Bad Apple for the Odyssey 2?

[+eebuckeye]

In my opinion I would love to get something that closer resembles Pac Man on the O2.  I would buy it in an instant and seems to me is definitely missing from the system.

[johannesmutlu]

3 hours ago, pboland said:

Couple thoughts:

 

Character #72 is quite large even for a "dot". I'm not bashing your idea, I'm just pointing out something that I'm not sure is obvious.

 

My other thought is the idea of "porting" known games. Most of these games have been ported ad nauseam to almost all systems already. What's the point of making yet another port? Especially NES games. Maybe we should make controller adapters to plug in NES pads to the O2? My point is, you kind of loose the O2 experience with those kind of things. Again, don't get me wrong. I understand the idea of squeezing out as much as one can on a given platform, but to what point? Just a thought.

 

 

Well the idea to re-porting games to the O2 again, is to try to improve on it, if that is possible by getting around those limitations,including adding extra ram,rom trough the use of bankswitching and if necessary an extra cpu and only use that dot tile to create any forms and shapes you want for both backgrounds and sprites ,eventrough i don’t know how big that dot tile really is wich is tile 27, but tile 2f is a block tile wich is really large in size compared to that dot tile 27,

but if you say that even that dot tile 27 is still too large in size to be useful,then how about that dot wich does serve as bullets in the game amok,do you still consider that large in size? Does that dot tile originates from dot tile 27 or is it another tile set??? 
also i examined amok a bit  as far as i do know theres no black surrounding that white dot pattern as you can see so it might be possible to place those dots next to each other to create all kinds of shapes you want,and it is clear that sprites does support transparancy as you can see in the game alphine skiing and so sprites can be overlapped over each other,now i do know that the O2 does not support bitmap mode and sadly BG tiles aren’t allowed to overlap on top of each other,

So what if that dot pattern cannot by placed next to each other and what if theres black surroundong that dot pattern tile (whether it is tile 27 or whatever tile) and/or if those tile sets can be only placed in a grid of 8x8 pixels next to each other,then it is indeed impossible to place those dots next to each other without leaving gaps in between them,

if only sprites could by created in any desired form,then we may could in the worst case scenario  just ignoire the background tiles and only use sprites instead and then mimick a background as sections of sprites with it as well and then alternate between each section over 60fps to fake the ellusion of a giant background (frame A first 4 8x8 sprites,frame B second 4x 8x8 sprites etc,,.)

sure this could result in a lot of flicker,

but don’t know if those tricks will indeed work or not,

let somebody please just jump on youtube and exactly explain what’s possible and what not on the O2 to clearify everybody including homebrewers with it,maybe they could find ways around it,maybe not,

you may say why you want to do that if there are better systems,well am just curious how that system could be ever pushed graphically.

[8bitwidgets.com]

I'm just going to ad my $0.02 here in terms of hardware possibilities and realities..  like other systems, the O2 has had decades of post life homebrew and support.  All of these systems have their passionate contributors who some have the needed brain power and know how to expand these capabilities. 

 

For the 2600 you have the harmony cart and probably others I'm just ignorant too.  This multicart also has an arm CPU on it which can be utilized to accelerate games.  Look at Champ Games Robot War and others to see how insane things can go still using the original systems hardware limitations.  The added calculations just allow that much more to be going on the screen.  

 

The Intellivision has the JLP.  This standard has allowed INTV devs to have save games as well as acceleration.  Not many (maybe one?) game has leveraged the arm cpu on the JLP board acceleration, but it's there if someone were so inclined (and lucky to have an LTO cart) but yea it's not been used, but it's there.

 

I would imagine by now if there were workarounds for the O2, the brilliant and passionate devs would have found them by now and it would be common knowledge.  From what I've learned there are very real (and unfortunate) shortcomings with Magnavox's decisions on what hardware to make their games with. The plus side though to this is that making games for the O2 is "much easier" to code for than the 2600.  Yes it's assembly, which isn't the most user friendly language, but the code and how it's able to make things happen relative to the 2600 is easier.  

 

I do imagine that some kind of boosted multicart maybe could help take it to new heights, but this isn't something done by just anyone.  It's going to take some serious knowhow and dedication from someone to produce this.  I'm all for innovation and I'm not saying this couldn't be done in 2024, but I'm pretty confident that if there were some "chasing the beam" techniques out there that could work for the O2, we'd know about them by now. 

