AtariAge + Atari Q&A

[Thomas Jentzsch]

35 minutes ago, bfstats said:

Or a middle-of-the-road approach… Menu-driven, like what Omegamatrix did with older multi-variant Atari brand games. It’s a software- rather than hardware-based solution. Still have to cycle power to return to the menu, but don’t have to remove the cart to change switch settings, plus no memorization needed, and you can play the games in whatever order you like.

Of course, a menu is always the best option.

[42bs]

3 hours ago, Emehr said:

2600+? While nostalgia is a good hook, I feel that having a block of, say, nine(?) new titles could help invigorate interest.

The question for me is: Can we write games directly on the Rockchip.

[desiv]

As someone who owns multiple dip-switch based multicarts, I can say that for me...

That whole above discussion doesn't seem very realistic...   

 

I don't ever "remember" what switch settings go to which game...  I check the chart (that is either on the cart or in the manual)...

I don't ever play enough games in order that I expect the switches to be that way...  I look for the game I want to play and choose the switch setting.

I don't ever play enough games in a row very quickly so that taking the cart out of the system to change the switch would be a problem...

 

Is a menu based multicart nicer?  Yeah, I own some of them and they are nicer.

But a dip switch based system, especially one with only 10 games, is not a hardship on me in any way.  (And I own a 233-n-1 dip switch based cart, which is still not a hardship...)

 

But that's me...

Edited September 15, 2023 by desiv

[MrBeefy]

On 9/14/2023 at 12:44 PM, Albert said:

https://atari.com/pages/careers

 

 ..Al

Hey thanks for the job lead. I think I will try out for this one.

 

I'm not sure this has been discussed, but does this mean that AA may be a special retailer for Atari? Like AA might sell a special AA 2600+ that has an AA homebrew as an additional feature?

 

Obviously might not be happening with the 2600+ but needed to suggest an example.

 

[Raiu]

41 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

Hey thanks for the job lead. I think I will try out for this one.

 

I'm not sure this has been discussed, but does this mean that AA may be a special retailer for Atari? Like AA might sell a special AA 2600+ that has an AA homebrew as an additional feature?

 

Obviously might not be happening with the 2600+ but needed to suggest an example.

 

Dang, that was not there when I checked it yesterday.  I've had quite a bit of forum moderator experience (Dofus!)

 

... hold on, it's *still* not there right now.  I just see the first two, not the moderator position.  What's going on?

 

[Albert]

12 minutes ago, Raiu said:

... hold on, it's *still* not there right now.  I just see the first two, not the moderator position.  What's going on?

It's pretty trivial to modify a local copy of a website you are viewing. 

 

 

 ..Al

[Raiu]

... Meh.  Raising an unemployed person's hopes isn't fun. 😠

[desiv]

8 minutes ago, Albert said:

It's pretty trivial to modify a local copy of a website you are viewing. 

I just had this image of several people trying to delete a bunch of posts they made because they now want to apply for the Forum Admin job...

(No, I don't have any one person in mind...  Just a general thing I imagined...)

[zzip]

Looking for a position as "Head of Testing & Tasting Uncorked Beverages" (H.O.T.T.U.B)   Anything?

[MrBeefy]

2 hours ago, Albert said:

It's pretty trivial to modify a local copy of a website you are viewing. 

 

 

 ..Al

Ooo darnering socks would be fun!

[TrogdarRobusto]

11 hours ago, Blinky said:

Natural binary order vs gray code for a 64K rom:

 

10-in-1 game order now:
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,-,-,-,-,-,-

 

10-in-1 game order using gray code:
0,1,3,2,6,7,5,4,-,-,-,-,8,9,-,-

 

'-' is a unused game

 

I guess that's part of the nostalgic experience

 

OMG I love this thread on dip switches. I mean it does not get more granular and hard core than this.

100% I am sharing this discussion with the head of the cartridge program. 

[JPF997]

14 minutes ago, TrogdarRobusto said:

OMG I love this thread on dip switches. I mean it does not get more granular and hard core than this.

100% I am sharing this discussion with the head of the cartridge program. 

