the official Channel F thread!

[e5frog]

11 hours ago, poppalarge said:

But if you ever do decide to sell, I'll be here!

If I'm offered a $2200+ sure, otherwise it would go on eBay - even though comission and PayPal fees would be a drag. 

11 hours ago, Blazing Lazers said:

The seller also should have sold that second box separately, perhaps with a moderately high BIN. It won't be a surprise to see the buyer do exactly that. 

Agreed. 

Edited July 10, 2020 by e5frog

[carlsson]

So I take it that Channel F collectors in general haven't been affected by layoffs and unemployment? To be honest I thought there would be a dip in the retro gaming prices by now or very soon, but oddly it seems my expectations have failed, that for each company closing down, there is more and more spare money in circulation for people's hobbies.

[Mikebloke]

34 minutes ago, carlsson said:

So I take it that Channel F collectors in general haven't been affected by layoffs and unemployment? To be honest I thought there would be a dip in the retro gaming prices by now or very soon, but oddly it seems my expectations have failed, that for each company closing down, there is more and more spare money in circulation for people's hobbies.

Personally I've kept working my first job, although I was furloughed for my second at a greatly reduced rate. However I think furlough or not, people are just spending money while at home. I've heard a few people buy new tech just because of being at home (I did buy a new laptop, but that's because my old one set on fire).

[e5frog]

2 hours ago, carlsson said:

To be honest I thought there would be a dip in the retro gaming prices by now or very soon, but oddly it seems my expectations have failed, that for each company closing down, there is more and more spare money in circulation for people's hobbies.

Poor people sell, richer people buy - as they aren't spending money on other things, sitting home, polishing their collection maybe - there's money to buy stuff. Especially if one of those really unusual things pop up.

Still got my job, not that I have money to spend at all since the wife finished studying (five years) and currently seeks employment in "specialized" healthcare and they all seem to be caught up in this Covid-19 business not let anyone have vacation etc. Hoping she gets the second job she interviewed for, we'll see.

We work 24 hours a week at something like 95% of the salary instead of 40 hours, so that's pretty neat. In two months we'll see if we're back to normal again, seems orders are popping in a lot more than before at least in bursts. 

 

I have sold a few cartridges more than the mean number over the first quarter (sounds really business-y). Tetris is coming along, there's just 2 more features I must have, will check with the buyers about the rest, could probably spend many more months on it.  

 

So, for now it seems it's not bad to sell, if it's something unusual at least. 

 

[carlsson]

Yeah, perhaps I'm misjudging how many people normally have 40%++ of their salary left to spend on leisure and entertainment after necessary bills are paid, and after a slight cut in income still have 25%++ of their salary to spend in a world when there is very little to spend money on. Those video game collectors who normally have a struggle to get ends to meet and now might be financially affected would not be in the market for a $500++ game anyway.

[masschamber]

19 hours ago, Blazing Lazers said:

I just got home and saw how it ended. The seller was very foolish to end that listing at 5pm ET (2PM PT) on a Thursday. The $2,200 incomplete copy had a very well calculated ending time on a Sunday night when people would actually be around to bid on it and to snipe it. The seller also should have sold that second box separately, perhaps with a moderately high BIN. It won't be a surprise to see the buyer do exactly that. 

I don't know if the guy necessarily could have gotten more, if you look at the bidders, the high bidder was the number 2 on the previous 1 and the 2nd highest bidder also stopped at 1500 or so on the previous auction, I think the biggest bidders might now have it, 

[+atari2600land]

#s 1-17. But why is the guy in Japan?

eBay listing

[Mikebloke]

Does the person live in Japan? I find eBays automatic attempts to list it under categories is completely useless though, it's obviously not Nintendo lol. 

[e5frog]

Looks like a very descent shipping price. Too bad there's no Japanese manuals or boxes (with stickers). 

[e5frog]

Seems atari2600land hasn't released the new information on trimerous. 

