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In January 2024 there was a bit of discussion about games similar to Mario Kart: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/359151-another-youtube-video/?do=findComment&comment=5382710 That made me wonder what we could do on the TI. @TheMole linked to a demo on the MSX1 using the TMS9918A VDP, but I soon came to the conclusion that in order to produce something playable on the TI we needed help from the F18A. The F18A supports two types of bitmap layers that would be suitable for something like this: a 4 color bitmap with up to 256 horizontal pixels and a 16 color bitmap with up to 128 'fat' pixels. I decided on the latter in order to get a more colorful display. The image below is not included in the demo, but shows what the F18A is capable of. 3D view Mario Kart uses the ability of the SNES hardware to scale and rotate a 2D image to make it look like 3D (aka. Mode 7). The source images could be as big as 1024x1024 pixels. I thought the F18A GPU would be fast enough to do something similar, but where would I store the source image? The F18A has only 18K RAM, and a 1024x1024 bitmap would take 512K! And it takes 12K just to display a bitmap that covers the whole screen on the F18A, so after displaying the bitmap there would only be 6K left for the source image and everything else, like sprites and the GPU program. My first approach was to build the source image from 8x8 meta-tiles, which again consisted of standard 8x8 pixel characters/tiles (64 x 64 pixels in total). The meta-tile map for a 1024x1024 image would then only take 256 bytes, plus 1024 bytes to store 16 meta-tiles, plus the space to store the tiles they consisted of. However, my attempts to use this approach turned out to be way too slow for the GPU (drawing an image took several seconds). For my next approach I looked at Mario Kart, which has a 3D image at the top and an overview image at the bottom (also 3D but seen more from above). Maybe I could have a 2D overview image at the bottom of the screen and use that as the source image for the 3D image at the top of the screen? The source image would have a much smaller resolution than 1024x1024 (actually 128x128 fat pixels) so the 3D result would also be much more pixelated. But the transformation from one bitmap to another could be done much faster than the attempt to use meta-tiles. And it turned out to work even faster than I would have thought, actually more than 60 FPS when generating a 128x64 pixels 3D image. It took a lot of time to figure out how to make a proper 3D perspective transformation without any distortion such as fish-eye effects, but I'm not going into details about that here. The resolution wasn't bad either, although nowhere nearly as good as Mario Kart. At this point I had used 12K VDP RAM, plus some more for GPU code in the upper 2K RAM. Background I also wanted a horizontally scrolling background (trees, mountains) at the top of the 3D screen like in Mario Kart. I decided to do that using the normal tile mode and the hardware scrolling of the F18A rather than the bitmap layer in order to speed things up and perhaps save some VDP RAM. I had already used 192 vertical lines (64 lines for the 3D image and 128 lines for the source/overview image), but here the F18A ROW30 mode, which expands the vertical resolution to 240 pixels, came to my rescue, so the top 48 lines could be used for the background and to display other information like time and position. First I added a single layer with mountains, which took little VDP RAM since I only needed 16 characters/tiles plus 6 rows of the name table to implement this. Then I tried adding another layer using F18A TL2 with trees that scrolls at another speed, and I liked it so much I couldn't bring myself to remove it again. Unfortunately that took up much more VDP RAM since TL2 cannot be displayed below the bitmap layer, so I needed space for an additional, full name table, with mostly transparent tiles. All that used about 1.6K VDP RAM, so now I only had about 2.4K left. Still better than using the bitmap layer for background, which would have required about 2 times as much RAM. Sprites The last part of the graphics was to look at how to do the sprites for the player's karts, other karts, and other objects on the track. At first, I thought I could use hardware sprites for everything, but a single sprite pattern in 32x16 pixels 4 colors takes 128 bytes, and for any kind of reasonable 3D scaling effect I would need something like 16 patterns per angle per sprite. Already one sprite would take up the VDP RAM I had left, so I decided only to use hardware sprites for the player's kart, which consists of two magnified 16x16 sprites in 4 colors. The other sprites would have to be scaled and drawn on the 3D bitmap by the GPU. I could foresee two problems with that: firstly the GPU might not be fast enough to also draw the sprites, and secondly, since there was no VDP RAM left for double buffering, maybe the sprites would flicker horrible when the 3D image and the sprites were repeatedly drawn on top of each other? Back in the days scanline renderers, where everything was drawn one scanline at a time, were sometimes used, but I didn't want to go into that kind of trouble yet. But again, it turned out not to be a bad as I feared. Even though you see some flickering, it's not, for instance, hiding important details to the player. But how I wish I had some more VDP RAM to do some proper double buffering... The hardware sprites for the player's kart took 256 bytes for the patterns plus 128 bytes for sprite attributes, now there was only about 2K VDP RAM left for the software sprites. The current demo only includes 6 different software sprite patterns: 4 patterns for the other karts seen from different angles, one for the green oil drum, and one for the stack of tires. Together they take up about 1K, so there is still a bit of VDP RAM left to expand the demo, but not enough, for instance, to make different patterns for each kart. I also used hardware sprites for the top display of time, position, and laps, and for the small karts at the bottom of the screen. Interestingly, the F18A allows you to choose whether each sprite is 8x8 or 16x16 pixels, but the magnification setting is the same for all sprites, so the bottom sprites are magnified 8x8 sprites with very few pixels. What the TMS9900 is doing Although the F18A is continuously drawing the 3D image and the software sprites, there is plenty left for the TMS9900 to do: Reading the joystick Moving the player on the track Updating attributes for hardware sprites Checking that you stay on track Moving the other karts "Uploading" kart data to the VDP Playing sound and music Speech For the player's kart movement I asked in the forum (https://forums.atariage.com/topic/362756-physics-model-for-car/#comment-5425008) and @sometimes99er suggested this approach https://github.com/pakastin/car, which I adopted. All numbers are stored as 8.8 fixed point numbers, where the most significant byte contains the integer part. To move the other karts, I created a low resolution version of the map, where each byte value determines a direction of 8 at that position, whether it's inside the track, and whether it's a checkpoint. In addition to that, each other kart has a base speed and a setting for how much it drifts. This is enough to move the karts around the track for the demo, but hardly enough to make them interesting opponents. So a lot more work would be required to change this from a graphics demo into an exciting game. And here is a video of the current demo, which looks much better on real hardware. You will also find the demo in https://js99er.net under Software/F18A specific, or use the attached file on your real hardware. The source code is available from https://github.com/Rasmus-M/f18a-karts karts8.bin

