Atari 2600 FPGA progress...

[ehenciak]

Hello,

 

I've attached a 2M zip file of pictures of the 2600-in-an-FPGA in action. Here's a rundown of them in case you're interested :

 

1> setup.jpg : A shot of all the stuff I've had crammed on my desk for the past 4 months. The board in the center is a mostly unused (anymore) Altium board with an Altera Cyclone FPGA. I started out using this kit. However, Eric Crabill (www.fpga-games.com) sent me a System-X (lit up board on the right) out of the kindness of his heart so that I can migrate the design to a Xilinx device. Bless him....I'm better with the Xilinx tools! At any rate, there's various other malarky on my desk....can you identify anything that I might be using for my game system I am developing ? By the way, there's something very odd about playing 2600 games with an N64 controller.

 

By the way, I am currently driving a VGA monitor (those Dell 2001FPs are FANTASTIC if you're in the market for one...watch the prices and you can snag a new one for around $500). The final product will allow you to drive a VGA monitor OR NTSC / PAL television via composite connections.

 

2> enduro.jpg : All is not well right now ... this is Enduro....broken! If Enduro is anything like Pitfall, they're using player 1 and player 2 objects flip-flopping as they're drawn for the score and time remaining. In the past, I have found that the CPU was off a by cycle when I see a bug like this. I assure you that it will be fixed ! By the way, if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I'm especially interested in any other games that may use the same "trick" enduro is using. I know my ROM is not corrupted since it plays fine on Z26.

 

The remaining pictures are all of games actually working. Of the 50+ games I have tested so far, only two are misbehaving....Cosmic Ark (mostly works, but I need to get the starfield bug down pat 100%) and Enduro (WHY GOD WHY?!?!?!?!). I've played all of these games and more for at least 1/2 hour each....my girlfriend is my current QA department and plays the hell out of these things when I am busy with school....

 

The pics are of : defender, dragonfire, pitfall & cosmic commuter.

 

Also, GI Joe works and looks just fine (this game abuses the hell out of TIA to draw that friggin snake), but I haven't been able to play it since I need to implement paddle functionality....I'll be able to use the N64 joystick for that for now ... thereafter real paddles once my hardware gets in (I am making a small custom PCB that'll play the 2600 and virtually anything else I or others choose to implement).

 

So, once I finish off school for this semester, I'll be back on this full time after work (only two more weeks). With no academics in the way, I am hoping to get my whole system done by the end of May and will develop all the software throughout June and July.

 

This design (including all software) will be opensourced. I planned on opensourcing the schematics for the PCB at first, but I've temporarily put that on hold (you won't need them anyway, and I'll probably do it after I get my first run done a la Cuttle Cart).

 

In the event something happens to me, I have forwarded this code off to a couple of people so that the design is not lost (yeah, morbid, but I am an egotist and think that this is important ). I'd love to open it up now, but I cannot out of respect to someone else who is going to make some jaws drop this summer !

 

Finally, on the to do list for this :

 

1> Undocumented opcodes.

2> Bankswitching (shouldn't be hard since Kevin Horton did all the hard work)

3> Tons of playtesting

 

I should be able to opensource this around August .... right around the time I hope to get my FPGA developement kit released for public consumption. I am targeting a price of no more than $100 for a system geared to playing / developing gaming hardware like this on FPGAs. I plan on doing a run of 100 of these to gauge some response. I am hoping you'll all be happy with the end result ! It'll be in a cool case for those who care less about developing hardware !

 

As soon as school is overwith, I'll get my own website up and running complete with video and more information. I feel like a pest bombarding this group with silly information and zip files !

 

I need sleep....

 

Ed

 

PS If you know of any other 2K/4K games that would abuse the hell out of TIA/6502s, please let me know....I'll be more than happy to run them and let you know if they're alive. If Bruce Tomlin is out there, where can I get Red Box / Blue Box? Now's the time to run it !

[ehenciak]

AARRRGGGHHH Something happened with the attachement .... hold on as I try to make a hyperlink to it on my Pitt account!

 

Ed

[ehenciak]

AARRRGGGHHH Something happened with the attachement .... hold on as I try to make a hyperlink to it on my Pitt account!

 

Ed

837473[/snapback]

 

Okay, the link to the zip file is

 

Link to pics

 

If an admin can merge this link to my original post, please do as I don't mean to add all of these extra replies !

 

Ed

[Bruce Tomlin]

Hello,If Bruce Tomlin is out there, where can I get Red Box / Blue Box?  Now's the time to run it.

Not until you support the LAX instruction.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=51163

[ehenciak]

Hello,If Bruce Tomlin is out there, where can I get Red Box / Blue Box?  Now's the time to run it.

Not until you support the LAX instruction.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=51163

837923[/snapback]

 

Thanks! I can hack in LAX for the time being...as you know there are right ways and wrong ways to do things....I simply want stuff that'll beat up TIA !

 

I've got some parts on the way so that I can test out TIA on it's own in a real Atari. That'll allow me to isolate the CPU / TIA as I develop and/or modify the CPU core more to my liking.

 

Are there any more 4K games people would want to suggest that exercise TIA in ways not possible ?

 

Ed

[keilbaca]

Journey Escape

 

Here's why. I have JE, and when I play it in my project atari, I guess I have a messed up address line because the star background is completely wacked out. And its the only game to show ANY kind of defect, so JE.

Edited April 16, 2005 by keilbaca

[Curt Vendel]

I look at the pic's of the fpga rig and the theme music from Weird Science pops into my head

 

 

 

 

Curt

[+batari]

Hello,If Bruce Tomlin is out there, where can I get Red Box / Blue Box?  Now's the time to run it.

Not until you support the LAX instruction.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=51163

837923[/snapback]

 

Thanks! I can hack in LAX for the time being...as you know there are right ways and wrong ways to do things....I simply want stuff that'll beat up TIA !

 

I've got some parts on the way so that I can test out TIA on it's own in a real Atari. That'll allow me to isolate the CPU / TIA as I develop and/or modify the CPU core more to my liking.

 

Are there any more 4K games people would want to suggest that exercise TIA in ways not possible ?

 

Ed

837945[/snapback]

 

Try Cosmic Ark. I hear it uses illegal HMOVE calls to generate the starfield or something like that.

 

There's several other games I can think of that use funky TIA tricks but most of them are homebrews that probably use illegal opcodes. At the very least I'd get LAX zeropage and DCP zeropage going since these are by far the most useful.

[+Mitch]

Doesn't Kool-Aid Man do some weird TIA stuff too?

 

Mitch

[rasty]

Doesn't Kool-Aid Man do some weird TIA stuff too?

 

Mitch

838083[/snapback]

Yeah but that doesn't actually work even on some real 2600's!

 

You may want to try Galaxian: 7-sprites in a row!

(and then Space Instigators too! )

 

Regards,

Rasty.-