Re: [stella] Hacking the Supercharger ROM

[Glenn Saunders <cybpunks@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:54 PM 3/15/2001 -0800, you wrote:
> Yes, it does.  Using the same method to access RAM that you would in a 
> Supercharger game.
>
> I should clarify something about what I said above.  It doesn't just sit 
> there and poll 1FF9 constantly, it sets a timer and then checks the state 
> of 1FF9 at the end of that timer.  That way it can do other things like 
> assemble the byte and write it to ram, increment the address, compute the 
> checksum, adjust the playfield and audio, etc.
>
> Keep in mind that it doesn't actually draw a proper screen during this 
> time.  Thus the bars are kind of unstable.

I really regret not having interviewed the Starpath guys for Stella at 20, 
otherwise I'd have found out more about this...  I was close to assembling 
them, but it didn't work out.  I'd have really enjoyed finding out more 
about how the design came to be.  It's even more minimalistic than I 
thought--very inkeeping with the 2600 itself.  All these years I thought 
dedicated hardware on the cart decoded the audio AND wrote to memory.



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