Good gentlemen, I think you can find this important -or at least, appealing: https://www.atariteca.net.pe/2024/04/inminente-lanzamiento-de-mikie-para.html

Missile Command Arcade is another new game utilizing VBXE! Missile Command Arcade uses disassembled code from the arcade version of Missile Command. Combined with VBXE, this allows for a (near) arcade perfect experience on your Atari 8bit computer. Since the internal timing for the arcade version of Missile Command is 60Hz, this runs best for NTSC systems, as it will run slower on PAL, including sound effects and trackball response. I do not have a VBXE for my Atari 800XL, so I have only tested this with Altirra. If somebody with a VBXE, NTSC Atari, and trackball would like to help with testing, please DM me. You can change default settings in the menu screen using the Select button (F3 in Altirra) to choose which option to change and use the Option button (F4 in Altirra) to choose which option you would like to use. Note that if you choose trackball, you will need to use a trackball or else movements will be unpredictable. You can use the fire button (on a joystick or trackball) to fire from the base closest to the cursor. You can also use keyboard keys Z X C for firing from the 3 bases individually. In order to run with Altirra, you will have to configure a few things: 1) Go to System->Configure System. Set your system to NTSC by going to Computer->System->Video Standard. Next, go to Peripherals->Devices. Then click Add and scroll down to "Internal Devices" and select VideoBoard XE (VBXE) then OK. Keep the default settings (Core version FX 1.26 and Base Address of $D600-$D6FF) and click OK (Missile Command Arcade also works at $D700). Then click OK one more time to exit the setup for devices. 2) Missile Command has a resolution of 256x231 and Altirra normally cuts off the display at 224 lines (or so), so you will have to extend the display to see the bottom scrolling text and the "LOW" and "OUT" messages for the bases. Click View->Overscan Mode and set it to Extended (or Full with Blanking if the bottom scrolling line is cut off). 3) You have the option of using a trackball, so you will optionally need to also configure a trackball in Altirra. Under Input->Input Mappings, click Add. Then rename the default name for the mapping (it should default to something like Input Map XX) to Trackball. Then double click on the Trackball mapping that you just added and you will get a pop up for Edit Input Map. Click Add Controller. Under the Controller pulldown, choose Trak-Ball (CX80) - it's the last choice. Leave the defaults for Port 1 and click OK. You will then be at the Edit Input Map popup. Double click on Axis 1. For Source, select "Mouse Move Horiz". For Mode, change to Relative. Next move the Speed slider to 10 and leave Acceleration at 0. Click OK. Next double click on Axis 2. Change the source to "Mouse Move Vert" and the Mode to Relative and once again change the Speed slider to 10. Click OK. Now change the Button 1 assignment to a key for the trackball fire button. Double click on Button 1. For source click "Key: Left Ctrl" (or whatever key you want). Click OK twice. Now unselect any input devices that may have already been selected and check the box next to your next Trackball Input mapping. Then click close. Attached are .XEX, .ROM, and 16K .CAR versions of the game. Enjoy! Eric Anschuetz, Robert Anschuetz, John Weisgerber Missile Command Arcade.car Missile Command Arcade.rom Missile Command Arcade.xex

