Chimera for Dummies? Please.

[Blackjack]

Ok, I've been reading 2 threads about Chimera..... one for a cartridge and one for a console.

 

Would someone please explain exactly what either (or both) would be/do for just a gamer like me.

 

Don't use words and acronyms like SRAM, RIOT, TIA, ARM, 6507, SuperFX chip, etc. (or at least be VERY explanitory)

I, and others, have no idea what these things are.

 

 

If I'm understanding correctly.........

 

The Chimera Cartridge would be able to hold games (programmed to take advantage of it), that would surpass

the current abilities of the 2600.

 

The Chimera Console would be a 2600 with the ability to load roms into it like having a built in flash cart.

 

 

Is this accurate?

[mos6507]

That's right. It's a multicart and an "expansion system" for the VCS.

 

When end-users first buy a Chimera you're really just going to be using it as a multicart. It will be a while before any games start using the new features.

[Blackjack]

ok..... very cool!

 

What added capabilities (speak gamer, not programmer will it have?

[mos6507]

What added capabilities (speak gamer, not programmer will it have?

 

 

 

It has two expansion ports which can use the following autodetected "dongles":

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

-Dual-serial

--Enables multiplayer networking

 

-Controller port

--Includes dedicated separate AtariVox channel, so AtariVox never ties up a port

--Enables automatic paddle reading for fancier paddle games

 

-Dual PS/2

--Supports keyboard and mouse (or trackball)

 

-PC gameport (requires both expansion ports)

--Supports two analog PC joysticks plus MIDI

 

 

So games can request any combination of two dongles (except for gameport which requires both ports at once to operate).

 

------

 

Chimera is a RAM cart. All games run from RAM like the Supercharger but it has a LOT more RAM to work with, and can use it in a faster, more traditional way than other RAM schemes. So just as RAM enabled bitmap games like Suicide Mission, or RPGs like Dragonstomper, expect to be able to more along those lines.

 

VCS games also have access to the fast CPU in the cartridge. It will (in software) emulate some of the things that Pitfall II does (and more), and act as a bridge between the VCS and the expansion devices. So the coprocessor helps free up the VCS in order to make fuller use of its existing graphics and sound. So expect to see more sprites per screen, less flicker, more playfields mixed with sprites, more color changes, more frames of animation, lots of scrolling, and multichannel PCM audio (could be as many as 6 channels).

 

Beyond that, it's up to developers to figure out once they play around with it for a while. But one thing it should be able to do that wouldn't otherwise be possible is to run games entirely out of a bitmap. This is what Suicide Mission does. So imagine something like Battlezone or Red Baron 3D vectors rendered down to a Suicide Mission type display. Maybe even a flickery/dithered Wolfenstein 3D. It will also be able to render the full 8x8 Atari home computer character set against bitmaps. It will use this feature specifically for the internal menuing system.

[Blackjack]

Wow........ Sounds awesome.

 

And thanks for simplifying the language for me

[MausGames]

So will there be a 1/1 ratio of cartridges and games produced for the Chimera, or will most games and apps developed for it never see a cartridge release?

[MausGames]

Will it be possible to distribute games on MicroSD? Those would be the tiniest printed labels ever...

[mos6507]

Will it be possible to distribute games on MicroSD? Those would be the tiniest printed labels ever...

 

You could but it would be kind of pointless since the smallest MicroSD cards I see these days are 512MB. Better to distribute them on "Chimera-enabled" cartridges on an internal flash-mounted flash chip.

[mos6507]

So will there be a 1/1 ratio of cartridges and games produced for the Chimera, or will most games and apps developed for it never see a cartridge release?

 

For finished games that would normally be destined for the AA store, yes, 1/1. That's what I expect people to want to do rather than just digitally distribute. That's why controlling cost is such a high priority, so it can be seen as a valid (albeit high-end) cart distribution format rather than a limited run item like The Cuttle Carts and Kroko. But initially there will only be generic Chimera carts out there for developers or end-user multicart purposes. That's assuming someone actually finishes a game for it. Even if that never happens, it's still going to be useful as a multicart. So for early adopters it's a pretty low-risk purchase decision.

[MausGames]

Will it be possible to distribute games on MicroSD? Those would be the tiniest printed labels ever...

 

You could but it would be kind of pointless since the smallest MicroSD cards I see these days are 512MB. Better to distribute them on "Chimera-enabled" cartridges on an internal flash-mounted flash chip.

 

I guess that would be better, to increase the amount of Chimera carts that are out in the wild, but I like the idea (and price of 128meg models, $5) enough that MicroSD would be my favored distribution media. Unless people just absolutely hate how tiny they are.

 

Is there a timeline to your project? Do you think Chimera cartridges will be distributed this decade?

