Alex H
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Posts posted by Alex H
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; divide value in temp by 10 lda temp lsr lsr clc adc temp lsr clc adc temp lsr lsr lsr clc adc temp lsr clc adc temp lsr lsr lsr lsr sta temp
I think that's right.
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Here's another little scroller demo. Binary only this time until I get it cleaned up. I wrote this on a PAL machine (PAL60) and haven't sorted out NTSC colours yet. The background should be red/blue but will be purple/green in NTSC. Runs ok in Z26 (press the "-" key to switch to PAL colours) but Stella chokes on this with my 3GHz machine!
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Only when you're in the bubble. Sorry, should've made that clearer in my post.
So they make the bubble less evil?
Each down arrow collected adds a very small amount to gravity, irrespective of what other power-ups you have. It's very subtle - you need lots of them before you really feel it, although even a small increase in gravity can make all the difference with the longer platforms. The later levels will be faster and it becomes increasingly difficult to not get pushed off the top of the screen, so extra gravity is worth having.
Remember, this is a WIP so lots of things aren't quite perfect yet. I'll adjust things like the amount of gravity added once I do more thorough play testing.
Don't know about hunger, but the reversing controls thing is brutal. I just avoid the 'shrooms.Well, reversing the controls I can deal with if I'm prepared. Depends where the mushroom is when I grab it. But I'll agree sometimes they can be deadly.
The mushrooms give a good/bad trip depending on what colour they are. The bad trip is obvious, the good trip let's you miss fruit without starting back at the cherry plus a points bonus (not sure if that was in the last version I posted).
They enable the transporter/warp thing. If you miss the gold cherry, you can't warp the next game.I don't know that I've ever missed a gold cherry, but I know I often don't reach the cherry and yet still get the warp option. Probably because I have an Atarivox.
At the end of each level is a golden fruit. Collect the gold fruit to enable teleport back to that level. Say you have collected 2 gold fruit, then you will see the teleport at the beginning. Jump through that and you will see a second teleport, etc. The number of opened teleports is stored in the AtariVox - this is basically how I've implemented the level select.
On the other hand, I haven't found the warp option useful since I never get a skateboard before the Blue Zone.The blue zone is the end of the test data - there is nothing (playable) beyond it in this version.
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I can see that it could at times be advantageous, but it would seem that when communicating at 60 bytes/sec, latency would be hard to avoid whether you wanted it or not.
50/60 bytes/sec is fine for speech, not so good for the synth. I output the speech during overscan which has little else in it apart from sound. At one point I was testing the timer after sending a byte and if there's enough time, repeat. (Usually fitting in 3 bytes per frame.) But I couldn't hear the difference. With the longer speech strings it was filling the SpeakJet buffer anyway at a single byte per frame, so there seemed little advantage.
The latency is pretty tiny unless there's a whole heap of control codes. The way I look at it, latency isn't a problem if the user can't/doesn't notice it. But I must admit, I haven't done much with the SpeakJet synth functions.
BTW, any idea when you'll have a real cart ready for sale?I've only just started work on it again after being unwell recently. But I'm hoping to have a finished version (or nearly finished) for CGEUK on 13th Aug. So hopefully not too long after then.
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there is a noticeable lag on some of the sound effects, most notably the burp
I've not noticed that
That's deliberate. I put a pause in the data so he burps a moment after eating the food. I also tend to put short pauses at the start of other speech strings in case one bit of speech interrupts another. (Not that that happens much in MGD.) I made a habbit of doing that after coding the Verzerk speech hack (Vectrex) where speech strings get interrupted more often. Just sounds better that way.
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Like the title says.
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It has FIVE-bit pitch control.
Yes, what was I thinking? And I was programming sound just an hour before writing that.
But 5-bit pitch control is nasty.Yep.
I think the main reasons there isn't much in-game music on the 2600 is because it only has 2 channels, and developers wouldn't want to use up valuable ROM space on music that sounds nasty.
