Games of The400 Mini

[NISMOPC]

On 1/13/2024 at 12:38 PM, suspicious_milk said:

I'm too lazy to search & compare ...  a safe bet would be that any games included on their previous minis (c64 etc) are likely canadites for THE400 if an existing Atari version is available.

 

I'm most curious about the "missing" 4 buttons. (Suppose to have 7 buttons, pics only show 3)  Rumor says they are in the orange control ring, but how would they not be accidentally pressed all the time?

Now says 8 - If you look at the pictures of it, the lower corner appears to be a small button. Fire button, 4 on the ring, 2 on the top and the corner button = 8 buttons.

 

About this item

• 8-button USB joystick (1.8 m cable)

[bfollowell]

4 hours ago, zzip said:

Yes, but there are always games that surprise you by requiring BASIC,  like Questron.    I don't see why they wouldn't include a BASIC rom for completeness

 

I'm sure they will. Much like it's hard for me to imagine any decent collection of A8 games not including Star Raiders, I also can't imagine not seeing that Ready prompt at some point.

 

[ijor]

On 1/12/2024 at 4:01 PM, pcrow said:

That's the assumption I think everyone is making.  But I wonder what went wrong with the original licensing agreement.  Maybe it was for specific platforms, and since this is an emulator, they're afraid the lawyers will consider it a new platform?  Or maybe there was a time limit on the agreement.

 

After almost half a century, with all the acquisitions and with most of the people that were actually involved already passed away, I wonder if any documentation regarding the license details survived to these days. I'm not talking about a specific title, but in general about most of the software.

 

For instance, didn't Philipp Price mentioned that after Gary Gilbertson passed away he lost the documentation with his rights on Alternate Reality?

 

Just to make an argument. Consider Atari Basic. We know it was developed by a third party. And surely it was fully licensed to Atari. But is there any actual documentation about the licensing details? Or consider TOS, the OS for the ST, it is perhaps even more gray. Part of TOS was (is?) copyright Digital Research, and this is actually acknowledged by TOS itself in the “Dekstop Info” dialog. Again, surely it was properly licensed to Atari. But exactly in which terms? And more important, is there any documentation about it.

 

 

[AtariNerd]

It may not have the impact of old, but just saw an article posted over on slashdot.org, discussing this unit, and  the plusses and minuses of these plug and play, versus modding older hardware.

Edited January 14 by AtariNerd

[Ray Gillman]

On 1/12/2024 at 1:01 PM, swlovinist said:

Any love for Blue Max here?   Who currently owns that title?

I used to play it but then they made the on Mars Blue Max II which was terrible and it sort of ruined the original for me

 

I want to say my original copy was a cassette? Saving some money baby! Remember the Scott Adams adventures were $39.95 but you could buy the same code on cassette for $20?

Edited January 15 by Ray Gillman

[ClausB]

On 1/12/2024 at 7:08 AM, Irgendwer said:

SR (remapping to the joystick buttons sounds quite hard/unintuitive):

I'll take a crack at it:

I'll call the ring buttons N, S, E, W. The rear buttons L, R, B. Fire button F.

L decreases throttle.

R increases throttle.

N toggles front and aft views.

E cycles computer, tracking, none.

S shows galactic chart. If stick has moved on chart, S again jumps to front view and hyperwarp.

W toggles shields.

B and N together shows long range scan.

B and E together selects manual target.

B and F together pauses.

[Sinjinhawke]

No Aztec Challenge? No deal.  
 

Actually I happily ordered it.

[Wrathchild]

13 hours ago, Ray Gillman said:

Remember the Scott Adams adventures were $39.95 but you could buy the same code on cassette for $20?

didn't the disk versions have graphics though?

[Irgendwer]

12 hours ago, ClausB said:

I'll take a crack at it:

...

I know that this is possible (esp. while I have adapting SR to the enhanced mode of SNACK on my list (also 8 buttons)) - the question is, it is feasible?

Taking the positions of the buttons of the updated joystick into account (IMHO far less accessible compared to those on a SNES controller) I expect "interesting finger gymnastics" which are hard to remember...

Edited January 16 by Irgendwer

[bfollowell]

3 hours ago, Wrathchild said:

didn't the disk versions have graphics though?

Not necessarily. There were disk versions of the 12 original text only versions, as well as the six that were later released as S.A.G.A. versions.

 

[Dr Karnov]

The listing says you can play your own games, via USB. Does that mean (in theory) you could have the entire library (400/800, 5200 etc) on a memory stick and they would all run?