I've already shipped a thousand machines recently to the US with updated dumper 1.1.0.9 and firmware exp version 3. However, there is a much improved dumper and firmware version coming soon. There has been some movement today on it as we've been stuck for a few weeks on regresions that couldnt be explained, but the guys have just figured out whats gone wrong. On a daily basis I think about three main areas of improvement for the 2600+. 1. Close dialogue with raz0red and friends on improving the firmware and dumper. We've seen big improvements here with beta releases and the latest is a doozy, we hope to get this out soon. 2. Work with the factory on a redesign of the IO PCB to update the dumper and controller MCU into one MCU and also change the socket design 3. Recently I've got someone looking at the re-writing the whole update process from scratch with the view to make it a more seamless, more professional branded process including Windows, Linux and MAC platforms. He says its all theoretically possible and has looked through everything, reported back deep feedback and made progress in compiling, but till I go through it and do it myself its all theory and ideas. If only I could just wave a magic wand and have these things resolved I would. I always think about what the hell I can do to make things better as quickly as possible...then I realise the guys Albert kindly introduced me to... Chris, Mike and Fred, these guys have no peers in their fields, have improved everything they have touched with the 2600+ and I just need to encourage further co-operation. Kind of the same story with the factory that makes the hardware and the guy looking at the update.

@kiwilove and I worked on this quite some time ago, but it was sidelined for various reasons. We've picked it up again and hope to make something playable from it. Your task is to destroy all the turrets on the dreadnought, collect a hostage and return to the launch bay. This is complicated by a host of different enemies attacking you. Use the joystick to move your ship, left trigger to fire and right trigger to flip direction. If you destroy a dragon, it will be followed by a pickup that you can collect: S = Shield boost P = Protector W = Weapon upgrade The game finishes when your shield is fully depleted. There will be 7 dreadnoughts in total, but I've only sequenced the first 2 so far. ttda_0.1.a78 ttda_0.1.bin

Step into the monochromatic and mind-bending universe of Shift, where black and white landscapes hide more than meets the eye! This is a preview release. It contains the first 10 levels of the game. It is missing a few features (e.g. sound effects), and very likely contains bugs. Get it from here: https://h4plo.itch.io/shift

1012 days 2 years, 9 months, 8 days Jumping at Shadows is BETA-1! Let the testing commence. COMING TO THE ATARI JAGUAR IN 2024!

Yes, there was a final build shared internally last week but there were a few regressions and they are being fixed and then released to public.

I've been holding out on you guys - been secretly working on a racing game. My first 7800 game actually. It's an overhead racing game, done in 320B mode with a minimalist graphical look (more or less necessitated by the choice of 320B mode). You can do fullscreen 1 player mode vs the computer or split screen head-to-head 2 player mode. There's 3 cars total in each race, so in 1 player mode, there will be 2 CPU opponents, and in 2 player mode there will be 1. One interesting thing to note is that you can collide with the other cars. That means you can do things like run them into the wall to try to gain an advantage (which I recommend doing because it's fun if nothing else). There's 4 levels of difficulty. I recommend starting out on easy mode, because even easy mode is probably gonna be a bit of a challenge until you get the hang of the tracks. Speaking of which, there's 4 tracks total at the moment. That may be all I do because my current dev board (made from an old Choplifter cart) only goes up to 32K and I'm right at about 32K right now. I'd probably want to build a new dev board if I were gonna go higher. The controls are left/right to steer and button 1 to accelerate. There's no brakes because the car slows down quickly enough as-is and nobody uses brakes anyway. There's a couple other features and things I haven't mentioned, but enough text for now - here's some screenshots and a ROM file. Have at it and feel free to let me know what you think. racers.zip

Just on the update process, I've got someone looking at it at the moment. I've read every post and understand the situation. I've sketched out what I want it do and the developer is looking at how it could be done. I'll post here on this regularly and share developments.

