Jump to content

Recommended Posts

I would just note that ColecoVision games can't be trivially ported to the TI.. you have to rewrite all the Z80 code. It /might/ be possible to do some kind of re-compiler (it has been done on other platforms!), but I don't know the Z80 well enough to do it, myself.

 

Mario Bros I'd like to try someday.. it was why I did the Mr Chin test (Mr Chin has no bank switching to worry about).

  • Like 1

I would just note that ColecoVision games can't be trivially ported to the TI.. you have to rewrite all the Z80 code. It /might/ be possible to do some kind of re-compiler (it has been done on other platforms!), but I don't know the Z80 well enough to do it, myself.

 

Mario Bros I'd like to try someday.. it was why I did the Mr Chin test (Mr Chin has no bank switching to worry about).

 

You just make everything LOOK so easy! <GRIN>

I understand this stuff is difficult, and I really appreciate guys like you that can make all of this happen.

 

Now me, I've had two major catastrophic failures in four days. First, my COM1 port died last Friday on Nano and the second, today my CF card hiccuped about a 1/2 hour ago and I lost everything in my VOLUME 1 (including all my stuff in progress). :mad:

It's been at least two weeks since I made a backup, and I know better as the Nano is such a flaky device. <SIGH>

 

Well, I don't have time to mess with it either, I have to get ready for work.

Mario Bros :D

 

Can't disagree with that suggestion, either :D.

 

Mario Bros I'd like to try someday.. it was why I did the Mr Chin test (Mr Chin has no bank switching to worry about).

 

Hmmm, I'm detecting a pattern here! :)

  • Like 1

 

You just make everything LOOK so easy! <GRIN>

I understand this stuff is difficult, and I really appreciate guys like you that can make all of this happen.

 

 

What I did with Mr Chin was easy and not really all that interesting. What Ramus is doing is impressive and difficult. ;)

 

I wrote Mr Chin (and MB) in a cross-platform language, using techniques that I knew would port over to the TI. All I did in Mr Chin's case was replace the functions that talk to the hardware (where I had written code like "HCHAR") with the TI equivalents and recompile. It took one evening to port and a second to track down bugs (some compiler bugs, some differences in the interrupt handler). Mario will be slightly harder due to the bank switching being so different (much smaller banks on the TI, no fixed bank, and it was all done by hand, not automatically). I haven't attempted it yet because troubleshooting compiler bugs during that level of port will be painful, and I'm hoping Insomnia will come back and give us another round of fixes first. :)

 

Another issue is the cartridge issue... getting GCC code to run strictly from cartridge will be.. interesting. I don't know if I would attempt it at this point. :)

Boulder Dash=Rock Runner. The version titled Boulder Dash was for the Mini Memory (making it one of the great reasons to have that cart) and sold by Legio Computing Centre in Holland. Asgard asked the Eric LaFortune if he could port it over to the E/A environment so that they could sell that version in the US. As Chris Bobbitt was worried that the name would cause copyright issues, he also asked Eric to change the name. Eric pops in here now and again, though he hasn't posted in a long while. He's a nice guy that I talked to several times while I was in Europe long ago.

Edited by Ksarul
  • Like 1

I would just note that ColecoVision games can't be trivially ported to the TI.. you have to rewrite all the Z80 code. It /might/ be possible to do some kind of re-compiler (it has been done on other platforms!), but I don't know the Z80 well enough to do it, myself.

 

Mario Bros I'd like to try someday.. it was why I did the Mr Chin test (Mr Chin has no bank switching to worry about).

The TI-99/4 seems to be missing a lot of the arcade classics. I'm not familiar with all the TI games so some of these might already exist.
Does the TI-99/4 have any versions of these that are somewhat true to the arcade?
Phoenix, Wizard of Wor, Gorf, Galaxian, Galaga, Missile Command, Rally X (Radar Rat Race), Moon Cresta, Gyruss, Satan's Hollow, Spy Hunter, Joust, Sinistar, Track & Field
Some vector games might be a stretch but... Battle Zone, Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Omega Race, Star Castle, Black Widow, Star Wars, Star Hawk, Tail Gunner

Some computer games that might be worth porting:
Gremlins, Drol, Wavy Navy, Eastern Front 1941 (last I saw the current port was unfinished), Starship Command

Are there any isometric games on the TI? They tend to be memory hungry so maybe not the best choice but it would be nice to see at least one on the 99.

  • Like 1

The TI-99/4 seems to be missing a lot of the arcade classics. I'm not familiar with all the TI games so some of these might already exist.

Does the TI-99/4 have any versions of these that are somewhat true to the arcade?

Phoenix, Wizard of Wor, Gorf, Galaxian, Galaga, Missile Command, Rally X (Radar Rat Race), Moon Cresta, Gyruss, Satan's Hollow, Spy Hunter, Joust, Sinistar, Track & Field

Some vector games might be a stretch but... Battle Zone, Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Omega Race, Star Castle, Black Widow, Star Wars, Star Hawk, Tail Gunner

 

Some computer games that might be worth porting:

Gremlins, Drol, Wavy Navy, Eastern Front 1941 (last I saw the current port was unfinished), Starship Command

 

Are there any isometric games on the TI? They tend to be memory hungry so maybe not the best choice but it would be nice to see at least one on the 99.

