>No kidding. This gets more and more interesting. The Stella manual
>says the control ports can be used for input as well? Is this part of
ITYM 'output'... inputting from them is done all the time (reading a
joystick) :) Yes they can be used for output; a single bit in one control
register switches it between input and output.
>the mechanism for reading the keyboard controllers (I seem to recall it
>saying it sent out signals to scan which button was pressed, like how
>different tones tell the computer which button on a touch-tone phone
>was pushed), or is there something else I'm missing?
I believe the keyboard controllers and Video Touch Pad work like this: the
Atari sends a signal out to the port telling the controller which column
of buttons it wants to scan; the controller sends the status of those four
buttons on the joystick inputs (u/d/l/r). The delay between output and
input needs to be quite long; on the order of 0.4 sec if I remember
correctly.
>> Now all's that's left is for someone to write the
>> game and make a Catbox
>> for the 2600! LAN party Friday... bring Video
>> Olympics, Combat, and, of
>> course, Warlords! ;^)
>
>At the risk of looking dopey, what is a "Catbox"? I never heard of
>that? Maybe I'm a little thick right now. The notion of two-player
>cooperative Missile Command and Kaboom! are dancing in my head....
Cooperative? Huh? _Competitive_ Missile Command would rule! Picture it
done in the style of multiplayer Tetris or Bust-a-Move or Puzzle Fighter.
Blow up two invading missiles with one shot and it sends an extra missile
at your opponent. Chain three or four explosions together to launch a
huge volley of missiles. Man, if only the 2600 had enough graphical
ability to do side-by-side screens that way... perhaps if you drew each
player's missile field as a 48-pixel wide sprite, on alternating frames?
(would need Supercharger RAM of course, or one of the custom designs with
RAM being bandied about every so often here)
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