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Posts posted by TI99Kitty
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As I answered on the mailing list, I took down the tracker. Unless someone registers it with a new tracker, none of the seeds will matter. It wasn't seeing any activity.
FWIW, whenever I turn on Bittorrent, I seed the WHT torrent. Since torrents are moving away from centralized trackers, peers are still able to connect to seeds and download (even without a tracker). I turned on BT just now and saw 1 peer, but he/she never connected, so I turned it off again, since I'll be shutting down the 'puter soon.
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Had to add this one, since it has taken up so much of my time (since I got my 360, which I swore I would NEVER buy!):

(sorry about the size -- I forgot how to do thumbnails... >_< )
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I got my copy a day ago and yesterday I dug out my 4 switch to play a bit. The video looked awful, much worse than my perfect looking 2600 games, so I fired it up on my Colecovision Atari expansion module and it looks perfect. Odd. Great game!
So it does actually work on a CV with the expansion module? I don't have an actual Atari console, but I *do* have a ColecoVision, and was hoping to read that it works with Expansion Module #1 before I request to be put on the waiting list.
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Hi, all. Sorry about the delay since my last post -- real life has been very demanding of me lately, and TI stuff has had to take the back burner. One of these days, I hope to resume work on this project...
In the meantime, I just had a flash of inspiration: To free up character sets for other graphics (or text), instead of using the joystick input to pick which character(s) will be used for the sprites (to show the change in direction), why not just change the character definitions? That way, instead of defining 36 characters for each color of the the player's sprite, I only have to use 4. That takes me from 72 characters down to 8, freeing up 64 characters for other things. I could even leave most of the original code intact; except for the CALL PATTERN statement, which would become a CALL CHAR statement (with some modification, of course). The definition string for the sprite character data would be stored in an array, so the CALL CHAR would look something like
CALL CHAR(64,CH$(Z))
where "Z" would be a number generated from the X and Y from the CALL JOYST command.
Any thoughts?
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So much for keeping the topic clean-rated...
If a picture of a woman in her underwear is offensive, I can always remove it. (shrugs)
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You can pretty much consider all these off limits:
Big Five Software
EA
20th Century Fox
Nintendo
Coleco
I would add Disney and Paramount to that list, as they are companies that have actively pursued legal action people who put up fansites for copyrighted works (in fact, when Paramount made their "Star Trek" site a paysite in the mid-90's, they tried to shut down any fansite that had "Star Trek"-related material on it, and sued many of those sites' administrators).
With Coleco, I would think you could just contact the current holder of the trademark to ask permission. Opcode Games has done it, and apparently they are fairly easy to work with, as long as you don't do anything that "damages" their image (like making pornographic versions of Coleco games, for instance).
Does anyone know who currently owns the trademarks/copyrights on M Network and Data Age? Specifically I'm wondering about the company names and logos. Thanks for any info...
M Network was Mattel's label for porting Intellivision games over to Atari and ColecoVision consoles, so I would assume that the copyright/trademark is owned either by Mattel or INTV.
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Is there any faster way to develop for the TI-99/4A using Extended BASIC besides coding it in a text editor and pasting the code every time i make an edit and waiting for the entire code to finish being pasting every time? I'm getting tired of having to wait a minute every time i add a line or two to my code to see if it work in Classic99. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I remember that happening when I would edit a single line on the original machine, when the program started getting really large. "EDIT 2330" Wait almost a minute. Make the change and press enter. Wait almost a minute. "RUN" Wait over a minute. ^_^
Why not just edit "on the fly" in Extended BASIC itself, with the emulator running? For small edits, that seems to make the most sense.
Also, if you're only editing one line, and not making changes to any of the other lines of the program (or the sequence), just copy/paste the line that changed. It's a lot faster that way.
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Yesterday I went to a Goodwill Computer Works(?) store
I've never heard of a special Goodwill store like this... I wonder if they're shipping most of the gaming stuff to NC?!!

The Goodwill near my apartment has its electronic stuff separate from everything else (except the TV's), and you have to ring up purchases in that section separately from any other purchases. IIRC, the receipt said "Computer Works" instead of "Goodwill." Other than that, the receipts I got from both parts of the store were identical, in the way they were laid out and the fonts they used.
