DracIsBack Posted February 24, 2002 Share Posted February 24, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Eckhard Stolberg: Some time ago I got two PAL copies of Crossbow in a trade. Both of them showed a similar problem like your Scrapyard Dog cartridges. So I decided to open one up. As it turned out it had the solder jumpers for the bankswitching wrong. Atari had closed jumper W1 instead of W2. Due to this the game wasn't able to switch to the proper graphics bank and would show random stuff from a different bank. After changing the jumpers the game worked as it should. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Speaking of CROSSBOW, any idea how they sucked up all that memory? The CROSSBOW cart was 144K, wasn't it? That makes it larger than SCRAPYARD DOG, COMMANDO, IKARI WARRIORS and MIDNIGHT MUTANTS and as large as ALIEN BRIGADE. All of those titles feature scrolling levels, background music and other cool things. How did the programmers waste so much space on CROSSBOW? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Atari Posted February 24, 2002 Author Share Posted February 24, 2002 You know, I just checked all the other 7800 pages, and I think this is the longest running 7800 post (as well as my longest running post)! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted February 24, 2002 Share Posted February 24, 2002 Notwithstanding that you could code the 7800 to produce tile-like fx the system had no RAM mapped display - bitmapped, tile or otherwise. My conjecture is that the 7800 is not lacking in performance, but its "way of working" was not what the software industry was set up for - and with no pressure to produce 7800 games - no advances or WOW fx ever appeared on the machine - it was a port box for 8bit games and old aracde titles (already on other 8bit systems)... My issue with the display hardware is the lack of indirection it posseses - For example a 5200 could simply change one byte -the screen pointer to change the entire screen, page flipping, not so on the 7800 I would have to have the system fetch new data into the line RAM line at a time. To smooth scroll vertically on the 5200 I only have to shift a few bytes - moving the video display over data in RAM - on the 7800 I have to move all the data through the line RAM (and thereby scroll the screen)... generally with low clock speeds - 8bit machine architecture favoured hardware sprites and hardware scrolling, character mapped modes and the like sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Atari Posted February 25, 2002 Author Share Posted February 25, 2002 quote: it was a port box for 8bit games and old aracde titles (already on other 8bit systems)... Exactly. Although most 7800 ports were passable, there were better versions of Ikari Warriors and Xevious to be found. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Atari Posted February 25, 2002 Author Share Posted February 25, 2002 quoteIt's funny, when I got my first copy of SCRAPYARD DOG it was defective (long annoying story about how I had to get ATARI to send a replacement I'll share it another time when we have an 'Atari's awful customer service' thread) Hey, I wanna hear it! I never had this problem, and I've been wondering what it was like in that situation. Please tell it dude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted February 25, 2002 Share Posted February 25, 2002 @ Jet Boot Jack: I agree with you that the 7800 hardware was quite different from anything else and that that was one of the reasons why it wasn't interesting for many programmers. But what I'm trying to point out is that the 7800 can be set up to act very similar to those other architectures in some respects, and that therefore your examples are chosen a bit unfortunately. For example you can easiely set up two Diplay List Lists in the RAM and then get page flipping by changing a single byte as well. While the 7800 only has screen RAM for two scanlines, writing to these lines is handled via DMA. The programmer only has to set up a description of where to read the data from for all the lines. And the 7800 does support an indirect character mode. You can set up an area in the RAM with 40x25 characters and have them displayed. So changing a single byte in this matrix will change a character or tile on the screen, just like it would on the other systems. Vertically scrolling such a display can also be done by changing only a couple of bytes, just like on the other consoles. But when it comes to horizontally scrolling the display, things become a bit different, so that is what you should have mentioned. And since for the 7800 everything is the same type of object, it gets really wierd when it comes to add independently moving sprites to such a scrolling tile-based background. This sure could scare off a programmer that is used to programming on the NES or C64. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg [ 02-25-2002: Message edited by: Eckhard Stolberg ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Night Phantom Posted February 26, 2002 Share Posted February 26, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Clint Thompson: Ball Blazer was a blast! I remember it being a 2 player only game though, or can you play the computer? You can play against a computer opponent, termed a “droid”—remember, this is a Lucasfilm game! The droids come in nine selectable levels of difficulty. Interestingly, you can set the droid to be either player 2 or player 1. In fact, you can set up both players as droids and watch them combat each other! (Think Robot Wars in Rotofoils! ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted February 26, 2002 Share Posted February 26, 2002 Eckhard, Its been a while since I had to code the 7800 I just remembered scrolling was a pig - guess I didn't remember what about it was so odd compared with what we had to do on the 8bit systems. I never experimented with the solutions you describe to the tile based issue. Was this a software approach Atari recommened or a system designed facility, ie a library or a microcode feature? I seem to remember lots of the issues raised by programmers were supplied as library's and code workarounds to convert stuff from 8bit/C64. One thing I did like was the ability to create 2D Display Lists, mix modes and pallettes on one scan line, rather than the just vertical ones the 8bit had... sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawgWyld Posted February 26, 2002 Share Posted February 26, 2002 quote: Originally posted by The Night Phantom: You can play against a computer opponent, termed a “droid”—remember, this is a Lucasfilm game! The droids come in nine selectable levels of difficulty. Interestingly, you can set the droid to be either player 2 or player 1. In fact, you can set up both players as droids and watch them combat each other! (Think Robot Wars in Rotofoils! ) And, the difficulty levels are great -- they range from very easy to "lay on the floor and cry, human." Great game all the way around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted February 26, 2002 Share Posted February 26, 2002 @ Jet Boot Jack: So you programmed for the 7800 back in the day? Did any of the games