+Allan Posted November 1, 2010 Share Posted November 1, 2010 How many DAMN times do you have to hit the AA balloon? Allan 10 Times. I can change it if people feel it's too many times. It used to be 16. Ok - I've been working on this literally ALL DAY. I copied the sample High Score routines from Desert Falcon that was provided by Curt as is, and I *STILL* cannot get the logo to work correctly. It shows up as garbage. I've been thinking about this. Being that (at least the games I make) have a splash screen already, it isn't necessary to have the logo on the High Score Screen as well (most of the arcade games of the time didn't anyway). There's no problem getting the HSC to work with text at the top, so this is what I plan on doing from now on with my games. It will save me weeks of headaches of fighting with trying to get the HSC logo to work for *every game*. That being said, here is RC4. Allan, I don't think the HSC will crash any more. Thanks, Bob Noooo! Don't give up. You've come so far. The High-score screen looks so bland without it. Look at it this way. You are a pioneer exploring and old abandoned world. It's like finding an ancient civilization. Or like an inventor fine tuning a new technology. Remember, you are the World's most knowledgeable person about programming the High-score cart. Others will depend on your great discovers. Don't give up. PS. Yes the bug disappeared. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted November 1, 2010 Share Posted November 1, 2010 Maybe we should just rewrite the HSC BIOS so it behaves as expected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted November 1, 2010 Author Share Posted November 1, 2010 Ok, let's try this: After getting it working with the text info, I went back to the logo. I think there is more than one DLL Interrupt in the high score cart, because although I had two (one at the top to set up the game's character set and one to put it back to the HSC set), every other display worked. Anyway, once I put in a wait for Vertical Blank before calling the HSC routines (something I never had to do before), it looks like it works. I'm so confused about all of this - it seems like every time I have to do something different to get the HSC to act the same way. I'm holding on to this code (again) to see if it works in my next project. Now - I had to make some DLL changes (namely, add another Interrupt) so we need to also make sure the Paddles and Driving controllers work still. Unfortunately, I had to pack my 7800 away to get ready to move, so if somebody could let me know if all of the controller options still work it would be great. Thanks, Guys, and I'm sorry about all of these issues I'm having with the HSC. @Allan - Hopefully the crashing bug didn't come back. I still wasn't able to make it happen for me, but I had decided to take the sample HSC code and use that... and that's what started all of this. Thanks, Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted November 1, 2010 Share Posted November 1, 2010 So far so good! Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted November 1, 2010 Share Posted November 1, 2010 I played this a lot today and had no issues. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted November 1, 2010 Author Share Posted November 1, 2010 Thanks, Allan Question - did it let you put all three initials in? For some reason, in emulation when I go to enter my initials it will let me do the first two, and won't let me enter the third (I can only use the button to advance). Thanks for testing! Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted November 1, 2010 Share Posted November 1, 2010 Sorry PMP, I found a problem. When you get a high-score, it allows you to put in the first two letters but it won't let you ad a letter to the third spot. All you can do is put in a space. It doesn't cycle through the letters. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted November 1, 2010 Share Posted November 1, 2010 Wow, we posted at the same time. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted November 2, 2010 Author Share Posted November 2, 2010 Sorry guys, I'm done racking my brain with this. Text mode is the only way the HSC works reliably. If whoever created the code for the HSC actually knew how to program, it wouldn't be so temperamental. I think my time is better spent working on actual games instead of spinning my wheels trying to get this POS code to work. I will use Text Mode from now on. Sorry. Here is RC5: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 Thanks for trying. Maybe somebody can eventually look at the High-score cart code and fix it. Yes, of course we would love to see more games although I hope some day you or somebody else creates a better tutorial on programming the 7800 or a 7800 basic. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madaracs Posted November 4, 2010 Share Posted November 4, 2010 Sorry guys, I'm done racking my brain with this. Text mode is the only way the HSC works reliably. If whoever created the code for the HSC actually knew how to program, it wouldn't be so temperamental. I think my time is better spent working on actual games instead of spinning my wheels trying to get this POS code to work. I will use Text Mode from now on. Sorry. Here is RC5: Would anyone who worked on the 7800 XM know how to get it working? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted November 4, 2010 Share Posted November 4, 2010 Would anyone who worked on the 7800 XM know how to get it working? Yes! Rewrite the HSC BIOS so that its less buggy, backwards compatible and supports PAL too . Oi! Stop looking at me . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lendorien Posted November 4, 2010 Share Posted November 4, 2010 Would anyone who worked on the 7800 XM know how to get it working? Yes! Rewrite the HSC BIOS so that its less buggy, backwards compatible and supports PAL too . Oi! Stop looking at me . That would be the ultimate solution really... only, who'd do it but you or maybe one or two others? Darn. Yeah, I'm not learning assembly any time soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted November 5, 2010 Share Posted November 5, 2010 That would be the ultimate solution really... only, who'd do it but you or maybe one or two others? Darn. Yeah, I'm not learning assembly any time soon. I'd love to tackle it but my retro project list is pretty long now. Plus I don't really have an incentive to work on it because so far my games have used the SaveKey. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted November 5, 2010 Share Posted November 5, 2010 can't wait to see this on a cart! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted November 7, 2010 Author Share Posted November 7, 2010 Thanks, 'Zilla... Soon Ok, I ripped the HSC section out of FailSafe, made as few changes as possible, and it seems to work now (Allan, let me know if it crashes). So, here is RC6: - HSC is graphical again - Bonus life awarded for clearing the top row, like in the original game (now in both classic and non-classic mode. Prior to this release, it was just in classic mode). Enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted November 7, 2010 Share Posted November 7, 2010 Ok, I ripped the HSC section out of FailSafe, made as few changes as possible, and it seems to work now (Allan, let me know if it crashes). Very glad to hear that you did not give up on this! -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollett Posted November 7, 2010 Share Posted November 7, 2010 I don't have a 7800, but I was interested in seeing what it was graphically capable of compared to the 8-bit line of computers, so I just downloaded your program. One suggestion, and I have no idea how hard it would be to implement, but what about adding a little animation to the clown moving the see saw back and forth, so his feet move when he's walking. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted November 7, 2010 Share Posted November 7, 2010 I don't have a 7800, but I was interested in seeing what it was graphically capable of compared to the 8-bit line of computers, so I just downloaded your program. Can the A8's do this? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted November 7, 2010 Share Posted November 7, 2010 I have played this game about 20 times or so and once I got to 2500 points and sometimes the game only lasts about 15 seconds and I possibly blink and the clown hits the ground on the easy level, I am playing on the prosystem 1_3, possibly easier on real hardware with paddles? Also I have never seen the High score screen yet, is it in the last revision? The music seems very fitting to the game, is it using pokey audio or just the two channel TIA? Possibly could be even better with 4 channel sound, but really for this kind of classic game it might not be called for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollett Posted November 7, 2010 Share Posted November 7, 2010 Can the A8's do this? Short answer: No, although there are some flickering display tricks that some programmers use to simululate more colors by alternating graphics modes on alternating display lines, I've never been a fan of the look of those tricks. I've always felt it was a shame that the Atari 8-bit computers had such a large color palette compared to the Commodore 64, but it was so difficult to try to get more than 4 or 5 of them on a game screen without it looking horizontally striped. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted November 7, 2010 Share Posted November 7, 2010 it was a shame that the Atari 8-bit computers had such a large color palette compared to the Commodore 64, but it was so difficult to try to get more than 4 or 5 of them on a game screen without it looking horizontally striped. I still think there are gems in the A8 library. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo8UevxuQN4 Now back to the discussion on SuperCircus AtariAge. Great work, Bob as always! I find this game a bit hard, but I also found Circus Atari hard too. Love all the little configuration extras and there's something cool about seeing the AtariAge Presents screen at the beginning! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 Sorry Bob, It crashes. It cycles through all the high-score pages, then the graphics of the "Super Circus AtariAge" become all garbled, then it crashes. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted November 8, 2010 Author Share Posted November 8, 2010 Sorry Bob, It crashes. It cycles through all the high-score pages, then the graphics of the "Super Circus AtariAge" become all garbled, then it crashes. Allan Damn. Then I have two questions: 1) Allan, does FailSafe crash after it displayes the high score? 2) Does the issue that Allan described with Super Circus AtariAge happen to *anyone* else? Thanks, Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted November 8, 2010 Share Posted November 8, 2010 No, the latest version of Failsafe works fine with the High-score display. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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