Intellivision hacks (.cfg files)

I made a couple of changes to the posted hacks mainly "BREAKOUT" (this will maybe happen again because i use "BRICKOUT" as a sort of sandbox to experiment).

So the content of "BRICKOUT" above is new while i don't changed a thing to the rating it is fine and it's hard to reach already "CLASSIFIED" (>1750 pts) and "ACE" (>2000 pts) which i not yet reached (the low <1200 >1200 was to easy to reach and i usually ended up as ACE especially on the console since it acts a little different and the ball collides different as i the emulator(s) it more often crosses bricks).

Foremost i changed the title screen to get comfortable with the GRAM content, certain things like the "yoursoft smiley" and a own color bar (it's positioned in center of the cart) i kept even for other projects. BRICKOUT was the ideal program for this (without that i knew this in advance) because it uses not a single cart from GRAM thus all 64 carts are free to toy around for me (this will help me with a little job).

 

A little extra is that i put a title screen in front of some IntyBASIC projects (playable demos foremost) which leak of one and this can be a bit annoying on the console, the recent default title looks now like this:

 

The "nanochess horse" is a copy but recreated and not blatantly extracted, i had the idea to add it after i created the "yoursoft smiley" because it looked pretty well in center of the upper two lines.

The color bar is a gfx cart and can be edited to whatever one likes (i.e. a heart). The "IntyBASIC" default opens with a little knock on the inner side of the tube (it sounds like), but sometimes i used a jingle e.g. exactly for "SNAKE" (and derivatives of) for which i used the "opponent dies" jingle of SNAFU. What would work well for anything is the "cheer" this is a extremely simple to handle preset.

 

One might wonder what for all this effort, it turned out that Joe's "SDK-1600" was a complete riddle even when i've read the contents several times, while as i hack and refer to it (which doesn't helps in all cases) i start to really understand what it is about, step by step. That is because you have a specific goal and need a solution this let's you understand a certain section and you don't care for all the rest, you concentrate on something specific, each achievement brings me a small step further (one thing for sure there are many ways which lead to Rome).

 

 

I even used the "SOLAR SAILER" font for the same title but it is to large it uses the whole height of a cart and looks not good if a string is directly followed by a string in next line, using spaces fills the screen and let's the title of the game vanish between letters which fill the whole screen. I made three own fonts meanwhile but i'm not satisfied with 'em, the first looked very close to Joe's minigrom font, the second and third was to thin to look really good thus i stayed with the VECTRON font which suits well for BREAKOUT. The font i used for the whole game though "game over", rating and score is displayed using the same GRAM font. I outsourced the strings and each string has now a full line of 20 characters to enter a text of your choice i.e. a translation or different expressions for the rating, rating differs now in colors (low rating red, medium orange, good yellow, top rating cyan) further a sfx is played for the rating, the well known "yer out!" from Baseball for low scoring and a cheer in different duration for the better ratings. All in all my edits are now half as large as the original game code (cough), whopping 1k of words (The image would be 4k in decles, 8k if counted as bytes, i assume this is because of the rom size because 2k of it are nul of this 2k i used now 1k for the title. Yes i like this simple but somehow addictive game mainly because it can be hair-raising how you can lose balls and sometimes even miss the slowest ones.

 

 

The updated "BREAKOUT" you will find in the initial post, a template for the title-less IntyBASIC projects i will post right here as code snippet.

A new entry to it will be the "PAC-MAN" hack which corrects the fruit bonus scoring and also includes the usual "advantage, lethal, trainer" stuff, the "trainer" lately was useful to evaluate the exact scoring of the fruit bonuses to find the table for it. To tell, the first really useful hack.

 

Something i have to learn is how to handle the GRAM carts proper since odd and even position numbers are exchanged when you use a background color, for sure there is a routine and reason for this behave - i just don't know it yet and until i have to use the complicated manner to exchange odd and even manually if i use a background color.

