIT: Caveat: HDD seek latency was probably way too high, so Compact Flash is likely an essential ingredient for the ANTIC DMA player to work. But hey: CF has been around for a long time. Edited October 29, 2017 by flashjazzcat 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 omg I feel slightly responsible for pulling emkay into this thread because I did refer to another thread. But please emkay ... 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 It's very easy to say in hindsight, but this attitude belittles the human factor required to actually make stuff happen. See, that's why we won't talk together. Your "hindsight" wasn't a miracle back then. The Atari HAS the ability to do fast pageflipping and ANTIC runs it's own memory management. The problems had been in other parts, just like getting the right external hardware and the possibility of creating the videos for playback.... and, well, those video & audio digitizers were everywhere available ..... or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 omg I feel slightly responsible ... You're responsible for the off topic part, yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 No: the reason we can't talk is that you're throwing terms like "pageflipping" and "memory management" around which have absolutely nothing to do with what I'm talking about. Do you even have any grasp of how Avery's player works? 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 You're responsible for the off topic part, yes. Offtopic perhaps... but if that pleases you, I will tak responsibility for that ok... But you can take all the credits for all the other topic-derailing, bashing and mood-disturbance on this forum. Well done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xxl Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 You can connect modern devices to the rails and redirect Antic to the mapped memory. But can we say that Atari can display 256 any size sprites? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 When looking at the first page of general forum.... Just here to pay respect to the awesome work you've done for the A8 on the demo/software side.. You (and flashjazzcat, Lotharek, and many others) have made the 8bit a ton of fun to return to.. Thank you! 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricortes Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 2¢ For some reason I find hardware development on an Atari just as challenging today as I did 30 years ago. It is also almost irrelevant to me the age of the platform in that I would just as soon hang a dongle off an Atari as an Arduino. Software on the other hand suffers from competition from modern systems. Just an example, I would love to do an cheap 80 column dongle for the Atari but that doesn't mean I would expect programmers to do anything like terminals or word processing to support it. I also wouldn't expect for the couple of hundred of us left to suddenly abandon our Intel or ARM devices to switch back to Atari for their usage. Same holds true for games in that I enjoy MMPOG so even if someone came out with the hacks to play WoW on an 8 bit I would stick with my Intel box. We've come to expect software is a multi million dollar<Euros> team effort where the lone hacker with a soldering iron is still the norm for hardware. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 You can connect modern devices to the rails and redirect Antic to the mapped memory. But can we say that Atari can display 256 any size sprites? Nice nice. The challenge now would be to use that for interactive games... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 (edited) No: the reason we can't talk is that you're throwing terms like "pageflipping" and "memory management" around which have absolutely nothing to do with what I'm talking about. Do you even have any grasp of how Avery's player works? Emkay knows more of the A8 than 99% of the community (as you can see below). Most likely he's the one who gave Avery the necessary information needed to create the video player. So I'm sure he understands. His previous comments must have been a typo or something... If people, who have nothing to say, still were saying nothing, my posts wouldn't always been dragged to look off topic. I know more of the A8 than 99% of the community. Even after explaining, why I don't code, only dumb comments come from them. It's really ridiculous. [Note: The above emkay quote was pulled from the "Any 3D game with flatshading on A800?" thread in the programming forum.] Edited October 29, 2017 by MrFish 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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