[Wrathchild]

Would depend on how the emulation handles things like cart-headers and context switching between 5200 & A400/800/XL/XE. 

i.e. is it up to the user to know which platform to select or will it automatically change.

For example, if you were running in 5200 mode and then wanted to launch an ATR/XEX would the emu auto-switch to the last used non-5200 profile, and conversely if you picked a 5200 cart image would it switch to 5200 mode with/without asking the user? 

[Jetboot Jack]

1 hour ago, Dr Karnov said:

The listing says you can play your own games, via USB. Does that mean (in theory) you could have the entire library (400/800, 5200 etc) on a memory stick and they would all run?

That's what its like on TheC64 from the same people - so no reason to suspect otherwise, unless you're a pessimist 😛 

 

sTeVE

[Dr Karnov]

25 minutes ago, Jetboot Jack said:

That's what its like on TheC64 from the same people - so no reason to suspect otherwise, unless you're a pessimist 😛 

 

sTeVE

I have almost zero experience with the Atari 8-bit family, but I really liked Yoomp! on Atari 50. This new machine seems like a great jumping on point 

[zzip]

1 hour ago, Wrathchild said:

Would depend on how the emulation handles things like cart-headers and context switching between 5200 & A400/800/XL/XE. 

i.e. is it up to the user to know which platform to select or will it automatically change.

For example, if you were running in 5200 mode and then wanted to launch an ATR/XEX would the emu auto-switch to the last used non-5200 profile, and conversely if you picked a 5200 cart image would it switch to 5200 mode with/without asking the user? 

If the cart has a header, then emulators do a pretty good job with them,  but one issue is there are many cart images out there without headers and emulators often prompt the user for what cart type it is (bankswitching method) it's trial and error to find the right answer.

 

It should be smart enough to know an ATR means computer mode, but it won't know whether it should run in 400/800, XL or 128K+ XE mode, or whether BASIC should be enabled, or if the game runs better in NTSC or PAL unless it has some kind of database to figure all that out.   It will be interesting to see how it handles that.

[pcrow]

46 minutes ago, zzip said:

It should be smart enough to know an ATR means computer mode, but it won't know whether it should run in 400/800, XL or 128K+ XE mode, or whether BASIC should be enabled, or if the game runs better in NTSC or PAL unless it has some kind of database to figure all that out.   It will be interesting to see how it handles that.

I've always thought we should have a standard method for encoding that information.  As to BASIC, it's a shame it isn't standard for programs to set or clear it as needed.  (I have an autorun.sys that enables BASIC before loading a BASIC program; that was fun to write.)  For other details, it wouldn't be hard to have a loader that checks for PAL/NTSC and warns or rejects if the setting is not optimal or will break the program.  Back when I was on a physical 800, it would have been far less frustrating if a program simply said, "Sorry, XL required" instead of crashing, and even now that would be helpful.  Adding checkers to the start of XEX files is easy, but the trend seems to be to shift to using the original images instead of cracks, both as the storage space doesn't matter and to avoid glitches in the cracks.

 

Having given the topic some thought based on another discussion, it would be a wrapper container format, and there's probably something out there already that we could leverage.  And if we're talking about a container that holds all the information needed for an emulator to select optimal settings, there's no reason for it to be Atari-specific.  And since a container would need to support multiple disk images for larger programs, there's no reason it couldn't also have separate PAL and NTSC versions of the same program, or even Atari and C64 versions in the same container, along with a PDF of the manual.

[zzip]

9 minutes ago, pcrow said:

I've always thought we should have a standard method for encoding that information.  As to BASIC, it's a shame it isn't standard for programs to set or clear it as needed.  (I have an autorun.sys that enables BASIC before loading a BASIC program; that was fun to write.) 

I've encountered a handful that will enable or disable BASIC depending on their needs, but most won't.  It's been awhile since I read Mapping The Atari, but isn't it a change to a single memory location to enable or disable it?

 

15 minutes ago, pcrow said:

For other details, it wouldn't be hard to have a loader that checks for PAL/NTSC and warns or rejects if the setting is not optimal

Yeah There's a lot of games that work in either mode, but it isn't obvious that the experience will be better if you swtiched to PAL or NTSC instead of the normal mode for your country. 

 

26 minutes ago, pcrow said:

Having given the topic some thought based on another discussion, it would be a wrapper container format, and there's probably something out there already that we could leverage.  And if we're talking about a container that holds all the information needed for an emulator to select optimal settings, there's no reason for it to be Atari-specific.  And since a container would need to support multiple disk images for larger programs, there's no reason it couldn't also have separate PAL and NTSC versions of the same program, or even Atari and C64 versions in the same container, along with a PDF of the manual.