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By all accounts the 2600's chip was alot better than most other 'sound' chips around at the time (and later - the 48k Spectrum - ugh!)
So if the TIA was "by all accounts" better than the sound chip of the spectrum, why did Atari use the speccys chip for the Atari ST instead of its own "superior" TIA?
The 48k Spectrum didn't even have a sound chip. It had a single I/O line connected to the speaker which was twiddled under CPU control. The Atari ST used the Yamaha version of the Intellivision (GI) sound chip. (The later 128K Spectrums used the GI sound chip, as did the Vectrex, MSX and others.)
The TIA has more waveforms than the GI chip so is more flexible in the type of sounds it can make, but only has 2 channels and 8-bit pitch control. The GI sound chip has 3 square-wave oscillators with 12-bit pitch control which makes it more tuneful, plus a noise generator and envelope generator which can also be used as a triangle/sawtooth oscillator.
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http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=8205899912
I wonder how much it will fetch?
This was the previous one sold on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=8193364813
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Probably too late for the mag now sadly... article has been submitted and they're already running too much (hence the cull). RG lost 16 pages recently (trying to find out why) which if they still had them, might have meant everything stayed in.
I believe your interview is still getting printed Alex
(I think some of the others are not though and going on the CD)
Better on the CD than not at all.
As for the ROMs, it's pretty much the same from other people I've spoken to. I've been told Sean has stopped making his multicarts now, but I could have sworn I saw a batch on eBay this year. Ah well... could be my memory.He's still making them, but as and when he has time. He only sells them on eBay when he has a batch made.
If you've got a contact address for Jay Smith, then I can certainly ask him what he thinks directly
No, sorry I don't. I'll ask around.
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The bad news: not everything I wrote for RetroGamer will make it into the final print of the magazine.
The good news: hopefully everything that doesn't will be made available on the cover CD (which is a change from the usual practice of it disappearing into the nether realms) Alex... seeing as Martyn is keen on Vectrex cover mountage, would there be a problem if I suggest to him to put the video footage you have of Protector from your site on the CD?No problem!
He's also asked about possibly having Vectrex ROMs on the CD... now given Jay Smith released them for non-profit use, what are peoples' opinions on whether this is technically still obeying that principle or not?(by virtue of the fact that Live won't be making any money from them as they will be part of the magazine itself and the cover price remains always at 6 GBP regardless of what is on the CD)
Hmm... The mag is sold for profit presumably, and it's the content (print and CD) which is where the value is and what people pay for. No print/CD, no sales. So, technically I would say it's a no no. The copyrights are still in effect - they're not PD. Also, some of the games were licenced from Cinematronics, Konami, Namco, etc., and there may be limits on how/where those titles can be published. So it's possible that Jay himself wouldn't be able to give permission.
Having said that, Sean Kelly sells his multi-carts and some of the websites that have the ROMs for download carry advertising. But if I were in Martyn's shoes, I'd really want to speak to Jay Smith.
Some of the homebrewers might be happy to have their ROM images on the CD? My stuff doesn't work in the current emulators so there's not much point.
BTW, Jeroen received an email from Jeff Corsiglia and posted it to rec.games.vectrex. Here's a copy: (Hope that's ok Jeroen?)
What a fine site. Sure brings back memories. In my attic is a box of my original storyboards for the design of many of the Vectrex games as well as my prototype for the Vextrex 3d imager. There are also lots of designs that were never produced. I can make some corrections to your game credits...Mouse (Richard Moskowsky) was the best and fastest Vectrex programmer. His workstation was a hot rodded Ithica Intersystems. He coded games in as little as four weeks. Mouse generated the interpolation algorithm for the curved vectors in the light pen animation activities. He did no design. Mark Indictor (NOT Indicator), was also an excellent coder and did some design. He coded Pinball to my design, both coded and designed Tour de France and Polar Rescue.
