Rescuing the Lost Code and Stereo Sound to Sinistar

[mecha]

Per mecha's request, I have figured out how to make the custom attract mode message entry screen much easier to work with by making it go faster!

RJ Mical put in a patch specifically to make the "bounce time" between inputs to be longer.

sinistar/MICA/BOBFIXES.SRC at dc00bce37e5c5c7947369cf5040c10e4799f4a06 · historicalsource/sinistar

A shooting, space-flying, avoiding-the-scary-space-monster game - historicalsource/sinistar

github.com

The operator message entry and high score entry screens use the same routines, so changing the value to make it go faster also affects the input for the high score entry. The devs probably increased it because play-testers were messing up entering their high score initials with the shorter time.

Changing the byte at address $8B0F (that's $0B0F in ROM 9) from $12 to $03, makes the operator entry speed up MUCH faster. I have also updated the source code by adding a new mod called "QuickOperatorEntry". Enabling this will automatically change the byte to $03 when assembling the game.

it was probably done the way it was cause of the optical joystick being kind of clunky to go left/right with

 

[SynaMax]

it was probably done the way it was cause of the optical joystick being kind of clunky to go left/right with

Definitely. Back in the mid 2000's, I remember messing up the initials to my highest score at the time. It was so annoying seeing "MA " in big bold letters.

 

[mecha]

Definitely. Back in the mid 2000's, I remember messing up the initials to my highest score at the time. It was so annoying seeing "MA " in big bold letters.

right it's weird you don't use the 50 buttons to enter the letters, you just move right.

 

[SynaMax]

right it's weird you don't use the 50 buttons to enter the letters, you just move right.

It funny you say that because I think originally the fire button was used to confirm the high score initials but that code was ultimately not used (probably to save space, hence why the operator message and high score routines were consolidated). I wonder how difficult it would be to try and put that old code back in.

 

[SynaMax]

I just implemented a really cool mod for Sinistar. You can now pause the game! @braedel showed me a mod for Joust that allows the player to pause the game and I was able to disassemble it and modify the code to get it working with Sinistar.

I also looked over the source code for displaying the "EMPTY" text on the top left corner of the screen and use that as inspiration to get the "PAUSED" text to display on screen. There's some extra room in ROM 10 to add a couple more text strings so I was able to fit "PAUSED" in there and reference it just like all the other text in the game.

Simply download the source code from my github, download Macroassembler AS and follow the instructions to build your own ROM set with this new feature!

 

[braedel]

I just implemented a really cool mod for Sinistar. You can now pause the game! @braedel showed me a mod for Joust that allows the player to pause the game and I was able to disassemble it and modify the code to get it working with Sinistar.

I also looked over the source code for displaying the "EMPTY" text on the top left corner of the screen and use that as inspiration to get the "PAUSED" text to display on screen. There's some extra room in ROM 10 to add a couple more text strings so I was able to fit "PAUSED" in there and reference it just like all the other text in the game.

Simply download the source code from my github, download Macroassembler AS and follow the instructions to build your own ROM set with this new feature!

Awesome! Did you have to give up the RAM test or anything to get it to fit? Do you know if all the ROM checksums will change? I know on the Joust.

I may try out this weekend! (May need some help getting the compiler going..lol)

Fantastic Work!
~Brad

 

[cpyne]

@SynaMax - I finally was able to get the custom Video Sound ROM 2 with the 100ms delay running on a 2nd sound board and installed in my Stargate. It sounds great; thanks! A couple oddities I noticed - No stereo for the "warp" sound, (which I think is actually a delayed sound on speaker 2), and there also is an extra sound at the end if you get a high score.

Any chance you can make similar roms for the other Williams games?

 

[SynaMax]

Glad to hear it works, @cpyne! I think it's possible to do a stereo mod for Bubbles, I just fixed the checksum for that sound ROM so the test switch finally works now (as seen in Braedel's video). There's also remnants of code in Bubbles's sound routines that appears to check if a speech board is connected or not! Further evidence that the Williams devs originally wanted to add speech to the game.

Not entirely sure why the Stargate warp sound doesn't play in stereo or why that other sound triggers while the organ routine is playing the high score tune. Like Sinistar, the organ tune should play in mono, and the stereo routine should affect the GWAVE, VARIWAVE and filtered noise sound effects.

EDIT: It just occured to me that it's possible that the game is spamming the sound board with a crapload of interrupts to play the warp sound, which is similar to how Robotron does the "wave complete" sound effect that also shows up in the Firepower pinball machine. That might mess up the stereo effect, not sure.

 

[cpyne]

Thanks for the info. What do you think about Joust, Robotron, and Defender?

 

[SynaMax]

Thanks for the info. What do you think about Joust, Robotron, and Defender?

Like with Stargate, Defender is possible if you use a 2532 ROM so that you can get another $800 bytes to play with.

Joust's Video Sound ROM 4 has enough space at the end to put in the instructions as well.