L U N A E X P L O R E R In the early 80's one of my favorite arcade games was MOON PATROL by Irem. That was, until Atarisoft / Williams did a conversion for the TI99/4a. What a disappointment that was, I don't know if the programers were not given enough time and resources or if they were just lazy. I used to joke that I could do better in BASIC. Well, 42 years later and now in my 70's, with the help of classic99 and Harry Wilhelm's XB256 (I used nearly all of his SubPrograms) and StevB's MuseScore4a for the tunes. I may have come close to it. Luna explorer is a Moon Patrol clone written in XB256 extended & expanded BASIC. It runs on CLASSIC 99 WITH CPU OVERDRIVE ON! (unless you enjoy slide shows). Does it run on a real machine? I haven't got a clue. There are 5 files below: LUNAEXPLORER.TXT IS THE extended BASIC listing that can be copied & pasted into Classic99/XB256. XB256 MUST loaded and overdrive on. LUNAEXP_REM.TXT is the same text file but with all my original REM statements in place so that if you want to, you can 'follow along at home' This file is TOO LARGE and will not run due to OUT OF MEMORY MESSAGES. LUNA4-X is the compiled & assembled version on the game with an XB loader. XB256 not required. load with OLD DSKx.LUNA4-X then RUN with OVERDRIVE OFF. LUNACART.BIN and LUNA-G.BIN are both compiled & assembled versions in CARTRIDGE format. OVERDRIVE OFF Here are the files and some screenshots: all the best, Syd Michel TI User Group UK member LUNA-G.BIN LUNA4-X LUNACART.BIN LUNAEXPLORER.txt LUNAEXP_REM.txt

They told you that Atari 400 8KB RAM cannot operate on files... Well, you have an example: A game that has speech synthesis, music and decompresses data while loading (xBIOS). more about the game: You are a pebble - you can choose the origin of the pebble in the game options - and you have to break as many windows as possible. I am planning more elements in the game so that at the end we can see the devastated players and hear the laments of their shocked wives.

All, @InsaneMultitasker and I contacted Custodio Malilong who developed the Nano PEB and CF7 devices for the TI-99/4A to check what his current state was on development for the product. Custodio has given his permissions to release the source files to the Nano PEB as he is no longer working on it or making updates. So it is with great pleasure that Insane and I release the files we obtained from him to help anyone wanting to develop or improve or just see the method behind his madness. Enjoy! nanoPEB.s nanoSIO.s T16C550C.zip

Caterpillar colors: 77 plus src Atari8man_Pal_Caterpillar.xex Atari8man_NTSC_Caterpilla.xex

So my console and games arrived yesterday and I have never seen my son so excited - not even on Christmas. This morning, I go to the lounge to find this: The funny thing is he hasn't shown a massive interest in games until now. He does like to play whatever I'm playing (which is kind of annoying, lol) but this is the first time he's actively booted up a console to have a go himself. LOVES Mr. Run & Jump!

I had been looking at easing back into the 8bit Atari scene for a while and when this popped up on Ebay. The seller says it was all stored in an attic and probably doesn't have more than 20 or so hours use on it. When they sent me a discounted offer...I took it. I got everything in the picture for $199.00. Whatcha think? PS Assuming it all works, I guess an Incognito would be a good route to take?

Hi I want to share my most recent project: Robo Tito (a.k.a Tito el robotito contra los fantasmas) It is a jumpless platformer where you control Tito, a robot that can't jump, but he can stretch to reach platforms and hang from them. Due to a programming error in his system, he is allergic to scary things. To his misfortune he is trapped in a place infested with scary things (zombies, ghosts, bats, skulls), so he have to look for an exit, avoiding to touch those spooky stuff. I have tested it on Stella and on actual hardware. But as always testing and feedback would be appreciated. FIRST DEMO Robotito Demo 1 SECOND DEMO Robotito Demo 2 DEMO 3 - More rooms - Cosmetic changes - Redesign some rooms and game mechanics. Robotito Demo 3 ntsc Robotito Demo 3 PAL RELEASE CANDIDATE 1 Robotito RC1 ntsc Robotito RC1 PAL

Cherries colors: 60 plus src Atari8man_NTSC_Cherries.xex Atari8man_Pal_Cherries.xex

I made a youtube video of it in action:

Hi everyone. I've been working in this game but not for making a cartridge. It's one of the games that will appear with full source code in my next book Stay tuned for more info!