[doug0909]

Seriously, the bottom of the box says the Odyssey 2 cpu is an "electronic genius capable of making more than one hundred thousand electronic decisions every second and is quite closely related to those used in today's aerospace and weaponry systems."

 

And this thing even has "sync-sound" action characterized by sounds playing SYNCHRONIZED to action on the screen...

 

but it can't create a picture out of dots? 

 

It's amazing, even in 2024, that the government allows average Americans to harness such power in their homes. Let's not put that to waste... 

Edited January 21 by doug0909

[+pboland]

2 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:

Well the idea to re-porting games to the O2 again, is to try to improve on it, if that is possible by getting around those limitations,including adding extra ram,rom trough the use of bankswitching and if necessary an extra cpu and only use that dot tile to create any forms and shapes you want for both backgrounds and sprites ,eventrough i don’t know how big that dot tile really is wich is tile 27, but tile 2f is a block tile wich is really large in size compared to that dot tile 27,

but if you say that even that dot tile 27 is still too large in size to be useful,then how about that dot wich does serve as bullets in the game amok,do you still consider that large in size? Does that dot tile originates from dot tile 27 or is it another tile set??? 
also i examined amok a bit  as far as i do know theres no black surrounding that white dot pattern as you can see so it might be possible to place those dots next to each other to create all kinds of shapes you want,and it is clear that sprites does support transparancy as you can see in the game alphine skiing and so sprites can be overlapped over each other,now i do know that the O2 does not support bitmap mode and sadly BG tiles aren’t allowed to overlap on top of each other,

So what if that dot pattern cannot by placed next to each other and what if theres black surroundong that dot pattern tile (whether it is tile 27 or whatever tile) and/or if those tile sets can be only placed in a grid of 8x8 pixels next to each other,then it is indeed impossible to place those dots next to each other without leaving gaps in between them,

if only sprites could by created in any desired form,then we may could in the worst case scenario  just ignoire the background tiles and only use sprites instead and then mimick a background as sections of sprites with it as well and then alternate between each section over 60fps to fake the ellusion of a giant background (frame A first 4 8x8 sprites,frame B second 4x 8x8 sprites etc,,.)

sure this could result in a lot of flicker,

but don’t know if those tricks will indeed work or not,

let somebody please just jump on youtube and exactly explain what’s possible and what not on the O2 to clearify everybody including homebrewers with it,maybe they could find ways around it,maybe not,

you may say why you want to do that if there are better systems,well am just curious how that system could be ever pushed graphically.

I'm all for programmers wanting to push the limits (as I already stated, I get that). I just find it odd that people only seem to want to push the limits with a known game. Why not a new game idea. That all I'm saying. If you want Pac-Man, go for it. I just thought it would be nice to see a different/new game. I personally like the mechanics of KC over Pac-Man.

 

As to character #27 (sorry I stated "72", my dyslexia kicked in), you can see that character in KC. They are the moving dots. Obviously the O2 is capable of more than just the internal character set. So I am guessing that dot in AMOK is just a custom character. No different than the green guy in that game. How it's done? I have no idea. My program understanding of the O2 is very limited and based on the intro to computing cart.

[doug0909]

I seriously wish someone would make a KC sequel game with 8 or 12k adding power-Ups, such as a magnet power up which draws the dots towards kc (and perhaps a bad magnet power up which pushes them away), a power up which freezes the dots, a power up which turns all the dots into power dots...

 

[8bitwidgets.com]

31 minutes ago, doug0909 said:

but it can't create a picture out of dots?

i know it seems hard to believe, but it's true.. the O2 was simply not designed to be able to effectively do that.  they were not thinking big picture when they came up with the bios and cpu selected..  while it offered some amazing new things the 2600 couldn't (on paper) do but in the end it's architecture was a limiting factor.  it could do some things really fast..  maybe if someone rewrote the bios from scratch?   but that's no small feat..  

[DanBoris]

9 hours ago, pboland said:

I'm all for programmers wanting to push the limits (as I already stated, I get that). I just find it odd that people only seem to want to push the limits with a known game. Why not a new game idea. That all I'm saying. If you want Pac-Man, go for it. I just thought it would be nice to see a different/new game. I personally like the mechanics of KC over Pac-Man.

 

As to character #27 (sorry I stated "72", my dyslexia kicked in), you can see that character in KC. They are the moving dots. Obviously the O2 is capable of more than just the internal character set. So I am guessing that dot in AMOK is just a custom character. No different than the green guy in that game. How it's done? I have no idea. My program understanding of the O2 is very limited and based on the intro to computing cart.

