Zerosquare

Happy birthday SebRmv !

Nice work !

Does it make your laundry whiter than white, too ?

Happy new year everyone ! May 2012 be a lucky year for the Jaguar

Since someone asked me if it was possible to use Atari ST joysticks on the Jag, I made a simple adapter Here's the pinout : Male Sub-D 9 Male Sub-D 15 connector high density connector (Joystick side) (Jaguar side) 1 (Up) 14 (J8) 2 (Down) 13 (J9) 3 (Left) 12 (J10) 4 (Right) 11 (J11) 6 (Button) 10 (B1) 8 (Ground) 4 (J0) Can't test it since I don't have any Atari joystick, but it should work fine. The button on the joystick is mapped to the A button on the standard Jag controller (using another button would have required a more complicated adapter). Note : this will only work with "dumb" joystick/gamepads. Anything more evolved (controllers with turbo features, Sega Master System/Mega Drive controllers, etc.) will not work correctly. Now it's up to you to create joystick-friendly games

Several games on the Jaguar are more fun to play if you have a rotary controller (there's Tempest 2000 of course, but also Kobayashi Maru by Reboot for example). Here's a little tutorial to build one from a standard Jaguar controller, without losing the ability to use the D-pad for "normal" games. What you need : - a standard Jaguar controller, obviously - a mechanical encoder, preferably without detents (i.e. that rotates freely without "clicks"). The number of steps per revolution will determine how sensitive the knob is ; 24 to 36 steps is fine. - a knob to put on top of the encoder - a DPDT switch. It will be used to switch between "normal" and "rotary" mode. - some wires, a soldering iron with solder, some heatshrinking tubing if you want to be neat The encoder, knob and DPDT switch are not very expensive ; I paid 5€ (about $6.50) for all three. The first step is of course to take your controller apart. The screws are hidden under round, adhesive pieces of rubber ; lift them gently with a screwdriver. Then pretty much everything you need to do is summed up in this picture : Before closing the controller, check that everything is working fine. If the rotary part works backwards, swap the outputs of the encoder. And this is how the result looks like :

!X in C is X <> 0 in BASIC. ~X in C is NOT X in BASIC. That's a classic mistake

Contact kskunk. I think he mentioned once there's a software patch you can apply, which allows you to use one of the other two "normal size" USB ports instead of the mini-USB one.

Why not Jeff Minter made Tempest 2000 free a few years ago, so I think it's OK.

It's on the second pad from the left. No, actually is pretty comfortable

An extra tip for using it with Tempest 2000 : To use rotary controllers in Tempest 2000, you first need to enable the hidden option. But if you only have one controller, you're stuck, because you need to have two controllers connected and hold the Pause button on both. Fortunately, there's an easy way to cheat. Use a piece of wire (or a bent paper clip) to connect together pins 4 and 6 on the right controller port, like this : This will simulate holding the Pause button on the right controller. With the wire in place, just press Pause on the left controller, and you'll unlock the option. Once this is done, you can remove the wire and throw it away -- you won't ever need it again, since Tempest saves the setting in the cartridge memory.

SebRmv has one IIRC, but he doesn't visit Jagware often.

It looks like it suffers from the same problem as the other Jaguar PC tools from that era (e.g. madmac and aln) : they work fine under Windows 9x, Vista and Seven, but crash under Windows 2000 and XP. There's no real solution AFAIK, except maybe running it in a Windows 9x virtual machine, but I don't know if the parallel port communication would work correctly.

I told CJ the exact same thing, and his reply was "turn down the volume "

