Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask

[B14ck W01f]

Right now at home, I got a C= 1084S-P, and next to it, a 1084S-D2. Is it true that the letters/numbers are named after who manufactured that monitors (In this case, Phillips (P) and Daewoo (D2)?

[Jope]

Originally Posted by B14ck W01f

Right now at home, I got a C= 1084S-P, and next to it, a 1084S-D2. Is it true that the letters/numbers are named after who manufactured that monitors (In this case, Phillips (P) and Daewoo (D2)?

It is true. The number after the letter is the revision. For example the various P models are laid out very differently to each other, and have different connectors too.

[s2325]

How much frames have Lotus 3 intro?

[TenLeftFingers]

Is OS4 intentionally crippled not to work on PPC/Mac Mini or is there some other reason why the most expensive/bad-value for money processors were chosen? I'd imagine it would sell like hotcakes if they put a refurbished mac-mini in the case instead.

[idrougge]

It would destroy sales of new PPC hardware, simply.

[TenLeftFingers]

But Hyperion don't sell hardware do they? I though it was just a-eon?

[idrougge]

They have traditionally had a vested interest in the hardware since that's what sells their software and HW manufacturers pay them for their porting work.

[stefcep2]

I have a daewoo 1084. It has 4 RCA sockets. Two for sound. One is for composite video. What is the fourth for?

Also at the back there are two push buttons. One of which makes the video B and W through composite. What does other other button do? Is this what the 4 th RCA socket is for?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by stefcep2

I have a daewoo 1084. It has 4 RCA sockets. Two for sound. One is for composite video. What is the fourth for?

Also at the back there are two push buttons. One of which makes the video B and W through composite. What does other other button do? Is this what the 4 th RCA socket is for?

The 2 video RCAs are for luma(Y) and chroma(C), i.e. brightness and color in separate connectors. This is similar to s-video (although not 100%). This is used with a C64 using a Y/C cable and will provide a better picture quality than composite. What does it say next to the two buttons? One could be the Y/C vs. composite switch, the other maybe PAL/NTSC (does the picture become narrower if you push it?)?

[s2325]

Are there any items under destroyed single trees in Cannon Fodder? Is there any use for corpses floating in rivers?

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by stefcep2

I have a daewoo 1084. It has 4 RCA sockets. Two for sound. One is for composite video. What is the fourth for?

Also at the back there are two push buttons. One of which makes the video B and W through composite. What does other other button do? Is this what the 4 th RCA socket is for?

The fourth is for chroma, in other words S-video. You can build an adapter to use normal S-video cables on the yellow and red inputs.

One button turns S-video on and off (your composite signal is turned black and white since it is treated as luminance only), the other turns RGB on and off.

[xArtx]

For the CD32 joystick that has 11 button mode, and 2 button mode so it can work with other Amigas,
In an Amiga CD32, is it the game software that decides it’s going to be in 11 button mode,
or does the CD32 always use the 11 button mode?

I guess the question is if you get an old ECS game working, is the fire button
pulling the button pin on the joypad low, or is it still getting clocked in like the other buttons?

[idrougge]

The red fire button is always treated as the normal fire button. Button two (blue, I think) is also treated as the second button until the software tells the pad to enter CD32 mode.

[rare_j]

Is there a list anywhere of bad st conversions with the dark palette bug?
Midnight resistance is the famous one but what are the others?
Just noticed WinUAE offers a specific fix for this porting oversight, wondering how widespread the issue was.

[Retro1234]

Why do some games not respond to the CD32 pad?

How is the parallax done in Xenon 2 done?

[xArtx]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Why do some games not respond to the CD32 pad?

That was the reason for my question. There’s a game “Galactic” that came on a cover CD
that works with the Red Fire button on the CD32 controller for a while, but before the end of the first level,
the fire button stop working, and all you can do is move around until reset.

[Daedalus]

The red "button 1" of the CD32 pad also only works as a standard fire button when the pad is in legacy mode. If it's put in CD32 pad mode, it will stop working - all buttons then have to be read by decoding the serial output. This will happen if pin 5 on the port is dropped low. Normally this shouldn't happen, but with some kickstarts (1.x IIRC) it doesn't default to high (legacy mode) and so it's up to the game itself to set the pin correctly. If the pad stops working during play it's possibly a bug in the game that was never detected because it will still work fine with a standard joystick.

Hardware-wise the CD32 ports are much the same as the ports on any other Amiga - it's up to the software to switch to CD32 pad mode.

Edit: Just to clarify, only the 4 directional inputs from the D-pad remain the same over both pad modes; all button inputs change depending on the pad mode.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Edit: Just to clarify, only the 4 directional inputs from the D-pad remain the same over both pad modes; all button inputs change depending on the pad mode.

I stand corrected.

[xArtx]

Well I know that It’s quite clever, the PotX pin switches the shift register high impedance,
to arrange the circuit as a two button joystick,
but that situation had to originate from the Amiga rather than the controller of course,
hence my question... is it Amiga ROM or individual software basically

A possible solution might be to temporarily disconnect the PotX signal with another tri-state buffer
and switch it manually for the older games.

[Daedalus]

Hmmm, I thought I answered that in my post but maybe I wasn't that clear in the description. It's basically a combination of the ROM and the software. ROMs from 2.x up set the output correctly for using legacy mode, whereas 1.x ROMs only set it on the mouse port (where it's used for the middle mouse button) - the other port is left low which puts the CD32 pad in 7-button mode. This means that, unless the game sets the pin itself (thus overriding the ROM setting), the pad will work in legacy mode in both ports under 2.x and 3.x, but only in the mouse port with a 1.x ROM. If the software sets the pin manually then it should work on all ROMs and ports.

Yep, a tristate buffer would do the job, though the low-tech solution of a toggle switch will work just as well, switching the controller's pin 5 between the Amiga pin 5 and pin 7 (+5V), and could easily be built into a small adaptor in a 9pin D shell.

Edit: Actually, I'm just going from memory - the ROM versions might be the other way around: 1.x setting pin 5 correctly for legacy mode on both ports, 2.x only setting it on the mouse port. I'll have to check when I get home, or someone with a better memory might confirm which way around it is. Anyway, the gist is: if the game doesn't manually set pin 5 high, whether the CD32 pad works in legacy mode is down to the Kickstart ROM.