How does the Cassette Vision compare to the PC50X series (the Grandstand Mercury Commander et al?)
These systems are currently considered "first generation" as they don't have central processors, Coleco also had that weird triangular thing with the gun and the steering wheel that had cartridges, the Telstar Arcade.
*looks up PC50X* Yeah, Cassette Vision essentially worked that way.
It's kind of misleading tho: even though the hardware could be in theory anything, all released Cassette Vision games seem to be based off the same chipset. This becomes obvious when you look at the graphics, it's like everything is made out of a set of six tiles (empty, solid, and all possible half-filled 45° variants) and the palette also seems to be essentially the same. Also the games are complex enough that they're clearly running off a CPU.
Here's a full playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...uIVLnxt0eqrL3-
Embedding a handful of videos to get the point across tho:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfXviuvBn3k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7He-sApND0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXrSN_6LQ4s
EDIT: starting to think that the video and sound hardware are actually in the console and it's the CPU and RAM that are thrown into the cartridges (besides ROM).
http://videogamekraken.com/cassette-visionInformation about the Cassette Vision is sparse tho :/Quote:
Epoch decided to capitalize on the NEC uPD77xx chipset as they had already used to develop games on this platform (TV Baseball, TV Vader). To achieve this, Epoch decided to put the CPU directly in the cartridge while the shell of the console would only contain the power supply, the controls and the video and sound output. Having the ROM, the RAM and the CPU in one chip, Epoch/NEC were able to create a chip that would support 48 bits instruction which was way faster than systems using a separate ROM at the time. Using 8-bit ROM though a BUS would have divided the speed by 4. Although having only the ROM on the cartridge would have reduced their cost drastically, it would have greatly increased the cost of the console itself, incur more R&D cost and delay the release of the console.
EDIT 2: OK nevermind the games do generate their own video output indeed
Cartridge slot has video and audio pins:
https://discreteconsoles.blogspot.co...ge-pinout.html
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kcJBzzOIM...0/ECV-PINS.png
Pinout of one of the uPD77xx chips:
https://discreteconsoles.blogspot.co...c-upd774c.html
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xZ-zcaK_t...1600/d774c.png
Yeah I think the video chip is in the console, which also explains why all the games look the same. It kinda looks like a color RCA Studio 2, but it's clear that's not how it works because of the "angled" graphics. I wish there was more info on the graphics hardware of this thing.
EDIT: Guess not xD
On Atari 2600, does the right hand side of the screen always have to be a mirror image of the left?
If it does then how was Donkey Kong ported to the system at all? or Springer?
A mirror or a copy, from what I remember. But yeah, the background registers only hold enough for half of the background.
To make both halves different I think you need to change the registers right as the beam goes through the half of the screen (easier to do it in the unmirrored mode, where you can write the left pixels before crossing the half and then get enough time to change the remaining ones after crossing it).
EDIT: that reminds me, there's Q*Bert which takes it further by changing the background color between each cube in order to change the color of their surfaces. The timing of the code is about as tight as you'd expect (and probably why enemies aren't drawn in the same lines as the tops of the cubes).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkZhWsiHCqM
It's insane how primitive the 2600 is, how far ahead the Intellivision is, and how little it showed in games from back in the day. In fact it was not unusual for the Atari games to look better.
$$$
I do wonder if the 2600's primitiveness ended up helping though, since that set the bar for the graphics really low. Don't forget we're talking about the time where publishers refused to go above 4KB because the ROM would be too expensive (some early games were even smaller), and that's going to put some severe limits on how good the graphics can look like, not to mention forcing code to be as crammed as possible. Add to this that as a whole the industry was still inexperienced.
But yeah, kind of the big problem with powerful hardware is that it usually also wants lots of memory. This is a recurring theme for later generations as well.
EDIT: by the way, the main reason why I know about Q*Bert is because in a thread in another forum there was somebody calling the programmer an idiot for not getting rid of the gap going through the middle of the pyramid. Eventually somebody got fed up and looked at the code and it was very clear that the programmer knew what they were doing (which implies the gap is there because there was no way to avoid it).
With restrictions like that its no wonder the Atari 2600 handled so many ports so badly.
Activision's games looked great because they were designed around 2600 restrictions from the ground up.
Then they ported said games to the Intellivision and Colecovision largely unchanged.
"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Sik again."Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
For homebrew though, it's great! Part of the appeal of old consoles, in terms of coding for them, is trying to squeeze out as much as you can out of the system. I'd imagine some developers for the 2600 BITD still felt that kind of pride/satisfication as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thenewguy
Reminds me, H.E.R.O. has ports for both Colecovision and SG-1000 but the two ports are very different despite being basically the same hardware (not sure who did the Colecovision port, the SG-1000 one seems to have been commissioned by Sega themselves). Admittedly one of the Atari 2600 games that works best when ported to other systems.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thenewguy
The Colecovision port went all out with the cave textures o.o Though also has smaller sprites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTLnYo68IGg
The SG-1000 port is more straightward (with more abstract texturing) and looks about what you expect from TMS9918A, and adds music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M83MPCJargA
Also finding good footage of H.E.R.O. is hard :( (the only "good" videos I found of the SG-1000 version are 240p, for example — the higher resolution ones seem to be recorded with some emulator that for some reason thinks that TMS9918A outputs at 256×224 wtf?)
