Shout out to RndMnkIII

[lamarax]

...and his SNK triple Z80 core.

Little recognition has gone to the guy's efforts, although his output is top to begin with.

Right now I'm enjoying 'Athena' and I'm having so much fun!

Thank you!

[RndMnkIII]

Well, thank you for your recognition. These are the first cores that I make and for MiSTer and as such they still need to improve some aspects. But of course, to try to make them as faithful as possible to the original hardware, I have put a lot of effort into it. I have received many gestures of support and also from others I have received a cold reception, but that is how things are in real life.

[Xbytez]

Also If anyone wants to buy a for RndMnkIII to show appreciation for his arcade core dev work so far, you can do so here:

https://ko-fi.com/rndmnkiii/

[Shuffle7]

Thank you so much, just booted up Athena - wow. so many memories of this game. The first ZX spectrum arcade conversion I went out and bought to play. and the speccy performs admirably! Actually a good conversion by Imagine Software 1987! Thank you RndMnkIII

[netbeui]

Hi RndMnkIII, thanks for these great additions to MiSTer! I tried Athena and it displayed upside down for me on my CRT, tried a few settings but they didn't work (screen settings > rotate CCW > on and other settings > flip > on). I'm connected to the CRT via analog. Does screen flip work for you on CRT?

[jca]

I have the problem on HDMI: when flipping the screen the display is stretched out horizontally. Sometimes by trying many times it becomes normal but it does not last.

[netbeui]

The new screen flip in Athena works perfectly, thanks RndMnkIII!

[Swainy]

Yeah worked great for me when I tested it earlier tonight.

[RndMnkIII]

Today I've updated Athena repository adding a new MRA to patch the ROM without the need to change video flip settings in the OSD core menu. The repository Readme was rewrite to better explain the diverse options, very important to read this file now before asking about video problems. The flip option inside other settings > flip is know to glitch the screen when is activated. The better option is save settings and reload the Core one o several times. But with the new patched MRA there isn't need to cheat with OSD menu flip options.

[AlxUnderBase]

Amazing job did by RndMnkIII

[RndMnkIII]

happy to see another CRT user playing their favorite games

[morgoth]

@RndMnkIII
"The flip option inside other settings > flip is know to glitch the screen when is activated. The better option is save settings and reload the Core one o several times." >>> I am getting graphical glitches, which I can "clean up" if I reset a few times...is this the suggested fix for using your base, non-patched MRA? Is this not a feature which can be fixed?
Why not just make the patched MRA (ie JunoMan's patched MRA) the base MRA? Or does this have to do with releasing the base core as it exists in the "wild"?
Thanks for this great core!

[morgoth]

So after a little investigation, I answered my own question re: the screen flipping and different MRAs.

The patch maker (aka JunoMan) states the following, in response to the query: "Is this a factory issue present on all Athena PCBs?"
JunoMan: "Yep. Was designed that way. Jamma but not following the standard as such."
source: http://junofirst.com/wp/?p=3#comment-22887

So Ill just use the patched version.

I did notice a separate issue though, maybe others can chime in if it is user error; I cannot get the "pause" functionality to work via button assignment. It seems as if pressing the key mapped to "pause" simply inserts more credits.
Thanks