SPACE Newsletter

NEWSLETTER for December 2013

President’s Corner by Michael Current

We had an excellent Annual Meeting last month; it was great to see everyone! Successful elections were held -Congratulations to Nolan, Steve, and Greg on their reelections as SPACE Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer for another year. In addition, thanks once again to Glen for staying on as DOM Librarian and Membership Chairman, and to Nolan for continuing as Webmaster and Newsletter Editor. As we all know, we wouldn't be here without you! The SPACE holiday party spectacular celebration is on this month!! Tacos won the planning conversation once again, but there are plenty of options for a dish that you could bring to pass as well. It should be a great time! In Atari bankruptcy news (are we tired of this yet??) the October 29 "Disclosure Statement Hearing," to consider the Motion put forward by the current Atari owners for emerging from bankruptcy themselves with the assets not sold off in auction, was held as scheduled. On that same day, the U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, the Honorable James M. Peck, approved the Disclosure Statement and established Solicitation and Voting Procedures for creditors to voice their say on the plan. The (final?) Confirmation Hearing is set for December 5, 2013 at 10:00 a.m. (New York local time). I truly don't know the intricacies of how commercial bankruptcy processes work, but it SOUNDS to me like that might be the end date for the process. Doesn't it? Stay tuned, or visit http://bmcgroup.com/atari for the latest official public court documents! Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting and PARTY, Friday December 13, 2013.

Treasurer's Report

Secretary's Report

by Greg Leitner

by Steve Peck for November 2013

It was a very good turnout for the November 2013 SPACE meeting as seven out of nine current members were present. It was nice to see Michael made it from Wisconsin to run the all-important election meeting, and as it has been the last few years, all current SPACE positions will remain the same in 2014. Brian had a Candid Camera moment when he took a bus to the meeting, as it seems two different bus drivers had no clue that their bus route should include Larpenteur Avenue. One bus driver actually drove away on him, but the second driver got him close enough so that he was able to walk to the meeting. I think I remember Brian called them the buses from hell. Don't forget that we have our SPACE Xmas party next month and it was no surprise that tacos were the majority choice once again. I will bring the taco ingredients, pop and all the table items, Lance will bring his usual and Glen the root beer floats. We still need chips and any other side dishes you want to bring. Our bank balance continues its march upwards. We started the month of November with a bank balance of $406.47 and with three ST DOMs sold and seven 8-bit DOMs sold, we took in another $30.00. We paid out the normal $10.00 for the monthly website and another $11.99 for the annual web-site fee for a total payout of $21.99. This gave us an $8.01 deposit and a bank balance of $414.48 for November 2013.

Hello, fellow Atarians! It's time for another Secretary's Report. The meeting started at 7:30 PM and it was atypical in the sense of one thing - it was Election Night 2013 and I congratulate the officers who kept their same positions until November of 2014. I also wanted to mention about Video 61's recent release of the game "Venture" for the Atari XL/XE computers. It was demoed at the Club on Friday and people were IMPRESSED! So am I, by the way. Loved it. Now, on to the Party plans for December. Yup. You guessed it. There was more talk of the same - TACOS! Well, knowing me, I will probably eat some anyway. But, seriously folks, I hope we all have a great time in December. I am looking forward to the new and upcoming DOMs as well. They are impressive, as always. In addition, SPACE President Mike Current commented on the Atari bankruptcy meeting. He should have more information on that in this Newsletter. I also enjoyed Mike's show-and-tell of the books he ordered - one from Marty Goldberg and Curt Vendel, and The Atari Book from the creators of Retro Gaming. I liked The Atari Book's article on Crystal Castles and its creator, Franz Xavier Lanzinger. It was quite fascinating. Then, the meeting adjourned at 8:10 PM. So, that's that. I will see you in December at the Christmas Party and I will close with my friendly neighborhood Stan Lee greeting… EXCELSIOR!

Now we have the $300.00 we need for the annual billing of our room rental, and we can start the New Year with over $100.00 in the bank. If the current trend continues with the sales of our DOMs, and we all pay our renewal membership dues on time I think we will be okay for 2014. Your continued support will be greatly appreciated. It's hard to believe that next month is the last SPACE meeting of 2013. We have a couple of By-law changes to vote on so we need everyone to attend. Let's all try to make it the best meeting of the year and have a fun party. See you all there.