Hi All, I have been busy with Dm2k the past few weeks and today I release version 4.0 of Dm2k in three variaties: Dm2k - Nothing new, just cleaned up the code and added a little progress bar as in Gdm2. Dm2k80 - Same functionality as Dm2k but with two file lists. You need an 80 column card or F18A video processor and a SAMS memory for this program. This program functions (almost ) the same as Gdm2k. Dm2kts - Just a test/debug version of Dm2k which also displays the file timestamps for storage devices which can handle this option like WDS, TIPI and IDE (not the default yet). You need an 80 column card or F18A video processor for this program. When reading a directory of a storage device the record length is normally 38 bytes (filename (10+1) and 3 values filetype (8+1), record length (8+1) and program size (8+1). For a storage device that also handles file timestamps the record length is 146 (filename, filetype, record length, program size and creation time/date (6 values x (8+1) (hour, minute, second, day, month, year) and last update time/date (6 values x (8+1) (hour, minute, second, day, month, year). For my TI99/4A and Geneve system I found for the following device these default record lengths: TI99/4A Geneve GPL mode DSK1 38 DSK1 (hdc) 146 HDX1 38 HDX1 38 IDE1 38 IDE1 38 DSK0 (tipi) 146 - - WDS1 146 - SCS1 38 Mainscreen of Dm2k80. These programs can be downloaded here: https://hexbus.com/ti99geek/Projects/dm2k/dm2k.html#dm2k or here. The ZIP file also contains binary files (.bin) for the FlashRom or FinalGrom99. Enjoy. dm2k_v40.zip

Once again, the Mq-workshop team is preparing a fan version of the game. This time it will be the game Dude Story by @Mq. The boxed version of the game will be released on a cartridge. The cartridge software will include a language version selection menu (you can run the game in English or Polish). The final version of the game on the cartridge has all the corrections, and the latest version also includes a short intro with information about the purpose of the game. The graphic design of the box and other printing elements is prepared by the invaluable @bocianu. His graphics perfectly reflect the atmosphere of the game. I (@Mq.) am responsible for the production of electronics, assembly and distribution. I've included mockups of what the box and cartridge will look like below. These are design graphics for now, actual photos will be added later. In the box you will find: - game cartridge (with gold-plated contacts, in the best housings available on the market, manufactured by Sikor-Soft) - manual user instructions - large double-sided poster with a game map - an additional surprise gadget related to the game The price of the game is $49, (plus $9 shipping costs). You can sign up for pre-order by sending me an e-mail, PM, or simply a message in this thread. The game should be available for shipping in the second half of May. Once the game is available, I will contact everyone individually via PM with payment and shipping information. A few screenshots from the game: Here is the original extensive thread about the game itself: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/307126-dude-story-wip

Hello, many moons ago, when my wife was playing with packaging options, she made this cool prototype. This was quickly rejected, far too expensive and too much work, so this is one of a kind. I'll probably auction it off soon, or she can do it herself, she said she has another different one somewhere. LOL Ignore the device attached, that is a custom SaveKey reader/writer I built for myself, just using it to power the SK. Enjoy, -R

https://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-4.30-test8.zip https://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-4.30-test8-src.7z Debugger: Added SIOREPLY logging channel. Devices: Added support for external audio test in the SuperSALT test assembly. ANTIC: Fixed virtual DMA cycle data when overlapping refresh on a system with data bus pull-ups. UI: Window caption is less spastic in turbo. Display: Added color correction modes for targeting displays that use pure 2.2/2.4 gamma instead of sRGB. Display: Fixed incorrect gamma in some cases with HDR or Adobe RGB. Disk: The "Show disk image file" option now works with images mounted from within .zip files. PerfAnalyzer: Can now import monitor traces from Atari800 5.2.0.

Prompted by the passing of John Walker (see the recent RIP John Walker thread), I've put together a summary of the surviving software. It can be found here: https://gitlab.com/marinchip The main entry point is the "emu" repo, which has an emulator and images, to experience his work in context. The other repos contain cross-development setups for the various packages with surviving and reconstructed source code. Maybe it makes sense to have this in the WHTECH archive as well. John's work may be interesting for developers of new 9900-based systems, as it provides an instant software stack, even to small designs. There are two operating systems, MDEX and NOS/MT, that are compatible. The smaller one is only about 8KB in size and when used with a system with 32KB to 64KB of RAM can run nearly all of the software. Being so small, its assembler source code is easy to understand and modify. MDEX was the first OS to run on the mini-Cortex, when it still was a breadboard system. The larger one is more Unix-like in its design, although it also borrows ideas from other systems (notably Dijkstra's "THE"). This one needs at least 128KB and banking hardware in order to run and is a multi-user system. Among the interesting software packages are "Window", a surprisingly usable and capable full screen editor and "QBasic", a native code compiler compatible with the well-known CBasic from CP/M. There is also "SPL", a native code compiler for a language similar to PL/M, and a Pascal compiler which is both faster and smaller than the p-code system. I owe a big thank you to John Walker, Dave Hunter, Jim Hearne (@jimhearne), Stuart Conner (@stuart) and especially Stephen Pelc who were all instrumental in preserving and restoring so much material. Also, @ksarul is the custodian of a working Marinchip 9900 system. Maybe some more source code will be found or recreated in future, who knows.

