Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[Atari8guy]

 

How about this for the next project? (stolen from reddit)

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

16 minutes ago, Atari8guy said:

 

How about this for the next project? (stolen from reddit)

You forgot the gameplay screenshot

[rensoup]

Before worrying about cart type,.. I should probably figure out if that custom case is a goofy idea or not. Who knows, it may look so bad that it won't be worth the hassle!

[Mr Robot]

There's this kind of thing, build a case around the circuitry but leave the fancy bit sticking out the top.

[rensoup]

27 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

There's this kind of thing, build a case around the circuitry but leave the fancy bit sticking out the top.

So does it fit inside a 400/800, or do you leave the cover open ?

 

Do 400/800 owner leave the cover open or is that criminal ?

 

edit: In terms of parts, it seems much simpler, is it because it isn't flashable ?

Edited November 10, 2021 by rensoup

[rensoup]

1 hour ago, Atari8guy said:

How about this for the next project? (stolen from reddit)

The walkman's a nice touch ?

[rensoup]

41 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

There's this kind of thing, build a case around the circuitry but leave the fancy bit sticking out the top.

Seems flashable, so I guess it's because it's 16KB and doesn't need logic for bankswitching ?

[Kyle22]

That looks like a cart that won't fit in an 800, and is a standard ROM cart.

Nice to look at, but no fun to use (in an 800).

 

[Mr Robot]

11 hours ago, rensoup said:

So does it fit inside a 400/800, or do you leave the cover open ?

 

Do 400/800 owner leave the cover open or is that criminal ?

 

edit: In terms of parts, it seems much simpler, is it because it isn't flashable ?

 

Nothing fits in a 400/800 or 1200XL unless it's a standard brown/grey cart size. The 400/800 door has a power switch on it so it kills the power when you open the door, something needs to be done to override that, the 1200 has two different sized cart tunnels, one is barely big enough for a regular cart the other is a bit (tiny bit) more roomy. 

 

If you want a fancy cart design it's not going to be compatible with those models. the other XL/XE machines will all be fine but fancy cart shapes will be lost behind the XE and only really stand out on the XL (or XEGS). 

 

Given the size of the market for this I'd just go for a standard cart and focus on the label/boxart and pack-ins to add value. Deviating from an AtariMax type or a cart that fits into a Sikor case is going to cause you incompatibilities with some peoples machines.

 

Fancy cart designs are a cute idea but not a really a practical one. 

 

 

[carlsson]

7 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

fancy cart shapes will be lost behind the XE and only really stand out on the XL

I was about to make a similar comment yesterday but withheld it. Does the XEGS support memory upgrade, or can the cartridge have onboard RAM unless the game is reprogrammed to run with 64K? I do understand that the e.g. 800XL has RAM upgrade options, meaning a custom cartridge like the proposed one would only stand out if run on an upgraded XL or possibly XEGS machine. In all other cases you would need to hunch over the computer (XE) or it doesn't fit (400/800, 1200XL) without some kind of cartridge extender or other modifications.

 

I agree on focusing on the packaging. Perhaps include feelies like Infocom once did with their adventure games. Of course don't go overboard with costs, but perhaps you can come up with some kind of PoP feelie that would be worthwhile, even if the cartridge has standard dimensions.

[Level42]

19 hours ago, Philsan said:

I don't think savings would be very important for a game like PoP, they would be only something nice to have.

Uhhh, that's your opinion. I absolutely love it but I'm at Level 5 now and it takes quite a bit of time to reach it, although I do get better and faster at the first 3 levels this way.... But since there are 14 levels.... saving would be great and is IMHO the only thing that's really missing. Then again, that is my opinion

[Level42]

9 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

There's this kind of thing, build a case around the circuitry but leave the fancy bit sticking out the top.

I hate it that PCBWay puts it's logo on it. The Chinese manufactures won't do that.

[Level42]

8 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

Fancy cart designs are a cute idea but not a really a practical one. 

 

11 hours ago, Atari8guy said:

 

How about this for the next project? (stolen from reddit)

Hey hey hey, he can't be the Prince _and_ the Genie at the same time...

[tmp]

1 hour ago, Level42 said:

I hate it that PCBWay puts it's logo on it. The Chinese manufactures won't do that.

[+Philsan]

2 hours ago, Level42 said:

Uhhh, that's your opinion. I absolutely love it but I'm at Level 5 now and it takes quite a bit of time to reach it, although I do get better and faster at the first 3 levels this way.... But since there are 14 levels.... saving would be great and is IMHO the only thing that's really missing. Then again, that is my opinion

I agree with you too, but as previously replied to the other guy, could it be simply achieved adding level passwords?

 

Anyway, I am a fan of games with save feature, therefore I would be glad that save feature would be added.