From: Greg Leitner <greglites@hotmail.com> Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 @ 11:52 AM Subject: Changes to SPACE By-laws Proposed Bylaw Changes To be voted on at the December 13, 2013 SPACE Meeting

Change No. 1 Under the heading NEWSLETTER, it now reads that we receive the newsletter by mail but we want to make the change to read as follows: All currently paid club members shall receive a copy of the Newsletter by e-mail each month.

Change No. 2 Under the heading DISK OF THE MONTH, it now reads readable by a standard Atari 1050 disk drive but we want to make the change to read as follows: A new SPACE Disk of the month (DOM) shall be produced on a monthly basis. This is for the purpose of raising funds for the club.

Change No.1 changes the wording and change No.2 deletes a line.

8-Bit DOM Review by Steve Peck for November 2013 Well, guys, here I am again with another DOM review. This month we have a DOM from Poland (or, the Czech Republic) from the Glucholazy club, chock full of music demonstrations, pictures, and games. Remember, I will be rating this with my new ratings system. So, I will get started.

Wampirek (by Rocky): This picture represents a vampire, as depicted by the name of the file, as well as the fangs and the blood on the chin. I like the effort in the background with the gradients. Te shading on the character is top-notch as well. Two thumbs up. Wolf Walk (by Stargunner): This is a TIP animation showing as the name on the file implies, a wolf walking. Excellent work! Two thumbs up. SIDE B: Liczene Obrazkow (by Marek Jurkow): In this game, you get to count the images on the screen. Pretty easy, but fun for kids because it is a learning tool for them. One thumb up and one thumb down for the effort.

SIDE A: Chip Spring Tune (feat. Stolen Chorus) At STEREO (by LiSU): This music demo was made in the spring of this year and it does sound sort of, well, springy. It is another upbeat tune like last month's tune, but it is not as jazzy as the other one from October. However, I still liked it. One thumb up and one thumb down for the good effort. Far Away 2013 (by stRing): This one sounded trippier than the previous tune I just reviewed and sounded like it would be for Halloween to me. I thought it was a better tune, however and reminded me the classic tune “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg. Two thumbs up for the effort. Fred (by Piesiu): This picture, of a caveman, obviously was taken from “The Flintstones”, but it has no resemblance to any of the characters. It looks really cool and I enjoy it. Pure programming must have been used to create it because it does not look like a scan. Two thumbs up for the effort. Glazy 2013 (by Rocky): This picture depicts the annual party with the Glucholazy club for 2013 (at least, that is my guess). From this graphic, I can see how it can be better, but it was for fun and I understand that. One thumb up and one thumb down for effort. Ogrodnik (by Nosty): This picture depicts a dragon-like creature, but it is very hard to see on the screen because of its color. Again, it's all in fun. I will give it one thumb up and one thumb down for the good effort. Pzeczelak (by Rocky): This picture is actually pretty good for a bitmap. It shows an insect-like character with leaf-like wings flying through the trees. Two thumbs up for the effort.

Muad'Dib GFX (by Sikor): In this demonstration, we see a slideshow of bitmapped pictures set to some slow, but peppy music. First image shows a battle scene with a character that looks like Rambo holding a gun that looks half-melted. Then there is a picture of an eye staring at the screen, a really decent picture of King Tut with the gold shine rendered on it. There is also a picture of a woman's face and also ALF, the Alien Life Form, as a special guest on there. Pretty nifty! Two thumbs up. Animals on Atari (by Desire): This was supposed to have animals on display, but apparently, the programmer did not have time to program it in, or something. It showed some flashy logos and graphics before it crashed because of a PAL issue. I loved it, though. I will give it two thumbs up for the great effort. Qchan (by Mister BEEP): This has a cool beginning and a nice beat. It is very relaxing and very light. Two thumbs up for the effort. It deserves that. The Wall (by Italy Chamiel): This is a Tetris clone. You know the drill with Tetris. I guess Alexei Pazhitnov was on to something when he created this game originally. One thumb up and one thumb down. It was OK. Mouse (by Stargunner): This is another very good TIP animation showing a tiny elephant on the back of a giant mouse leaping over hurdles as they travel. It was even better than Wolf Walk. Two thumbs up!

Well, guys, that concludes the 8-bit DOM review. I will close, quoting that great artist: Stan Lee… EXCELSIOR!

