Keatah Posted July 29, 2022 Share Posted July 29, 2022 1 hour ago, zzip said: I think they are mountains. The ST's mountains are all pyramid-shaped, adding to the amateurishness of it. Perhaps the artist using the paint program liked to draw lines and use the fill function. Or maybe it's procedurally generated (on ST version). God only knows many screens in Apple II graphic adventures were procedurally drawn in-game. Points and lines and instructions to fill in the shapes. Regular Hi-Res images simply took too much space, 14 images per disk with no space left. Compression saved some, tripling that to about 40 images. But ultimately packages that did on-the-fly shape filling allowed for 100 or so images per disk. 1 hour ago, zzip said: The 8-bit version required a lot of skill to create, extensive DLI use that scrolls with the screen, you hear the sounds of the city before the UFO descends into the scene, then when the UFO takes off and you follow it way up into the atmosphere into space where it makes a turn and jumps into hyperspace. Yes it did. 1 hour ago, zzip said: The ST version uses no vertical scrolling at all, the UFO pops into existence and leaves the screen (you don't follow it), then it just jumps to the starfield/intro. It is very low effort compared to the 8-bit. ST was perfectly capable of doing it just as well if not better. It was probably ported on the cheap. Yes ported on the cheap. I believe 16-bit machines in combination with the market (too many systems out there), led to mediocre ports. Seems like certain titles just had to appear on all machines. No care in the world if the platform was able to handle the port. 1 hour ago, zzip said: 8-bit FS2 was one of the worst letdowns for me. It had a good writeup in the magazines, but when I played it, it was like what? 1-2fps? hardly any scenery -- two buildings in all of Chicago? Tend to agree. The Apple version was the same. I wasn't too disappointed because I was warez hungry and wanted MOAR of everything. The greedy little whores we were. Where's them WaRez? Gimme wharezz! I even got a photocopy of the manual which was like 2 inches thick when done single-sided. And of course the sectional charts were nice. Sucked it up left and right. I was excited for the filled-in graphics and comprehensive instrument panel and the special set-up screen. We all appreciated the detail SubLogic put into it. We more or less understood all those calculations and management was a lot for an aging 1976 era processor moving along at 1MHz. I don't know the internals of the program, but I was disappointed that they didn't (or seemed not to) make use of any of the Atari graphics chips other than putting the image on the screen. Like other non-mainstream packages of the day there was a lot to be learned from just the manuals. And most companies produced them with a sense of pride. 1 hour ago, zzip said: The ST version was a nice surprise. Much better framerate for sure (though not great). I liked the picture-in-picture feature. But the main reason I liked it was it was a big improvement over the 8-bit. Overall it was still kinda lacking in scenery. The Amiga version was the same. And I suspect that when put side-by-side it would be hard to tell them apart. SubLogic did come out with a bunch of scenery disks for Apple II. I believe the huge effort they put into making them was lost on these early micros however. Lots of slow tedious disk swapping. In general scenery has never been a strong point of any flight simulator company. Seems they're more interested in building the flight model. I'm ok with that. Then we have the huge amount of expensive add-ons for modern-day X-Plane. Typically $50 or more for a single airplane. $30 or more for a single airport. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted July 29, 2022 Share Posted July 29, 2022 5 hours ago, Keatah said: Given the choice between the two I'd rather play 8bit. The ST version appears sterile and amateurish. The 8bit even has weather! Look at the clouds! Or are those mountains? Let your imagination engage! A blue gradient sky, rooftop details. Buildings with texture. A green prairie field.. ST is capable of all that and more. So why not do it? Please keep in mind that I am referring to the Ultima games, as mentioned. Again, I can not fathom how anyone could look at these pictures and prefer the 8bit version compared to the ST version but to each their own, I reckon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 Oh sure, there are some games that look better and play as good as the 8-bitters. Ultima franchise has always been a quality endeavor. So I can't argue on that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 1 hour ago, Keatah said: Oh sure, there are some games that look better and play as good as the 8-bitters. Ultima franchise has always been a quality endeavor. So I can't argue on that one. Beg pardon, Keatah, I got lost in the posts - that was actually meant for Zzip... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 Flight Sim. sceneries for Atari ST: Western European, Washington, Japan, then some custom made ones. Scenery on game disk starts near San Francisco, and guess what bridge is on route .. All it is available here: http://atari.8bitchip.info/SCRSH/fs2s.html If want floppy versions look at atarimania ... Hmm.. there is something I did not see earlier: Hawaiian Odyssey Scenery Adventure - not bad for this warm days ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 14 hours ago, DarkLord said: Please keep in mind that I am referring to the Ultima games, as mentioned. Again, I can not fathom how anyone could look at these pictures and prefer the 8bit version compared to the ST version but to each their own, I reckon. You have the artifact colors wrong on the 8bit screenshots - look at my avatar for how it should look. Blue/Brown/White/Black - not green and purple Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 (edited) 4 hours ago, Goochman said: You have the artifact colors wrong on the 8bit screenshots - look at my avatar for how it should look. Blue/Brown/White/Black - not green and purple Interesting, I grabbed those from Youtube video's on Ultima III on an Atari 8bit... Wonder why there is a difference? Thanks. PS I just went back and amazingly enough, several different videos showing Ultima III on the Atari 8bit all have different artifacting! Why is that? Puzzling. Edited July 30, 2022 by DarkLord Updated.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 (edited) Youtuberz making videos about classic games.. I take a lot of that with grain of salt. Sometimes a whole shaker. The simple explanation is there are different models and different revisions of hardware for them. A while back there was semi-technical discussion in one of the Altirra emulator threads - focusing on getting colors right and making sure the sliders had sufficient range to mix and match to perfection. And if a youtoobur is using an emulator, did they set it up right? Are they using the latest version? Did they set the settings? Half the times they can't even PAL vs NTSC correct. How is their studio setup handling it all? Does their equipment handle non-standard video from 1979 hardware - assuming they're using a real Atari 800? Does their emulator correctly display such subtleties like different phases of artifacting? If they are filming from a CRT, did they even turn the hue knob to the right spot? Did they bother to check a gamut chart and match colorspaces? Would they even know what we're talking about? As you can see there's lots of things going on. But I suspect you want a better explanation. For more in-depth reading.. Sections 6.3 and 6.4 of: Altirra Hardware Reference Manual 07-07-2022.pdf ..talks about this. And a discussion thread about getting it right in Emulator Altirra is here: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/275882-atari-800-ntsc-artifacting/#comments Keep in mind that Ultima games on Atari 8-bit use that artifacting to make false (not real) colors. Did this by banging the NTSC signal to upset and irritate the circuitry in the monitor or television set. And resulting output would vary from set to set depending on how the color adjustments were tuned. In cases where the circuits were really pissed off, the water would be orange! Trivia: A real-world analogy would be those LucasFilm sound engineers going out to a 400-meter broadcast antenna tower and hitting the guy-wires with a hammer to get Han's pistol sound. Yup. That's how they did it. Depending how hard and where you hit the wire, you got different colors and flavors of sound. Another example would the Bouncing Ball demo on Amiga. Remember that? The sound of the ball.. That came from someone hitting a garage door with a baseball bat. Just bang on the fucker and record. Instant iconic sound! Edited July 30, 2022 by Keatah 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 On 7/26/2022 at 11:48 PM, ParanoidLittleMan said: It is not assumption. I even explained it little - the key is shared RAM between CPU and screen draw. And it is pathetic talking about how much RAM games use for 'video processing' . Screen video is always 32 KB. How all it is processed depends mostly from how game is coded. And that's the key here. It is easy to came with diverse ideas for extra RAM slots, etc . And don't think that designers were not aware of such solutions . As said, that would increase manufacturing costs a lot - for limited count of buyers. Atari ST even does not have general expansion slot, common on home computers of that time . They saved even on it - what was bad idea by me, and caused later inconsistency with expansion slots - one type in Mega ST, other one in TT and Mega STE (VME bus - really bad idea if you ask me), and of course different on Falcon (that one has real reasons to be different) . So let see very good example how it went: Atari ST design was from start with blitter in mind. And it was present first in Mega STs, in 1987 . The reason to omit it in first versions was: time needed for developing it, production costs - surely gone lower in 2 years - it is high integrated chip. And blitter was present in STFM machines too from 1987, STE, Falcon .. The real bad thing is that game programmers just did not take effort to use it, except few cases. So, very popular game Great Giana Sisters. Published first in 1987 - surely could not do blitter support