 

Btw, I would like that AVGCart and Side3 would support that MaxFlash feature.

There's a version of FloB (corrected the typo, I bought the game) for AVGCart that saves. Very good but I would like a complete support without patches.

But we have to say that unfortunately far too few games save.

[Mq.]

11 minutes ago, Philsan said:

There's a version of Blob for AVGCart that saves. Very good but I would like a complete support without patches.

But we have to say that unfortunately far too few games save.

 

It's a FloB - not a Blob

 

Saving on AVG cartridge does not depend of game and programming saving in the game. AVG cartridge just runs Maxflash cartridge image,  and there is a trick programmed by the author of AVG. The AVG firmware must do the trick in tandem with special code for Maxflash cartridge image. It is not possible to save to the cartridge image on AVG without special AVG firmware.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Mq.
typo

[Wrathchild]

4 minutes ago, Philsan said:

Btw, I would like that AVGCart and Side3 would support that MaxFlash feature.

Not practical, the image is an in memory copy of the file from the SD card.

So at what point do you ask the user 'would you like to save changes back to the SD card?'.

E.g. in Altirra before you quit/detach you will be told if the contents have changed but an real h/w you don't have such a hook.

 

You could risk trying to update the file on the SD card in realtime but would run a serious risk of missing requests on the cart bus and so crashing the A8 unless specific steps were taken, e.g. poll until the cart becomes responsive.

 

Or, as mq just described, the cart itself provides a separate API to handle this which then ties it to that cart unless universally adopted.

[Mr Robot]

3 minutes ago, Mq. said:

 

Saving on AVG cartridge does not depend of game and programming saving in the game. AVG cartridge just runs Maxflash cartridge image,  and there is a trick programmed by the author of AVG. The AVG firmware must do the trick in tandem of special code for Maxflash cartridge image. It is not possible to save to the cartridge image on AVG without special AVG firmware.

That's not strictly true, there is a patched version of Flob specifically for the AVG for each released version that works with the updated firmware in the AVG to allow saves to work. I haven't compared the images to see what the differences are but they aren't the same image, trying to run one in an emulator doesn't work. 

 

[Mq.]

@Mr Robot : Yes, but an author of the FloB don't program new versions of FloB for AVG. Tmp (author of AVG) creates some patch for AVG firmware and a patch for FloB for specifically run this image on the AVG cart. Then he patches every next versions of FloB for update it. This specific patch for AVG don't do that every Maxflash normal saving works automaticaly. We (Bocianu and me) don't know what Tmp exactly did.

[tmp]

11 minutes ago, Wrathchild said:

Not practical, the image is an in memory copy of the file from the SD card.

So at what point do you ask the user 'would you like to save changes back to the SD card?'.

this is one way of doing it that i came up with, after pressing cart button to reset it and resetting atari to get back to selector, it'd ask whether to write dirty blocks to the image

not exactly a fan of this solution but the others have different issues

 

the thing is that there's not enough games to make adding this worthwhile (or at least to move it from "maybe" to "to-do" list)

[Faicuai]

13 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

There's this kind of thing, build a case around the circuitry but leave the fancy bit sticking out the top.

 

Forgive my colorful language but... what a poorly designed cart-PCB that is...

 

Among the worst I have seen! Has little to do with A8 carts... in facts, it appears as a general-use derivative card of another edge-type project.

[Faicuai]

3 hours ago, Level42 said:

I hate it that PCBWay puts it's logo on it. The Chinese manufactures won't do that.

PCBway: another chinese shell of who knows what... (would rather use US / EU /  UK / AUS - ¿based producer any time if the day, even if more expensive! I dońt really care)

 

 

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[Level42]

2 hours ago, tmp said:

OK OK..... the Chinese PCB manufacturers that _I_ use don't.

Maybe PCBWay designed these themselves ? Or they give a rebate when allowed to put their name on them ? I don't know. It's funny that we can order PCB's at insane shapes, but I don't care much about these....nor crazy cartridge shapes. Keep it simple and available to as many users as possible.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Level42

[+mytek]

I checked out PCBway for some of my projects, and only found them to be in the same ball park price-wise with other China based manufacturers for small 2-layer boards only. When it came to 4 layers or more, they were miles apart and costing quite a bit more than my preferred manufacturer JLCPCB.

 

As for using a purely US based facility, you better dig deep in that wallet. People often cite the lower cost of labor in China to explain this, but the reality has more to do with poor investment in the automation/robotic equipment. If you look at a Chinese PCB fab, there is hardly a person in site on the manufacturing floor. Machines are the cheapest workers once you pay off the investment 

 

[Atari8guy]

16 hours ago, OldSchoolRetroGamer said:

You forgot the gameplay screenshot

That's even better, I missed that!!!