We have versions (faithfulness of conversion to original variable) for Galaxian/Galaga, Missile Command, Asteroids, Zaxxon, Pac Man, Mrs. Pacman, Defender, Pole Position, Boulder Dash, Centipede, Kaboom, Pitfall, Scramble, River Rescue, Frenzy, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Jungle Hunt, Moon Patrol, Congo Bongo and I'm likely missing some more. Congo Bongo and Arcturus (Zaxxon) are examples of isometric rendering. Most of these can be found at the tigameshelf.net site.

...Eastern Front 1941 (last I saw the current port was unfinished)...

 

Yeah, that's one of mine. :) It was one of my first early assembly projects, and the source code is kind of a mess... a big issue is that I really didn't have a great understanding of the A.I. algorithms to be able to re-write them effectively in TMS9900.

 

Chris Crawford (the creator of EF:1941) gave me permission to do the port long ago. And he recently posted ZIP files of fully COMMENTED source for the game and detailed explanations of how the algorithms work. Very helpful!

 

Adamantyr

 

Yeah, that's one of mine. :) It was one of my first early assembly projects, and the source code is kind of a mess... a big issue is that I really didn't have a great understanding of the A.I. algorithms to be able to re-write them effectively in TMS9900.

 

Chris Crawford (the creator of EF:1941) gave me permission to do the port long ago. And he recently posted ZIP files of fully COMMENTED source for the game and detailed explanations of how the algorithms work. Very helpful!

 

Adamantyr

Does this mean you're going to take another stab at it? :)

Does this mean you're going to take another stab at it? :)

 

Oh yes, I intend to finish it. I do need to start over a bit, though, and make the code base much easier to maintain and work with, offload graphics and other data to files, etc.

 

Adamantyr

  • Like 1

 

Oh yes, I intend to finish it. I do need to start over a bit, though, and make the code base much easier to maintain and work with, offload graphics and other data to files, etc.

 

Adamantyr

Excellent!

 

I want to say I tried it and it worked.... I can't remember 100% (and I don't have a 4 anymore...)

 

Seems like it would be a neat novelty to see Parsec running on an F18A-enhanced 99/4.

 

Yeah, that's one of mine. :) It was one of my first early assembly projects, and the source code is kind of a mess... a big issue is that I really didn't have a great understanding of the A.I. algorithms to be able to re-write them effectively in TMS9900.

 

Chris Crawford (the creator of EF:1941) gave me permission to do the port long ago. And he recently posted ZIP files of fully COMMENTED source for the game and detailed explanations of how the algorithms work. Very helpful!

 

Adamantyr

It's kinda hard to organize your code when you don't really know what the original code is doing.

I've blindly ported some poorly commented code between CPUs and after looking at the logic on a different CPU it actually helped figure out and optimize the original code a bit. :)

But I had some familiarity with the target CPUs (6803, 6809 and 6502) and I wasn't dealing with that large of a project.

 

Porting usually involves rewriting a lot of the code once you port it anyway because you see ways to optimize it for the target CPU.

 

 

Oh yes, I intend to finish it. I do need to start over a bit, though, and make the code base much easier to maintain and work with, offload graphics and other data to files, etc.

 

Adamantyr

Good luck! I look forward to seeing a release of that one!

 

 

Seems like it would be a neat novelty to see Parsec running on an F18A-enhanced 99/4.

 

I'd like to see an ENHANCED PARSEC running on a 4A with an F18A! Did you see the wizardry Rasmus put into Scramble? Gawd, that guy is gooooood! :) The colors in the ship, the exhaust, the missiles, the fuel tanks... well you get the idea. An enhanced Parsec would REALLY be POPPIN!!

I would like to see this on the TI99/4A, I spent 2 years of my life playing it in the bar across the street from my place.

 

Could have bought a car with the money I pumped into that machine.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymrYkbEbnEQ

 

NOTE: It required 2 joysticks as that is how you steer a tank in those days before they adopted the yoke like a Plane design.

 

 

Rich

Edited by RXB

I would like to see this on the TI99/4A, I spent 2 years of my life playing it in the bar across the street from my place.

 

Could have bought a car with the money I pumped into that machine.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymrYkbEbnEQ

 

NOTE: It required 2 joysticks as that is how you steer a tank in those days before they adopted the yoke like a Plane design.

 

 

Rich

 

Well, THAT brings back a few memories! Good quality video! Too many video games, too few awesome programmers.

I'd like to see an ENHANCED PARSEC running on a 4A with an F18A!

I'd rather like to see that in a 9938 version. :twisted: There are still enough Geneves around, or 80 column cards.

Edited by mizapf

I would like to see this on the TI99/4A, I spent 2 years of my life playing it in the bar across the street from my place.

 

Could have bought a car with the money I pumped into that machine.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymrYkbEbnEQ

 

NOTE: It required 2 joysticks as that is how you steer a tank in those days before they adopted the yoke like a Plane design.

 

 

Rich

 

Yeah, Battlezone was a bad-a$$ game :D. Unfortunately I don't remember what platform I played it on ... actually I think it was the Microsoft Arcade suite on a 486DX.

Edited by RobertLM78

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...