 

In an amazingly impressive effort all the circuit boards have been soldered and are awaiting transport - as soon as box and label prints are done...

Seems holiday is interfering with the printing, but sooon... 
Tetris boxes will be printed at the same time.

[lazzeri]

I believe I am in the wait list for trimerous but haven´t received any news regarding it.

 

Where do I check this? Thank you!

[+atari2600land]

There is no wait list for the game.

[lazzeri]

   I´ll keep my eyes open then. Thank you. ?

[+atari2600land]

Who would have thought it? I was playing my Channel F when all of a sudden, blue vertical lines covered the screen, to the point where I couldn't see what was on screen. I tried turning it off and back on. A bunch of times. Same thing. I tried unplugging it and plugging it back in. That didn't help. I actually started to try to unscrew the bottom, but I cramped my arm doing that. So in a last-ditch effort, I changed the coaxial (f-type) to female RCA adapter (I have a bunch laying around) and turned it on. The screen was clear as day. Also, I think plugging it directly into a TV instead of in the VHS player helped as well. I also discovered that Bowling makes noises. I tried it on the multi cart and noticed it makes noises. My Bowling cart never did that. Lots of strange things are going on with my Channel F. The 1k demo is excellent and should be turned into an actual fighting game.

 

I want to work on Craig the Cranberry, but I have no ideas. What could Craig encounter in the snow? I already have a snowman throwing snowballs and an ice wall in the game. I just wanted to chat about the Channel F.

[Mikebloke]

Weird and wonderful hardware! I chanced on a second console awhile ago, the back controller holders were all fixed on properly with nothing broken and gave a really clear picture - but the state of the shell was terrible. My original on the other hand leaves dead pixels now and then until that pixel is refreshed - which is not often to save time processing. I'd found a buyer but was stuck which to sell, in the end I kept the one with the dead pixels, it will probably be the wrong choice one day. 

 

Is it 1k or IK? Yes feels like a game right there! Just needs finishing. 

 

Snow could have a yeti, or a guy on a snowmobile. 

[+atari2600land]

I need some help. I'm using the LFSR. It works okay the first time I use it in level 1, but it doesn't work in level 2 (the snow part). I'm trying to get a number between about 20-64. I don't know why it would work in one section of the code and not another. I worked on this for a few hours and could not solve the problem I'm having.

 

quest36.zip

[Mikebloke]

1 hour ago, atari2600land said:

I need some help. I'm using the LFSR. It works okay the first time I use it in level 1, but it doesn't work in level 2 (the snow part). I'm trying to get a number between about 20-64. I don't know why it would work in one section of the code and not another. I worked on this for a few hours and could not solve the problem I'm having.

 

quest36.zip 17.74 kB · 2 downloads

I attempted in my inexperienced F8 brain to compare differences between the code in level 1 and level 2. Is this the one you are trying to change? 

 

Only things I've noticed so far is this: EraseEnemy_level_2 is essentially the same as EraseEnemy and EraseEnemy2 other than the fact you initially split them, EraseEnemy2 is never referenced so not sure why its split (might have been a reason?). The other thing was that you had EraseEnemy_level_2 commented in reset_snow_f*****_left and right, which I presume is a debug thing you were testing. I tried uncommenting it in case it was something silly, but I don't think it changes anything. When I tested it, it did effect some graphical bugs from touching the enemy.

 

In this one (the file you uploaded) the graphical glitch happens immediately from collision from top or bottom (but not going right into it) and seems to immediately effect the graphics in the area around the enemy.

 

In this one which has the commented ; removed, it seems to detect top and bottom collisions properly and the graphical bug didn't appear until I moved away (so I could live long enough to take a screenshot!) and wasn't in the area occupied by the enemy.

 

This analysis is probably completely useless, but on the off chance it contains anything useful I thought I'd post it.

 

Edit: I think I've mistaken which bit it is, Its the snowflakes on the next screen isn't it. I'll take another look...

