SteveB

September 10

Man, I've been offline for four days and missed the party...

I totally trust @Albert that he acted in the best interest of the community to keep AtariAge up and running. I am convinced he has a clear vision of the foreseeable future, which seems to be aligned with Atari and @TrogdarRobusto. Atari bought a fan base and access to vivid influencer of the retro world. Savvy move.

Are they in it for the milk or the beef? Successful new companies learned to maintain a long-term relationship with their customers. I think we simply do not have a short-term value to be cashed on. As happy ambassadors we are more useful.

Everything is finite, things are always changing. I don't see an immediate threat, but a due change.

I am taking their stated intentions serious and look forward with optimism.

September 2

50 minutes ago, mizapf said:

Too bad you cannot formulate a catchy phrase with "resistance" in it

"Our lectures are unresistable..." ?

August 27

37 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

This is described on page 2-16 of the 9918A manual.

... and available to XB with the T40XB library.

August 26

You have a VDP RAM address and need a row and column?

August 22

I do most of my games with a co-author, as I enjoy working together and discuss ideas. We even considered asking one of the graphics talents in this group for help in one case.

But I would not be interested in coding the vision of someone else in my sparetime.

I would be surprised if you find a partner with this narrow approach.

Steve

August 14

23 hours ago, 99V said:

I never liked Parsec.

If you didn't like Parsec you will most surely not enjoy Extended Parsec.

August 14

19 hours ago, jrhodes said:

Somewhere, a Code Enforcement Officer just 💩 their 👖.

August 14

6 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

That means I would have to catch 50 ghosts to make it to Zuul.

In the original game there is another source of revenue, here from the Atari 2600 manual:

OUT OF CONTROL

Periodically you will lose all control of your ghostbusters
while on the map screen. Your vehicle (Ghostbusters symbol) will freeze up!
Also you will notice that the roamers start moving considerably faster
towards Zuul. This means that the menacing, monstrous Marshmallow Man is quickly
approaching, Your only way out is to drop bait - if you bought any.

To bait the Marshmallow Man, move the right difficulty switch.
If it is on 'A' switch it to 'B'; if it is on 'B' switch it to 'A'.


* If you're fast enough, you'll bait the Marshmallow Man and
earn $2000. He'll appear on screen but quickly run off.

* If you're not fast enough, the Marshmallow Man will stomp on
one of your blocks and you'll lose $4000.

August 9

18 hours ago, CapitanClassic said:

I have heard something similar for people who learn languages later in life, that they have to translate to their first language (think in that language) and then translate their answer back into what ever secondary language they are speaking in. I suppose that if you immerse yourself in the language, you might be able to start thinking in that language (at least it was that way for my parents).

I've been to England for three weeks to learn english when I was 14 ... After half of the time my mobile cassette player broke down and instead of looking for a "Schraubenzieher" I was looking for a screwdriver ... that was the first time I was actually thinking in english, not translating. It was a giant step for me. But it is a little scary when "it" speaks english out of you as you are not actively controlling it. So you actually listen to yourself, as part of your consciousness is still locked in your native language. And those areas of your brain are slightly different, so you can be a little different person when speaking a foreign language. The more you practice, the closer you get to your foreign language self.

Anyone else expirienced something like this learning a foreign language?

Also switching from german to english took me some time in the beginning and when I was rarely using english. Now I use it regularly at work and with my hobbies, it became instantly and effortless. I even sometimes think in english when programming for no apparent reason ... but as the former german minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher once said: The english language is like a woman ... you may lover her, but you will never fully understand her ... 😉

August 9

19 hours ago, Vorticon said:

I'm having a little trouble understanding that one.

I am testing the distance of each "pixel" from the center of the circle P(Px,Py).

The distance would actually be R = sqr((Px-X)^2+(Py-Y)^2) . If this value is the radius R, I would draw the asterisk.

