This is incredible. From what I know about 2600 programming, just getting music & animation to play simultaneously is a HUGE accomplishment. The water effect at 1:50 or so is awesome!
+John Rose The thing is you have no interrupts on the MOS 6507 CPU, and the TIA chip has no frame buffer, so the CPU has to tell the TIA what to draw scanline by scanline, if I'm not mistaken. It's the same way the ZX Spectrum beeper could be used to make sounds. The CPU has to switch between on and off on the speaker at timed intervals to produce a pulse. So I imagine each scanline some time is spent with the image, then with the music engine and so on... If the music engine takes let's say 1000 machine cycles to execute every frame, I'd break this up into tiny segments I can surely get done each scanline. I don't know if that's how they actually do it though just my idea.
Audio registers are not typically updated during active display lines. Unless the programmer has some very specific reason to do that, it's common practice to do it during blanking periods, in which you have plenty of CPU time for sound and logic.
I really like the (at least in a whole) much wider color palette of an Arati 2600 compared to (any) other 8 Bit computer. The lumina shadings of the blue scroller text, background color flashing at the dots-part and the fade in & fade out at all the static text. -S.th. like the shaded/colorful horizontal shooting 'laser' in the game 'Chopper Command' or also its smooth color shaded yellow & red sunlight at the horizon of that game just for instance (there are many other game examples also).
@VectorOmega afaik. Atari XL computer series uses same chips as the Atari 7800, but most of the XL demos require a lot more memory than the 7800 has to offer(4kb vs. 64kb).
No, Atari 7800 has superior MARIA chip. The one that was based on the 8-bit 800/XL/XE computer line was Atari 5200 and then the XEGS (basically a computer in a console case).
It runs on an emulator. By removing the whole interactivity, it opens up more of the little memory. Many games, like "Stella's Stocking", "Battlezone", "Fatal Run" have pretty nice visuals with multiple colors. Please do more research before commenting.
I miss remembered. As you said 7800 is quite different from 5200 and XL. But I'm sure there's some smaller demos even for the 7800, sadly none comes to my mind right now. As a 8-bit democoder 7800 might be an interesting platform to code for with its MARIA-chip, too bad 7800 isn't the cheapest platform to buy.
I tried playing the .bin file off of my Atari VCS system (1977 California, USA) via the Harmony Cartridge and it plays the music and shows the video as shown above, BUT there is no color. It's all in black and white. I've tried adjusting all the switches on the system, yes even the color switch and it still stays in black and white. No color :(
That can't be Atari demo, at least not 2600. 1)It has color graphics with high res and more than 2 colors at once 2) It has 3d effects (vortex and other)
This is incredible. From what I know about 2600 programming, just getting music & animation to play simultaneously is a HUGE accomplishment. The water effect at 1:50 or so is awesome!
+John Rose The thing is you have no interrupts on the MOS 6507 CPU, and the TIA chip has no frame buffer, so the CPU has to tell the TIA what to draw scanline by scanline, if I'm not mistaken. It's the same way the ZX Spectrum beeper could be used to make sounds. The CPU has to switch between on and off on the speaker at timed intervals to produce a pulse.
So I imagine each scanline some time is spent with the image, then with the music engine and so on... If the music engine takes let's say 1000 machine cycles to execute every frame, I'd break this up into tiny segments I can surely get done each scanline. I don't know if that's how they actually do it though just my idea.
Audio registers are not typically updated during active display lines. Unless the programmer has some very specific reason to do that, it's common practice to do it during blanking periods, in which you have plenty of CPU time for sound and logic.
I really like the (at least in a whole) much wider color palette of an Arati 2600 compared to (any) other 8 Bit computer. The lumina shadings of the blue scroller text, background color flashing at the dots-part and the fade in & fade out at all the static text. -S.th. like the shaded/colorful horizontal shooting 'laser' in the game 'Chopper Command' or also its smooth color shaded yellow & red sunlight at the horizon of that game just for instance (there are many other game examples also).
And 5200, atari 8 bit & 7800!
Behold the power of a 1Mhz cpu and 7-bit colour palette!
The 2600 has an 8-bit color palette.
l'immagine del gabbiano che avanza, tra le onde del mare......FANTASTICO!!!
I really enjoy watching these... thanks for encoding!
This looks pretty nice. I loved the twirl effect.
Trilobit is some kind of god.
It was the Atari 5200 that had the same chips as the XL computers.
The 7800 is it's own platform.
Intelevision: "Atari 2600 < Intelevision"
Atari 2600:
@VectorOmega afaik. Atari XL computer series uses same chips as the Atari 7800, but most of the XL demos require a lot more memory than the 7800 has to offer(4kb vs. 64kb).
No, Atari 7800 has superior MARIA chip. The one that was based on the 8-bit 800/XL/XE computer line was Atari 5200 and then the XEGS (basically a computer in a console case).
@@tuomollo Yeah, there's another comment by me in the comments where I corrected this. YT didn't have a good response system 10 years ago.
It runs on an emulator. By removing the whole interactivity, it opens up more of the little memory. Many games, like "Stella's Stocking", "Battlezone", "Fatal Run" have pretty nice visuals with multiple colors. Please do more research before commenting.
I miss remembered. As you said 7800 is quite different from 5200 and XL. But I'm sure there's some smaller demos even for the 7800, sadly none comes to my mind right now. As a 8-bit democoder 7800 might be an interesting platform to code for with its MARIA-chip, too bad 7800 isn't the cheapest platform to buy.
I tried playing the .bin file off of my Atari VCS system (1977 California, USA) via the Harmony Cartridge and it plays the music and shows the video as shown above, BUT there is no color. It's all in black and white. I've tried adjusting all the switches on the system, yes even the color switch and it still stays in black and white. No color :(
often have that issue when loading games meant for PAL systems on my 2600. maybe this demo's for PAL?
You have to wonder what Jay Miner would say about this. Did he know what was possible and just never said anything or would this blow his mind?
Has anyone done any...let's say 7800 demos yet?
3) It has no "score" bar.
PAL versus NTSC i suspect. Try a PAL Stella.
is this an actual game?
It's what's called a demoscene, which is a form of art. Some of it REALLY push the hardware to its limits, but then some are quite simple.
That can't be Atari demo, at least not 2600. 1)It has color graphics with high res and more than 2 colors at once 2) It has 3d effects (vortex and other)