I liked caroming play and designed it into my Fortress of Narzod game. I designed Cosmic Chasm with Cinematronics in mind and they manufactured it as a coin-op color vector game. Scott Bowden and I worked together on it. Unfortunately, their color vector system was somewhat unreliable and raster was hitting its stride.
For the history books, I designed the Vectrex 3d games as well. John Ross, inventor of the Vectrex, came up with the notion of the spinning disc and I developed the hardware, (with considerable help). Interestingly, some percentage of people can't see the effect.
For 3-d Crazy Coaster, I rented the big coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain and clamped a stereo cine camera to the front car. The resulting film was used for establishing realistic perspective, since we had so few vectors to establish the background. This was an early attempt at motion-capture which worked fairly well, considering the limitations of the Vectrex system.
Minestorm 3-d was a requirement because the 2-d version was resident in the system. Tough to pull off.
Narrow Escape was the best of the 3-d games...probably the best use of the effect.
My role was head designer and producer for Vectrex at Western Technologies. Later, I partnered with Datascan and ran its video game division as a second source of games for GCE/Milton Bradley.
I'm pleased new games are being developed for what's still a good game system.
Jeff Corsiglia
Perhaps Jeroen could put you in touch and he might be up for an interview for the mag?
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Nice! I might have to make myself one of those.
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Just been listening to some C64 remixes over at remix.kwed.org. I absolutely love Scroll Machine (5th Dream About Happiness) - LMan, even if it does sound a little like pr0n music.
But can someone remind my what game the first tune in Sidology Episode 3 - machinae supremacy is from? I've got Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, Monty on the Run, Commando and Out Run. Just can't place the first one.
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Getting back on topic... There's a bunch of Vectrex reviews here. Apparently there will be more shortly.
Personally, I think he underrates Scramble - how it can score lower than Starhawk I don't know. But hey, he rates my games pretty high so I shouldn't complain.
BTW, Jeroen (owner of that site) sells some nice Vectrex T-shirts. Only the larger sizes left, but that should be ok for you fat bloaters!
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That's a giveaway Alex I'll bet you it's Sinistar!!
Heh, you knows it!
I'm really eager to do this, but it's an ambitious project and there are some hurdles to overcome. The sound is going to be tricky - the voice samples will need a lot of ROM space and there are technical issues with playing them and drawing stuff at the same time.
Also, there can be a lot of objects on screen. The problem is not so much in displaying them but the collision detection between them all - that can chomp away at the available CPU time big time. There are ways to streamline this but that needs more RAM. So it all depends on how it goes with the cart design. (Looks good on paper.)
It will also take a lot of time to program. Besides, I must finish Man Goes Down first and the VecLink game before I really get stuck into it, so don't expect it any time soon. I've had other *big ideas* before and had to scrap them for one reason or another.
Robotron: too much sprites for the Vectrex' likingAaargh! You shouldn't set me challenges like that!
plus the control issueYes that is a problem. Someone is working on Robotron though. Haven't heard anything in a while though so don't know what's happening with that.
Nothing is unlocked based on score so perhaps you've found them already?Right... it's been a while since I unlocked them.. Actually I thought it was related to the levels now that I think of it... I just shot down all the UFO's anyway...
But other than the 7 extra modes, there's nothing to be unlocked, right?
No, apart from being able to start at the higher levels, there's nothing more to unlock.
I think YASI eventually deserves a Special Edition by the way. Maybe one or a few extra game game modes (like powerups/bonus levels?), two person coop mode
Hmm, interesting idea.
highscore entries per game modeThat wasn't possible because the Protector high score table takes up most of the EEPROM space.
and off course, a multi color layered overlay, just like the foil on the original arcade machine!!That would be nice. But even the simple Protector overlay was damned expensive to produce.
(I like to use the Pole position overlay for it; it's almost perfect!)I don't have one.
The Scramble overlay works ok, but I have a Berzerk overlay on the screen most of the time when playing games that don't have overlays. I just love the way the screen looks in blue.-
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How many pages per frame can you read headers from while showing a display?
I don't know. Haven't tried.