 

CS Snake (2016) (catsfolly).cfg

Spoiler

;;;CS Snake (2016) (catsfolly).cfg
;;;20210725gernotschrader
[vars]
name = "CS Snake"
short_name = "CS Snake"
author = "catsfolly"
publisher = "IntyBASIC"
release_date = 2016
;
[mapping]
$0000 - $09FF = $5000
;
[memattr]
$5A00 - $5BFF = ROM 16 ; 200 decles space for the title screen
;
[macro]
p 5006  20 ; ptr gfx list
p 5007  5b ;  "
p 5008   0 ; ptr gram init
p 5009  5b ;  "
p 500a   0 ; ptr date/title
p 500b  5a ;  "
;
p 5a00   74 ; year 2016 (1900 + 116)
p 5a01   49 ; I
p 5a02   6e ; n
p 5a03   74 ; t
p 5a04   79 ; y
p 5a05   42 ; B
p 5a06   41 ; A
p 5a07   53 ; S
p 5a08   49 ; I
p 5a09   43 ; C pardon me for stripping the word "program".
p 5a0a    0 ; ---------------- end of Title string
;
p 5a0b  275 ; ---------------- Start of title code
p 5a0c  2bc ; cls, clears screen
p 5a0d  200 ;  " pos top (00) could be used to start in a lower line as the
;             very first one i.e. to leave the original color bar visible
p 5a0e  2b8 ;  "
p 5a0f   f0 ;  " chars (f0) must be 240 - start position.
p 5a10    4 ;  " the quasi PRINT expression to fill the screen.
p 5a11  114 ;  "
p 5a12  338 ; ----------------
;
p 5a13  2bc ; pos of first color bar, note that fore / bkg colors use either
;             even or odd GRAM cart numbers and differ by this.
p 5a14  200 ; 0
p 5a15  2bb ; color 
p 5a16 180f ; magenta
p 5a17    4 ;
p 5a18  118 ;
p 5a19   7b ;
p 5a1a   4a ; |
p 5a1b    0 ; ----------------
p 5a1c  2bc ; pos
p 5a1d  20b ; 11
p 5a1e    4 ;
p 5a1f  118 ;
p 5a20   7b ;
p 5a21   4a ; |
p 5a22    0 ; ----------------
p 5a23  2bc ; pos
p 5a24  202 ; 2
p 5a25  2bb ; color 
p 5a26  806 ; yellow
p 5a27    4 ;
p 5a28  118 ;
p 5a29   7b ;
p 5a2a   4b ; |
p 5a2b    0 ; ----------------
p 5a2c  2bc ; pos
p 5a2d  20d ; 13
p 5a2e    4 ;
p 5a2f  118 ;
p 5a30   7b ;
p 5a31   4b ; |
p 5a32    0 ; ----------------
p 5a33  2bc ; pos
p 5a34  204 ; 4
p 5a35  2bb ; color 
p 5a36  805 ; bgreen
p 5a37    4 ;
p 5a38  118 ;
p 5a39   7b ;
p 5a3a   4b ; |
p 5a3b    0 ; ----------------
p 5a3c  2bc ; pos
p 5a3d  20f ; 15
p 5a3e    4 ;
p 5a3f  118 ;
p 5a40   7b ;
p 5a41   4b ; |
p 5a42    0 ; ----------------
p 5a43  2bc ; pos
p 5a44  206 ; 6
p 5a45  2bb ; color
p 5a46 1809 ; cyan
p 5a47    4 ;
p 5a48  118 ;
p 5a49   7b ;
p 5a4a   4a ; |
p 5a4b    0 ; ----------------
p 5a4c  2bc ; pos
p 5a4d  211 ; 17
p 5a4e    4 ;
p 5a4f  118 ;
p 5a50   7b ;
p 5a51   4a ; |
p 5a52    0 ; ----------------
p 5a53  2bc ; pos
p 5a54  208 ; 8
p 5a55  2bb ; color
p 5a56  801 ; blue
p 5a57    4 ;
p 5a58  118 ;
p 5a59   7b ;
p 5a5a   4b ; |
p 5a5b    0 ; ----------------
p 5a5c  2bc ; pos
p 5a5d  213 ; 19
p 5a5e    4 ; 
p 5a5f  118 ;
p 5a60   7b ;
p 5a61   4b ; |
