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Ed Fries

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Posts posted by Ed Fries

    Weirdest bug you ever had

    in Atari 2600 Programming

    Posted

    The weirdest bug in Halo2600 lets the player enter what I called "Magic Land" and is documented elsewhere online (for example here: http://infinitelives.net/2010/09/16/hello-homebrew-halo-2600/#sthash.1CZlvLrs.dpbs). It's caused by a problem in the hit test code. If the master chief is hitting a wall he gets moved back to the "safe position" where he was in the previous frame. Seems like a good solution except in the case where the player has also crossed onto a different screen on the map between those two frames. In that case the player can be teleported outside the normal 64 rooms and the game code starts constructing rooms and monsters based on random data. 

    • Like 2

    The First Color Arcade Video Game?

    in Arcade and Pinball

    Posted

    Awesome!

     

    Your bit about the counters and X and Y locations is somewhat true for the 2600 as well. If you check the disassembly for Combat you'll see RAM allocated for TankY0, TankY1, MissileY0 and MissileY1 but nothing for the X location. Instead, it uses RESPx to set the initial positions of the tanks at the start of each match, then uses HMOVE to adjust their X locations over successive frames.

     

    Yeah, I think you are exactly right. The crazy RESPx, HMxx stuff must be a direct descendant of the slipping counter way of thinking about things.

    Romox Carts

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted

    I wasn't set up to burn roms or anything. If I remember right I would develop a game in normal memory and then reassemble it to run in the right address space for the cartridge and then transfer it to them somehow (maybe by modem?). They would test it and let me know if I screwed it up somehow.

     

    I have a new in-box Sea Chase I will trade for a boxed Spark Bugs. I'll even sign it if that's what the receiver wants!

    Romox Carts

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted

    The way it worked was someone from Romox would send me a game idea. Usually that involved a one page description and maybe a sketch and then I would make the game. In that case I guess you could say that they (Tim?) were the designer and could say it was their work, but I did the actual implementation which usually involved big changes to the initial idea. Then other people would port the finished Atari game to other platforms.

     

    I never heard of Race, sorry.

     

    I still need a Spark Bugs in box to complete my collection!

     

    -EdF

    Halo for the 2600 Released at CGE! Download the game here!

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

    Thanks Omegamatrix. You helped me understand the early hmove so you contributed to the program too!

     

    On the title screen, it's funny how things work out. The ring was just something random I tried and it worked almost immediately and much better than I expected. The stars on the other hand (which should have been easy) were a source of constant grief for weeks.

    • Like 3
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