The square root is an expensive operation I actually don't need, I just square the equation:

R^2 = (Px-X)^2 + (Py-Y)^2

Since the circle hardly hit exactly on the top left edge of character, I introduce a "tolerance" Delta 😧

abs( (Px-X)^2+(Py-Y)^2) - R^2 ) < D

abs((Px-X)*(Px-X)+(Py-Y)*(Py-Y)-R2)<D

I hope this is comprehensible, I never had to explain mathematics in english, so please apologize if translated a mathematics term incorrectly to english.

Steve

August 8

... and now a weird one ... based on the distance from the center

call clear
R=10
D=5
PX = 15
PY = 12
R2 = R * R

for y=1 to 24
  for x=1 to 32
    if abs((Px-X)*(Px-X)+(Py-Y)*(Py-Y)-R2)<D then c=42 else c=32
    call hchar(y,x,c)
  next x
next y

call waitkey

When you change to "120 D=32" you get:

August 8

Yours is nicer ....

August 4

This sounds very much like a challenge for 2024 ... The Revenge of the Humiliated Tanks.

August 3

28 minutes ago, Tursi said:

I didn't expect it to generate XB

It actually can generate XB code, but has limited understanding of the commands. I tried some weeks ago and still have it in the logs:

can you write a TI Extended Basic program that draws a square 10 by 10 characters?

1 CALL CLEAR
2 FOR I = 1 TO 10
3   FOR J = 1 TO 10
4     CALL HCHAR(I, J, 35)
5   NEXT J
6 NEXT I
7 END

Let's break down the code:

Line 1: CALL CLEAR clears the screen before drawing the square.
Line 2: FOR I = 1 TO 10 starts a loop that iterates over the rows of the square.
Line 3: FOR J = 1 TO 10 starts a nested loop that iterates over the columns of the square.
Line 4: CALL HCHAR(I, J, 35) draws a character (ASCII value 35, which represents the '#' symbol) at the current row I and column J position using the HCHAR command.
Line 5: NEXT J indicates the end of the nested loop for columns.
Line 6: NEXT I indicates the end of the outer loop for rows.
Line 7: END marks the end of the program.
When you run this program, it will draw a square composed of the '#' symbol using a 10x10 grid of characters on the screen.

Note: The CALL HCHAR command is used to draw characters horizontally. If you want to draw vertically, you can use the CALL VCHAR command instead.

why don't you use hchar to draw 10 characters at once?

Apologies for the confusion. You're right; we can optimize the code to use HCHAR to draw all 10 characters in a row at once. Here's an updated version of the program:

1 CALL CLEAR
2 FOR I = 1 TO 10
3   CALL HCHAR(I, 1, 35, 10)
4 NEXT I
5 END

I also asked ChatGPT to analyse my Extended Parsec Code. it identified it correctly as a space shooter and identified the different blocks and their function in the code.

In other questions it confused the function of CALL CHAR and CALL CHARPAT.

But still fun to try and asking the right questions, you get quite good results ... they call it "Prompt engineering" ...

July 16

4 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

While cartridges are great, I think it would be a bonus to distribute your original EA5 files on a DSK, maybe even with a booting loader.

Here you go ... the complete set of files, from SXB source to MERGE, to Assembler, to EA5, to XB loader and a disk-image with auto-load.

Ghostbusters4a-V1.0.zip

July 15

On 7/11/2023 at 8:44 AM, TheMole said:

Only one building becomes haunted, the one at the start

It is a little bit hard to go around the corner on a map, hitting the right spot. We solved this in our version by only querying the joystick in the crossroad and the middle of a block, otherwise continue. You have plenty of time change direction or stop between those points and never miss a corner.

July 15

On 7/7/2023 at 9:24 AM, TheMole said:

I like the implementation of the Marshmallow man at the end, not sure if that's what the 2600 did, but it's a cool spin on the original idea.

Thank you. It is actually quite close to the Atari 2600.

classic99.gif.231b21207c3d8aed99c2887da6078a47.gif

compared to the Atati 2600:

Do you notice the "face" of the player? It is a 1-pixel sprite in CALL MAGNIFY(4). We do a CALL COINC(ALL,C) to see if you stay clear of the Marshmellow Man.

