Brak maili ma swoje uroki. Mam czas spokojnie poczytac o Atari :). Tak sobie pomyslalem, zeby zrobic samemu Multilinka, bo nie wyglada na skomplikowany. Mam taki schemat:
ale chcialem zapytac, czy sa moze jakies inne jeszcze gry niz wspomniane tutaj:
I czy ktos w Polsce to ma i korzystal? Bo w Czechach i w Niemczech jest, z tego co czytalem, calkiem sporo osob - stad zreszta powstaja tam gry na ten interface.
Na razie nie dotarl ani jeden mail do mnie od wczoraj, ale pewnie w poniedzialek kolejka sie rozladuje. Tak bywalo juz wczesniej, mam tylko nadzieje, ze zaden mail po drodze nie umknie. Zazwyczaj w niedziele pojawia sie bardzo duzo maili atarowskich.
Well, the schematics for a simple 2-computer multilink by Jiri Bernasek assume you are using two SIO cables - but in my eyes one SIO cable is enough and makes the Change much easier. Take a look at the schematics and you see that:
- wire 3 (SIO 1) is connected with wire 5 (SIO 2) - wire 5 (SIO 1) is connected with wire 3 (SIO 2) - wire 4 is connected with wire 4
If you use just one sIO cable all you have to do is the following:
- open one end (the plug) of the SIO cable, take a look at teh schematics and find out where wires nr. 3 and 5 are - remember them (or write it down). Now change/exchange wire number 3 with wire number 5. Thats all, close the SIO cable (the plug) and you now have a simple 2-computer multilink cable. This cable can be used with 2 computers / 2 monitors and depending on the game with 2-4 players:
- Maze of Agdagon (2-8 players, with the simple multilink 2 players only) - Multi Dash (2-8 players, with simple multilink 2 players only) - Multi Race (2-16 players, with simple multilink up to four players) - Multi Worms (2-16 players, with simple multilink up to 4 players) - Speed Up (errm, I don`t remember the number of players yet) - Speed Up Gold (again, I don`t remember the number of players).
Whenever the game uses only one joystick-port per computer, there is a max. of 8 players (and max 2 players with simple multilink), when both joystick-ports of the computer are used there is a max. of 16 players (and max 4 players with the simple multilink). Since there are not that many games available for the multilink, I currently prefer the simple multilink version - because it does not cost me any money and it is extremely easy to do (you only have to change one SIO cable and can always change it back to normal SIO cable whenever you want). The changed SIO-cable I am using for multilink has a paper-sticker on it which notes that it is a multilink cable...
For all programmers out there that want to do a game for the multilink - Jiri Bernasek provided the fully documented source-code to Multi-Worms, he also provided a kind of "starter-module" which contains all nescessary multilink-stuff and can be used in your own program, last not least he wrote a very detailed article (in english and czech language) on how to program a game for multilink. He also wrote in this article (before someone asks), that it is impossible to patch existing games for use with multilink, which means a program has to be written from scratch for multilink...
-Andreas Koch.
P.S.: Attached everything I have for the multilink (which I call multilink-network to differentiate from multijoy programs)...
Tez bym sobie chętnie taki multilink zrobił. Największy problem to wtyczki SIO. W wersji na osiem komputerów trzeba by zniszczyć osiem magnetofonów, na potrzeby jednego interfejsu ;). Bardziej humanitarnie byłoby zastosować metodę Szarego, lub Rocky'ego, co jednak byłoby może bardziej czasochłonne niż wykoanie reszty interfejsu.
