TRS-80 emulator

Let's go back to the days of Starsky & Hutch and Asteroids!

Most people might think it's stupid to emulate a retro computer using a retro computer? Thankfully, not me as I've found something rather incredible called 2nd Life. It's a TRS-80 Model III emulator by Sander Berents and is something I stumbled on purely by chance. So, I figured I should give it a good playtesting.

I've never used a TRS-80 and I imagine few made it outside the US? Anyhow, Tandy and RadioShack released the first model in 1977, it was a hit for those wealthy enough to have lots of spare cash burning a hole in their pockets. Back then, I would have been six and too young to care about something like this :-)

Let's begin with a screenshot of the credits. Oh yeah, it's screenshot time...

It's sadly impressive that something this good wasn't released earlier in the ST's life.

What's a RadioShack?

Like you, I love my Atari ST, even when it pretends to be something else - a Sinclair, Commodore, or even a peculiar clunk of hardware by RadioShack (I used to love the Tandy stores). Anyhow, a TRS-80 emulator sounded far too tempting not to try! I read the docs and hit the web to learn how to operate this ancient beast.

First things first, read the docs and look at the FAQ text file to understand which options to enable/disable for the best performance and compatibility settings. You will also find two more disk images with compiled and BASIC games but you'll be best with a 16MHz computer to enjoy something close to native speeds.

2nd Life requires ST High resolution and is very easy to use. Along the bottom of the screen, are four floppy disk drive icons - click to highlight Drive 0 and use that as the TRS operating system boot drive. The second drive icon can be used for anything like games or other images that you may have downloaded.

Lots of features and is versatile. Plus it can play many different games too which matters more...

One of the first things I booted up was Donkey Kong. Okay, it looks terrible but plays well.

Old but not that much different

Using the TRS-80's DOS commands feels a little quirky but is fairly easy to learn. For example, DIR will display the directory of a disk and it can be expanded with extra options and filters, as you'll see in the video:

DIR 0 - will produce the contents of Drive 0

DIR 1 - will produce the contents of Drive 1. Easy, right?

DIR 1,/BAS - this displays the same list but filters for BAS files.
CAT 1 - this provides an alternative way to load programs!

We're gonna get a little more complex now but it's worth it to watch the dancing alien:

BASIC RUN "DANCING/BAS,1"

The command looks worse than it actually is. Breaking it down, it simply instructs the computer to load up the BASIC program. Then that will load/run the file "DANCING/BAS" which is stored on Drive 1. Easy!

This is starting to be fun so I went searching for a game like Menace or R-Type. Ahem, screenshot time...

Sea Dragon is a terrible mess of ZX81 blockiness but it is a brilliant shoot 'em up!

Get to the games already!

Ultimately, we're here to play some TRS-80 games and I gotta tip my hat to this old piece of 70s kit. There are some great games in its library and there's a good reason I chose Sea Dragon as the video thumbnail. Like any old computer, there's a wealth of vintage games from the era: Pacman, Invaders, Frogger, etc. I'm a geek, so I enjoyed the thrill of playing with something that's almost as old as me. No rude comments, please!

Performance-wise, the humble 8MHZ Atari ST will successfully emulate and run everything you throw at it. It will struggle with the games as it's simply not fast enough. Personally, my Mega STe is the essential, minimum requirement and produces near-perfect speeds, generally speaking. So, 8MHz will be fine but 16MHz will get you gaming. Hardly a shock and just the same as with other emulators we have within our library...

Don't forget to read the docs as README.TXT is there for a reason... Okay, I'll nag no more! 

Yes, this really is Frogger. Hopper has awful collision detection but is a pretty good game.

Games! Give me games!

One of the best games is Sea Dragon, which is a fantastic scramble through watery canyons. Sadly, I wasn't impressed with Penetrator I struggled with jerky graphics and twitchy controls. It was a shock to see a chunky version of Donkey Kong with huge black and white blocks but the gameplay is superb and that's what matters. However, the blocks worked great for Armored Patrol and the wealth of PacMan games!

