[atari7800] Re: Projects, introductions, and such

My story...

Growing up I was a huge videogame fanatic, but never actually saw a 7800
until I started collecting classic systems. 

Around 1996 I go into emulation, and worked on porting an Atari 2600
emulator from Unix to DOS, and went on to write a Atari 5200 emulator
from scratch. Around this time I also got my hands on a hard copy of the
Atari 7800 Software Guide. I was to busy with other projects to get into
writing a 7800 emulator so I passed the docs on to another emulator
author. He did a little work on it, but got to busy with other things so
never got to far with it. I then passed the docs onto another emulator
author, once again he ended up not having the time to put into it. By
this time almost 2 years had gone by since I got the docs, and since I
now had the time I finally produced a working 7800 emulator. This
emulator then became the basis for the MESS 7800 driver.

The 7800 hardware has always fascinated me, so I have continued to study
the hardware.

Dan 
http://www.atarihq.com/danb



-----Original Message-----
From: atari7800-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:atari7800-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
jeremypenner@xxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 9:25 PM
To: atari7800@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [atari7800] Projects, introductions, and such


Hey there!
So, inquiring minds want to know what people are doing on a 
7800 development mailing list.  Well, I'll tell you.

I was raised on the odd system out.  As a child growing up, 
my family had a Coleco Gemini (which has the greatest 
controllers on Earth, by the way) and a Vic-20.  The Gemini 
broke just in time to be replacable with an Atari 7800.  (To 
round out the oddness, my father, a teacher, would often 
bring home an Apple IIgs from his school for the summer.)  I 
grew up thinking that the 7800 was a relatively common 
machine, and having no idea that we owned 10% of the 
system's library, let alone a large chunk of the games worth 
playing.  

These days, I collect systems with the intent of getting the 
proper hardware and know-how to develop for them.  I'm in 
the middle of modding my 7800 into a development station 
with my brother, who is an electrical engineer.  We're slapping 
together a sort of universal RAM cart, with the ability to switch 
between bankswitching schemes with a flip of a DIP switch, 
and the ability to add more bankswitching schemes as 
necessary.  (Programmable logic chips are dandy things.)

As far as projects on the go for the 7800, nothing beyond 
prodding and learning at the moment.  In the interests of 
actually getting projects completed, I've decided to not start 
anything new until one of my three current major projects is 
suitably wrapped up.  I did spend some time getting a small 
test program up and running in an emulator.  At some point, 
I'll probably port robotfindskitten, since that's what I end up 
doing with every platform I touch.

Anyway, that's why I'm here.  Hope to see some interesting 
things come out of this!

Jeremy

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