5200 Tempest Development Binaries - 3-15-84

[Dutchman2000]

Here are 2 binaries for 5200 Tempest that were made for Atari's Black Box development system, this is what games were tested on during development.  The addresses of the chips on this system were different  then a stock 5200. These work on emulators but elements are missing due to the address differences.  I am hoping that someone with some more expertise could modify these binaries to work on a real 5200. These were found on the Tempest development disks along with the source code dated 3-15-84.  I converted them from DLD files to BIN, using the same tools used at Atari back in the day.  DLD files were compiled and then downloaded to the development system for testing. 

demo.bin temp.bin

[Tempest]

@Kr0tki is this something you can fix?

[Dutchman2000]

In the PAMEQU file, it tells you the different addresses:

 

;	PAM MNEMONICS
;
ANTIC	=	0D400
;
	.IF	NDF,ZZZROM
	; ... FOR 800 BLACKBOX
GTIA	=	0D000
POKEY	=	0D200
	.ENDC

	.IF	DF,ZZZROM
	; ... FOR EPROM OR ROM
GTIA	=	0C000
POKEY	=	0E800
VOTRAX	=	0E000
	.ENDC

 

[Kr0tki]

What was this 800 Black Box system? I understand it was an Atari 800 with some modifications, but finding anything on the web is difficult because of the unrelated "Black Box" hard disk interface. Dit it contain a special OS ROM? Did it support standard 5200 controllers, with their 2nd button and keyboards? The latter would require some rewiring of the GTIA outputs to make them work like on a 5200.

 

On 4/29/2024 at 4:23 AM, Tempest said:

@Kr0tki is this something you can fix?

I guess I could look into it, but it would be much less time wasted If I had access to the source code.

 

On 4/29/2024 at 5:41 AM, Dutchman2000 said:

In the PAMEQU file, it tells you the different addresses:

 

;	PAM MNEMONICS
;
ANTIC	=	0D400
;
	.IF	NDF,ZZZROM
	; ... FOR 800 BLACKBOX
GTIA	=	0D000
POKEY	=	0D200
	.ENDC

	.IF	DF,ZZZROM
	; ... FOR EPROM OR ROM
GTIA	=	0C000
POKEY	=	0E800
VOTRAX	=	0E000
	.ENDC

 

Interesting. Are there any other occurrences of ZZZROM in the sources?

 

Wait a moment, so Atari planned to connect a Votrax to the 5200's expansion port?

[Dutchman2000]

ZZZROM is only mentioned at the beginning of the code, to setup the system:

.TITLE		TEMPEST		BY KEITHEN

		.NLIST LD	;DON'T LIST LISTING DIRECTIVES
		.NLIST BEX	;DON'T LIST ALL .BYTE DATA
		.NLIST MEB	;DON'T LET SEE CODE FROM MACROS
		.LIST		;LIST EVERYTHING (OVERRIDES BALANCED NLISTS)

;ZZZROM	= 1
ONEROM	= 1	;DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM ALWAYS LOOKS LIKE 1 ROM VERSION

 

[Dutchman2000]

From what I understand, the black boxes had the standard OS ROM, used standard controllers and functioned pretty much like a stock 5200 except for the fact that the GTIA and POKEY resided at different addresses. 

 

I'll have to look into the Votrax, I never really noticed it mentioned in there.