Hey trogdar quick question, many people are worried about the cart dumper on the 2600+, they say that that's the reason why some games are incompatible ( and why many homebrew game's might not work because they need bank switching), but isn't there some way to fix this issue by updating the firmware of the machine via the USB port ,can't the engineer's make it so the cart dumper accepts cartridges of up to 64 kb size?

[Wildstar]

1 hour ago, TrogdarRobusto said:

OMG I love this thread on dip switches. I mean it does not get more granular and hard core than this.

100% I am sharing this discussion with the head of the cartridge program. 

Trogdar, I agree and discussion about bank switching and menu where the menu in code (in the emulation) would set the bank and jsr or simply jmp to the start of code. Given we are talking about the 6507 (basically a 6502) with 13 bit address bus instead of fuller 16 bit, it could not long address like the 65c816 which can address across 24 bit address range. You can't exactly do cross-bank returns with typical RTS or RTL (return counterpart for 65c816's long jump to subroutine JSL). 

 

So you will have to mod the exit code sequence to bank switch back to main menu (which should be bank 0 or lowest bank for cart) to menu start) via a bank switch and jmp command and possibly clear some variables and registers. Some general clean up so residual stuff from one game doesn't somehow come across to the next game loaded. Usually a system reset does it but there can be good ways to do this without requiring reset but this requires a little modification to game code. 

 

This has been done before on some multi bank game carts on Commodore 64 and 128.

I know there are differences between 6510/8502 and the 6507. No point to debate that. A lot of console games in those days did not have an exit game option like the computer games such as C64 such as the disk games that soft reset to BASIC. Often cartridge games were like that and required turning off console to remove cart (safely). So, code in the game would have to be modified to insert such code to exit game to menu. Doable, probably. Similar to exiting to BASIC on C64. 

 

Trogdar, if you can respond to my PM when you get a chance, it would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

PS: There is nothing particularly copyrighted or copyrightable with such kinds of modification of games to return to such menus. It's the overall games and overall menu pictorial elements and such that are and the menu system code as a whole and game code for the game that makes the overall copyrightable creative work. 

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Wildstar

[TrogdarRobusto]

1 hour ago, JPF997 said:

Hey trogdar quick question, many people are worried about the cart dumper on the 2600+, they say that that's the reason why some games are incompatible ( and why many homebrew game's might not work because they need bank switching), but isn't there some way to fix this issue by updating the firmware of the machine via the USB port ,can't the engineer's make it so the cart dumper accepts cartridges of up to 64 kb size?

Sadly I cannot answer this question for you (yet) because I am not the right person to speak to it. Al may be able to answer it, and I will ask the project lead as well.

The big picture answer I can provide is that yes, we do want to make the 2600+ as compatible as possible with more recent homebrew carts. Firmware updates are an option, if that is a path we can take we will explore it for sure.  It is a very active topic of discussion, along with secondary controller compatibility.

[desiv]

2 minutes ago, TrogdarRobusto said:

Firmware updates are an option, if that is a path we can take we will explore it for sure.  It is a very active topic of discussion, along with secondary controller compatibility.

Good to know...

I generally like what I have seen, but I have been worried because I wasn't sure if firmware updates were possible on the Plus, specifically for things like this...

[Chris+++]

 

I've encountered the news a bit late. All I can say is: Congratulations, Al, and THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING.

 

(I'll bet you didn't even imagine, back when there was only a handful of us on the Nexus, that you would become an Atari employee a quarter-century later!)

 

[Albert]

2 minutes ago, Chris+++ said:

(I'll bet you didn't even imagine, back when there was only a handful of us on the Nexus, that you would become an Atari employee a quarter-century later!)

This is very correct!

 

  ..Al

[number6]

On 9/12/2023 at 5:54 PM, desiv said:

Great, but hope you have good lawyers...  (Yep, this isn't threats, but lots and recent lawsuits...)

 

And based on that latest lawsuit, it's possibly more Hyperion you should talk to:
https://amigaworld.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8890

 

Tho I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not sure what Hyperion winning over Cloanto actually means...

Just that it's a mess and they are litigious..  ;-( 

They won nothing. 

btw-be careful when reading PR fluff.

When I informed everyone of what actually transpired even the attorney openly commented on our forum:

Quote

Yes, there is still the other pending lawsuit before the same Court and judge by C-A Acquisition and Cloanto Corp.
Hopefully this can be settled without further wasteful litigation.