 

Custom characters are not possible on the O2, only the 4 custom sprites. I wrote the first emulator the O2, so I can say this with confidence. The moving dots in KC are just character 27.

[johannesmutlu]

2 hours ago, DanBoris said:

 

Custom characters are not possible on the O2, only the 4 custom sprites. I wrote the first emulator the O2, so I can say this with confidence. The moving dots in KC are just character 27.

Interesting, but i got a few questions,

are those characters in homebrew kc pacman (hacked kc) created using dot 27 or not?

if only sprites are costumizible using dot 27 and not backgrounds at all due it’s structure layouts restrictions,that’s pretty sad🥲

also is it true that the O2 cannot flip or rotate BG or sprite tiles at all,

is there really no way to FORCE bg and sprite flipping,rotation,zooming and bg overlapping trough software instead???

because if we could do it trough software instead we might could break that barrier limitation and get more freedom in what we want to do with it.

also i know that the O2 soundchip could do bleeps and blops as well as generating noise sounds at different pitches as well,BUT IS it also possible to simulate 1bit pcm sound by quickly changing it’s timers and/or volume to create a wave form thay way?? Would be great sothat we will have more freedom in the sound department as well (am mean the apple || could do that with it’s primitive beeper speaker)

sure it will involve more processing power then necessary but still,,

 

thanks alot😁

 

 

 

Edited January 21 by johannesmutlu

[+Black_Tiger]

How were these homebrews made?

 

Do they bypass the Odyssey 2 hardware altogether and just use the controllers and AV output?

 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL903BE967E12CA748&si=0W_uNZMsh5OoqkAa

[johannesmutlu]

12 minutes ago, Black_Tiger said:

How were these homebrews made?

 

Do they bypass the Odyssey 2 hardware altogether and just use the controllers and AV output?

 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL903BE967E12CA748&si=0W_uNZMsh5OoqkAa

Well i don’t know but i wish those homebrewers could it explain to me,would be great if they do so

[8bitwidgets.com]

21 hours ago, eebuckeye said:

seems to me is definitely missing from the system.

yea it's not missing because no one wanted a proper port, it's just not possible..

 

1 hour ago, johannesmutlu said:

i wish those homebrewers could it explain to me,would be great if they do so

you're seeing games made for the Odyssey 3 (which never came out in the US, but it did hit europe) which basically from what i can tell was basically an O2 with added colors and the ability to have a graphical background..  O2 games as you know tend to be solid black background with things on it..   but the O3 hardware could do some extra stuff, but IIRC, these games were backwards compatible with the O2 just with less colors and black background..  

 

Also the music in these videos i'm pretty sure are also not from the game but just music added for the video.  

 

 

 

So yes it added some amazing background graphic capabilities, but even with those improvements i'm pretty sure they didn't change much in the fundamental hardware specs (which is why they were backwards compatible) which of course isn't really a good thing if it means the new games are largely restricted by the gameplay parameters of the earlier system..  

 

 

[DanBoris]

7 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:

Interesting, but i got a few questions,

are those characters in homebrew kc pacman (hacked kc) created using dot 27 or not?

if only sprites are costumizible using dot 27 and not backgrounds at all due it’s structure layouts restrictions,that’s pretty sad🥲

also is it true that the O2 cannot flip or rotate BG or sprite tiles at all,

is there really no way to FORCE bg and sprite flipping,rotation,zooming and bg overlapping trough software instead???

because if we could do it trough software instead we might could break that barrier limitation and get more freedom in what we want to do with it.

also i know that the O2 soundchip could do bleeps and blops as well as generating noise sounds at different pitches as well,BUT IS it also possible to simulate 1bit pcm sound by quickly changing it’s timers and/or volume to create a wave form thay way?? Would be great sothat we will have more freedom in the sound department as well (am mean the apple || could do that with it’s primitive beeper speaker)

sure it will involve more processing power then necessary but still,,

 

thanks alot😁

 

 

 

 

Pac Man/KC uses all the O2 objects, the player and ghosts are the sprites, the maze is the grid, dots are individual characters 27s, and the score is the quad characters. No, there is no way to flip characters or sprites. I guess in theory you could do PCM sound, but the O2's processor is pretty slow, so even if you could do it you probably couldn't do much else. 