Funny you posted about Hero, I'm just porting it to Odyssey2
This is a w.i.p., there's lot of work to do.
Here's a youtube video :
https://youtu.be/RqV1kix9CG0
Neat! Any comments on the hardware? What was easy, what was hard, what do you wish was different?
The water effects looks really nice, I wonder how you pulled it off.
The design of everything visially is very clean and feels like a nice style instead of coming off as simply "crude".Quote:
Originally Posted by LDX
This is my 5th game for Odyssey2, I'm very experienced with this system that's why I was able to pull of Hero.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
Odyssey2 processor is really slow, like 0.3mhz (300 hertz), this game is using like 95% of the "processing power" and I'm afraid the lasts 5% will not be enough to finish the game.
Problem is the game logic barely finishes when the graphics start to be drawn, If I took too much time, the top of the screen will blink.
I'm now trying to optimise the codes to save 1 or 2 processor cycles every code, and have enough cycles to finish the "level select" code.
The water effect initially was a bug, my plans was change the background color to blue, but accidentally I left the "luminance bit" on, this bit I can force all the colors to be lighter, you see this effect when the bomb explodes, that's archived by turning this bit on and off. The luminance gives the block appearance of transparency color effect, so I leave as that on the "water area".
The most difficult thing on Odyssey2 wasn't processor speed, but the codes must fit in a rom page (256 bytes), and later in the game this is very challenging because you can't just skip bytes to start a new page, as you have only 2kb (usually) to work with. Bankswitching is supported by the processor but is difficult to code because these rom boundaries.
There small annoyances, like you're only able to call bios routines from the first 1kb, and so on.
Thanks, I like the simplicity of Odyssey2 graphics. Less is more.Quote:
The design of everything visually is very clean and feels like a nice style instead of coming off as simply "crude".
I kind of feel bad about using this place as my own personal tech Q and A website, but I was wondering. Given that the Amstrad's CPU is under more strain due to its larger size of video RAM, why is it that this doesn't seem to negatively effect the speed of 3D vector based games and isometric games compared to the Spectrum?
Is it because in these games the CPU is mainly doing math and doesn't actually need to update much of the screen?
I don't think that Vector graphics are all that CPU intensive. Remember, the 8 bit computers were running games using wire framed objects to represent 3D.
Asteroids runs on a 1.5 Mhz CPU.
https://computerarcheology.com/Arcad.../Hardware.html
I've been thinking, which NES games from the mid-80s still have 2nd gen gameplay? Obviously stuff like Pop Eye and Balloon Fight, but what other ones?
Because of course once the NES and Master System were released, its not like the whole game industry instantly flipped to 3rd gen. Though by the late-80s the 2nd gen had essentially disappeared.
I am doing astronomical Wikipedia research(the list), you can see a lot of mid-80s games were already definitely 3rd gen gameplay like Super Mario Bros, 1942, Ghost N Goblins, Gradius etc.
I will find some examples.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yharnamresident
Galaga:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhO6Jubp-0I
Nuts & Milk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SosPvc-U7Eg
Dig Dug:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vifsD-WF0xg
Games with 2nd gen gameplay on the NES are very rare. It took forever to find these.
Also this is my last attempt to bump this thread. You don't have to talk about this subject, has anyone here tried a new 2nd gen console?
I am so impressed with what you are able to do with the Odyssey 2. I've never even seen one in person let alone anyone making homebrew for it. I like the aesthetic though, it's so simple it's beautiful.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDX
It's not actually plotting the vectors in real time is it? I thought it would use look up tables with precalculated values.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
The idea of "2nd gen gameplay" is part of the big misconceptions that plague classic gaming and perpetuate silly myths like console generation boundaries and the notion that every game must fall within a handful of narrow genres.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yharnamresident
There are a lot of the kinds of games you're thinking of for NES and SMS (Rock 'n Rope, Pooyan, Bubble Bobble, Tetris, Arkanoid, Megumi Rescue, Fantazy Zone The Maze...) . Non-scrolling, repetitive, endlesss, etc games have always been around. But they've only become more popular since then and we don't call modern games "2nd gen". Scrolling, repetitive, endlesss, etc games have always been around.
Especially if you consider Intellivision to be a 2nd gen library, as it is full of games which were unique for the time and some styles which became popular or recognized generations later.
I'm currently finishing up work on a survival horror game for Intellivision, but it's just a game, not a "5th gen game".
But we're talking AAA games, the 2nd gen is the only generation where these games were AAA. Before that, you had pong games, and after that you had games that were always more complex.Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
The Odyssey 2 seems alright, but that hardware was too outdated for late 1978.