p 5a62    0 ; ----------------
;
p 5a63  2bc ; pos first letter of colored "BASIC"
p 5a64  22c ; 44
p 5a65  2bb ; color
p 5a66 180f ; magenta
p 5a67    4 ;
p 5a68  118 ;
p 5a69   7b ;
p 5a6a   30 ; B
p 5a6b    0 ; ----------------
p 5a6c  2bb ; color 
p 5a6d  806 ; yellow
p 5a6e    4 ;
p 5a6f  118 ;
p 5a70   7b ;
p 5a71   30 ; A
p 5a72    0 ; ----------------
p 5a73  2bb ; color 
p 5a74  805 ; bgreen
p 5a75    4 ;
p 5a76  118 ;
p 5a77   7b ;
p 5a78   42 ; S
p 5a79    0 ; ----------------
p 5a7a  2bb ; color 
p 5a7b 1809 ; cyan
p 5a7c    4 ;
p 5a7d  118 ;
p 5a7e   7b ;
p 5a7f   39 ; I
p 5a80    0 ; ----------------
p 5a81  2bb ; color
p 5a82  801 ; blue
p 5a83    4 ;
p 5a84  118 ;
p 5a85   7b ;
p 5a86   32 ; C
p 5a87    0 ; ----------------
p 5a88  2bc ; pos string left of "BASIC"
p 5a89  228 ; 40
p 5a8a  2bb ; color 
p 5a8b    7 ; white
p 5a8c    4 ;
p 5a8d  118 ;
p 5a8e   7b ;
p 5a8f   49 ; I 
p 5a90   6E ; n
p 5a91   74 ; t
p 5a92   79 ; y
p 5a93    0 ; ----------------
p 5a94  2bc ; pos string right of "BASIC"
p 5a95  234 ; 52
p 5a96    4 ;
p 5a97  118 ;
p 5a98   7b ;
p 5a99   70 ; p
p 5a9a   72 ; r
p 5a9b   65 ; e
p 5a9c   73 ; s
p 5a9d   65 ; e
p 5a9e   6e ; n
p 5a9f   74 ; t
p 5aa0   73 ; s
p 5aa1    0 ; ----------------
;
p 5aa2    2 ; screen color, sets screen color to black, this is quite 
;             experimental each program seems to handle it different 
;             and each hardware even acts different on this, needs a lot
;             of testing to find a position which works in all cases, 
;             for this game this exact position works even on my console
;             and even when i run it emulated using the sears exec
;             (i can't make this proof on hardware). It isn't uncommon 
;             certain games show this problem on my console, i.e. 
;             "SHARK! SHARK!" does not open with a cyan background and
;             even some others like "Zaxxon" open whith the standard "olive"
;             instead of black or blue. This uncommon looking "2" helps to
;             tint the screen black on the real hardware (whithout it usually
;             fails). The behave itself i copied from "Burger Time!"
;             The crux is that the console feels comfortable with the screen
;             color setting at the very end of the titlecode while sears exec
;             seems to be comfortable with a position at the top of the title
;             code, MAME even acts quite different and JzIntv does not care
;             at all and it works no matter how with or whithout the uncommon
;             "EIS" command (this "2" at top of it) and does not care for the
;             position of it.
p 5aa3  2b8 ;  "