Having an across-the-board standard would be amazing!   I maintain a database for my front-end with optimal settings for games that don't run correctly on say a vanilla NTSC 800XL with BASIC disabled.   But I have similar databases for several other systems with similar issues too

 

My suggestion for such a container format would be to have a section for user settings that can override the suggested ones.  Say in case I don't like what the maintainer selected-  "I know this is a PAL game, but I like the extra speed I get in NTSC mode!"  If both are stored in the container/header you can change your preferences without losing the originals in case you decide to revert. 

[pcrow]

3 minutes ago, zzip said:

I've encountered a handful that will enable or disable BASIC depending on their needs, but most won't.  It's been awhile since I read Mapping The Atari, but isn't it a change to a single memory location to enable or disable it?

Yes, but it's a little more complicated.

 

To disable BASIC, it's just flipping a bit on PORTB in the PIA chip register.  But then you need to update the top of memory (unless it's a 600XL).  And ideally you'll issue the equivalent of "GRAPHICS 0" to move the video memory up to the new top of RAM.  But most commercial programs just assume they have 64K and set a new graphics mode, so in most cases, just flipping the bit is enough.

 

To enable BASIC, you have to lower the top of RAM, issue "GR.0" equivalent, then enable BASIC with the bit flip, then call the cartridge initialization routine.  There's also a "cartridge present" indicator in zero page that in theory needs to be adjusted.  It's possible to do all of this and run a program in a one-sector AUTORUN.SYS, but it took a ton of hacking to get it down there.  But switching to that AUTORUN will fix most full-disk BASIC programs.

[+MrFish]

Something like this might work well for extra keys, instead of a full keyboard.

 

They're programmable. Although having so few keys might make it tough to cover key variations for a lot of games without some reprogramming; but, I'm sure there are some similar available with more keys. And I think 12 keys would certainly cover a lot of games -- since there are a lot of keys commonly used among games (<space>, <enter>, etc.).

 

 

12 Key Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

 

[FifthPlayer]

2 hours ago, MrFish said:

Something like this might work well for extra keys, instead of a full keyboard.

 

 

I like this idea. 

 

Star Raiders can be challenging because it uses all the number keys for engine throttle.  But I really only use about four keys for throttle (0 - dead stop, 2 - starbase approach, 6 - cruising speed, 8 - pursuit) so that leaves 8 keys left over for game controls.  SR uses 10 keys in addition to the numbers, so with the help of two extra buttons on the controller itself, the game should be playable.

[+CharlieChaplin]

2 hours ago, MrFish said:

Something like this might work well for extra keys, instead of a full keyboard.

 

They're programmable. Although having so few keys might make it tough to cover key variations for a lot of games without some reprogramming; but, I'm sure there are some similar available with more keys. And I think 12 keys would certainly cover a lot of games -- since there are a lot of keys commonly used among games (<space>, <enter>, etc.).

 

 

12 Key Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

 

 

Or...

for the full retro experience, how about the 2600 keyboard controllers or the Video touchpad ?  

(With USB connectors / plugs.) Then you can hate them, just like the original controllers... like I said, fully retro.

[FifthPlayer]

1 minute ago, CharlieChaplin said:

 

Or...

how about the 2600 keyboard controllers or the Video touchpad ?  

Is there an adapter out there to make these controllers work with USB?

[+CharlieChaplin]

1 minute ago, FifthPlayer said:

Is there an adapter out there to make these controllers work with USB?

 

Grrr, thats why I edited my post...  (but you were faster).

[+MrFish]

19 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

Or...

for the full retro experience, how about the 2600 keyboard controllers or the Video touchpad ?  

(With USB connectors / plugs.) Then you can hate them, just like the original controllers... like I said, fully retro.

I thought of this too; but I was looking for more of a universal solution.

 

Other considerations were whether or not a USB adapter for this would work with The400 mini.

Also, do these work with the 8-bit computer version of Star Raiders out of the box? I've never used one myself.

 

I'm interested in getting a pair, though, for use in various programming projects on the 8-bit computers.

 

[FifthPlayer]

Another issue with the 2600 keyboard controllers or video touchpad:  Is there a way to remap the keys so they can be used in various games?  (The mechanical keypad that @MrFish linked has a Windows app that allows you to reprogram the key bindings).

 

I don't know if The400 will have a built-in way to remap controller keys, through some kind of system menu perhaps.  Does that feature exist in TheC64, TheA500, or the other products from this same company?

Edited January 17 by FifthPlayer