Edited July 27, 2020 by Mikebloke

[Mikebloke]

I've changed a thousand things, I've made it go left to right instead of top to bottom... I've set it so it spams the snow pattern across the screen, I've tried to replicate all the changed code for level 2 with level 1 code but no luck changing the x position at all... I've tried calling LFSR at different positions incase its replacing the variable somewhere inbetween, again no luck.

 

I even tried to debug it by displaying the random number generated in the health display but I couldn't even do that. Sorry  Its really bugging me because I figured I could at least work this out by trial, error and force, but nothing. If anyone else comes up with a solution I'd be really interested to know how they do it.

[e5frog]

Check that you're not using the LFSR register for something else. 

 

Also wondered about 1k demo... 

I attempted IK but lost my geist when I realized the lookup table for animation frame and distance for each player would be a lot of work. 

IIRC there's one hit possibility, then it just resets to start position. 

 

If cheating, smaller players with less options perhaps. 

It's hard to revisit old stuff. 

Edited July 27, 2020 by e5frog

[carlsson]

I don't quite understand F8 assembly language, but it seems to me that you pick up the seed at $0600 (through ISAR -> A), manipulate it and leave it in R8 but never store it back to memory, so the next time you run the LFSR routine, you will start with the same seed as last time.

 

If you add LR S,A after the last LR 8,A - would that store the seed at the memory address that ISAR already points to?

 

Besides, are you supposed to shift A twice to the right in the noEor part? The typical 6502 implementation only stores the value:

 

lda seed

beq doEor

clc

asl

beq noEor ; if the input was $80, skip the EOR

bcc noEor

doEor: eor #$1d

noEor: sta seed

 

[+atari2600land]

I shifted it so I could get the value I wanted.

[+atari2600land]

What really is bugging me is that it works on level 1, but not on level 2. It is the snowflake I'm trying to make at different X positions. It's screen #15. What I usually do to test it is at the title screen, I press 1 to enable the button press passcode, then with the buttons I enter 2431243232 (level 2 with 99% health), power through the ice block at the top with the fire button, go past the snowman, and there it is, the snowflake falling at the same X position over and over again. I tried changing the LFSR. I'm only using it for the specific purpose of getting a valid random number for $0301. I don't know what I possibly could be doing wrong. Here is another unsuccessful attempt with the swear words omitted from the code.

 

quest36a.zip

[carlsson]

Ok, makes sense. But I still think either you should store the seed back where you grab it, or make sure to leave register 8 untouched by rest of the game, and divide your routine into two: one that initiates the LFSR (i.e. copy the fixed seed to the register) that you call at the beginning of the program or even inline in the main code, and then the actual routine that only works with the register and the accumulator. I don't know if you can spare an entire register for this purpose, otherwise storing the value into whichever RAM the system has seems like a good idea. I don't even know if $0600 is a RAM address or part of the ROM. Obviously you can't store things to ROM.

[carlsson]

I see you have modified the code quite a bit in the latest version, but also that you reuse R10 (used to be R8) in multiple routines, e.g. like this:

 

main_game -> drawScore (uses R10), main_game2 -> move_enemy -> rain_screen -> reset_rain -> LFSR (uses R10)

 

level_2_loop -> drawScorelevel2 (uses R10), snow_screen -> reset_snow -> LFSR (uses R10)

 

It means the LFSR will no longer contain its seed from the first call, but whichever value it ended up with in drawScorelevel2. If you're unlucky, both the drawScore routines might end up with the same value, meaning the LFSR routine will yield the same pseudo RNG value.

 

Perhaps try to optimize the register reuse, i.e. some of those you only need temporarily within a routine you could probably use the same register in multiple routines to conserve other registers for long term storage unless there is other RAM locations for you to use. I don't know the Channel F enough to tell exactly how the memory map looks like.

[+atari2600land]

I tried to make the snowflake move a couple places to the right every time, but it wouldn't even do that. Something is wrong, so I might as well give up.

 

quest36b.zip