ST DOM Report by Nolan Friedland

Greetings and welcome to another edition of the SPACE ST DOM! This month is a Special Edition two-disk issue! Enjoy!

Installation To install Towers on your hard drive run HDINSTAL.PRG from Towers disk One and follow the instructions given on screen. Floppy disk players may just run TOWERS.PRG and begin to play. NOTE: TOS 1.04 and greater consumes more RAM from the system. This caused Towers version 1.0 not to work on those systems. Version 1.1 fixes this problem by allowing users to play a one-player version of the game if memory is limited. However, if you have enough memory you can access the two-player mode as well.

About Towers requires a minimum of 864,340 bytes of FREE memory left on your system to run in one-player mode. If you have 930,360 bytes free, you can also access a two-player mode via null-modem and MIDI cables. In addition, you can play over the phone with a Hayes AT command-set-compatible 14.4k error-correction modem. Towers will not run on a 1 MB system with any accessories, hard drive utilities, or programs running. Towers may be installed on a hard drive. If you are running off floppies, Towers can utilize a second disk drive. Towers is compatible with the ST/STE/TT/Mega/Falcon systems. The program fits on two DS/DD disks. Please keep all files on the respective disk. The program will not work on a floppy system if files are mixed!

Up and Running The program will ask you if you wish to disable nullmodem and MIDI in favor of a modem connection. If you plan to play a one-player game, choosing either one will not affect one-player games. If you plan to play a modem game, both computers must have selected 'YES.' Once Towers is up and running you have several options available to you. From here, you can select one of the four or press ESC to exit the game.

INTRODUCTION – Gives you a brief overview of what the plot is in the game. Press ESC to return to main menu. INCARNATION – Allows you to select from one of four players to begin your adventures. Select the button to the left of the character until satisfied, and then click on Accept. Press ESC to return to main menu. CONTINUATION – This allows you to play a game already in progress. A file selection window will appear and allow you to load a game. Simply click on the name of the game to load. From here, you can also click on Quit to exit the game or Cancel to return to the main menu. CONNECTION – This option allow you to connect to a game already in progress on another computer. Before you select this, you must have two computers connected either by MIDI cables (Don't forget to cross the cables between computers – IN to OUT, OUT to IN.) or by null-modem adapter through the serial port. Then, one computer (the Host) must begin a game by either Continuation or Incarnation. Once the game begins and is in progress, the second computer (the Slave) may select Connection.

Playing the Game Once you are in the game, everything is controlled by the mouse and the LEFT mouse button. You will only use the RIGHT mouse button to sleep (by clicking the right button on your character) and to open/close a bag (by clicking the right button on the bag, when it is on your belt). You may (and should) use cursor keys for movement around the dungeon. They are as follows. Insert - Rotate Left Up Arrow - Move forward Clr/Home - Rotate Right Left Arrow - Move Left Down Arrow - Move Backward Right Arrow - Move Right If you are playing via modem, you may also use the keyboard for sending messages across the line. Just start typing and the text will begin to appear as you type. Since only one character is sent each game loop, there is a 30-character buffer so you can type ahead. Using the RETURN key will clear the text in the message window. If the info you are typing is in the buffer you can use DEL to delete it. Once the letter is on the screen, you cannot delete it. Use RETURN to clear the window.

If you have selected 'YES' at the start of the program, you will notice that the Auto Answer light is on. The Host MUST have the game in progress, before the Slave can connect. Once Connection is selected, you will be asked to enter a number and press RETURN. The modem will not start dialing the number until you press RETURN. If you make a mistake, press DEL to begin again. If you wish to cancel hit ESC. If you wish to cancel call waiting the '*' key has been included, BUT IT WILL NOT SHOW ON THE SCREEN. You may also use the ',' key to pause the modem before it will continue dialing. Use SPACE to make your number more readable if you wish. NOTE: Only the Host may load or save games and enter passwords. At the top between the two snakes is the compass. At the far right top of the screen is a gold Disk, you can select this to access the Load/Save/Quit options. Don't forget to type a name in when saving. Below that are two thermometers, the left one measures your health, and will turn RED if you are poisoned. The Right one is blue and it measures you Magic points. In between them is the representation of you. Click here, to add/remove clothing, armor, and jewelry. You can also read/drink/eat by clicking the appropriate item on you character.

