Star Wars games on Bally Astrocade: 300 baud cassetee emulating

[Sightsaber]

Hi everyone!

 

My friend and I decided to play through every Star Wars video game we could, including the unofficial ones. Today we have about 150 unofficial SW games (and several dozen more await us ahead).

 

We were able to find only 6 Star Wars games for Astrocade platform. 5 of them (except Star Battle) are 300 baud .wav files taken from ballyalley.com :
Star Wars (19xx)(unknown author)(300 baud)(proto).wav

Star Wars (198x)(Doug Shaeffer)(300 baud).wav

Down The Trench (1979)(Sebree's Computing)(300 baud).wav

Space Battle (1979)(J. A. Johnson)(300 baud).wav

Star Wars (1979)(Scott Waldinger)(300 baud).wav

I tried to run them using MAME (0.268b, cartridge: AstroBASIC) via 300 Baud to 2000 Baud Tape Conversion Program (Jay Fenton), but after successfully downloading the conversion program and pressing GO the main 300-baud program does not start loading.

 

Can anyone help us learn how to load these programs into MAME? And is it possible to load listings from text files into MAME?

 

P.S. And if anyone knows of any other Star Wars games besides those listed, we would appreciate it if you let us know.

 

 

[ballyalley]

2 hours ago, Sightsaber said:

My friend and I decided to play through every Star Wars video game we could, including the unofficial ones. Today we have about 150 unofficial SW games (and several dozen more await us ahead).

 

I tried to run them using MAME (0.268b, cartridge: AstroBASIC) via 300 Baud to 2000 Baud Tape Conversion Program (Jay Fenton), but after successfully downloading the conversion program and pressing GO the main 300-baud program does not start loading.

 

Can anyone help us learn how to load these programs into MAME? And is it possible to load listings from text files into MAME?

 

For some reason, I had to approve your message, which I did now.

 

Playing every Star Wars game?!?  That sounds impossible, but fun.  I can hardly believe you even found the Astrocade Star Wars-inspired games.

 

You may have better luck posting this message to the Bally Alley discussion forum, here:

 

https://groups.io/g/ballyalley

 

The BASIC conversion program doesn't work in MAME.  However, MAME does natively support loading 300-Baud programs-- but it isn't self-explanatory.  Post this message to the above group and someone can probably walk you through it.

 

Adam

[Sightsaber]

Thanks for the advice! I'll try to write there.

[ballyalley]

On 9/2/2024 at 9:18 AM, Sightsaber said:

Can anyone help us learn how to load these [300-BAID Bally BASIC] programs into MAME? And is it possible to load listings from text files into MAME?

 

This post on the BallyAlley discussion group should help you figure out how to load a 300-BAUD Bally BASIC game in MAME:

 

https://groups.io/g/ballyalley/message/21602

 

You may get more helpful hints in the above thread if you read it from the beginning.  If you're still having trouble, then ask us about it there.

 

Good luck... and have fun!

 

Adam

[Sightsaber]

Thank you very much, the instructions in the link helped!

The main problem was that the "tape recorder" had to be added to the slot ctrl3.

[ballyalley]

3 hours ago, Sightsaber said:

Thank you very much, the instructions in the link helped!

The main problem was that the "tape recorder" had to be added to the slot ctrl3.

 

So, you got the 300-Baud interface in MAME to work?  Great!  Keep in mind that the colors in MAME are not accurate, although I'm not sure if this will affect these Bally BASIC games.

 

When you review the Astrocade Star Wars-inspired games, then please post a link to them here.

 

Adam