Maybe it's something they're doing to help keep the stuff that can actually make them some money apart from the stuff that just gets thrown willy-nilly onto shelves and into giant "dump tables."
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The only ports I've played are for the Intellivision, ColecoVision and the TI. In fact, I have the CV and TI versions. While the actual screens on the CV may be more faithful to the arcade version, it seems to me that the graphics, sound and gameplay are better on the TI. In fact, this was one of the games I pointed people to, when they made any comments about me getting a "real" video game machine like the CV.
The other two, for the record, were "Donkey Kong" and "Defender."
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Be cheaper to just buy the real overlays.
If you can find scans of them online (like at MobyGames), you can print them up at home. I did that for the ColecoVision "Mouse Trap" overlays, then used stick-on laminate -- the stuff that comes in a roll, as it's cheaper -- to finish them (and to protect the ink from dampness). They came out nice and sturdy. ^_^
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Okay, most of the time I've wasted spent on this so far has been spent trying to get the graphics less sucky looking not too far from what I had envisioned. I swiped borrowed the sprite movement routine from "Honeycomb Rapture," and when I get further along, I plan to add keyboard support (for those of us who still play games on our IRL consoles) to the routine.
Before I put up the code-so-far, I'll give a little bit of background:
The movie that inspired this little game was hardly a blockbuster. In fact, from what I remember at the time, the studio hardly promoted it at all. I remember movie trading cards, and that's about it. Actually, I think they may have been embarrassed by it. Really, it wasn't as good as it could have been (like this game will probably wind up being, LOL), despite an excellent cast. Still it was an entertaining way to waste a couple of hours, and it's always had a special place in my heart.
I like to think that, if the studio had released a video game of the movie, it would have been something like this, only it would have sucked a lot less better.
100 CALL CLEAR :: CALL SCREEN(2) :: RESTORE 5000 109 REM ** SETUP GRAPHICS ** 110 FOR CD=1 TO 18 :: READ CH,CH$ :: CALL CHAR(CH,CH$) :: NEXT CD 120 FOR CH=64 TO 96 STEP 4 :: READ CH$ :: CALL CHAR(CH,CH$) :: NEXT CH 130 FOR CH=104 TO 136 STEP 4 :: READ CH$ :: CALL CHAR(CH,CH$) :: NEXT CH 140 CALL COLOR(5,9,1,6,6,1,7,15,1) 149 REM ** SETUP VARIABLES ** 150 DAY=1 :: REP=0 :: TOK=1 :: ROM=0 :: TS=0.125 199 REM ** SETUP GAME SCREEN ** 200 CALL SCREEN (6) :: DISPLAY AT(10,10):"&%; :%""$>!" 210 FOR DE=1 TO 1500 :: NEXT DE 220 CALL CLEAR :: CALL SCREEN(2) 230 DISPLAY AT(2,1) SIZE(10):":%.";REP :: DISPLAY AT(2,14):"I" :: DISPLAY AT(2,23) SIZE(6):"$""> ";DAY 240 CALL SCREEN( 245 FOR R=5 TO 23 :: CALL HCHAR(R,2,81,30) :: NEXT R 250 CALL HCHAR(3,3,65,TOK) :: C=30 260 FOR HD=1 TO ROM:: CALL HCHAR(3,C,66) :: C=C-1 :: NEXT HD 270 CALL SPRITE(#1,80,6,92,124,#2,120,9,92,124) :: CALL MAGNIFY(2) 279 REM ** KEEP PLAYER ON PLAYFIELD ** 280 CALL POSITION(#1,XPOS,YPOS) 290 IF XPOS>175 THEN CALL LOCATE(#1,175,YPOS,#2,175,YPOS) :: GOTO 310 300 IF XPOS<32 THEN CALL LOCATE(#1,32,YPOS,#2,32,YPOS) 310 IF YPOS<10 THEN CALL LOCATE(#1,XPOS,10,#2,XPOS,10) 320 IF YPOS>240 THEN CALL LOCATE(#1,XPOS,240,#2,XPOS,240) 329 REM ** PLAYER INPUT ** 330 CALL JOYST(1,X,Y) 340 CALL MOTION(#1,-Y*2.5,X*2.5,#2,-Y*2.5,X*2.5) 350 CALL PATTERN(#1,Y*3+X+80,#2,Y*3+X+120) 360 GOTO 280 4999 REM ** TEXT CHAR DATA ** 5000 DATA 33,0010383810100010 5010 DATA 