To the left of your character is the Fight hand. Place weapons here that you wish to use in battle.

the spell works and the name does not change, then the item is not magical.

Directly below is your ring finger. Only rings will fit here.

At the bottom, you have your movement panel that can be also controlled by the keyboard. To the left of the movement panel, there is an Attack button. Click on this button when you with to combat with an enemy. The weapon you fight with depends on the weapon you placed on your fight hand. Different weapons have different strike speeds. The Attack button will remain depressed until you have completed a full swing and are ready to hit again. Further left is the Spell Scroll. Select a word by clicking the mouse on that word. The word will then appear in the spell window (if it was accessed with the button to the left of the window). Next is the message window. This window will display messages and information important to the game.

To the right of your character is a small backpack to carry four items. You may put projectile ammunition to be used by certain weapons, or just about any other item, except for bags, in here. Below your character is your belt that can hold five items. You may also strap bags here to carry more. You may only open/close bags when they are located on this belt. Below your belt is a status window. It informs you of your standing as well as your condition. There are two pages – To toggle between the two, click the mouse on the little arrow in the corner of this window. This window will also reveal what is contained within a bag when open. At which time you may get/drop items here as well. Underneath this are two windows with a button to the left of each. These are your spell windows. To select a window (and clear it out), click on the button to the left of that window. Formulate a spell (see spell scroll), then click on the window. You have conjured a spell, although it may not succeed. Duration spells will show up on this window as an icon. These icons will disappear when the spell dissipates. You can dissipate a spell prematurely by clicking on the button left of that window. NOTE: Spells like reveal an item spell, requires that the object be in hand (that is in place of the arrow) for it to work. Take the object and click on the window with the reveal spell to activate. You may have to play with the position of the object a little to conjure the spell. In this case, the name in the message window will change. If

On the far left center of the screen is an indicator. This indicator will light up when you engage and attack an enemy in hand-to-hand combat. This indicator will give you the average strength of your opponent. The brighter it is, the stronger you enemy. The left-center of your screen contains your view of the 3D dungeon. You can interact within the dungeon with your mouse. Click on buttons on dungeon walls that you are directly in front of. Use a key on a keyhole. Drop/get items by clicking on the ground beneath your feet (you can only get items directly in front of you). Throw items by clicking down the hall.

From: Michael Current <michael@mcurrent.name>



UI: Added support for per-monitor DPI scaling in Windows 8.1.



UI: Added custom debug font dialog for half point sizes.



UI: File > Exit now confirms if there are modified images.



XEP80: Initial support.

Sent: Sunday, November 3, 2013 @ 6:04 PM Subject: Altirra 2.40 released Altirra Version 2.40 [November 1, 2013]: features added 

65C816: Optimized mode switches.



Audio: Added drive sound volume level option.



Cartridge: Added support for .CAR types 53-59 (2K, 4K, right-as-left 8K, right slot 4K, 128-512K SIC!).

bugs fixed 

5200: Floating data bus is now enabled in 5200 mode.



CPU: Preliminary support for accelerated 65C816 operation.

65C816: Fixed cycle timing for JMP (abs) instruction.



65C816: Fixed cycle timing for TXY instruction.



Debugger: Added .dmabuf command.



65C816: Fixed TYX instruction.



Debugger: Added %e, %f, and %g formats to .printf command.



65C816: INX was checking M bit instead of X bit.



 Debugger: Verifier can now detect 64K address space index wrapping and abnormal DMA conditions.

65C816: Read/modify/write instructions now do read/write/write in emulation mode.



65C816: Fixed (dp), (dp,X), and (dp,Y) behavior with DP!=0.

Debugger: Added fbx (fill bytes with expression) command.



ANTIC: Disabling playfield DMA after playfield start now reads bus data into the line buffer.

Debugger: r (register) command now allows access to 65C816 registers.



ANTIC: Abnormal playfield DMA is now emulated.

Disk: Added "Extract Boot Sectors" command to disk dialog for use with bootable virtual disks.



ANTIC: changes.



Cartridge: Fixed $BFxx reading with 5200 64K cartridge type.



CPU: Illegal instruction option now saves correctly.



  

Improved

precision

of

CHACTL



LLE: Added PBI device interrupt support.