p 5aa4    0 ;  " black
p 5aa5  240 ;  "
p 5aa6   28 ;  " to screen
p 5aa7  240 ;  "
p 5aa8   2c ;  " to border
;
p 5aa9  2bc ; pos copyright notice
p 5aaa  2df ; 223
p 5aab    4 ;
p 5aac  118 ;
p 5aad   7b ;
p 5aae   32 ; 2
p 5aaf   30 ; 0
p 5ab0   31 ; 1
p 5ab1   36 ; 6
p 5ab2   20 ; 
p 5ab3   20 ; 
p 5ab4   63 ; c
p 5ab5   61 ; a
p 5ab6   74 ; t
p 5ab7   73 ; s
p 5ab8   66 ; f
p 5ab9   6F ; o
p 5aba   6C ; l
p 5abb   6C ; l
p 5abc   79 ; y
p 5abd    0 ; ----------------
p 5abe  2bc ; pos
p 5abf  21d ; 29
p 5ac0  2bb ; color
p 5ac1  807 ; white
p 5ac2    4 ;
p 5ac3  118 ;
p 5ac4   7b ;
p 5ac5   4c ; horse, note that this gfx consists of 6 GRAM carts (to center it)
p 5ac6   4d ;  "
p 5ac7   4e ;  "
p 5ac8    0 ; ---------------
p 5ac9  2bc ; pos
p 5aca  231 ; 49
p 5acb    4 ;
p 5acc  118 ;
p 5acd   7b ;
p 5ace   4f ; horse
p 5acf   50 ;  "
p 5ad0   51 ;  "
p 5ad1    0 ; ---------------
p 5ad2  2bc ; pos GRAM cart copyright symbol
p 5ad3  2de ; 222
p 5ad4    4 ;
p 5ad5  118 ;
p 5ad6   7b ;
p 5ad7   4a ; ©
p 5ad8    0 ; ----------------
;
p 5ad9  2bc ; pos title of game
p 5ada  27e ; 126
p 5adb  2bb ; color 
p 5adc 180a ; orange
p 5add    4 ;
p 5ade  118 ;
p 5adf   7b ;
p 5ae0   33 ; C
p 5ae1   43 ; S
p 5ae2   2b ;
p 5ae3   43 ; S
p 5ae4   3c ; N
p 5ae5   31 ; A
p 5ae6   3b ; K
p 5ae7   35 ; E
p 5ae8    0 ; ----------------
;
p 5ae9  2bc ; pos extra gfx cart
p 5aea  292 ; 146
p 5aeb  2bb ; color 
p 5aec 180e ; acid
p 5aed    4 ;
p 5aee  118 ;
p 5aef   7b ;
p 5af0   53 ; snake a
p 5af1   52 ; snake b
p 5af2   52 ;  "     
p 5af3   52 ;  "     
p 5af4   52 ;  "   
p 5af5   52 ;  "
p 5af6   52 ;  "
p 5af7   52 ;  "
p 5af8    0 ; ----------------
p 5af9    4 ; -> $5b80 play sfx from "SNAFU"
p 5afa  15a ;
p 5afb  380 ;
;
;             gram init, this is common and understood by the disassembler,
;             BUT it would be allowed to set more as 8, in principles the 
;             whole 64 GRAM carts could be filled with a single command 
;             only the disassembler misinterpretes this the Inty seems to be
;             comfortable with it (compare to how i used this for "BREAKOUT").
;             This here is an early attempt and the values does not comply to
;             the values in GROM for letters and numbers which makes it
;             unsuitable to use the font to display numbers such as a score.
;             Neither i had the intention to change anything of the code
;             itself, it's just a title for a demo without a title.
;             Note even that me i use the term "card" while originally it is
;             "cart", but to me "card" makes more sense.
p 5b00   34 ;
p 5b01   21 ; 0-7
p 5b02  390 ;
p 5b03   31 ; 8-9
p 5b04   90 ;
