Slashdot Mirror
Even Better Than The Portable 2600
Walton C. Gibson writes: "Instead of a portable 2600, how about a device that plays EVERY 2600
game ever made in hardware, and it all fits inside a single Atari 7800 enclosure?
Check out Bankzilla -- as well as some this guy's other projects like the NES music format, making a portable NES."
if you want to get stuff from c64 disks (1541 & 1571), take a look her e
you'll also need a copy of star commander or trans64 (can't find a link for trans64, sorry).
it does require that you have a 1541 or 1571 drive, and i don't know about it working on the mac... but it works just great on a pc.
i seem to recall a linux driver for this style of 1541 interface a few years back, but i can't find anything about it now. it would probably work under dosemu or vmware though.
--
What is the deal with these people?
It's a hobby I imagine. I imagine the fun was in the building and problem solving. Personally, I've always found hacking a game more fun than playing it.
I'd like to see a portable version of the TI99/4A with all of it's games installed.... Any takers?
Or maybe a multiplayer version of "Tunnels of Doom"... *droool*
Now, yes, this is cool. But, on his FAQ page he goes to great lengths to say he will not share (just about) anything about the project above that single page. What the hell good is this to other people who might want to build the same thing? He won't even SELL the spec sheets! There's the hacker spirit for you...
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
I dunno, it seems to me that the 70's were the Big Thing in the 90's. You had all the stupid clothes... my wife would continuously point out teenagers wearing things she wore when she was 12 or so, a lot of period movies and 70's influenced music (disco == bad, but rock == good). Don't forget that 70's show on Fox (I wish I could remember the name of it ;) ). Nick-at-Nite and TVLand are running tons of shows from the 70's (whereas they used to run mostly older shows).
There was a run of popular "disaster films" just like in the 70's. Gas prices have been rising....
Of course you realize that any month now Smurfs will re-emerge...
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
What I always wanted as a kid was a portable Commodore 64 (wasn't there a luggable model 64sx?) I have pulled one of my old C64's apart, and it looks like it would be very difficult to reconfigure the internals (but I am no expert, so it may be easier for some of you). Anyone have any ideas on how to do this?
submitted twice, rejected within a minute both times. Big news.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
FWIW, the real reason he doesn't want to even try to sell these is because it would be an unholy pain in the butt. This ain't no Heathkit we're talking about here. I've done EPROM mods for the 7800 and ColecoVision, and installed region mods for Saturn and Playstation, and this is way above that. I've also made three cart dumpers, the first was a socket adapter for an EPROM programmer, the next was a rigged TRS-80 Color Computer, and the third was a rigged 7800, and I dumped quite a few rare cartridges with them.
The trickiest part of designing this thing was emulating all the bank switching schemes used on the 2600. There were well over half a dozen different schemes used, plus this emulates the Supercharger, which had its own bank switching scheme. An FPGA was used here to give maximum flexibility with a minimum of chips.
The reason bank switching on the 2600 was so non-standardized is that there was no R/W line, so you had to use special addresses to trigger bank switches, and separate address ranges for reading vs writing any RAM on the cartridge.
And then there were the cartridges with custom chips, like Pitfall II, which had a chip containing the music data, copied to the volume registers at the start of each scan line, and the Supercharger's main chip, which had to be removed from an actual cartridge and insterted into the project. The Stella TIA chip also had to be salvaged from a real 2600.
On top of all that, he's got an 8085 and TMS9918 to control it, and to generate the audio signal for the Supercharger games. That's like putting a second custom video game system into it.
Also not mentioned above is that Kevin wrote a Tetris for the 2600.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
What, does EVERY frickin rock band have it's own "style" of Metal? Metal? WTF? As far as I can tell, "Metal" was born in the song "Born to be Wild". Most agree that at least the term "Heavy Metal" originated there. It enjoyed a nice 5 or so years, The Guess Who, The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Iron Butterfly, Dare I say Rush?, then Metal DIED with KISS, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, (just gets worse and worse, doesn't it?) Ratt, (ugh! remember them?) Though a few good bands continued on during this era - Black Sabbath, Van Halen, etc. then, Poison, and all the glam-rock fags.
Metallica, IMHO was the rebirth of metal, but it had mutated into something else, different, a bit more thoughtful and mature, and of course a lot of crappy bands glommed on and killed it again quickly (your Whitesnakes, Panteras, Slayers, and other over-cliched rip offs). Seattle/Grunge kind of revived the style, but again, a whole shitload of crappy copycat bands glommed on and ruined it (like Nirvanna!) And, of course, Metallica had to sell out, the bad half of Pink Floyd kept the name when they split up, and sold out. The Who still rocks I guess, I saw them on the Simpsons the other night (that fat dumb and bald guy sure plays a mean hardball!).