Sun King colors: 41 plus src Atari8man_PAL_Sun_King.xex Atari8man_NTSC_Sun_King.xex

Innermost Secrets Of TI-99/4A by Randy Holcomb This was originally a series of articles in the Computer Shopper, and it was reprinted in booklet format, and I didn't see any good copy of it on the Internet, so decided to test out my Canon MF3010 scanner in seeing how well it makes a PDF, as I have a number of printed items, including some of my own source code only in paper format, so I wanted to do a test run to see how well I can scan a number of pages and do an OCR if possible on them. Looking forward to any experts out there on suggestions on what are good settings or software to use for the equipment I have which currently is just a Canon MF3010 and sadly can only manually do one page at time. In the meantime, enjoy this PDF of this booklet which is good beginner guide to using the VDP and file DSR for assembly language programmers out there that want to get started coding on the TI-99/4a computers. 🥰 TI99-InnermostSecrets.PDF

Recently I had less time for coding, but I managed to prepare the fourth version of WIP demo. The following features have been introduced: New kind of field which block manipulation of time. The hero cannot pause or reverse when touches this field. But he can do it again after leaving the restricted area. A surprise action at the end of level. Some levels may have a special action after taking all hourglasses. In the example shown, force fields are activated. By the way, in this level a new color scheme can be seen. Hero's resurrection counter. Sometimes I wonder how often the hero has to be resurrected to complete a level. Now, after completing a level, this information is displayed. Updated title screen and added Deluxe Edition label. I'm not sure if this image will be the final title screen... Czech language with translation prepared by @DaveMacBlack - thanks a lot! I will also try to provide an updated level editor soon.

Hourglass colors: 34 plus src Atari8man_Hourglasspng.xex

I've continued to work on graphics for the conversion I've envisioned (hybrid Apple II 1985 / Mac v1.2 1991) off and on; as well as what graphics to base various portions of the game on. I was able to extract all graphics files from the DOS version from 1990, which is basically the Apple II 1985 version with graphics converted to suit VGA. I can't say I'm overly thrilled with the quality of the graphics, anymore than with the Apple II 1985 version; but I haven't tossed them off entirely. My Matt's general-store character here is an adaptation from that version; but I'm not sure I wouldn't want to refine the looks of him further.

1) corrected DLI interrupts... the atari800 emulator does not fully correctly emulate the number of available cycles on DLI... and these interrupts overlapped... corrected... it should now work on the atari800 emulator 2) fixed flashing of 1 line near the benches in LOCKER ROOM 3) NTSC unlocked... although the title screen is flashing... we will fix it later Finding error no. 1) is thanks to my colleague MONO... he should be thanked mikie v1.09.obx mikie v1.09.atr

I've put the latest version of the firmware live, so grab it if you want to. It improves CD support in that WTR, VidGrid and other games which were not previously working now run, but reliability is still sketchy. There is also memory track support for CD game saves. I'm really not sure if there's anything more I can do to improve reliability. As mentioned before, doing things on the Jaguar which really make no sense have helped, which really does lead me to believe this part of the Jaguar is just broken. Much like the UART. It also tallies with the fact that the JaguarCD add-on is very unreliable -- the reality may be that the Jaguar may well be half of the problem. I'll continue to see if there's anything more I can do, but this may be as good as it gets.

It's just Jagchris, the forum trogladyte who has been told by Duranik he's wrong but keeps talking crap. This guy just put out a really positive video regarding the Jaguar, which was cool as most bash on it... and what happens? ArseChris posts negativity and whinging in the comments. God forbid anyone does anything nice and positive for the system. I'd suggest everyone go and give this guy a like and a follow just to offset the shithead factor Arsechris put there and give him some encouragement. @JagChris you are a c*nt. Grow the fu*k up. You should be utterly ashamed of youself, your actions and the people you surround yourself with. Idiots like yourself are totally responsible for spreading the negativity towards the Jaguar. Just fu*k off. Oh and feel free to report this post, the more moderators that understand what a pile of human garbage you are the better.