you worked on ever get released? Tile based graphics are a hardware feature in the 7800. For each of the objects that you put into a display list, you can chose between direct and indirect mode via a bit in the object header. In direct mode the data that the address pointer referenced is interpreted directly for setting up the scanline. In indirect mode the referenced data bytes are used as the low byte pointer into a character- or tile-set. The high byte for the character pointers has to be set through a special MARIA register. And as you might remember, if you set up a display list to cover more than one scanline, the high byte of the graphics pointer is decreased for every scanline. To get smooth vertical scrolling on the 7800, you can just set up a 1-line-zone in the invisible part at the top of the screen. Then you can increase the line counter for that zone, and when it has reached the tile hight, you just reset it to 1 and copy all the tiles one tile-line down. Horizontal scrolling is difficult, because the horizontal position is stored in the header of each object in each scanline-zone. So you have to update quite a lot of values which might be spead out irregularily over the RAM. And adding sprites to such a setup is difficult because vertical positioning is done by adding information about the object to each scanline-zone where the object is supposed to appear. If you have many moving objects, that can be quite difficult to handle. But the nice part, as you mentioned, is that you can use the 12 colour mode for the background tiles, so that you can define them all with the same header, and then use the 4 colour mode with a different palette for each sprite. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Thompson Posted February 26, 2002 Share Posted February 26, 2002 Back on BallBlazer for a second... now which one had the better graphics? 7800 version or the Atari 800? I had both versions at one time but I can't recall which had the sharper graphics (as far as your guy was concerned) everything else was exactly the same, as far as I can remember. I think this is also another reason I really didn't get into the 7800 too much (cept that you can play 7800 and 2600 games on it and it looked awesome) but the Atari 800 had 100's of games on it (I had a total of like 300) and they were GREAT! Disk Loading time, no big deal, games were great! good variety! Anyhow, just wondering which one had the better graphics Clint Thompson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted February 26, 2002 Share Posted February 26, 2002 Eckhard, I had a dev kit for quite a while back in '88 - I had sold several 8bit titles to Atari and was looking to do "real" console development. But found I found it awkward to program for, and Atari support useless - just not comitted to development I understand what you are refering to - the object modes, I must admit I precieved the system as a sprite engine only - every object, background or foreground was a sprite and we coded it that way (badly too!) sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Atari Posted February 26, 2002 Author Share Posted February 26, 2002 Wow, just being able to program then was (and is) an achievement. Perhaps if Atari wasn't so messed up, they would have hired you... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted February 27, 2002 Share Posted February 27, 2002 I (and my fellow team mates - Kevin and John) did freelance work for Atari UK - Contagion, Z-force for the 8bits and Paintz for the ST. Atari then pulled european development and all the work was for naught Contagion leaked out, but by that time I was running my own company (with some business partners) - Harlequin... Which is a whole other story of failure... sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Atari Posted February 27, 2002 Author Share Posted February 27, 2002 That's something I'd lke to do, program for a video game company. But I can't program and will probably never be able to. And if I did, the game would probably be pretty bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersaurus Posted February 28, 2002 Share Posted February 28, 2002 I merely want to say this much. NES Ballblazer SUCKS. The 7800 did a much better job, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Atari Posted March 1, 2002 Author Share Posted March 1, 2002 I haven't tried either. Yet. It seems pretty cool, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Atari Posted March 2, 2002 Author Share Posted March 2, 2002 BTW, would there be any way to modify the 7800 so it would play 5200 games as well? That would be sweet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Kay Posted March 2, 2002 Share Posted March 2, 2002 Where the heck on the net can I find a review with screen shots of NES Ballblazer... I've searched and searched and can't find anything useful about the NES version (just one unflattering review...) but I can find zillions of 5200/7800 resources for the game. I guess it just goes to show how loyal us Atarians are compared to those Nintendo-ites! Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted March 2, 2002 Share Posted March 2, 2002 NES Ballblazer shot... sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent X Posted March 3, 2002 Share Posted March 3, 2002 What the heck is that thing? Was that an "official" release somewhere in the world (I never saw it in the US, that's for sure), or just an underground hack? And was it actually played using that isometric perspective? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Atari Posted March 3, 2002 Author Share Posted March 3, 2002 I think a better question would be, was there any PAL only 7800 games? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Kay Posted March 3, 2002 Share Posted March 3, 2002 In response to the 7800 running 5200 games, Atari had planned a "Slam-pam" module that would allow the 7800 to play 5200 games... sort of like the 2600 adapter for the 5200. And yeah... was that isometric view the perspective on NES Ballblazer - I'm confused... Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted March 4, 2002 Share Posted March 4, 2002 Actually Joey Kay: The Slam Pam was an adapter that was being developed for the 5200 which was going to allow the 5200 to play 7800 games. Not the other way around. If Atari had completed and sold the Slam Pam...that would have made the 5200 the best console to purchase at the time! 2600,5200,and 7800 all in one box! Sweet! Too bad it was dumped like all the cool Atari R&D projects of the era... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted March 4, 2002 Share Posted March 4, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Joey Kay: In response to the 7800 running 5200 games, Atari had planned a "Slam-pam" module that would allow the 7800 to play 5200 games... sort of like the 2600 adapter for the 5200. And yeah... was that isometric view the perspective on NES Ballblazer - I'm confused... Cheers The isometric view in NES Ballblazer is (IIRC) a title sequence in that version. The game looks similar to the 7800 one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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