Obviously if you screen-blank you can read stuff much faster, but screen blanking is ugly.Originally we didn't have the Static Allocation Area, just 256 blocks of file system (so it could take twice as long when the file is in located last block). I asked people how they felt about the screen blanking - no one had noticed. Just a few frames, at a time when there was a screen transition anyway.
BTW, did you notice the screen blank when the high scores are saved/loaded in MGD? Ok, it's quicker than a full search would be, but still, it's pretty unobtrusive.
That's why I'd suggested that the first part of the flashcart memory contain the name of each game. This would allow a lookup based on application ID.Ok, I misunderstood what you were saying there. But it's still more complicated and uses more resorces (ROM, RAM) than what people wanted. (Me included.)
How are files over 117 bytes handled?They are not. The AtariVox was designed pimarily for the 2600 which as you know only has 128 bytes RAM. So simplicity was chosen over the need for bigger files. If being used with say the 7800 and more than 117 bytes are required, then multiple files is the solution. Systems that would require bigger files have more resorces to cope with this, but yes it does make things more messy in this instance. There is the situation were one file of a set could be overwritten, and it would have to be down to those applications to deal with that.
Not perfect I know, but the most important factor is that it must be as simple as possible for the 2600.
Not much. Whatever scratchpad is needed by the I2C routines, plus a 2-3 bytes, and maybe 4-6 bytes of stack (all but 2 of which could safely be used by the display kernel).From talking to people who actually wanted to use the file area, that would be too much.
Well, then you need a way to let users decide what they want to delete.In the same way in which you'd need to let the user choose what they want to load. The ability to either overwrite or delete files is necessary to avoid having a separate memory manager cart.
You may be right. I sometimes have good ideas and sometimes bad ones. Only way to know is to put 'em out and see what happens.
Sorry if I sounded rude - didn't mean to. A couple of people are already developing programs which will use the file area, and we've done our best to cater for their needs.
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Hello,
I've got a broken vectrex I think. When I turn it on there is 1 bright spot in the center with some lines radiating out of it (it kind of looks like a littel sun). I've tried adjusting the brightness in the back, but that doesn't seem to help.
Yep, broken.
Is this machine destined for the trash? Is there any hope of repairs? Any advice is appreciated. thanksIt's probably fixable. If you hear sound, it's likely to be one of 3 chips that's gone bad. Often it's the 6522 (replace with a 6522A if you can find one - not all 6522 chips work properly in the Vectrex.) But the fact that you can see some lines radiating out of the spot suggests it might not be that though. It could be the MC1408 DAC (common cause for white-dot syndrome), or one of the op-amps (I forget which one).
If you don't get any sound, it's almost certainly the 68A09 CPU that needs replacing.
Search the rec.games.vectrex newsgroup for "white dot" - you might find some info there.
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There's also that 3D shooter XYLO but I'm not sure what will happen with that. I'm very short on RAM and can't really fit everything in that I had planned. But maybe
I'll do something with it - would be a shame to scrap it at this stage.
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Sounds very promising being a great fan of shooters!
Uhm... Use external ram and swop mem?
I'm trying to develop a mega-cart which has a nice big ROM and extra RAM, but that's for a different game - also a shooter (2D) and probably far cooler than XYLO. (I'm a fan of Williams arcade games - can you guess what it is yet? Still in the very early stages of development so I don't want to promise too much just yet.)
btw: about your tip on YASI above: You mean there are more modes to be unlocked once you unlocked all the score based ones??Nothing is unlocked based on score so perhaps you've found them already?
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You might be looking at an old document. This has already been thrashed out months ago on the Stella list and via many emails.
It requires a lot of searching for an application to find its data,Not a lot. Simple loop. The memory is quite small, searching is fast - it happens in the blink of an eye.
and there's no defined way for applications to avoid picking identical file names.I don't see a problem here.
I know it was a preliminary idea, but it would be good to nail something down before people code stuff that would be incompatible with something better.My personal thinking would be that file system usage should be standardized to the point that someone could use an Atarivox Manager cartridge
Hold it right there!
