batari Help Please?

[kamakazi]

I need some newbie help, if you don't mind. I need to better understand the dim statement. I am used to QuickBASIC for PCs. I am assuming that the DIM statement in batari cannot be used the same way. This does have something to do with the game project I'm undertaking.

 

What I'm trying to do is setup a "grid"-like area on the playfield. The idea behind this is so the program will keep track of what is where. I know that the 2600 has can detect collisions. What I need is a way for the program to check if a brick is present...0 for "no" and any other number for "yes". What is to be stored here is the color of the brick. (yea, I'm probably giving away the game early, but I need help understanding the language and the 2600's limitations). Here is what it would look like in what I'm used to:

 

Rem BrickGrid
DIM bx(12),by(12)

REM Set ALL positions to 0
For t=1 to 12
    bx(t)=0
    by(t)=0
next t

 

Then to check to see if a brick was present or not:

 

Check For Brick
for t=12 to 1 step -1
    if by(t)0 then playedbrick=playedbrick-10
    if by(t)>0 then pb=pb and by(t)=color:return
next t

 

Being able to store and check for what color is where is crucial to this work in progress. I have read the manual to batari and all the stella guides available. I know I have to use {} in place of the (). I know it's a primative console, and can really only handle 128 bytes at a time...I'm hoping this won't become a limiting factor to my idea.

 

I also need to know what portion of the 2600 (player0, player1, missile0, missile1, etc) that would work with the player0 sprite using a different color of the player. This color will be constantly changing throughout the game. Like I said, I'm a newbie so I am probably asking a repeated question, but one doen't know unless they ask. Any help is appreciated in understanding this and thanks in advance to those who help.

[cd-w]

I need some newbie help, if you don't mind. I need to better understand the dim statement. I am used to QuickBASIC for PCs. I am assuming that the DIM statement in batari cannot be used the same way. This does have something to do with the game project I'm undertaking.

 

As I understand it, the playfield in batari basic is already stored as variables in memory, so you don't need to allocate another array (you can just read back directly from the playfield).

 

Chris