Tursi Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 At least we actually got a pretty screen out of it! I was expecting today to log in to a bunch of fake announcements and little substance. I'm actually happy with this. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc.hull Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 (edited) Damn - I'm really disappointed - that is pretty cruel to all... . It will hurt less once you get the hook out of your lip .... Stuart I didn't know you had that in you. I have an even greater respect for you now. smooth...... You may have even set a DL record for this forum. Edited April 1, 2014 by marc.hull 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertLM78 Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 I'm curious how Sometimes had been playing for over a half hour... LOL. Unless of course he was in on it . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 (edited) I'm curious how Sometimes had been playing for over a half hour... LOL. Unless of course he was in on it . Was just trying not to spoil all the fun too soon, even though it was more than hinted in post #4. Fail Lo Pro = aPril FooL Edited April 1, 2014 by sometimes99er 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am1933 Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 I saw this just before I went to work this morning and smelled a rat, anyone who knows anything about the code that was used for planetary data and galaxy creation knows that it was an incredibly tight routine based on the fibonacci numbering system which then in turn could produce a massive universe at the expense of very few bytes. Well done Stuart!!!!!!-You utter,utter,utter,utter,utter,utter,utter,utter,utter,utter,utter,utter,utter,utter,utter-BASTARD!!!!!!!!, may all your software and hardware develop niggling viruses and faults 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+adamantyr Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Reminds me of the post I did about Ultima II for the TI-99/4a a few years back... Adamantyr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertLM78 Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 may all your software and hardware develop niggling viruses and faults - 'twas a mean trick - but a fine April Fool's joke - and I fell for it . 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 FWIW, the 3D math would be no problem for the 9900 if you have enough RAM for all the data points but drawing lines through the VDP would be too slow. *IF* there were enough 16 bit CPU RAM you could use a local buffer for drawing and to track modified bytes but then you have to update screen characters through the VDP.I doubt that would result in a very fast frame rate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 FWIW, the 3D math would be no problem for the 9900 if you have enough RAM for all the data points but drawing lines through the VDP would be too slow. *IF* there were enough 16 bit CPU RAM you could use a local buffer for drawing and to track modified bytes but then you have to update screen characters through the VDP. I doubt that would result in a very fast frame rate. The F18A GPU could be leveraged here as was demonstrated in a previous post. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertLM78 Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 The F18A GPU could be leveraged here as was demonstrated in a previous post. I'm not nowhere the bad-ass that most of you fellas are, but I think utilizing the F18A for this is a great way to go . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Nice attempt at a recovery Willsy , but you fell for it too he he... I cannot tell a lie! :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Yeah, Jerkface Stuart snagged me, too. As soon as I saw the error I knew the jig was up. I tried to make a post the snag more people (like the jerk Stuart needed help) with a screen-shot of the error, but immediately after decided it would be too much of a give-away. Well done all around ("Flair Pool" algorithm? I want to develop such a thing in the spirit of Yankee Doodle.) I will refrain from giving him too much hell as I recall one of the best home-brew cartridges for the 2600 started here at AA as a prank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 The F18A GPU could be leveraged here as was demonstrated in a previous post. A nice upgrade for sure. Too bad that would require everyone to purchase and install a board that costs many times more than my TI-99/4A and collection of carts I bought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 A nice upgrade for sure. Too bad that would require everyone to purchase and install a board that costs many times more than my TI-99/4A and collection of carts I bought. Meh. Give it time. When the fever finally takes hold, you will spend far more than $80 on your TI. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 So, Stuart, how are the vector graphics in your demo, which I still think is very impressive, generated, is it: A series of pre-calculated images, Pre-calculated vertices with lines drawn in real time, Both vertex calculations and line drawing done in real time, None of the above? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertLM78 Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 So, Stuart, how are the vector graphics in your demo, which I still think is very impressive... I thought the vector graphics were pretty cool too . It was a good looking opening screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 (edited) Well, that was a bit of a tease! But the recent talk of Elite in one of the other forum threads, plus finding a 22-frame animated GIF of the opening screen, plus Tursi's Convert9918 program, made this too good an opportunity to miss. No vector wireframes involved I'm afraid. The process was basically: (1) Started by using Convert9918 to produce the bitmap pattern and colour files for a full screen image from the GIF. Needed a bit of tweaking of the GIF and iteration to get the colours right and aligned as far as possible with the 8-pixel colour restrictions on the VDP. Passed the resulting raw pattern and colour data files through a little Visual Basic program to convert them to assembler-compatible DATA statements. (2) Manually tweaked the pattern and colour files in the rectangular area of the spinning ship so that the colours are consistently white-on-black. (In this area, for each row of 8-pixels, Convert9918 sets the colour to either white-on-black or black-on-white depending on whether that 8-pixel row is mostly white or mostly black. For the following animated frames, I only wanted to have to update the bitmap pattern data (not the colour data as well), so the colour has to be consistent.) (3) Then took each of the next 21 frames of the GIF, tidied a few pixels here and there on the spinning ship, and passed them through Convert9918. Passed the resulting pattern and colour files through a Visual Basic program to extract just the data for the rectangular area of the spinning ship and convert these to DATA statements. Then used another little Visual Basic program to go through the colour file and where an 8-pixel row was black-on-white, invert the corresponding byte in the pattern file so that it corresponded to white-on-black. (4) Assembly program to display the first frame in full, then update just the rectangular area of the spinning ship for the following frames. Check for a keypress after each frame, and if a key is detected, load the pattern and colour data for the text. Glad I was able to catch a few of you out. Stuart. Edited April 2, 2014 by Stuart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 A little project for any willing MESS user ... Some people have expressed doubt about whether a decent wireframe display could be done on the TMS9918 due to the port-mapped interface bottleneck. Another computer that used the TMS9918 (actually, the later but equivalent TMS9129) was the Tatung Einstein, which had a port of Elite made for it, and for which a MESS emulation exists. Anyone fancy the challenge of trying to get it running in MESS, and seeing what sort of video frame rate was achieved? There are details from someone who got it running back in 2010 on this thread: http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1788. Down near the bottom that page there are some details about it needing a specific MESS version. The link near the top of the page to the Einstein Elite disk images is still working. Stuart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMole Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 A little project for any willing MESS user ... Some people have expressed doubt about whether a decent wireframe display could be done on the TMS9918 due to the port-mapped interface bottleneck. Another computer that used the TMS9918 (actually, the later but equivalent TMS9129) was the Tatung Einstein, which had a port of Elite made for it, and for which a MESS emulation exists. Anyone fancy the challenge of trying to get it running in MESS, and seeing what sort of video frame rate was achieved? There are details from someone who got it running back in 2010 on this thread: http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1788. Down near the bottom that page there are some details about it needing a specific MESS version. The link near the top of the page to the Einstein Elite disk images is still working. Stuart. Why not just look at the MSX version? Same CPU and VDP as the Tatung and a lot more popular so one can find decent videos on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaTrl1mlCQE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 Why not just look at the MSX version? Same CPU and VDP as the Tatung and a lot more popular so one can find decent videos on youtube: Good point, well put! Video performance looks pretty good to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+acadiel Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 All I have to say is: Wow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nognir Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 could someone at least make a screenshot or maybe a short video of the title screen if it is animated? so that the ones without a TI can take a look at it 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMole Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 could someone at least make a screenshot or maybe a short video of the title screen if it is animated? so that the ones without a TI can take a look at it I wouldn't mind this too... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+acadiel Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 I figured with a date of April 1st, there'd be some fun going on here.. LOL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 Meh. Give it time. When the fever finally takes hold, you will spend far more than $80 on your TI. I spent $40 on my TI and games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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