Joyeux anniversaire en retard

Ave retrogaming friends ! The Retro-Gaming Connexion organization is proud to announce that its next RGC convention will take place on November 5th and 6th. Like hundreds of enthusiasts during the last seven years, participate in one of the greatest retro/alternative-gaming-themed gatherings in France, and enter the Retro-Gaming Connexion Pantheon! Discover or rediscover great classics which used to be your gaming partners, as well as more recent productions such as Dynamite Dreams on the Sega Dreamcast, or the Atari 2600 port of Halo. A complete range of machines from every era will be available, from the Pong to the PSX, including the SNES, the Neo Geo and plenty of others. But more exotic machines will also be featured, such as the Vectrex, the Gizmondo and a lot more... As always, our team will welcome you with its permanent enthusiasm and friendliness. We've relocated to a new arena this year (Meaux, in the Seine-et-Marne) which is easier to find, but also a lot bigger (1,200 m² / approx. 13,000 square feet) to better suit your needs. But our regulars shouldn't worry: "more space" doesn't mean "too many people", as we want to keep the laid-back atmosphere which makes this convention a unforgettable event. Preview of the festivities: - Booths: numerous thematic booths where you'll discover rare and exotic consoles, or different ways of playing (e.g. : networked PS1s). - New games demonstrations: you'll have the opportunity to try out the latest homebrew or semi-pro releases on your favorite machines. - Contests: join the current-day gladiators and maybe become the retro-gaming champion. - Quizzes: test your knowledge and compete against the best video game gurus. - Sales/trading: as always, a large area will be devoted to it. Fueled by the same dedication that has been defining it for ten years now, the Retro-Gaming Connexion organization will once more be present to fulfill your expectations, and make those two days a moment of sharing and happiness. We are eager to welcome you into our retro and alternative-gaming arena. Sharpen your gamepads, they'll be your swords during this weekend. Groups members, designers or mere enthusiasts: do you have a project, game or group you'd like to introduce? We will be happy to let you use the stage to express yourself. Contact us on: Practical information: What? The RGC 2011 is a convention whose theme is retro and alternative gaming. It will take place in Meaux (Seine-et-Marne, France). Its concept is to offer a space where people can play, demonstrate and share their retrogaming interest. The Retro-Gaming Connexion organization can provide tables, chairs, screens (subject to prior agreement) and electrical power (within available quantities). Who? The RGC convention is intended for everyone, regardless of their age, gender, and geographical origin. When? The Retro-Gaming Connexion 2011 will last from Saturday 5th, 10 AM to Sunday 6th, 5 PM (local time) in November 2011. Where? The convention is hosted at this address: Salle des fêtes de Meaux Avenue de la Marne / Chemin des Patis Meaux, France It is accessible by train (Meaux train station, then by bus) Detailed information is available on our site/forum -> http://www.yaronet.com/sujets.php?f=2419 How? Entrance is subject to prior registration and payment, through an online form: http://www.yaronet.com/posts.php?s=143608 The registration is valid as soon as we receive your payment. The price depends on whether you attend for one or two days ; women and children under 12 are entitled to a 50% rebate. Registrations are cancellable with full reimbursement up to October 28th 2011. The Retro-Gaming Connexion 2011 is organized according to a preset schedule. If you would like to participate, please contact us by email beforehand. It is possible to sleep in the main room. A transportation service will be available for those sleeping in one of the nearby hotels. Note: Hardware such as consoles and games are the property of their owner. Any hardware list is purely informative and is not an inventory. A space will be devoted to sales and trades of video games and related materials. Goods, prices and conditions are under the seller's responsibility. RGC organization Complete info about the convention : http://www.yaronet.com/sujets.php?f=2419 www.retro-gc.net Contact :

Here are my pictures, and pictures/videos by others

Interesting... But with your script, a delay can occur between two "echo" commands. I think you should try something like "cat big_file > /dev/ttyS0" (big_file being a few megabytes for example), or a small C program like this : #include <stdio.h> int main(void) { char buffer[] = "0123456789"; FILE *f = fopen("/dev/ttyS0", "wb"); for (;;) { fwrite(buffer, 1, strlen(buffer), f); } }

Why not, if it works fine ? (in embedded electronics, it's not rare to emulate features in software when the hardware is buggy -- or too expensive to afford) Nope, but IIRC I always used the "no parity" setting, so I probably didn't run into it. The stop bit level and the idle level (when you're not transmitting anything) are the same. Which means (for example) that sending a byte with 1 stop bit, then waitng for the duration of 2 bits before sending the next byte, is the same as sending the first byte with 3 stop bits. What they mean is that the delay between incoming bytes should be an integral multiple of the bit duration. If that's true, that means that if you send a continuous stream of bytes, you should never run into the problem ; that would be interesting to try. If it works, it would be easy to work around the problem : when you don't have anything to transmit, just send "filler" bytes to keep the UART busy. (note that it's problematic for network with more than 2 consoles for collision reasons)

Merci

Indeded, that's the problem I had too, and I couldn't find a way to reset it either. So I decided to forgot about the broken UART receiver completely and do it in software PS : glad to see you back on the Jaguar

Hehe, thanks, it's always nice to get "it works" reports

Thanks you

Thanks guys