Old tank n bomb 2600 game, Erik mooney, piero cavina

[Godzilla]

Hey, once, like a decade or so ago, I was working on a tank/bomb 2600 game with some Stella listers. First Erik mooney then I think piero cavina also did some work. Erik had the kernel done but it was all lost long ago. I wonder if anyone knows (and or of) them and this long lost work may not be so lost?

 

http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/199709/msg00090.html

 

http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/199808/msg00042.html

 

http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/200302/msg00146.html

 

 

[Godzilla]

stirring up an old ghost, erik mooney or piero still around/remember any of this?

[ErikM]

Hi. Erik here.

 

I do remember this. The kernel wasn't anywhere near completed. I've actually still got the code, although it doesn't seem to work. Z26 and Stella both show it rolling the screen like crazy so there's really nothing to see. Here it is, maybe you can get some closure out of it.

 

As for disappearing on you, I just got busy with school and work and lost interest in 2600 programming. No elaborate tale there, I'm afraid.

 

- Erik

TANK.TXT

TANK.BIN

[Godzilla]

WOW! Thanks Glad you're ok and nothing happened :-)

 

I'm dealing with a nasty post concussion syndrome myself, some days are better than others!

 

That is so awesome! You wouldn't happen to have any of the old iffs or other stuff I emailed or posted to the biglist by chance? It only kept text and my

amigas are in storage

 

This may still get finished one day...

 

If this helps jar the cobwebs as far as what you said about the state of the kernal...

 

"

Fine... it is I that's doing this.  The "never done before" part (tothe best of our knowledge) is to have four independent detailedplayer-controlled flickerless objects on the same scanline.  In singleresolution.  With color changes every scanline.  We're using themissiles to display two player objects, and the players for the othertwo.  Video Olympics had four such objects, but they were undetailedpong bars, and according to 'kickass', that doesn't count.   Dittofor Super Challenge Football, which draws the non-player-objectplayers with missiles... that has four independent detailed objects(double-resolution, though, and I've got mine running at single.)  SCFootball can display playfield and the ball on the same lines as theplayers, though, which I'm not doing."

found some more old info...

 

"

>Lock-n-Chase had such a system, but the characters weren't THAT detailed.>It did take some fiddling with the size and horizontal motion registers>though... And, of course, double-line res.  But it still stumped the>hell out of us.Looks like one player is the player-controlled guy, and the otherplayer and its missiles are the enemies.  Also looks like the codeprevents three of the computer characters from occupying the samescanline.  Lock-n-Chase also does playfield stuff, so it's excused forbeing double-resolution >But if two of the players are really missiles, and they have color changes,>they're not really independent are they?  The missiles can be in a different>horizontal position than the players, and perhaps (I think) they can even>have different size readings... but, unless you're doing mid-scanline>tricks, they'll have to have the same color as the corresponding player>object in that scanline.Each missile does have to share a color with a player object, but theycan be positioned independently.  The number of missile _copies_ aretied to the player copies, but their widths are independent (bits 4and 5 of the NUSIZ registers.)  Same thing with the ball - it can be1, 2, 4, or 8 pixels in width, and that's controlled by bits 4 and 5of CTRLPF.>I can't wait to see it anyway.... the way you're talking them up they>probably at least _look_ independent...They do, so far.. all I have is four objects at the top of the screen,but they can move independently.  I only have one set of paddles here,so I dunno how well it looks with four players controlling them.'Kickass' and I are planning to use that kernel twice during thescreen, so the four players will control objects at the bottom,attacking (and being attacked by) up to four computer objects at thetop.  Picture some weird combination of Moon Patrol, Astroblast, andAir-Sea Battle ;)"

[ErikM]

> four independent detailed player-controlled flickerless objects on the same scanline.

 

That part does work, as I remember. Not perfectly, since the register hits happen throughout the scanline so there'd be some graphical jitter. It's the loop at K00 in the source.

 

The rest of the kernel was to be basically two simultaneous streams of Kaboom's bombs. The challenge is to reposition either sprite while still writing the other's graphics every scanline or two, and also reading the four paddles. That's the code at Kernel that can branch to DoBomb0 or DoBomb1. I don't think that part ever worked.

 

I don't have any of your emails or biglist posts, that was all on my college email account which is long gone.

[Godzilla]

Yea my end is also part of the now long dead 'atari.net' man i miss having godzilla@atari.net as my email thanks for the extra info!

[Godzilla]

Do you remember if we started this together or picked up after another coder?

[ErikM]

I started from scratch, not anybody else's code (well, there's vestiges of tutorial stuff like Nick Bensema's "How to Draw a Playfield".) I don't know about anyone who worked on it after me, if Piero did anything or if it was based on my code or not.