As some of you are aware, each year the french RGC association organise a few conventions. Las WE, it was the AC (formerly known as Jaguar Connexion and for a very brief moment Atari Connexion, now it is just AC where the A means what you want to read : Atari, Amstrad, Amiga, Alternative, Avocado, ...) And each year since 2009, during the AC, there is a speed coding contest, open for every retro coder. The goal is to make a game in 24 hours, on an old console, with a given theme, and a given constraint. This year the theme was in relation with the 20th birthday of the RGC association, and we had to make a Party Game, the constraint was quite obvious : including at least one member of the RGC team inside the game. The speed coding last a bit more that 24 hours (minus the time for eating, sleeping, discussing with nice people and other useless activities). I chosed to code for the Jaguar, with the awesome JagStudio. To be compliant with the theme, it is a 8 players game (after all, the more we are at a party game, the best it could be), with some mini games inspired by board and card party games. So it requires 2 Team Tap (fortunately I have them) and 8 jagpads (fortunately, @Zerosquare and @RadiATIon lent me 4 of them for the public demo). The theme is to collect the biggest amount of video game cartridges (= points), and all games are retrogaming related. Sorry for the bad picture quality, they are taken from my old CRT TV. To be compliant with the constraint, I chosed to make a tricky selection menu (which was probably a good idea only on paper, as it took me lots of time to implement). There are 20 physical cards, where each one represent a RGC staff member, of a usual speed coder. Each card has the pseudo, a number to enter with the num pad, and should have a special power to activate in the game. But I did not have time to implement the special power part (hence the bad idea), so it is just drawinf a physical card, and entering the code to associate Jagpad with the avatar. I will give during the post the kind of super power that were expected. Of course, there is a leaderboard screen. I expected to code 2 or 3 mini games, I finally have 3.9 of them (the 4th one is just missing the end condition and points display), which is not too bad in 24 hours. So, here are the games, with a 2 players game (which is not a good idea, being 3 is probably the minimum as with 2 players, games 1, 3 a 4 will give same amount of points to each player): 1/ The compatibility test The games displays 9 randomly selected retro consoles, and a theme. Each player must chose the 3 consoles that in his opinion fits the theme the better. Right now, themes are in french, the one is the exemple is "Forgotten ?" Each time 2 players at least have chosen the same console, they get points. Of course, the more players chose 1 console, the more they will get points. In the exemple, Odie and Icemen both think the PCFX is a forgotten console, so they get 20 points. (note the nice 70's tablecloth ) 2/ The Congis sur Thérouane Flea Market The whole team is going to a flea market, and they visits stands one after the other. There are 2 types of stands: ones that have cartridges, and threats. The threats represnet events that occured to the RGC during during these 20 years : Atari Advocate (they got a kind of C&D letter to not use the word Atari inside the name Atari Connexion), the diseases (SARS, Covid) that led to cancel some conventions, and the city hall letters, because from time to time, relations with city can be hard (the date of a convention had to be postponed, ...). After each stand, the players chose to leave (they secure their loot but will get nothing more) or continue. Players who chose to lease also share the leftovers cartridges. So, if the stand is full of cartridges, they are shared between remaing players, and the rest is put aside-in this exemple, there were 5 cartridges, so 2 for each player and 1 put aside): The game continue until all players have left, of 3 threats of the same kind are encountered. Players that are still active lose their loot... In this example, Odie is leaving (and will get his 10 cartridges + 2 leftovers) whil Icemen is brave and decide to continue, even if 2 letters from the City have been encountered. If a third one occur, he will lose everything. (special power power could be to be immunised to the 3rd threat of a kind, but still vulnerable to the 4th one) 3/ We are all friends, let's make gift distribution One again, 9 random consoles are displayed, and each player must chose the one he would like to receive as a gift, and the one he really don't want to receive. Then every player will secretly offer 1 console (and can offer a given console only once) to every other player. And gifts are revealed, if someone has offer to another player his preferred console, both will get 10 points, if he offered the unwanted one, they get -10 points (one speaical power would be for a compulsive collector that get 5 points even if people offer hime the unwanted one). Here, Odie has offered Iceman a Jaguar which is obviously the gift of choice for every tasteful collector, they both get 10 points. As the 4th game is not completed, here is the "final" leaderboard. AS Iceman lost everything in the flea market game, Odie won(as said before, they can only get same amount of points in games 1 & 3) 4/ The pixel drawing game One player is randomly selected as the designer, he chose a keyword between 9 displayed on screen and must represent it on a 8x8 pixels grid, and 4 colors (white, default background, Red for C button, Blue for B button and Black for A button) Other player have only 1 try to find good answer. What do you think Icemen tried to draw in these examples ? So, what's the status of the game, it is barely playable as we manage to make a 8 players games during the convention. There are some flaws and enhancement to do before an eventual release (from the most important to the less urgent): - 4th game needs to be completed, - timer pause between actions are probably too long, especially in the gift reveal phase, - the character selection screen is not appropriate and need to be reworked, - rework assets definition (to save time, everything is in 16 bits which is a pity for memory but a big time save) - interface in mini games can be greatly enhanced, - adding sort in the Leaderboard, - adding option to freely play only 1 mini game, - adding kind of hub (think of the boardgame part in Mario Party) - probably change all assets as right now, if features Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, Atari, ... consoles, games & characters. Not sure this is a good thing. Also, it is very RGC team related so not everyone could understand relation between name and avatar. This is far more job than the initial 24h run.