This just all underscores your point, and the point that has been made by EVERY major art movement in western history:
New ideas are born of creativity, and are soon shackled to the slavery of greed. Every major art movement has been a rebellion against the previous movement - which was a rebellion against the one before it, etc. Why all this rebellion? Because as soon as "society" recognizes the creativity, the novelty of the new art, it quickly becomes valuable, and as it becomes valuable, it is commoditized, copied (superficially), and manufactured for the masses, quite often, not containing most of the qualities that made it valuable in the first place. Of course, all of these "copies" need to come up with some sort of superficial definition that makes them different enough from their progeny. "We're not Heavy Metal man, we're something MORE than that, our fascination with death and violence, we're Death and Violence Metal man." Why do you suppose someone would want to rebel against that?
Of course, I should retract my DISsing of KISS. They were pretty much the most bizzarre thing on 8 legs in their day - nothing like them anywhere. (Consider GWAR to be a modern rip-off and extension of KISS). I just didn't like them. But they really did represent an innovation and the beginning of an evolution of the Heavy Metal tradition. It's just unfortunate that that branch of the family spiraled downward and mutated into the whole GOTH craze (as far as I can tell).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
There is still a hard-working nesdev community developing NES software. I am a member of this community, and I have developed some NES software myself.
Will I retire or break 10K?
There is a third-party portable NES, and it's called the Game Axe. Read more here and here.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Now, re: your .sig... could you possibly point me to the source of that quote? (I code Java, but I have a sense of humour. I think it's almost necessary, if you catch my drift. :-)
All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
The designer states that he will not sell this, and legally I can see his point. The question becomes, would any of us pay $199 for a mass-built one with Atari's blessing? I suspect that I would. What about the rest of you?
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
Cowboy Neal: "Beer?"
CmdrTaco: "Already tried that. Hemos?"
Hemos: "How about we run another anti-Microsoft article? Or say that RedHat has 2000 bugs again?"
CmdrTaco: "Too plain."
Timothy: "I know. What if were to run an article similar to the repeated ones, but not nearly as engrossing?"
CmdrTaco: "Great idea! All in favor?"
All: "Aye!"
Cowboy Neal: "Beer?"
CmdrTaco: "Soon, son. Soon......"
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
This thing is going to have so many lawyers swarming around it you'd think the designer had tobacco leaking out of his breast implants.
Atari is making money selling emulated versions of their 2600 games for computer. I would count on this device going the way of most rom sites. Too bad - it'd be real cool
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Am I the only one that looks upon this whole fascination with retro to be a good thing for this country? We see people playing Atari 2600 games like they're the latest thing, people are falling all over themselves playing Pole Position on emulators such as MAME, old style dressing is coming back into style, etc. Even the good old music has come back into style. "Death metal" such as Slayer is being phased out in favor of lively swing music and much more upbeat music such as the offerings from the Backstreet Boys and Jaci Valesquez.
Can this be a sign that the declining moral values of this nation have started to make a U-turn and head back in the right direction? Perhaps. I do know one thing for certain: in NO Atari 2600 game were you able to graphically rip your opponent's spine out or "gib" somebody into a thousand pieces with a grenade. Kids today need a little bit more Pitfall and a little bit less Quake. This fascination with the technology of yesteryear is a step in the right direction.
I must be missing something here, but I remember my Atari 7800 played my friend's Atari 2600 games just fine. I guess I never tried playing ALL the games out there but I never found one I had a problem with. That's the reason I got a 7800 instead of the newer version of the 2600 anyway. I could play his games and still play the newer games for the 7800.
I agree with the live and let live part. The thing I don't like about bands like the Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, etc is that they got lucky. Some record executive might have seen them in a mall, or they one a contest. Six months later they release a CD. Too many of the "bands" don't write their own music, if they even know how to write music, nor do they play instruments. Not to say they don't have good voices, but if it weren't for a pretty face, no one would know who they are. I don't want my kids growing up thinking that if you look good and wear the right close you can be a pop icon.
You are correct in assuming (and I know you are) that I don't like "their" music either, no matter who writes it. I also don't like country or most of rap, but I recognize and respect musicians in those genres' that display a love for their music, not just a love for the money their music makes.
Also, sometimes good musicians just get a lucky break, but I think those are few and far between. Most work their asses off at their music, getting paid very little if anything at all. Take for instance Lynard Skynard. They played every single little gig they could get their hands on, just because they loved doing it. They practiced in a little tin-roofed building in the middle of Alabama, with temperatures in the 100's. At that point they weren't making any money, just music.
So, after rambling for a bit, let me just conclude by saying it's not them or their music that people don't like, it's the idea of them and their music.
- Clvrmonkey -
All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.
What is the deal with these people? I love old tech stuff like Atari, but this seems a bit much. I spent about $40 last year getting an old 2600 and a dozen games from EBay, but in the long run they got about a half hour of playing time each.
It's fun and all, but not THAT fun. How much time do you think this guy will spend actually PLAYING the games, other than for the show-off value?
------
Let me give you the lowdown
Mame is not illegal. Downloading ROMs that you don't own is.
BECAUSE IT'S COOL.
--
--
The gravitational constant of protein has changed. - Turbine