then. However, there is second Eu release in 1988 (French, UK) - did they change anything ? No. While game screams for scrolling. And yes, blitter can solve it - pretty smooth one. How I'm so sure in it ? Before someone again says something very stoopid - because I solved it. For free. Those who programmed it for money - did they care about it ? Probably did not expect that it will make so bigger sales that is worth. OK, Giana is special case, and was removed from sale because similarity with some famous game - I don't know when was it exactly. And even if we could think that it could be reason for not being motivated - here is another, similar case: Hard & Heavy - from practically same team, year 1989 . And of course, no blitter usage. Indeed, Atari corp. is partially responsible for poor blitter usage - for instance because not so good DOCs, as usual . To the end of this: those blaming Atari ST HW design for not having (good) scroll in most of games - they are wrong. It was said that fast CPU and lot of RAM can replace special graphic HW, present in XL, C64 (designed by same man, Shiraz Shivji) - and that's pretty much true. There are games with excellent scroll, working well without blitter too, on 512 KB machines - Heartland 2000, Terry's Big Adventure, Potsworth & Co .... The key is in programming - and that needs lot of time, experience, new ideas . Much more on much more complex, 16-32 bit CPU than with some 8-bitter. As for screen video and the amount of RAM required, I was referencing how much possible RAM was needed by Atari Games Corp's custom graphics chip, not Atari Corp's maximum of 32K for the SHIFTER out of the main system RAM. If TTL/Atari Corp was really serious about having a Blitter, they could've licensed one from Mindset. After all, Jack was intimately familiar with that company since him and his team at TTL explored purchasing that company - founded and staffed by ex-Atari Inc employees - prior to purchasing the assets of Atari Inc's Consumer Division from Warner. Considering how fast that company went down the drain, they could've probably licensed their Blitter cheaply and had it available for the ST on Day 1. Although Thomas Cherryholmes (sic) said over on Facebook that Mindset's Blitter wasn't as advanced as Amiga's, albeit it was manufactured nearly a year before the Amiga made it out the front door. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 32 minutes ago, Keatah said: Youtuberz making videos about classic games.. I take a lot of that with grain of salt. Sometimes a whole shaker. The simple explanation is there are different models and different revisions of hardware for them. A while back there was semi-technical discussion in one of the Altirra emulator threads - focusing on getting colors right and making sure the sliders had sufficient range to mix and match to perfection. And if a youtoobur is using an emulator, did they set it up right? Are they using the latest version? Did they set the settings? Half the times they can't even PAL vs NTSC correct. How is their studio setup handling it all? Does their equipment handle non-standard video from 1979 hardware - assuming they're using a real Atari 800? Does their emulator correctly display such subtleties like different phases of artifacting? If they are filming from a CRT, did they even turn the hue knob to the right spot? Did they bother to check a gamut chart and match colorspaces? Would they even know what we're talking about? As you can see there's lots of things going on. But I suspect you want a better explanation. For more in-depth reading.. Sections 6.3 and 6.4 of: Altirra Hardware Reference Manual 07-07-2022.pdf 1.88 MB · 1 download ..talks about this. And a discussion thread about getting it right in Emulator Altirra is here: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/275882-atari-800-ntsc-artifacting/#comments Keep in mind that Ultima games on Atari 8-bit use that artifacting to make false (not real) colors. Did this by banging the NTSC signal to upset and irritate the circuitry in the monitor or television set. And resulting output would vary from set to set depending on how the color adjustments were tuned. In cases where the circuits were really pissed off, the water would be orange! Trivia: A real-world analogy would be those LucasFilm sound engineers going out to a 400-meter broadcast antenna tower and hitting the guy-wires with a hammer to get Han's pistol sound. Yup. That's how they did it. Depending how hard and where you hit the wire, you got different colors and flavors of sound. Another example would the Bouncing Ball demo on Amiga. Remember that? The sound of the ball.. That came from someone hitting a garage door with a baseball bat. Just bang on the fucker and record. Instant iconic sound! Your Lucasfilm trivia involved Ben Burt(t) who is arguably a sound genius. Similar to how the BBC Radiophonic Workshop came up with the iconic sound for the TARDIS materializing/dematerializing in Doctor Who... