> > And even further! > > > > http://my-cool-projects.blogspot.com/2014/02/star-rider-13-feb-2014.html > > *Jaw drops* > > So is it safe to say that at this point it's largely a case of hooking up the inputs > and feeding in the video? I realise that there's probably more to do than just that, > but seeing the hardware pass POST is just awesome.
Star Rider decodes manchester/philips codes beyond just the picture number from the video signal. During the racing track segments there is a bunch of schlop toward the bottom of the screen that it decodes, probably as a way to workaround small memory sizes of the era (similar to how MACH 3 put target data in the audio stream). I have not emulated the decoder for this and it will probably take me a little while to come up with a decent solution for the in-game stuff. Should be very doable though.
Also, I have not touched the sound PCB and will probably put that off since it probably is not required to play the game
Also need to code up some trickery to make the video expander work.
Other than that, I believe I am on the downhill slope
> > Out of curiosity, how close to the other Williams rug-pattern hardware of the era is > Star Rider?
I am not too familiar with the other hardware. But I do know that most of them were designed to completely halt when the blitter chips were active; star rider does not do this, but instead raises FIRQ when the blitter is active.
Seems like the blitter chips were "hard-coded" to handle a vertical resolution of 256 pixels (240 visible perhaps), with each pixel being one nibble (16 colors), so I would imagine every Williams game that uses them must be 256 pixels tall with 16 colors (someone can confirm that if they want). The width is variable.
Like other williams games, Star Rider heavily relies on many PIA6821's and M6809's. If a problem needed to be solved, the solution was apparently to throw more PIA6821 and M6809's at it until it was fixed
> > FWIW, this has been on my LD most-wanted list for years, along with Interstellar > Zangus. Wasn't holding my breath on either one, but this is really fantastic to see > Now if a Zangus boardset would just surface...
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Re: Star Rider VideoGraphicGenerator timers finally solved after many hours :)
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