Robotron is a different story...they used up every single byte to cram as many sound routines as possible. In order to fit the instructions for stereo delay, some code will have to be sacrificed. The question is are there any sounds in Robotron that are unused?

 

[gwarble]

finally got caught up on this thread after testing your initial rom postings on real hw, thanks again for the even more amazing work since i was last up to speed

the source for the original roar sound, amazing!

thrust effect looks awesome

delayed sound roms for other williams games, awesome

maybe most exciting (along with your mods) is the way the score multiplier works and was originally defaulted, 20+ years owning two machines i've never seen this mentioned or noticed it as a possible solution to the difficulty ramp

I'm excited to try your latest mods and i hope you eventually publish a "definitive" version similar to the robotron tie dye roms

also i finally got my joust back up and running and will test/verify the boot sound mod you helped with a few months ago

 

[cpyne]

For anyone interested in adding stereo to your Stargate or Joust, I've made an interconnect board for easily adding a second board without major wiring changes

Edit - and of course this should work with a non-cockpit Sinistar too!

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/williams-stereo-interconnect-board.535875/

 

[HudsonArcade]

It would be interesting to try to rework the code to drive 2 DACs and do a new sound board with native stereo.

 

[cpyne]

I also tried this with a bluetooth sending unit and speaker, but the added delay made the stereo just sound wrong.

 

[HudsonArcade]

Like with Stargate, Defender is possible if you use a 2532 ROM so that you can get another $800 bytes to play with.

Joust's Video Sound ROM 4 has enough space at the end to put in the instructions as well.

Robotron is a different story...they used up every single byte to cram as many sound routines as possible. In order to fit the instructions for stereo delay, some code will have to be sacrificed. The question is are there any sounds in Robotron that are unused?

Pretty trivial to hack the board to accept a 2764...

Wired-OR /E and /F for /CE and make /E your A12..

 

[HPR pinball]

I would trade the "coin" sounds in Robotron to make space for stereo sounds effect for sure, that would be amazing !

 

[SynaMax]

Been meaning to work on stereo Robotron for a while now but it's been pushed aside for other stuff, I'll try to work on it later this week.

In other news, I'm definitely going to be making another Sinistar documentary in the future and it will be about the game's development history as well as the new mods. Also got a few surprises for the video in store as well!

Also, @braedel found an issue with the Sinistar mods on hardware and discovered that the watchdog was still barking. I managed to quickly find where the problem was and put in new instructions to feed the dog. She's not barking anymore and we can truly confirm that my mods work correctly with the original hardware now!

Lastly, I noticed that Macroassembler {AS} was updated recently and changed the way it parses 6809 instructions. Feeding it the Sinistar code now produces tons of errors and prevents the game from being built. To fix this, I had to insert a new psuedo-instruction in the makefile in order to make the code buildable again. I didn't realize I would already have to start maintaining the code to prevent critical issues like this, lol

maybe most exciting (along with your mods) is the way the score multiplier works and was originally defaulted, 20+ years owning two machines i've never seen this mentioned or noticed it as a possible solution to the difficulty ramp

I meant to respond to this earlier, I'm really glad you noticed this, @gwarble . I feel this is a huge finding for Sinistar and is such an easy way to modify vanilla Sinistar's difficulty ramp.

 

[SynaMax]

Hi everyone, sorry for the necropost.

I finally have the Sinistar documentary script completed and all of the narration has been recorded. Now I'm currently editing the video.

Much like retargeting the codebase, this video is one of my most ambitious projects; it's going to be over two hours long and features other Williams games like Joust and Star Rider since they share some crew members. I estimate that the whole thing will be finished around March or April, if things work out.

There's a lot of new stuff in here that hasn't been seen before including the original Juggernaut design documents and Williams engineering logbooks from the Strong Museum.

...but there's a problem. In order to show the Strong Muesum scans in the video, I need some funding for the licensing and rights to these images. I didn't want to make a fundraiser but with my current situation, I feel that I have no choice but to humbly ask for your help. Any left over money will go towards other (more important) stuff like rent and food.

Donate to Funds needed for documentary and rent, organized by Syna Max

Hi everyone, this is SynaMax. I am starting a fundraiser for two reasons: 1) I'm cu… Syna Max needs your support for Funds needed for documentary and rent

gofund.me

Regardless, I'm very excited to finish this project and upload it for everyone to view. I'm also working on a new Sinistar mod that will go for a more refined difficulty tuning since the previous verison feels too easy for me now, lol.

Thanks again for all your support and encouragement with these mods and projects, it really means a lot to me.

 

[SynaMax]

Just wanted to say thanks to the first donor! Anything really helps; even if this turns out to be the only donation, I'm glad that have received anything at all.

I forgot to mention...

If anyone else decides to donate, I'll be more than happy to put your name in the credits at the end of the video, if that's something you're interested in. Thanks again!

P.S. I also forgot to mention that I broke my own personal best score last month while visiting Bragging Rights arcade in Gainesville. I got 144,560 points, about 20,000 points more than my previous best.

 

[braedel]

. I got 144,560 points,

Way higher score than I've ever got!...lol