Kai Magazine has unveiled their next Intellivision game which they describe as being an authetic "Metroidvania".
Looks good compared to similar games for NES.
https://youtu.be/ryqzLgN7UsA
That's Intellivision? Wow.
It's a port of an MSX2 game. Amazing how 1979 hardware is replicating a 1986 hardware game at a lower resolution. Heck, the MSX2 game has static backgrounds and lacks scrolling, while the Intellivision game has full blown multi-directional scrolling and animated backgrounds, so it's actually better in some ways.
Man the Intellivision hardware is soooo good for the time.
It looks and sounds nice, but not $88 nice.
The Odyssey 2 hardware seems fine to me to be honest, the 2600 was just a very versatile console that ended up having a lot more exploitable tricks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yharnamresident
Remember that the Intellivision and especially Astrocade were launched at 3DO-level prices when taking into account inflation, whilst the 2600 and Odyssey 2 were launched at closer to PS3/Saturn level launch prices (still expensive certainly, but this was early on so everything was more expensive).
Intellivision was also limited release in 1979 IIRC, it was only released nationwide in mid 1980
The Odyssey 2 software bitd was held back by the built-in features/assets, similar to how most early Intellivision games used the EXEC to produce games easier and with smaller (cheaper) sized roms.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thenewguy
The 3DO launch price myth is so wide spread now that I can't find an interview with Trip that talks about the real price. It was $700 CAD at launch in my hometown.
But inflation calculators and estimates comparing dollars without context aren't accurate. For example the Intellivision in 1980 sold for 1/4 to 1/2 the price of a VCR. The 3DO "launch price" was 8 x VCRs at the time.
Also, the VCS launched at $840 USD in "1993 dollars". The VCS kept getting cheaper revisions but they still hadn't dropped the $200 price by 1980. $200 in 1980 is $300 "1989 dollars", making it 50% more than a Genesis at launch.
The Intellivision launched at $165 and Mattel being Mattel, raised it to $250 in 1980. Some retailers sold it for $300, but those likely came with a pack-in or two.
Even at $300 in 1980, that's only $525 in "1993 dollars".
Bottomline: In 1993 for the launch price of the VCS you could buy a launch 3DO + a game.
For the the difference in price o the reported top end price of an Intellivision in 1980 you could buy a Genesis + SNES in 1993.
I don't know where this number comes from, the inflation calculator I just checked said it would be $474 in 1993 dollars, nowhere near 3DOQuote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
But sure, these calculator's are very flawed, they work by having an average rate of inflation I think, and real inflation fluctuates hugely.
According to this catalogue the Atari 2600 had actually dropped in price quite a bit by 1980Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
Attachment 15779
I think that the Atari VCS launched at $249 in 1977, which is equal to $579 in 1993.
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
I checked to see if the common quoted launch price is disputed, it is, people think the VCS was launched for less than $199.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
They think it was closer to $180-$190 in 1977, Sears certainly were selling their version for under $180 in 1977
Attachment 15785
Its likely the recommended retail price was $199, and shops decided to knock $10-$20 off it at their discretion.
$199.99, or $200. That was a lot of money in 1977.
The Intellivision game I've been working on is far enough along now to reveal. It's based on the C64 game Project Firestart. It is being entered into the IntyBASIC Programming Contest 2020 which does not allow bank switching, so some of the content like cinemas are being held back for a full sized release.
I captured this video from real hardware but forgot to hook up my ECS. The music has more instruments using the ECS and Intellivoice speech may still make it into the full version. There are also missing and outdated sound effects in this revision.
It may look weird unless you watch at 720p (60fps).
https://youtu.be/NOh65b3Gjvc
Is that an 8K ROM?
I'm not sure exactly how it works out for Intellivision rom sizes.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
I believe the unbanked rom size bitd would be around 50k words for 10-bit roms. Everyone uses 16-bit rom now and apparently the LTO flashcart and related JLP boards allow for a larger max size before bank switching.
Roms for The Pandora Incident from mid-December were 65KB to 70KB. The alpha in this video is 90'ish and a recent one is closer to 95KB. Since we're bouncing around the limit and cutting and swapping things, 100KB might be the limit. But making roms compatible with the LTO may add chunk of rom size.
Early Mattel games were <8k 10-bit words. They used 10-bit roms because they were cheaper. A few first party games were 16k. The first Donkey Kong/DK Arcade versions are also 16k, but believe you get much more performance and storage using 16-bit roms.
So, is the extra 2 bits, a parity bit? Those odd numbers always threw me off.
The Intellivision has a 16-bit cpu. My understanding is that he 10-bit roms only have a parity added when run in 16-bit memory.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
Skywaffle posted a video of his near complete Intellivision port of Super Mario Bros. He can't capture video from real hardware so he used an emulator. Unfortunately his video isn't 60fps so the multiplexing appears choppy.
https://youtu.be/h7ttNz2UVw8
His full version of "Intellivania" is shipping this month.