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 17 hours ago, Lynxpro said: As for screen video and the amount of RAM required, I was referencing how much possible RAM was needed by Atari Games Corp's custom graphics chip, not Atari Corp's maximum of 32K for the SHIFTER out of the main system RAM. If TTL/Atari Corp was really serious about having a Blitter, they could've licensed one from Mindset. After all, Jack was intimately familiar with that company since him and his team at TTL explored purchasing that company - founded and staffed by ex-Atari Inc employees - prior to purchasing the assets of Atari Inc's Consumer Division from Warner. Considering how fast that company went down the drain, they could've probably licensed their Blitter cheaply and had it available for the ST on Day 1. Although Thomas Cherryholmes (sic) said over on Facebook that Mindset's Blitter wasn't as advanced as Amiga's, albeit it was manufactured nearly a year before the Amiga made it out the front door. Really should look better for those technical details, or looking better sites, pages (there are errors on many). Shifter (what is actually Atari ST custom graphic chip) has no max or min RAM size - it is always 32000 bytes in regular mode. In all 3 res. And it is not out of the main system RAM. Any segment of the main (and only) system RAM can be video RAM. And it is called ST RAM, what actually refers for shared RAM between CPU (bus) and video . To add that with special tricks video RAM, so resolution too can be bigger, like 416x273 px in low res. And number of colors at once on screen can be up to 4096 (whole STE palette) . All it needs special code, timings, lot of CPU time used - so not for gaming. Although some people (Douglas Little, masteries) working currently on system what makes possible like 32 colors at once, on whole screen area. There were already in later 80-es games with like 50 colors on screen, and that was solved by changing color palette at certain vertical lines. Oh yeah, again factor of SW, experience, being inventive ... As I said blitter was not included in 1985 - because time needed for development AND because of high price of manufacturing such complex chip - they knew that it will be much less couple years ago. First STs even had no TOS in ROMs, but on floppy. And yet some come here with licensing some chip designed for complete different computer. No, that's not possible. You need to design special blitter chip for Atari ST's special HW . It is what happened, and blitter design is pretty good, it delivers all what they announced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted August 1, 2022 Share Posted August 1, 2022 On 7/29/2022 at 7:05 PM, DarkLord said: Please keep in mind that I am referring to the Ultima games, as mentioned. Again, I can not fathom how anyone could look at these pictures and prefer the 8bit version compared to the ST version but to each their own, I reckon. Yeah that's why I called out artifact color issues in my post. Because depending on your Atari's chipset or emulator setup, the colors in this game can vary wildly. I think at least one of the Ultima games has a key that allows you use a different color scheme to correct for this. Here's what the game could look like on Atari 8. Given a choice between ST/8-bit, I'd go for the 8-bit since it's closer to the original. However ultimately I'd prefer to play them on some non-Atari platform since I'm not paricularly thrilled with either port. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted August 1, 2022 Share Posted August 1, 2022 On 7/29/2022 at 4:40 PM, Keatah said: Perhaps the artist using the paint program liked to draw lines and use the fill function. Or maybe it's procedurally generated (on ST version). God only knows many screens in Apple II graphic adventures were procedurally drawn in-game. Points and lines and instructions to fill in the shapes. Regular Hi-Res images simply took too much space, 14 images per disk with no space left. Compression saved some, tripling that to about 40 images. But ultimately packages that did on-the-fly shape filling allowed for 100 or so images per disk. yeah that was common in graphic adventures. I don't think that is happening here, or if it is, the rendering is being done off screen. It could explain things though. Still the ST had a lot more disk space than the 8-bit, and I still suspect it was done by an artist that used a lot of parallel lines and fills, and didn't do much detail beyond that. On 7/29/2022 at 4:40 PM, Keatah said: I was excited for the filled-in graphics and comprehensive instrument panel and the special set-up screen. We all appreciated the detail SubLogic put into it. We more or less understood all those calculations and management was a lot for an aging 1976 era processor moving along at 1MHz. I don't know the internals of the program, but I was disappointed that they didn't (or seemed not to) make use of any of the Atari graphics chips other than putting the image on the screen. On the Atari, it did use a custom ANTIC display list because the instrument panel was in high-res, (320 width) while the external view was 160-width. It didn't do much beyond that. The program is fine if you wanted to learn how a Cessna worked, or planes in general. But if you are looking for an action-packed game with a decent frame-rate with 3D-flying, then you'd do better with something like Rescue On Fractalus. I can't believe FS2 was the pack-in for the XEGS. It just doesn't have enough mainstream appeal. Another of those many questionable Atari Corp decisions. On 7/29/2022 at 4:40 PM, Keatah said: SubLogic did come out with a bunch of scenery disks for Apple II. I believe the huge effort they put into making them was lost on these early micros however. Lots of slow tedious disk swapping. To me, if Sublogic could place 3 landmarks and call it a 'city', I had no enthusiasm for buying scenery disks Maybe they were better than that, but I wasn't taking my chances! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMaddog Posted August 4, 2022 Share Posted August 4, 2022 (edited) On 8/1/2022 at 10:31 AM, zzip said: I can't believe FS2 was the pack-in for the XEGS. It just doesn't have enough mainstream appeal. Another of those many questionable Atari Corp decisions. I don't think any-one at Atari Corp. even played video games and only knew they had to sell them to kids. And the ones who actually did either left the old Atari or got fired from the new one. Quote To me, if Sublogic could place 3 landmarks and call it a 'city', I had no enthusiasm for buying scenery disks Maybe they were better than that, but I wasn't taking my chances! Yep, that was the early version of DLCs... Anyway, I know that resolution wise the 8-bit screens are limited and chunky but on the Atari you can get more than four colors using DLIs (or even using artifcating in it's one-color mode) made it more versatile than the ST in spite of having more on screen colors & a higher resolution. And to be honest I didn't really expect much seeing screenshots of early ST games because as I said it was still early days. The later games that came from the UK, like Pygnosis & Bitmap Brothers, made better use of shaded colors even though they were probably ported from Deluxe Paint on the Amiga. Trust me, the difference between the early American ST games and the later British ones are as different as night & day! Edited August 4, 2022 by MrMaddog 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted August 4, 2022 Share Posted August 4, 2022 31 minutes ago, MrMaddog said: I don't think any-one at Atari Corp. even played video games and only knew they had to sell them to kids. And the ones who actually did either left the old Atari or got fired from the new one. Yeah it's clear Atari Corp didn't know what they were doing when it came game marketing, but I get beaten up for saying that around here 44 minutes ago, MrMaddog said: Anyway, I know that resolution wise the 8-bit screens are limited and chunky but on the Atari you can get more than four colors using DLIs (or even using artifcating in it's one-color mode) made it more versatile than the ST in spite of having more on screen colors & a higher resolution. ST could do the same with interrupts as well to increase coloes, as seen in the NEOchrome screenshot below. Lots of games used this and other techniques to increase the number of colors on screen. 1 hour ago, MrMaddog said: And to be honest I didn't really expect much seeing screenshots of early ST games because as I said it was still early days. The later games that came from the UK, like Pygnosis & Bitmap Brothers, made better use of shaded colors even though they were probably ported from Deluxe Paint on the Amiga. Yeah it's true AR was an early port to ST, and I don't think developer documentation was so great. But it was disappointing that the 8-bit version really pushes the 8-bit and shows a lot of love and the ST port feels lazy by comparison. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted August 4, 2022 Share Posted August 4, 2022 On 8/1/2022 at 9:31 AM, zzip said: To me, if Sublogic could place 3 landmarks and call it a 'city', I had no enthusiasm for buying scenery disks Maybe they were better than that, but I wasn't taking my chances! A few of them were decent enough and worth the entry price. Most weren't. Thing with flight sims is that landmarks are lost if you're high up, and only major ones (terrain shapes) spanning several miles are easily visible. Early micros just didn't have the resolution, speed, or database capacity for swooping down over your city or village - with anything resembling detail. Sims were still pretty cerebral with maps and co-ordinates and imagining where you were. And the only thing present weatherwise was wind, which again showed up on the instrument panel's instruments. You wouldn't actually experience crabbing or see wing flexing. Hell, having night and day was a huge thing. And I think the seasons got represented by like white ground for winter. I would successfully argue that SubLogic started the whole PC flightsim thing. Microsoft carried it forward and it was very popular and successful until the latest iteration FS2020. Here the program was dumbed down and castrated to fit the online XBOX model of distribution. It feels totally opposite the expansive sandbox all previous versions were. And load times are pretty bad on all but the latest systems sporting PCIe 4th/5th gen. FS2020 is fine for those not wanting to get into all the details and subtleties of systems and all that. And the canned adventures bring a taste of aviation to non-pilot in a practical way. For those wanting a more technical experience, X-Plane and DCS work. 2 hours ago, MrMaddog said: Yep, that was the early version of DLCs... Agree. Earlier may have been those EAMON disks, or Wizardry campaigns. Would need to check the dates 2Bshur. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted August 6, 2022 Share Posted August 6, 2022 There were a lot of "tricks" discovered through the ST's life that greatly enhanced games, giving them many more on-screen colors than just the standard "16", as well as other capabilities. I just wish that Doug Little's gaming tool set was around when the STe first came out! https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=31558 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prog99 Posted August 6, 2022 Share Posted August 6, 2022 1 hour ago, DarkLord said: enhanced games, giving them many more on-screen colors than just the standard "16", as well as other capabilities. I just wish that Doug Little's gaming tool set was around when the STe first came out! Split palettes and other such techniques were well known pretty much from the off so not a new trick. Check out The Pawn for an early example. Doug however was just far too late for his excellent tools to be anything more than a curiosity. I used to know him and he did a stack of stuff on the falcon too which never saw the light of day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted August 7, 2022 Share Posted August 7, 2022 12 hours ago, DarkLord said: There were a lot of "tricks" discovered through the ST's life that greatly enhanced games, giving them many more on-screen colors than just the standard "16", as well as other capabilities. I just wish that Doug Little's gaming tool set was around when the STe first came out! Developing such complex tool requires lot of experience with concrete machine and lot of time. Years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted August 7, 2022 Share Posted August 7, 2022 On 8/6/2022 at 1:18 PM, prog99 said: Split palettes and other such techniques were well known pretty much from the off so not a new trick. Check out The Pawn for an early example. Doug however was just far too late for his excellent tools to be anything more than a curiosity. I used to know him and he did a stack of stuff on the falcon too which never saw the light of day. Hmm, they might be not be anything "more than a curiosity" but people are developing games with it. I'm all for it - Go Doug! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted August 7, 2022 Share Posted August 7, 2022 18 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: Developing such complex tool requires lot of experience with concrete machine and lot of time. Years. Understood, but considering the lack of commercial support, we'll take what we can get. PS Personally, I'd take what Doug Little does in his leisure time over commercial stuff. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMaddog Posted August 7, 2022 Share Posted August 7, 2022 On 8/4/2022 at 12:37 PM, zzip said: Yeah it's clear Atari Corp didn't know what they were doing when it came game marketing, but I get beaten up for saying that around here ST could do the same with interrupts as well to increase coloes, as seen in the NEOchrome screenshot below. Lots of games used this and other techniques to increase the number of colors on screen. Well Atari Corp's lack of marketing, in the States at least, was no secret even BITD. I was too much of a dumb fanboi back then to really see the problems until it was too late... And if you thought NEOChrome broke the 16 color limit, how about Spectrum 512 or even better Photochrome on the STe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted August 8, 2022 Share Posted August 8, 2022 15 hours ago, MrMaddog said: Well Atari Corp's lack of marketing, in the States at least, was no secret even BITD. I was too much of a dumb fanboi back then to really see the problems until it was too late... I could see the problems in the late 80s, it was a frustrating period to be an Atari fan. Still excited by the tech, but the company was slow to bring promised things to market, and got bogged down in misadventures like Federated and Abaq Transputer. 15 hours ago, MrMaddog said: And if you thought NEOChrome broke the 16 color limit, how about Spectrum 512 or even better Photochrome on the STe? I loved Photochrome, but those techniques are too CPU intensive for many games Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted August 8, 2022 Share Posted August 8, 2022 Speaking of Doug Little's gaming tools, and how amazing it is, this is what it can do (I'm sure many of you have already seen this): 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted August 8, 2022 Share Posted August 8, 2022 I hadn't seen that. If games like it were available in my part of town I would've had an entirely different outlook on 16-bit gaming. Either on ST or Amiga. Doesn't matter which since both were equally hard to find stuff for. Of course it exhibits the square cookie-cutter sprites I so much dislike from the era. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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