This didn't happen, as the 1st case (the one you linked to) has been appealed. After resolution on that one, then they'll move on to the case the attorney referred to.

 

#6

[number6]

On 9/13/2023 at 2:03 PM, juansolo said:

As for the IP; it's fragmented as hell. I suspect you'll have trouble with getting anything from Hyperion or Cloanto. AmigaKit own the A1200 brand also. No idea who owns Commodore at the moment or has the rights to the hardware.

The iconic trademark is licensed by Eugene Van Os. (Commodore Corp) It is currently licensed to MyRetroComputer Ltd., the company which acquired most of what Commodore USA owned.

 

#6

[number6]

On 9/12/2023 at 5:45 PM, Flojomojo said:

Look in "Classic Computing" for some discussion. I don't think it overlaps much with classic Atari but some European members might feel differently. Is Atari going to buy up Amiga IP too? That wouldn't be such a bad thing from where I sit, but you'd have to pry it out of Cloanto. 

I thought I already answered this.

Amiga IP is not for sale. And it's owned by Amiga Corporation, not Cloanto.

 

#6

[desiv]

30 minutes ago, number6 said:

The 1st case (the one you linked to) has been appealed.

Yeah, makes sense that they didn't win, and then the other side appealed their non-loss.

 

Got it. Thanx.

:-)

[Wildstar]

1 hour ago, number6 said:

The iconic trademark is licensed by Eugene Van Os. (Commodore Corp) It is currently licensed to MyRetroComputer Ltd., the company which acquired most of what Commodore USA owned.

 

#6

Commodore trademarks as indicated in uspto.gov website is: Polabe Holdings

 

https://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=tm&qt=sno&reel=&frame=&sno=73359737

 

In case link fails I printed to pdf so you can see the assign. This pertains to ownership rights not contractual based trademark licensing which is dependent on the terms of the license as to whether that license is exclusive or non-exclusive or other limits set forth in the licensing terms. 

Commodore logo assign.pdf

[Thomas Jentzsch]

7 hours ago, JPF997 said:

Hey trogdar quick question, many people are worried about the cart dumper on the 2600+, they say that that's the reason why some games are incompatible ( and why many homebrew game's might not work because they need bank switching), but isn't there some way to fix this issue by updating the firmware of the machine via the USB port ,can't the engineer's make it so the cart dumper accepts cartridges of up to 64 kb size?

The major concern ist not about the bankswitchings supported. I am quite sure this can be fixed by Atari/Plaion.

 

The problem is, that the dumper simply has no access to code inside the cart. This affects Pitfall II, where the dumper can only "see" the first 8K, but not the extra 2K used by the DPC chip. And if affects all other carts which use internal chips. Which are (mainly) bBasic games, using the DPC+ kernel. And quite some modern homebrews which are utilizing an ARM chip (e.g. from ChampGames). Here the dumper approach has to fail and cannot be fixed.

[JPF997]

3 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

The major concern ist not about the bankswitchings supported. I am quite sure this can be fixed by Atari/Plaion.

 

The problem is, that the dumper simply has no access to code inside the cart. This affects Pitfall II, where the dumper can only "see" the first 8K, but not the extra 2K used by the DPC chip. And if affects all other carts which use internal chips. Which are (mainly) bBasic games, using the DPC+ kernel. And quite some modern homebrews which are utilizing an ARM chip (e.g. from ChampGames). Here the dumper approach has to fail and cannot be fixed.

So what's the solution to this  problem then? It's probably to late to go back and rebuild the system to be FPGA instead of emulation, maybe adding an SD card slot like the retron 77 did is the only thing that they can do now to fix the compatibility issues.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

2 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

So what's the solution to this  problem then? It's probably to late to go back and rebuild the system to be FPGA instead of emulation, maybe adding an SD card slot like the retron 77 did is the only thing that they can do now to fix the compatibility issues.

Maybe via OTG cable using the USB slot an SD card reader can be attached. Only Atari or even only their supplier (Plaion) knows for sure now.

 

I think one of the reasons why there is no SD card slot is, that Atari wants to sell carts. Therefore they are maybe not very interested to help circumventing this limitation. But if it is feasible, someone will soon find out.