48,0038444C54644438 5020 DATA 34,003844447C444444 5030 DATA 35,0038444040404438 5040 DATA 36,0078242424242478 5050 DATA 37,007C40407840407C 5060 DATA 38,003C40405C444438 5070 DATA 39,0038101010101038 5080 DATA 42,0044485060504844 5090 DATA 43,00446C5454444444 5100 DATA 44,00446464544C4C4C 5110 DATA 45,0038444444444438 5120 DATA 46,0078444478404040 5130 DATA 58,0078444478504844 5140 DATA 59,007C101010101010 5170 DATA 60,0044444444444438 5180 DATA 61,0044444428281010 5190 DATA 62,0044442810101010 5199 REM ** GRAPHICS CHAR DATA ** 5200 DATA 00080002F0305010007CAA7C28100000006CFEFE7C381000 5210 DATA 00240000183C5A18 5220 DATA 001000400F0C0A08080AFC5F7CB41C24 5230 DATA 004022F0F0224000 5240 DATA 18183C5A00002400FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF 5250 DATA 0002440F0F440200 5260 DATA 105030F002000800 5270 DATA 185A3C1800002400 5280 DATA 080A0C0F40001000 5300 DATA 24302D3C0A0F0000 5310 DATA 24DBBD5A24000000 5320 DATA 240CB43C50F00000 5330 DATA 060A150E0E150A06 5340 DATA 000000245ABDDB24 5350 DATA 6050A87070A85060 5360 DATA 00000F0A3C2D3024 5370 DATA 000000245ABDDB24 5380 DATA 0000F0503CB40C24
"Rep" stands for "Reputation," and is the scoring method used in the game. When the player's Reputation reaches a certain level, it triggers on of several boss battles, inspired by events from the movie. The boss battles will likely give me the most difficulty, so I'm saving them for last. "Day" is the current level (or screen). The shields (or "tokens") on the left side of the screen will be used for special attacks (or for continuing, if you get killed). The hearts on the right side may be used for a subplot, if I have the space (and the energy) to work it in. If not, I'll probably use them for a "health bar."
Next on the agenda is to make the graphics for the playing field. I will most likely be using the majority of the allowed character sets to create the background and sprites for the challenges the player will face, as well as icons to represent different moves the player can activate by using the fire button.
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Yes-- it was intended. It is kind of a crappy trick... Makes it harder to win.... You could accidentally go all the way off the screen, and then have to go all the way back to the right to reach the Honeycomb (which is not on the playscreen just yet).

LOL, okay. I get it. (Abraham Simpson voice)You're eeeevil! EEEEEEEVIIIIILL! ^_^
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I may have to rethink the sprites. After looking at the character sets available in XB, I came to realize I wasn't going to have full text capability. I picked out only the characters that I'm going to use for sure, and reassigned those to ASCII codes 33-63, leaving me free to start my sprite characters at ASCII 64...
For a single-size, four-tile sprite, with up, down, left, right and diagonals (not to mention a "neutral" position), that takes up ASCII 64-99 (9 positions x 4 tiles = 36 characters). Then, to add a second color takes an additional 36 characters -- ASCII 100-135. And that leaves me ASCII 136-143 for everything else in the game, including damage counters, power-up tokens, background scenery, special effects, and opponents. >_<
This means either a single-color, single-size, four-tile player sprite; a two-color, double-size, single-tile sprite; or a single-size, four tile sprite for the main color, and a double-size, single-tile sprite for the secondary color. Hmmm... Tiny player sprite, or Atari 2600-looking sprite... Choices, choices...
For now, I'm going to proceed with a single-tile sprite. Having two colors may be moot at that size, of course. We'll just have to see how it works out...