No! There is no need for an memory manager cart. There is no need to put that additional cost on the end user. We do not want this.
as well as to try to repair a corrupted file system.This would only be required if the file system can be corrupted to the point where it no longer works. That would be a bad file system for this application.
-1- All new applications after some cutoff point, and all applications which save data in the file system (instead of the application-specific area) would be expected to have the first byte of their private space be a pointer to their first file [0 if none], and have that be followed by a null-terminated application name of up to twelve characters in length. All such applications would have private storage addresses which are higher than any storage addresses for applications not meeting these criteria.-2- Each allocated file block would start with the following information:
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- ID of owning application (1 byte; application base address/64)
- Address of first block of next file (1 byte; 128+[address-$4000]/128, or 0 if none)
- File index (1 byte; defined by owning application)
- Address of next block within file
- Block index within file (0=first block; 1=second; etc.)
- For first block of file, a null-terminated filename up to 12 characters, or a 0 byte if none.
Unallocated blocks of memory would be kept in a linked list; the system would maintain a pointer to the first such block. An application wishing to create a file would retrieve this pointer, check to ensure the block was actually free, retrieve the "next" pointer, rewrite the "first free block" pointer to equal the next pointer, and then write its block of data.
Way too complicated for what we need.
The format is:
Each 128 byte block starts will 11 character filename (7 bit character codes), 3 char file type, 8 char filename. Bit 7 of ther first byte is 1 of the block is free, 0 if the block is in use. The remaining bytes in each block are for user data.
ID bytes are a bad move since they are not human readable. A list of IDs needs to be maintained and it's more finite than what we already have. To make them human readable, any application which shows the directory would need to know the meaning of all IDs. What happens when new IDs are added? Does everyone have to send their memory manager cart or games back to be updated?
Linked lists are bad because they are corruptable and can break the file system.
BTW, What are the RAM requirements of your proposed system? This is something that is critical to those who are already working on projects which use the file system.
How does the memory get formatted for use in the first place? The existing system does not require any formatting. A blank EEPROM (full of 1s) will just show all blocks empty.
The page-write limit of the EEPROM pretty much prevents mass curruption of data. Any blocks that do get corrupted can just be overwritten/deleted by the application software.
Doing this sort of test before the application starts would avoid any risk of frustration from a user being unable to save his work.This shouldn't happen. Any program that uses the file system should be able to save data to any block, whether previously used or not. Simple.
Any of those concepts seem interesting?To be frank, no, sorry. I fail to see how it cures any problems, but it creates new ones.
Search the Stella archives for "AtariVox EEPROM File Format" to see some of the talk about this.
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And who knows what Alex Herbert has been up to.
Man Goes Down on the 2600, of course!
My next Vectrex release will be the VecLink Maze game (still needs a title - Berzerk Arena perhaps?). Whilst it does have the single player mode, it really plays best with 2 linked Vecs, so it might have limited appeal. I plan to sell pairs of cartridges with VecLink cable. No fancy box or overlays this time. (Game is about 90% complete.)
There's also that 3D shooter XYLO but I'm not sure what will happen with that. I'm very short on RAM and can't really fit everything in that I had planned. But maybe I'll do something with it - would be a shame to scrap it at this stage.
I might bash out a mini-game too - Spike Goes Up. (If you've ever played Jumping Jack on the ZX Spectrum/Amstrad CPC or Leggit! on the Dragon 32, you'll get the picture.)
That I know cos I spoke to him recently(and will be revealed in issue #19 of RetroGamer magazine)
Cool, great to get confirmation that the article will be published!
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Protector/ Y*A*S*I Both games are very impressive. Protector is every bit as hard as Defender was in the arcades. Very tough, but very fun. I'll get a lot of mileage out of this one. Y*A*S*I is absolutely amazing considering that it's on a Vectrex. I own an actual arcade Space Invaders and I was just blown away at how close the graphics look to the real thing. The sound isn't even close, but I suspect that's a limitation of the Vec's sound chip.