p 5b05    1 ; space
p 5b06   10 ;
p 5b07    d ; &
p 5b08   10 ;
p 5b09   1b ; -
p 5b0a   10 ;
p 5b0b    3 ; !
p 5b0c   10 ;
p 5b0d   3f ; ?@A-F
p 5b0e  390 ;
p 5b0f   4f ; G-N
p 5b10  390 ;
p 5b11   5f ; O-V
p 5b12  390 ;
p 5b13   6f ; W-Z  
p 5b14  190 ;
p 5b15    1 ; card 0-7
p 5b16  380 ;
p 5b17   11 ;
p 5b18   80 ; card 8-9
;
;             gfx card listing
p 5b20   7e ; ©
p 5b21   81 ;
p 5b22   bd ;
p 5b23   a1 ;
p 5b24   bd ;
p 5b25   81 ;
p 5b26   7e ;
p 5b27    0 ;
p 5b28   3c ; | a very complicated piece of gfx ;)
p 5b29   3c ;
p 5b2a   3c ;
p 5b2b   3c ;
p 5b2c   3c ;
p 5b2d   3c ;
p 5b2e   3c ;
p 5b2f   3c ;
p 5b30    0 ; horse a 
p 5b31    0 ;
p 5b32    0 ;
p 5b33    1 ;
p 5b34    1 ;
p 5b35    3 ;
p 5b36    3 ;
p 5b37    7 ;
p 5b38   90 ; horse b
p 5b39   d8 ;
p 5b3a   fc ;
p 5b3b   f3 ;
p 5b3c   fc ;
p 5b3d   7e ;
p 5b3e   ff ;
p 5b3f   ff ;
p 5b40    0 ; horse c
p 5b41    0 ;
p 5b42    0 ;
p 5b43    0 ;
p 5b44   80 ;
p 5b45   40 ;
p 5b46   40 ;
p 5b47   a0 ;
p 5b48    7 ; horse d
p 5b49    f ;
p 5b4a    b ;
p 5b4b    7 ;
p 5b4c    0 ;
p 5b4d    0 ;
p 5b4e    0 ;
p 5b4f    0 ;
p 5b50   ff ; horse e
p 5b51   ef ;
p 5b52   8f ;
p 5b53   1f ;
p 5b54   3f ;
p 5b55   3f ;
p 5b56   3f ;
p 5b57    0 ;
p 5b58   a0 ; horse f
p 5b59   b0 ;
p 5b5a   b0 ;
p 5b5b   b0 ;
p 5b5c   b0 ;
p 5b5d   b0 ;
p 5b5e   b0 ;
p 5b5f    0 ;
p 5b60    0 ; snake a
p 5b61    0 ;
p 5b62    0 ;
p 5b63   7e ;
p 5b64   af ;
p 5b65   7f ;
p 5b66    0 ;
p 5b67    0 ;
p 5b68    0 ; snake b
p 5b69    0 ;
p 5b6a    0 ;
p 5b6b   3c ;
p 5b6c   ff ;
p 5b6d   c3 ;
p 5b6e    0 ;
p 5b6f    0 ;
;
p 5b80 004 ; snafu sfx6 (opponent dies)
p 5b81 118 ;
p 5b82 3be ;
p 5b83 092 ;
p 5b84 02f ;
p 5b85 0dd ;
p 5b86 389 ;
p 5b87 3b7 ;
p 5b88 0ac ;
p 5b89 0f6 ;
p 5b8a 040 ;
p 5b8b 1c5 ;
p 5b8c 048 ;
p 5b8d 2e4 ;
p 5b8e 044 ;
p 5b8f 28e ;
p 5b90 001 ;
p 5b91 3fb ;
p 5b92 10b ;
p 5b93 08f ;
p 5b94 059 ;
p 5b95 040 ;
p 5b96 0b4 ;
p 5b97 048 ;
p 5b98 0be ;
p 5b99 044 ;
p 5b9a 0ab ;
p 5b9b 001 ;
p 5b9c 013 ;
p 5b9d 0ac ;
p 5b9e 04f ;
p 5b9f 32f ;
p 5ba0 00b ;
p 5ba1 08f ;
p 5ba2 015 ;
p 5ba3 05d ;
p 5ba4 02f ;
p 5ba5 0cf ;
;
;p 5b80    4 ; knock sfx, usually used by me for the titleless IntyBASIC
;;             demos, sounds a little like someone would knock on the inner
;;             side of a CRTube, or at least this was my intention.
;;             It is based on the "return ball" sfx of BRICKOUT.
;;             Just remove the comment marks (;) to activate it.
;p 5b81  118 ;
;p 5b82  3bb ;
;p 5b83   92 ;
;p 5b84   40 ;
;p 5b85   48 ;
;p 5b86   80 ;
;p 5b87   44 ;
;p 5b88   40 ;
;p 5b89  256 ;
;p 5b8a  3b1 ;
;p 5b8b  389 ;
;p 5b8c   1c ;
;p 5b8d    0 ;
;p 5b8e   1b ;
;p 5b8f  3cf ;
;p 5b90    0 ;