There are a few games bundled with 2nd Life and sooner or later you will want more. Thankfully, there are some great websites with disk images stuffed full of games and I managed to find racers, lots of different Space Invaders, Zork, and even Temple of Apshai - which is nothing at all like the Atari ST version. Its "turn-based" element caught me off-guard, in a nice way. But boy, is it slow - even on a real TRS-80. Yikes!

Most (all?) disk images found on the internet won't be compatible with the Atari ST. Thankfully, Sander has a utility to convert these for 2nd Life and it works a treat from what I've seen so far. Hence, how I got to play Hamburger Sam, Berserk, erm Robot Attack and the sluggish Temple of Apshai.

He might not be yellow but he's on the TRS-80 as Gobbler!

The CryptO'pinion?

I initially expected the TRS-80 to be nothing more than a cumbersome piece of ancient hardware that I wouldn't particularly enjoy. I couldn't be more wrong, this machine appears to have more power and versatility than I would ever imagine. It's a great computer and it's no wonder those plucky Americans snapped it up!

2nd Life is an equally fantastic piece of software! I'm impressed with how well it runs in terms of speed, ease of use, and compatibility. The inclusion of a utility to convert disk images into a format that 2nd Life can recognise is wonderful. That opens up the possibility of playing everything there is. Techies can go further: font editor, keyboard alteration, linking computers, and even tinkering with a disassembler debugger...

The TRS-80 is great and it's impressive to see the Atari ST flip back in time so easily and reliably. I have really enjoyed using 2nd Life and I'd love to hear what hardware you guys are using to run this software.

GitHub has the download which includes the source code for those uber-geeks amongst us :-)

- MORE SCREENSHOTS -

Look what I found and it's quite different to the Atari ST game. Quick, kill the Ant Man!!

This is Astro and it's a BASIC game. No, I mean it's written in BASIC and it's good.

Hamburger Sam, based on BurgerTime but felt more like Mr Wimpy to me. Love it.

This is Speedway and it's kinda like an early Spy Hunter or Major Motion. Hmm...

Runner demands quick control action - you'll regret not reading the FAQ text file!

I only ever played Penetrator on the ZX Spectrum... and this isn't as good!

Hang on, is that Berserk? No, it's Robot Attack and completely different. Honest.

Limit Zero is absolutely superb and something you should play!!

ScarfMan? Okay, it's getting silly now...

Lunar Lander is a cracking conversion but too slow for an 8MHz ST to handle.

Frenetic

Core Blimey!

Those with a good memory may remember already seeing Frenetic here on AtariCrypt about five years ago? However, my review was, ahem, less than favourable. If I remember correctly, the graphics were nice and I thought the gameplay was well-balanced. Yet, I oddly rated it as nothing more than a cheap & nasty Amiga port. Well, that was a long time ago and I figured that I needed to revisit Core's vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up. Let's see if I was wrong back then.

Frenetic transports us slap-bang into the 23rd Century with soulless scientists still debating over the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Well, as often happens in the world of sci-fi gaming, life on Earth is under attack from such creatures. It had to happen! This time it's aliens from the planet "Mozone". Hmm, anyhow we have to head into the unknown to pave the way for the safe travel of Earth's vessels and help prevent the extinction of humanity. Sounds like fun, right?

Before we begin, how about a screenshot? Yeah, let's do just that so here you go...

Giant trees and rocks throughout level one and it's pretty much green throughout!

Big levels, Big Guns, Big Monsters

There are eight ginormous levels stuffed with hundreds of aliens out for human blood. Some will stroll into your line of fire whereas others swirl majestically onto the screen. So, it's obvious what to do - bang on the fire button and kill as many as possible. Power-ups are available along the way to upgrade your ship's firepower. They are essential and blessed with different types of upgrades: forward firepower, speed, side armaments, shields, etc. Sadly, these pickups areas are few, so I was often left vulnerable and underpowered after losing a life. Yes, power-ups are gone after dying.

Hang on a moment, do you have a friend sat idle? Well, there is a cool option for two-players which is brilliant and certainly comes in handy on those harder levels later on. Sadly, I have no friends... Sniff... boohoo...

Finally, each stage has the expected end-of-level boss and these are huge beasts. When I say huge I really do mean it. They will take lots of time and firepower to defeat, but most aren't really that difficult (beyond the time required to kill). Unless you have just lost your power-ups then you can expect that battle to last a long time... a very long time!