Yes, the sound effects are a little weak, especially the fire sound - very hard to reproduce on this chip.
Overall it's a great Space Invaders translation.It's a look-a-like rather than an accurate translation. Did you unlock any of the extra game modes yet? Go UFO hunting to unlock more modes.
Alex Herbert did an outstanding job on this cart, even the credits are a joy to watch.Cheers!
Rockaroids Remix Okay, this game is hard. I mean really hard. Really, really hard. Looks nice, but man it kicks my ass.You should definitely check out John D's carts: www.classicgamecreations.com
Birds of Prey (on Vecmania) is one of my favourites. It looks slightly old and less polished than some of the more recent games, but I still love this Phoenix clone.
Wormhole (Vectopia) is another one I fire up quite regularly. (Like Gyruss.)
Gravitrex is one of the best Vectrex homebrews. Since you like Thrust, you should definitely check this out. It's a slight shame it doesn't have the nice zooming effects of the arcade Gravitar, but it has a lot of gameplay - probably more depth than Thrust.
The various versions of Patriots (Missile Command) on these carts are also worth playing.
Moon Lander Lunar Lander was always one of my favorite black & white vector arcade games so I was thrilled to see a homebrew version. The graphics look good, the control feel right, and it's got great gameplay.Yes, it's a really nice game. I find it very hard though.
Thrust I saved the best for last. If you own a Vectrex and you don't own this game you're doing yourself a serious diservice. I know that Thrust was originally a Commodore 64 game, but if I didn't, I could easily mistake this for another vector arcade classic remake. This game really has the look & feel of one of those great vector classics. This is a rare case of the remake being better than the original. I expect this one to have great replay value, I put a few hours in on it last night and all I wanted was to play it some more. Kudos to Ville Krumlinde, the author of this game. Very, very well done.I love this version of Thrust too. I always found the controls to be a bit tricky on other versions and was never much of a fan of the game, but Ville did a great job here. A must have Vectrex game IMO.
Also I would be remiss if I didn't thank Mark Shaker for making these games available at his cost. Despite the fact that Vectrex cases are currently not available (although that's going to change soon apparantly) he still makes the games available using modified INTV cases, and because of this he charges $2 less per game!Wow, I didn't know about that - even more of a bargain!
What a great service he does for Vectrex enthusiasts. Thanks a lot Mark!Yep, top bloke!
Yes .. there's a new game coming out this fall. The Vectrex is averaging about two homebrews a year.Has there been anything new released for the Vectrex? Are people still developing games for it?Don't forget Nebula Commander and Revector by Craig Aker that were released recently. (Available from Mark Shaker: www.vectrexcarts.com)
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After game over you should add some more speech! Repeat MGD when the title comes up. Maybe "Fruits of your labors" when the fruit screen is displayed. "high scores" or "No high score yet" when there is not yet a top score on that screen?
Yes, I will be putting more speech in there.
Yes, there's something wrong with Z26's I/O emulation. No such problems when running on the real hardware or in Stella.
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A possible solution would be to build the memory into actual joysticks - a "memory stick" so to speak. The problem is compatibility with the AtariVox.
$351!
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My 1st Atari 2600 game (Man Goes Down)
in Homebrew Discussion
Posted
Hi Folks, it's about time I posted an update. Unfortunately I haven't made much progress with MGD over the past year or so. I've had some heath problems to contend with (including a brain haemorrhage - ouch!!!), and it's hard to get back into a project when it's been left so long.
Anyhow, the latest binary is here.
The level data is still far from complete, I still have more speech to add and other little bits to do here and there. I've put in some title screen music (known bug: music goes crazy when you reset out of the game). And I've updated the scoring system (the number of points scored for each platform passed increases depending on which fruit you're on). I'm sure there were other changes but I can't remember off-hand.
Hopefully I'll get this finished sometime soon.
Alex