Steve

July 9

2 hours ago, sometimes99er said:

I can't understand why anyone would be using the discontinued TI-99/4A when the Commodore 64 does so much more. 😁
Oops. Sorry, couldn't resist. 😏
Anyways, it would be foolish to throw away the flashrom99. I hope to get into releasing cartridges again, and at some point I'll move up from 8K, through 16, 24 and 32K, ROM only. 😉

I also have the FlashROM99 and it does all I actually needed so far, so I also did not replace it (yet).

July 8

16 hours ago, senior_falcon said:

Here is XB2.9 G.E.M. version 20230707

The problems mentioned in my previous post have been corrected. Now the 40 or 80 column editor, CALL HELP and CALL SAVEIV work properly when using The Missing Link.

XB29GEM230707.zip 2.21 MB · 9 downloads

There has been further speculation regarding supposed shortcomings in XB2.9 G.E.M.'s batch file capabilities. This despite the video I posted showing it processing a short batch file in both .TXT and DV80 format. In that demo, the file only contained 3 lines, but it takes little imagination to see that a much longer batch file should be possible.

I believe the number of people who actually use this capability can be counted on the fingers of one fist. However, if you try this out and find that it comes up short, please post an example showing the problem. (Remember that you cannot LIST in a batch file, but there is no reason to do that.)

I had problems with the memory-settings when updating my Classic99-config, but this works now:

[usercart0] 
name=XB 2.9 G.E.M latest
rom0=G|6000|A000|Contributors\Harry_Wilhelm\XB29GEM230707\XB29GEM_G.BIN
rom1=8|0000|80000|Contributors\Harry_Wilhelm\XB29GEM230707\XB29GEM_8.BIN

I read the value from the log after drag&drop was working (and I was too lazy to update the config and did not use option 4 or up for a while)

July 8

1 minute ago, fabrice montupet said:

I succeed! My MuseCore wasn't up to date. Now it works fine 🙂

That's great! I am fighting my sound-setup at the moment, so it would have taken a moment to go through this ..

Happy composing!

Steve

July 5

On 7/4/2023 at 9:11 PM, fabrice montupet said:

I think that the best way is to create a music in midi format, then use MuseCore4a for getting all the notes via CALL SOUNDs, then use the XB256 sound routines to play them in the game background.

I just ignore most of MuseScores capabilities, start with a blank piano sheet and change the soundfont to the TI soundfont supplied with MuseScore4a, disable the sound effects (both in the manual) and start composing. You get immediate TI sound when you enter or move a note on the stave. I don't think you will get it much simpler.

Version 1.1 of MuseScore4a can create an XB256 soundlist with VWRITEs, easy to PLAY directly.

July 5

We learned, that we are not the only Ghostbusters fans, missing this game on the TI-99/4a. We aimed lower than @TheMole, porting the Atari 2600 version with simple graphics and adding some enhancements from the Atari XL and C64 versions. Check the included manual for the gameplay.

The game requires the 32kB RAM Extension, joysticks and is optimized for 60 Hz NTSC. The music sounds terrible on 50 Hz, but otherwise the game works. The speech synthesizer is used for one sample, but the sound is very low. Any hint on getting this louder and not distorted is appreciated.

Our game is not as beautiful as @TheMole's demo, but is complete and released ... we will gladly retire to second place when his amazing version is out. 😃

The program is written in Structured Extended BASIC using TiCodEd and compiled with Harry Wilhelm's BASIC Compiler. The source is available on Github: https://github.com/SteveB69/Ghostbusters4a

Enjoy,

@SteveB and @grammostola

Ghostbusters.bin

Ghostbusters (TI-99).pdf

June 20

I am a traditionalist... I like the classic Station Wagon ... just like it was comming out of the old NYFD building ...

June 18

A german TV station has a series called SchleFaZ... worst movies of all times [Schechteste Filme aller Zeiten] ... Attack of the killer tomatoes (1978) is my favorite worst film so far ... this could be a challenger.

Pastalavista!

Steve

June 18

We're Sorry.

Tubi is the largest free movie and TV streaming service in the US. Unfortunately, we're not currently available in your area.

😡

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