Let's take a break from reading and view another screenshot. How about one that looks creepy and very alien...

Later levels might look funky but the gameplay remains exactly the same!

Aesthetics

The backgrounds are excellent on most levels, especially the first with tons of colour and artwork I really liked. The enemies move spritely with different attack patterns and the bosses are ginormous creatures taking up most of the screen. The vertical scrolling isn't great which is disappointing because the Atari ST has many similar games with smoother framerates. In fact, I'd say that the graphics look better in these screenshots compared to when actually playing.

The music is by Martin Walker and is brilliant - I love it!! Not only that, but it works well alongside the sound effects too I thought. Sadly, that same tune plays throughout which is incredibly disappointing and a massive shame because Martin's one-track is quite excellent. We needed more as I know I would have enjoyed listening to more of his work.

So, it looks pretty and sounds great so let's celebrate with one final screenshot of a funky boss...

Some of the bosses are great and some are... rather rubbish!

The CryptO'pinion?

Well, in hindsight, it looks like I wasn't wrong after all? At best, this is an average shoot 'em up but, if you can find a friend, then it will be a little more bearable. Well, for a few games anyhow. Frenetic needed more progression, more power-ups, and more pizzazz. It's boring. So boot up something like Xenon II, Wings Of Death, SWIV, or Flying Shark.

What I liked: the first couple of levels have well-balanced gameplay and I even reached the third stage - without cheating believe it or not! However, the best feature of all is the two-player mode which is fantastic and certainly helps to (partially) compensate for the things I am now about to moan about.

What I didn't like: the power-ups are needed to defeat the bosses but these are lost after losing a life and new pick-ups are very scarce. Each level is a long slog without variety, excitement or progression and the repetative tune becomes irritating. Basically, I'm getting a nasty whiff of a cheap Amiga port.

Reading this back, I feel that I'm being too harsh? Or perhaps I'm in a bad mood today? Okay, am I wrong? Is this a great shoot 'em up and I'm talking nonsense? Feel free to let me know what you guys think in the comments below.

Atari Legend has loads of floppy menu disks and D-Bug has the best version for a hard drive.

Rob & Lee, coder and artist for Frenetic. Gee whiz thanks, guys. It's a lame ending screen too!

Yet Another Atari RAM Test

Do you have a spare couple of hours?

It's been yonks since I posted in our Software sections so here is a utility that is the bee's knees. Yet Another Atari RAM Test, by Christian Zietz, rolls through a number of intense tests that execute algorithms to help diagnose potential problems with our beloved Atari computers. Let's hope it finds nothing!

I won't pretend to understand its wizardry but I love utilities like this. I want my ST healthy so, I've had it running for what feels like a lifetime and it's still not (yet) found any errors. This is excellent news but, I'm thinking that this program could be helpful to anyone experiencing weird anomalies or peculiar crashes?

I enjoy finding programs like this lurking in the ST archives and I hope YAART proves helpful if you're suffering any hardware problems? The download comes ready to support the ST/STe/TT/Falcon but take a moment to read the text file and try to boot cleanly with as much spare RAM as possible (read YAART.TXT)

I hope you guys have healthy Atari computers? Let me know in the comments below. Good luck!!

Ripped Off #87

Little madmen!

'Unnamed Intro' is a remarkable screen created by The Fingerbobs and used by Ripped Off for their 87th disk. This is one of those intros I have always loved because it's one of the most bewitching things I have ever seen. An astounding animated journey for dozens of little men, each one running around their whacky world is simply fascinating. It's different and I love that, so this makes for a mesmerising and entertaining treat.

Go on, pick any guy and follow him throughout his journey. Brilliant STuff, I'm sure you will agree!! :-)

Credits & download on Demozoo for Ripped Off #87 and Unnamed Intro.