 

 

A variation of this i used as well for all the IntyBASIC music demos (named IntyMUSIC coloring things and stuff are else the same).

New entries to the first page are ASTROMASHUP, all COLECO games and one Parker release (the rest of Parker releases will follow soon), additionally i will post very soon a hack of "Armour Battle" to reduce or raise the amount of tanks you have for this game this will make the battle either shorter (less tanks) or longer in time (more tanks), i decided to add only one version with 30 tanks for each player to the common 50 tanks (title screen will change as well and you will have access to the gfx list to alter the cards).

I started to sort the entries alphabetically and by publisher to make the first entry more orderly.

 

Also i have a little extra which is somewhat off the rest of hacks, the following zip file contains config files for the games which are branded like "NHL Hockey" or "PGA Golf". They doesn't change the games or the title screen except that i.e. Hockey will show now "NHL HOCKEY" and that i added a sfx or music (if it is present in the game), also i kept the easter eggs for "Roulette" and "Skiing" (that means for Roulette that the title is reverted to "ETTELUOR" instead the new "LAS VEGAS ROULETTE"). For both games the easter egg can be forced in the config file.

Hint: i hided an additional easter egg in each of the games present in this zip for the ease of it all use the same input.

 

 

brandings_20210901.zip

 

 

     

 

     

 

    

 

 

 

Minor changes to all Coleco releases, removed small errors and made the games following more the color code (standard=black, advantage=blue, lethal=magenta, trainer=dgreen). Some games start with less men in "standard" but equal as standard as advantage.

 

Major changes to "Tutankham", added border color (color code).

New entries "Frogger" and "Star Wars ESB".

Some new entries, "Vectron", "Thunder Castle" (fixed title screen to black background on all hardware), custom font for "Space Battle" (an an alternative "Battlestar" using the same font from Battlestar) for the sake of space i had to rename internally both versions to "Battlestar" (screen color issue, i couldn't find an in all cases working position for the screen color routine when i used "Space Battle" as internal title but if at all the idea is that it should work in all cases, proof i can only make it on my PAL Intellivision the rest is emulated in MAME or jzIntv). "Tag-Along Todd" has now a nice sky blue title instead of the enervating magenta. For "Shark! Shark!" i even changed the screen color routine further i added translations in italian, french and german to this game, showing now "Les Requins!" "Squali! Squali!" or "Haie! Haie!" in the title, this in blood red magenta on an always cyan background (but no special font for this game so far). SW-ESB shows "STAR WARS" in fat yellow letters on a black background (ahhh... - in a future release i will add Vaders likeness - hopefully ? - OhKeh this is already present - my fault).

Erm yes "Star Wars"

I was sometimes criticized for the detail richness of my pilots which you never can see in a close-up in the running game, the above is an imperial pilot from X-Wing Alliance ('98) which you never can see in a close-up in the running game as well (yes it is low-poly as low-poly can be but as i said you will hardly see anything of all that in the game) and it is only a fraction of effort they put in "Han" and "Chewie" in the special edition Millfalcon there even the eye color of Harrison Ford is adequate but to see this you need to open the model in a modelviewer. This posted as a small credit to Tony Denton alias darksabre who officially made this add-on and influenced me much with his work. 

 

Back to topic...  ...respectively scroll through the first entry of this blog to see what has changed meanwhile and what i added new.

 

 

 

could it be more worse as this olive screen for "Shark! Shark!"?

Edited October 6, 2021 by Gernot