MMU: High (65C816) memory can now be adjusted from 0KB-4032KB.



Profiler: Added 65C816 support.



Recorder: Added .WAV file audio recording.





Recorder: Added option for encoding duplicate frames as full frames.

Debugger: Display float (df) command displays all ten significant digits.



UI: Added on-screen indicators for console buttons held on startup.

Debugger: Fixed LLE kernel ROM auto-reload and symbol load option.



UI: Added on-screen indication for some view mode changes.

Debugger: UI panels are now more consistent with debugger commands in numeric base handling.



Debugger: Fixed incorrect disassembly on step when running from high banks.

 



GTIA: Fixed bug with VDELAY on missiles.

From: Michael Current <michael@mcurrent.name>



GTIA: Fixed regression with hires player-playfield collisions (since 2.30).

Sent: Monday, November 4, 2013 @ 9:39 PM



LLE: Fixes and optimizations to math pack.



LLE: Decimal flag is now cleared before dispatching IRQs.



LLE: Fixed BRK handler to handle stack wrapping.



LLE: 5200 BIOS now strobes NMIRES for DLIs.



LLE: Fixed CIOINV timing so that emulated CIO hooks work.



LLE: Corrected K: debounce logic and E: AUX2 open handling (fixes Action! with LLE firmware).



HLE: Fixes to math pack acceleration.



HLE: Added partial fix for CDTMA1 during accelerated disk reads (fixes Ankh with SIO patch enabled).



IDE: Fixed value of Sector Count register after READ SECTOR and WRITE SECTOR commands.



MMU: Fixed aliasing of high memory banks.



POKEY: SKSTAT bit 1 is now emulated.



Printer: Emulated P: device now supports the PUT CHARS command with len=0.



Serial: Emulated R: device supports break interrupts.



UI: Fixed GDI handle leak in text editor.



UI: Added workaround for set file associations dialog not appearing on Windows 8.



UI: Fixed ANTIC DMA visualization mode with extended PAL height.



UI: Fixed PCLink indicator not updating.



U1MB: Fixed PIA read decoding to only respond to $D300-D37F (unfixes Bounty Bob Strikes Back!).

http://virtualdub.org/altirra.html

Subject: SV2k13 invitro for the Falcon has been released Grey writes: It's the last 4th invitation intro by Lamers & Mystic Bytes for the forthcoming Silly Venture 2k13 ATARI party in Poland - this time for the standard Falcon030 with 4MB of RAM. SV2k13 takes place from 8th to 11th day of November 2013 (Friday - Monday). Everyone is more than welcome to send his remote entry for all Atari compos using BOTH e-mail addresses, which are: atari(at)sillyventure.eu greymsb(at)poczta.fm The deadline for msx/gfx and game is midnight of 8th November (Friday) and midnight of 9th November (Saturday) for intro/game and wild entries. Get ready for true Atari spirit ! :) Download the Falcon invite: http://files.dhs.nu/files_demo/lms_sv13.zip

CLUB OFFICIALS

Michael Current

President: (608) 787-8548 michael@mcurrent.name

Vice President / Webmaster / Newsletter Editor (763) 689-5340 Nolan Friedland ilmarinen1976@hotmail.com

Steve Peck

Secretary: (651) 408-1096 artisan213574@gmail.com

DOM Librarian / Membership Chairman: (763) 786-4790 Glen Kirschenmann kirsch@netzero.net

Greg Leitner

Treasurer: (651) 455-6550 greglites@hotmail.com

Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE) meets on the second Friday of each month at 7:30 PM in the Falcon Heights Community Center at 2077 West Larpenteur Ave. Doors open at 7:00 PM.

S.P.A.C.E. c/o Gregory Leitner 3407 78th St E Inver Grove Heights, MN 55076-3037

DISCLAIMER Published by the Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), an independent organization with no business affiliation with ATARI, Inc. Permission is granted to any similar organization with which SPACE exchanges newsletters to reprint material from this newsletter. We do however ask that credit be given to the authors and to SPACE. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of SPACE, the club officers, club members or ATARI, Inc.

Visit our website at: http://space.atari.org/ The SPACE BBS is currently offline. We apologize for this inconvenience and hope to have it back online in the near future.

Articles for Publication must be received by the Newsletter Editor two weeks prior to the Club’s next Scheduled meeting.