Ripped Off Menu #087

Alex Herbert - Music

Caped Crusader - Code

Oberje - Code

Pixar - Graphics (Font)

Ronnie T. - Graphics

Stick - Graphics, Text, Other (Compilation, Packing)

Fingerbobs Intro

Griff - Code (Tracker-replay)

Oberje - Text

Pixar - Graphics, Text

Ray Norrish - Music

The Caped Crusader - Code, Text

Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge

~~~> Latest article and download <~~~

2021 might not suck after all?

Today is a great day - I've just been given the honour of playtesting a preview of Jonathon Thomas' enhanced Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge for the Atari STe. He's been working on this project for a while, on and off, to improve the original racer in different ways using the often idle enhancements of the Atari STe.

After "mulling it over", he's returned to this project with fresh ideas and assistance from our (fantastic) community over on Atari-Forum. In fact, he came back stronger and managed to develop a playable release after only weeks!! Oh, and for those wondering yes, he is the same racing fella behind Pole Position.

Let's stop and take a deep breath. Do you feel better now? Good. Let's view some screenshots...

The practice track. I need this more than you realise...

We begin in Italy and Mmm look at that sky!

In fact, Italy is looking a little better these days all thanks to the Atari STe palette.

Put the pedal to the metal!

Yes, everyone loved and still loves Lotus Esprit. It's a frantic racer with fast graphics, cool music, great driving mechanics, and even allows another player to join in. Those collisions might lose precious speed and I hate the person who decided to leave dangerous rocks on the road but, this is a thrilling racer alright. Who doesn't enjoy zooming passed cars or sliding around each of the curvy and hilly corners?

However, there are a few limitations in the ST game that aren't immediately obvious during the frantic racing. These have obviously bugged Jonathan enough for him to take on the challenge of fixing them...

"It wasn't until recently that I realised how much of a massive difference there is between the Amiga and ST versions - the magazines of the time didn't seem to make much of this difference in their reviews of the time. I've been meaning to take a closer look at the Lotus code on the ST for a number of years now, but it was upon realising the degree of difference between the two versions (along with a relatively quiet period at work) that I decided something needed to be done!"

There is no excuse for a lame port. Is this that? I'll let you decide while you view these screenshots... 

Mexico now has a skyline quite apt to the feel of this country.

Okay, let's try not to crash into any objects when trying to grab a screenshot!

Oh, bummer!! Playing and capturing screenshots is a tough job.

Judder be gone!

It's funny, but I hadn't paid much attention to these issues myself. It wasn't until I returned to the original I could tell what had been going through Jons' mind. For me, the nicest improvements are to the sky and how the cars move across the track. This game feels fresh and is far better than I ever imagined.

1) The tracks are quite barren and devoid of much detail so the Blitter will now render the road and pit lanes with extra details to lane markings and widened rumble strips.

2) The sky was one solid colour which was okay but that has now been replaced by a 16-step gradient that makes full use of the enhanced STE palette.

3) Cars and scenery move smoothly without the old judder of side to side in 16-pixel blocks.

4) The already zippy framerate has been improved with more tweaks on the way!

5) Thankfully, the Ben Daglish chiptunes are staying but the effects are going to be replaced with samples pumped through the DMA hardware. (with a possibility of DMA sounds and YM music together!)

Also, minor improvements are being considered to the rev counter, fuel indicator and player two will soon have the new sky gradient. There is also the possibility of new and extra trackside scenery being added. Heck, he's even mentioned that there might be a few new tracks on the way too - oh yes!!

Okdoke, it's time for the last run of screenshots of this wonderful new version. Try not to drool... 

 

Iceland and everything looks rather chilly.

Ahem, there was ice on the road. Honest.

Check out those widened rumble strips!

The CryptO'pinion?

Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge was originally programmed by Shaun Southern and Andrew Morris and is an excellent racer. However, Jon has improved it to the level Lotus should have been all along for the Atari STe. I cannot express how exciting it's been to see this project develop, especially over recent weeks.

The new colours, speed, and smoothness all help give this racer a new coat of paint. Bring on the extra framerate and sampled DMA sound effects! Yes, it's shocking how renewed it feels running on the Atari STe so I'm looking forward to what comes next. My greetings to Jon. Watch this space for the next release.

For more information check out Jon's YouTube channel and his thread over on Atari-Forum.

Vroooooom!! Let's head off into that Spanish sunset...

Wow, look at that lovely sky. And those dodgy billboards.

Tap the breaks, hit the accelerate and corner like you're a Ridge Racer!