[+Random Terrain]

One thing I would love is to be able to have my joysticks and paddles plugged in at the same time, so I could just put in a game and start playing without needing to unplug and plug all of the time. Would some version of the Chimera allow that to happen? Besides never liking that we had to plug and unplug, my stupid Atari 2600 with S-video modification is very sensitive and unplugging and plugging can make the sound cut in and out for hours after that. After it settles down and if I don't breathe and there are no vibrations, the sound is fine for a while.

[mos6507]

One thing I would love is to be able to have my joysticks and paddles plugged in at the same time, so I could just put in a game and start playing without needing to unplug and plug all of the time. Would some version of the Chimera allow that to happen?

 

If paddle games were rewritten in order to be able to access the Chimera's expansion ports for paddle reads, then you could attach paddles there and joysticks in the standard ports and not have to keep swapping them. But the Chimera expansion ports themselves are multipurpose so you may need to hotswap those depending on what the game requires. Likewise, AtariVox games could be rewritten to access an AtariVox attached to Chimera to enable 2-player simultaneous and not have to keep swapping in and out the AtariVox.

 

Since paddles only need to be read once per frame with Chimera, it should be possible to hack existing paddle games pretty easily just by replacing the existing paddle routines inside the kernel with NOPs and finding some free space inside VBLANK for it. All of the work that you normally do the hard way to derive some kind of X coordinate range out of the pots is no longer necessary.

Edited December 28, 2007 by mos6507

[mos6507]

Is there a timeline to your project? Do you think Chimera cartridges will be distributed this decade?

 

Delicon is still working on the final board revision, after which we will have about 10 boards for beta developers to get started on. Once the firmware is far enough along for the cart to properly function as an end-user multicart, I'll move the project to production mode. So if you look at my sig, I'm currently estimating late spring for the full production run. Might be sooner, might be later.

 

How long it takes for Chimera-native games to start coming out, I don't know. I see two types of Chimera games, low end and high end. Low end Chimera games use it kind of like a developmental shortcut, a hardware version of bBasic so to speak. So those games might not look much better than the average 4K title, but they will take a LOT less time to write because they won't need meticulously handcrafted kernels. The high end stuff would try to do displays that go beyond what we've ever seen, have larger game worlds, use extra peripherals and so on. Obviously there is a greater probability of seeing low end games than high end games. The low end games may never make it onto physical cartridge, at least not unless it were a compilation. The high end games? Look how long it took to finish Adventure II for the 5200 for instance. The more graphics you have to do, the longer the dev cycle. That's why austere systems like the 2600 have seen so much homebrewing. So we'll see how it all plays out.

[MausGames]

How exactly will Chimera add to the graphics work-load? If you mean more sprites, I think people will enjoy that quite a bit, and people will surely team up on projects anyway. If you mean the ability to add tiled backgrounds, bring it on! I love that so much more than lots of horizontal colored lines.

[mos6507]

How exactly will Chimera add to the graphics work-load? If you mean more sprites, I think people will enjoy that quite a bit, and people will surely team up on projects anyway. If you mean the ability to add tiled backgrounds, bring it on! I love that so much more than lots of horizontal colored lines.

 

Tiled backgrounds should be possible but you're still stuck with the TIA's theoretical limitations when driven by a 6507. It's just that a lot of the limitations in the graphics of final games is due to other bottlenecks. Those are the things that Chimera addresses. It creates as streamlined a path as possible for the 6507 to spool data into the hardware registers, and can do all the heavy lifting for the 6507 between frames. You won't get any higher resolution playfield graphics. You won't get more sprites per scanline than the TIA provides. Still, you will definitely see busier, more colorful, more animated displays.

 

I know all this sounds vague, but after we send out beta carts hopefully there will be some demos written that help demonstrate what's possible for others.

Edited December 30, 2007 by mos6507

[+Random Terrain]

One thing I would love is to be able to have my joysticks and paddles plugged in at the same time, so I could just put in a game and start playing without needing to unplug and plug all of the time. Would some version of the Chimera allow that to happen?

 

If paddle games were rewritten in order to be able to access the Chimera's expansion ports for paddle reads, then you could attach paddles there and joysticks in the standard ports and not have to keep swapping them. But the Chimera expansion ports themselves are multipurpose so you may need to hotswap those depending on what the game requires. Likewise, AtariVox games could be rewritten to access an AtariVox attached to Chimera to enable 2-player simultaneous and not have to keep swapping in and out the AtariVox.

 

Since paddles only need to be read once per frame with Chimera, it should be possible to hack existing paddle games pretty easily just by replacing the existing paddle routines inside the kernel with NOPs and finding some free space inside VBLANK for it. All of the work that you normally do the hard way to derive some kind of X coordinate range out of the pots is no longer necessary.

Thanks. I hope someone will be able to hack the existing Atari 2600 paddle games so that would be possible. My favorite paddle games would no longer be neglected.