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I noticed something: The player's bee is able to wrap around from the right hand side of the screen to the left. If this was not what you intended, you may want to add this:
291 IF YPOS>240 THEN CALL LOCATE(#1,XPOS,240)
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How do you hook up a 3.5" drive to a TI99/4a? I know it's possible as I've seen pictures of PEB's with them. I'd like to try and do this so I can transfer files from my PC to my TI. I know there's a program that lets you write files in the TI99 format on the PC so I think this would be possible.
Tempest
Tex*In Treasures offers a 3.5-inch floppy drive that's already configured for the TI.
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Is being a Genesis 3 the same as being part of a Genesis project?
If so, surely Dr. Marcus would not approve.

But that's only because scientists have always been pawns of the military! ^_~
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Yea...
. It's 2 Double Sized double magnified SPRITEs linked together... The word "ade" is an offset slow-moving SPRITE below "LEMON". Like I said, at that slow of aspeed, it's pretty easy to notice the offset.... But any faster, and it's all good.

I'll check it out after I've had a chance to get some sleep.
I managed to not get anything done last night, but I'm off for the next three nights, and hopefully I'll have something to show for it before this weekend!
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Oooohhh, fun!!!
. Yes, this is certainly do-able. If you want a reference point for what two linked SPRITEs look like, take a look at the title screen for "Lemonade Stand." The lemon that moves across the bottom is actually 2 SPRITEs joined together...I'll have to take a look at that again. I'll admit, when I played it before, I didn't notice anything special about the lemon -- but then, that's a good thing.
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Okay, quick question before I go back to sleep... I want to try using multi-color sprites, which means layering two or more sprites. I've read about this being done on the ColecoVision, but has anyone tried it in TI XB, and if so, how well did it work?
I remember the limit on how many sprites can be on a line, and I'm not worried about that, since I would only be layering the player's sprite, and I'm content to only use two visible colors. I'm more concerned about how well CALL MOTION can synchronize two sprites, since it is for the player sprite.
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I try to set a mood that matches the time period of the game or console that I'm playing. Lately I've been doing a lot of 70s music. Sometimes when I really get into it, I'll try to play songs from a specific year so if I'm playing the 2600 I may do songs from '77.
But it would be 'boring' without eardrum bursting, bone rattling, brain melting, nervous system shattering 'music.' All the cool kids know that if it doesn't give you a nosebleed, explosive diarrhea, and an erection all at the same time, it ain't music. Now pump up that musical cocaine and let's go break some laws so we can feel alive.
Breakin' the law, breakin' the law!
So now I want to listen to Judas Priest while playing "Turbo."
"Then we race together. We can ride forever.
Wrapped in horse-power, driving into fury
Changing gear I pull you tighter to me.
I'm your turbo lover.
Tell me there's no other.
I'm your turbo lover.
Better run for cover."
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Good news! I've started coding, and I have some code ready for testing!
100 CALL CLEAR
Of course, I'll continue refining this, but I hope to add a "PRINT" statement soon!
okay, so I'm a bit of a smartass...
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First movie to come to mind though was Alien, but that would have been closer to the original TI-99/4's time, not 4A...
Actually, according to trivia I've read, originally "The Attack" was supposed to be an "Alien" tie-in. I don't see any resemblance, personally... O_o
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Oh c'mon, ya'll actually play lot of Cher, Streisand, or Celine Dion. lol...
Funnily enough... Some of the J-Pop I listen to is from the Vocaloid program -- and I've started associating those songs with some of my ColecoVision games, just because it winds up playing so often (I use Winamp on shuffle) when I'm playing CV. Just like when I'm on the TI, Winamp likes to throw Joan Osborne's "One of Us" out there quite often, as well as 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up." Everything else in my playlist (the artists I named above) plays more or less equally randomly when I'm playing Dreamcast games or when I'm on the PC, though.



WHTech torrent
in TI-99/4A Development
Posted
I'm not sure if there's an updated torrent file out there anywhere, and it's not on any tracker anymore. If your BT client is DHT-compatible, however, you don't need a tracker.
I'm sure there's been new files added to the WHT site (as well as redundant files being removed) since the torrent was originally offered, anyway. I seem to remember several people talking about cleaning the site up, awhile back.