7800 paddle game wanted...

[SoundGammon]

One thing I noticed about the 7800 is that it never had it's own paddle game, not even JINKS. I'd like to see a combination of Kaboom/Circus Atari where sometimes a clown knocks loose a bomb that the bottom clown would have to catch...

[GrizzLee]

One thing I noticed about the 7800 is that it never had it's own paddle game, not even JINKS. I'd like to see a combination of Kaboom/Circus Atari where sometimes a clown knocks loose a bomb that the bottom clown would have to catch...

 

Arkanoid!!

[the.golden.ax]

I think Lee has it... what better for 7800 than Arkanoid, with a pumpin' pokey soundtrack.

 

AX

[supercat]

One thing I noticed about the 7800 is that it never had it's own paddle game, not even JINKS.

 

To read paddles, one must poll them at precise spots on the frame. On the 2600, the code always knows where the beam is during the kernel. If it has enough cycles to read the pots mid-kernel it can do so. On the 7800, code generally does not chase the beam. An Atari 7800 game could be made to chase the beam, but it would add about a 10%-25% CPU load to read one paddle per frame, or a 75% CPU load to read more than one.

[mos6507]

Doesn't Atari 7800 Sentinel count as a paddle game in the sense that light gun games use the pot lines?

[+Mitch]

Doesn't Atari 7800 Sentinel count as a paddle game in the sense that light gun games use the pot lines?

 

Huh? The Atari lightgun doesn't use the pot lines. The standard Atari 7800 joystick does for the extra buttons however.

 

Mitch

[AtariLeaf]

Dumb question alert but does this mean that 2600 paddle games won't work on the 7800?

[PacManPlus]

Yes, they do.

 

Hey... What about the Driving controllers? We can still do Arkanoid with those ...and don't those use the joystick values to read or something like that?

[Almost Rice]

Hey... What about the Driving controllers? We can still do Arkanoid with those ...and don't those use the joystick values to read or something like that?

 

new project?

[Underball]

Funny, when I was a kid, I loved the fact that the 7800 didn't come with those stupid paddle controllers. I always thought those were for "little kids games" and old games like breakout.

[gambler172]

Hi Underball

There will be a Paddle game for the 7800 SOOOOOON.

greetings Walter

[Bakasama]

Is this some game based on Pong, Breakout, or Video Olympics? Or this is a pinball game that uses a joystick/paddle combo?

[mos6507]

Huh? The Atari lightgun doesn't use the pot lines. The standard Atari 7800 joystick does for the extra buttons however.

 

The Atari home computers use the POKEY chip for light pens/guns. How exactly I don't know, but to the programmer it comes out similar to paddle values (0-227).

[+Mitch]

Huh? The Atari lightgun doesn't use the pot lines. The standard Atari 7800 joystick does for the extra buttons however.

 

The Atari home computers use the POKEY chip for light pens/guns. How exactly I don't know, but to the programmer it comes out similar to paddle values (0-227).

 

Hmm, I just checked the schematics for the 800XL and it shows the lightgun trigger going to the 6520 PIA and the optical sensor going to the GTIA. I don't know how it's showing up as paddle values but it's definitely not using the POT lines.

 

Mitch

[atariksi]

Huh? The Atari lightgun doesn't use the pot lines. The standard Atari 7800 joystick does for the extra buttons however.

 

The Atari home computers use the POKEY chip for light pens/guns. How exactly I don't know, but to the programmer it comes out similar to paddle values (0-227).

 

Atari home computers use the ANTIC chip for light pen at registers 54284 (horizontal color clock) and 54285 (vertical scan line count/2). Paddles are on the POKEY chip at registers 53760..53767 (8 paddles*). The trigger buttons are on the GTIA chip at registers 53264...53267 (4 trigger lines since original atari 400/800 had 4 joystick ports). The four digital joysticks are on the PIA chip (read two joysticks per register-- 54016 and 54017). I have been trying to simulate light pen using a PC mouse, so this stuff is still fresh in my mind.

 

*You can increase accuracy of vertical scan line counter by using one or more of the Paddle registers as a scan line counter rather than the VCount of ANTIC (54283) or 54285 of light pen vertical position. Paddle register scan line count is NOT divided by two.

[atariksi]

Huh? The Atari lightgun doesn't use the pot lines. The standard Atari 7800 joystick does for the extra buttons however.

 

The Atari home computers use the POKEY chip for light pens/guns. How exactly I don't know, but to the programmer it comes out similar to paddle values (0-227).

 

Hmm, I just checked the schematics for the 800XL and it shows the lightgun trigger going to the 6520 PIA and the optical sensor going to the GTIA. I don't know how it's showing up as paddle values but it's definitely not using the POT lines.

 

Mitch

 

The lightpen button (not trigger) is going to pin 1 of joystick port (same as FORWARD on the joystick) and read via the PIA chip registers (54016/54017). There are 228 color clocks on one scan line so the light pen horizontal position has 228 values. The Paddle registers count scan lines unless you are in FAST POT SCAN mode. In FAST POT SCAN mode, the Paddle registers count CPU cycles (@1.789773Mhz) for two scan lines whereas light pen mechanism uses a color clock counter counting @3.579545Mhz so LPEN mechanism can count to 228 twice as fast.