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bcombee
Member Since 30 Jun 2001OFFLINE Last Active Feb 8 2012 7:14 PM
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Developer Platform Architect for HP webOS, occasional open source hardware hacker
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- Member Title Chopper Commander
- Age 37 years old
- Birthday June 3, 1974
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In Topic: Star Raiders - was it ever fixed?
Wed Feb 8, 2012 7:14 PM
Looks like Doug's posted some stories about Star Raiders on his site, see http://dougneubauer.com/starraiders/
In Topic: Defender 2000 - Released in '95 or '96?
Wed Feb 8, 2012 6:54 PM
Based on old USENET posts, it looks like it shipped in February 1996, but probably was finished in late 1995.
See http://groups.google...f1520132b73dad0
See http://groups.google...f1520132b73dad0
In Topic: Combat works - Super Breakout won't through a converter
Fri Jan 20, 2012 5:41 PM
Each individual Atari 2600 game controls the number of scan lines they output, and that determines if a digital converter is going to be able to sync the signal. The Stella emulator has an Alt-L option to show how many lines are being output. The NTSC version of Combat runs at 263 lines, where Super Breakout is running at 262. I suspect that's enough of a difference to mess up the digital sync logic in the SIR TS-360.
I had a LCD TV a few years ago that showed the same problem. It wouldn't display half of the older game consoles I hooked up to it.
I looked at a few other games and saw some at 262, some at 263, some at 261 or 264. There was enough slop with CRT timing for all of those to work, The official NTSC definition has 525 scan lines, split between two fields, so one field has 263 lines, the other has 262 but it's start is delayed half-a-scan line to indicate it's even. The 2600 only generates frames, not fields, so you don't get the interlacing effect that normal NTSC video has.
I had a LCD TV a few years ago that showed the same problem. It wouldn't display half of the older game consoles I hooked up to it.
I looked at a few other games and saw some at 262, some at 263, some at 261 or 264. There was enough slop with CRT timing for all of those to work, The official NTSC definition has 525 scan lines, split between two fields, so one field has 263 lines, the other has 262 but it's start is delayed half-a-scan line to indicate it's even. The 2600 only generates frames, not fields, so you don't get the interlacing effect that normal NTSC video has.
In Topic: Classic Gaming Expo '12 Announced!
Thu Jan 5, 2012 10:47 AM
If you're going, I've set up a Lanyrd page at http://lanyrd.com/20...ic-gaming-expo/ to track attendees and speakers.
In Topic: Atari 2600 Boulder Dash (R) Announced!
Tue Dec 13, 2011 9:55 AM
Just placed my pre-order. I agree that it's expensive, but I've never regretted supporting a labor of love like this, and I'm super excited about all the "high-tech" it uses on the 2600.
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