 

 

[DanBoris]

7 hours ago, Black_Tiger said:

How were these homebrews made?

 

Do they bypass the Odyssey 2 hardware altogether and just use the controllers and AV output?

 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL903BE967E12CA748&si=0W_uNZMsh5OoqkAa

 

looks like most of those games are using the enhanced background graphics on the Videopac+. Take away the background and they are using the basic functions of the O2 hardware.

[8bitwidgets.com]

1 hour ago, DanBoris said:

Take away the background and they are using the basic functions of the O2 hardware

yea that's the disappointing thing about the O3 hardware..  didn't seem like they expanded what the system could do, but simply allow some visual enhancements to the background..  

 

1 hour ago, DanBoris said:

BUT IS it also possible to simulate 1bit pcm

Well they made "the voice" module which allowed speech.  I would highly doubt anything much could come out of the sound chip to do PCM sound.. it's a VERY basic sound chip..  the intellivoice also was made like "the voice" to allow voice sounds.  if it could have been done through the internal voice chip they would have done it.  i imagine it would have not just been hardware limitations, but also data exhaustive..  the voice / intellivoice make sounds by stringing together various tones in a certain order to create words..   well i don't know for a fact about the intellivoice, but that's how the voice module works as i understand it.  

[DanBoris]

55 minutes ago, 8bitwidgets.com said:

yea that's the disappointing thing about the O3 hardware..  didn't seem like they expanded what the system could do, but simply allow some visual enhancements to the background..  

 

Well they made "the voice" module which allowed speech.  I would highly doubt anything much could come out of the sound chip to do PCM sound.. it's a VERY basic sound chip..  the intellivoice also was made like "the voice" to allow voice sounds.  if it could have been done through the internal voice chip they would have done it.  i imagine it would have not just been hardware limitations, but also data exhaustive..  the voice / intellivoice make sounds by stringing together various tones in a certain order to create words..   well i don't know for a fact about the intellivoice, but that's how the voice module works as i understand it.  

 

Intellivoice and the O2 Voice both use a version of the same voice synthesizer chip, they SP0256.

[8bitwidgets.com]

2 hours ago, DanBoris said:

same voice synthesizer chip, the SP0256.

interesting.  but yea makes sense because basically the chip comes with a bunch of tones..  i have a zip of the sounds as they relate to the voice module.  VOICE.zip

I wonder if these are the same as the ones with the intellivoice or maybe the chip just plays the audio while each company had their own custom subset of sounds.  this seems more likely the case given the distinct differences in sound from intellivision to odyssey 2..  

[johannesmutlu]

On 3/3/2023 at 4:03 PM, 8bitwidgets.com said:

Hey everyone so I had a quick pass at @atari2600land about getting bad apple on the Odyssey 2.  If the 2600 could do it and the intellivision..  it seemed reasonable that the O2 could as well.  Bank Switching is the key to this being possible..  

 

The intellivision bad apple demo for example is around 430kb..  no intellivision rom could be that big..   but bank switching allows it.    However, I am no developer so I can't speak to how bank switching would work with the O2 or if it's even possible, but it seems like if the 2600 could manage it..  the O2 could.   

 

I don't know if bank switching is something that's ever been explored for the O2..   but I think it would be awesome to see bad apple on the O2!    It seems like if the 2600 could do it..  come on, we could do this!   

 

 

If this damn linked video was from an actual odyssey 2,then we could,ve rest in peace but sadly,it is NOT the bad apple demo for it,now since the odessy 2 does allow sprites to be costumizible unlike backgrounds,we may could make and brake those bg frames into sections out of 4 8x8 sprites instead and alternate between each 4 8x8 section of it per frame,it probably could result in flicker but if that’s the only way to avoid it’s internal 64 character set to get more freedom and make such fmv demo,why not,but somebody has to prove whether this is possible or not.

[8bitwidgets.com]

4 minutes ago, johannesmutlu said:

but somebody has to prove whether this is possible or not.

There's nothing to prove I think honestly.  The O2 tech simply was not designed to do the fundamental stuff that even the 2600 could..  There were advantages to some of what the O2 hardware was capable of, but there was a tradeoff. 

You notice how few games got ported to the O2?  Then looking at the ports they did get, see how unlike the original game the few ports out there are like..   this is because the O2's chipset simply wasn't designed to display information in the same manner..  in some ways making O2 games is easier from what I've talked to people about, but those conveniences came at a cost.