Hi, I am pleased to announce that the Vortex AtOnce-386SX emulator has been reverse-engineered and reproduced. I found the type of FPGA used and read the information from the protected GAL chip. All of this was possible thanks to very generous donors tIn and GGN. Hats off to them and many thanks for providing the devices. tIn sent the DIP version and GGN sent the PLCC version. For now, this is the DIP version for the Atari ST and MegaST. A PCB for the PLCC version for the Atari MegaSTe is on the way. When I finish all the work on the project - the documentation of both versions will be published on the www - as always - for free. Cheers tOri

If anyone is interested, I'll share the overlay I recreated to work on the Atari 2600+ as soon as I make certain it fits correctly. Edit: I did move the On / Off wording to the other side of the switch after I printed this one.

Hi everyone, maybe it's a crazy idea, but I just opened a jam for the Jaguar over on itch.io. I kindly asked @Songbird and @ctrl_alt_rees to join me in looking at the final games and deciding the winner, and I'll even throw in 200 bucks for the first place. Well, you can read all about it over here: https://itch.io/jam/jagjam2024 Looking forward to your entries. Cheers!

Check out my new song BÄNG BÄNG! Samples from my old Atari 600XL have been used here, just can't get enough of those $C sounds! The song is called BÄNG BÄNG - the lyrics are in Finnish and talk about shooting bullets of love instead of the lethal kind... Hope you enjoy it!

Just a heads up if anyone needs a reasonably priced replacement power supply. www.atarirepairparts.com has them for $15.

I was finally able to get some good snaps of my 20" PVM. Here's some of the better ones.

Please note: these will not run as posted in finalgrom99 or classic99. I will tomorrow release a XB3 v3.11 that works perfectly for both finalgrom99 and classic99 missing the extra pop-cart features. Also I am working on a version for UberGROM as well that include more of it but it will still be missing the SOB part.

Absolutely not. In fact I've been quiet recently on AA cause I've got confidence it whats happining with software and generally with product pipeline for the 2600+. Its just that at launch and shortly thereafter I was hectic in posting on AA cause there was so many fires to put out. But now taking stock, its been a success and all parties involved are planning software updates and new products. Think about it, my bosses want me to outperform the 2600+ launch in FY23 next year, and only way to do that is to present product to market that you guys actually want to buy. All of your three bullets points are things we have been working on. As soon as the software devs are comfortable with a software build I'll release it. Same with new product, soon as the deals are done and the assets are made, we'll announce. I wish I could do it all tomorrow but it rarely works out like that.

Been BETA-testing the new (unreleased) firmware I can confirm: No more failed USB transfers (Hooray!) An EEPROM save is now created correctly when a file is sent via USB (Hooray again!!) and.......

I think this is one of my best ever. I can't wait to go view it on the 20" PVM. 53 Colours Stephen_BlueButterfly.xex

55 colours - 1 Billion iterations Stephen_BluePhoenix.xex

Hi all. After thinking about it a lot, I've decided on a way to implement bank-switching on CVBasic! Bank-switching is supported for Colecovision with Megacart-style banking, for SG1000 using Sega mapper ($fffe), and for MSX using ASCII16 mapper. Again all the platform details are handled by CVBasic, you only need to code the best possible program 😉 What can you code in 1 MB of ROM? Changes in v0.5.0: * New statements BANK ROM (for selection ROM size from 128K, 256K, 512K, or 1MB!), BANK to select a bank for following code/data, and BANK SELECT to select a bank to access. * Added example bank.bas for basic usage of BANK. * New statement SPRITE FLICKER ON/OFF. * Optimization of code generation for NEXT. * Optimization of several 8-bit and 16-bit operations in common usage (typically saving hundreds of bytes in medium-size programs) * Added patch to make SG1000 compilations compatible with SC3000. Enjoy it! Edit: Book now available! Programming Games for Colecovision (250 pages, paperback) from lulu.com you can see also a preview video Edit2: Hardcover now available! And also ebook. cvbasic_v0.5.0.zip

Flame - 56 colours Stephen_Flame.xex

I'm going to ask my graphic designer to make some proper manuals for Berzerk and Mr Run and Jump next week, he's the guy that did the online ones and all 2600+ packaging artwork and marketing assets. I'll share the pdfs.