How do you feel about that?

[Gernot]

 

 

(You are allowed to browse through my photobucket, - no, i recommend it)

 

I know it hasn't much use except to by displayed in Nostalgia or in Weeds jzintv launcher.

 

Interested in icons for all intellivision games?

I set up a folder "My Intellivision" with icons starting the gams without a launcher and it's much more pleasing to start them from a symbol.

I liked and wanted i will upload them.

A preview to that:

 

Further i fixed "pINg" though it will run in any emulator, even nostalgia, interested?

 

and sorry i've read "it's known to run less" not true i run every single game in nostalgia.

preferred it far to jzintv (sorry joe your games are better, better as most, jzintv might be accurate foremost i feel this for the sound, but it's complicated, a .ini would be a idea?, to define each time the place of exec and grom. further what was the idea of only 320x200, "wrong" 640x480? i can scale the window in nostalgia to any size and i prefere windowed 1152x720 (for most games when i play them windowed) because it fits exactly to make clips for YT).

 

 

will be back soon... buit now i have dependencies even if that is rare.

 

Ah wait, i have a hacked "World Cup Soccer" in petto, it's shortened to 2x10mins, much better imho to play as the full 2x45mins (even if a inty second is a little shorter as a real one).

And yes certainly i had once a Inty, but not much is left of it.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=ECBEF75DD11F515%21390

three to be honest, one i smashed on the wall

second broke due to a power failure

and third was disassembled of my daddy because he thought it was broken, (controllers was broken, one i fixed myself with a old calculators numeric keypad and the second broke shortly later and the machine was bunkered)

Edited January 12, 2015 by Gernot

[Gernot]

since i'm a complete nube here i have to introduce mysef a little i guess.

 

Which i already did,

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/233709-who-is-potsmoke66-gernot/?do=findComment&comment=3151560

 

Expect a guy with lot of crazy ideas, one who finds it extremly hard to stay to a specific topic since to me everything is connected in one or the other way.

One who can make you laugh but probably will also be offensive and sometimes even insulting.

 

No fear, just "A good is a good and a bad is a bad".

[catsfolly]

Thanks for the nice box mock-ups.

 

"Intellipongola" became part of "Paddle Party" which had its own box design.

 

"ISTAR" may someday be released and have its own box, but for now we have something to look at in the selection menus.

 

Thanks,

 

Catsfolly

[Rev]

You will fit in here for sure.

 

 

What do you mean by 'hacked world cup soccer'. You changed the rom?

[Gernot]

I expected that it will be part of paddle party, i assumed it might have been even the reason for it.

 

(and aha that's why i couldn't save my edited post, you answered meanwhile, i noticed that you can't edit a post here after somenone replied to a comment. it wasn't very important).

 

 

A few words to the "pINg" fix.

the problem is obviousely the roms length, it's "non standard".

jzintv (as i recently assume) and other emulators pretend for a rom below 8k i guess simply 8k byte (i assume the first 8k must be used completely no matter how the size is for real), even 16k is "standard", such files can be converted i.e. with

bin2rom without any config file for the memory mapping.

Nostalgia is somewhat nitpicking, it doesn't pretends, it has to be proper or it won't work, proper means in the expected length.

First i converted "pINg" from .rom to .bin and received from the program the proper mapping.

Tried it and it failed.

OK, i thought whats left? act vice versa, don't specify the real length specify the expected length of 8k and bingo, it runs.

This i did then also to convert it again to a .rom and simply left it up to bin2rom to interprete the length instead to specify the real length and now it works.

("geht nicht gibts nicht" - "doesn't works doesn't exists")

 

This maybe as a hint for the the BASIC programmers here, simply map a rom below 8k to the full 8k, i assume jzintv does that anyway and that's why they run without problems in one or the other way.

 

----

A real problem with Nostalgia is that it mixes up it's own config file certain times, editing from the program itself is not recommended (name, year, author/publisher, that's ok, but to edit the mapping from within nostalgia is somewhat dangerous).

and best is to convert all images to the .rom format (seems like i'm not the only one who recommends this), that solves most of the problems as soon you have the proper mapping to convert them, for certain games it needet a few tries.

finall only two are left which you can't convert to the intellicart format, that's "Game Factory" and "World Series Major League Baseball" both depend on the ECS RAM and you can't configure this

for a .rom in a emulator.

Those two are troublemakers, as soon as you save the config for i.e. "Game Factory" the mapping for the RAM get's lost, it needs to be edited in the games.ndb manually.

Further often Nostalgia interpretes a .bin which isn't present in the harcoded config inside Nostalgia wrong and the entry ends to early with a "<>",

but nostalgia is also nitpicking with it's own database, a empty or wrong line can hinder a file from be recognized.

 

But as i said, make roms of them and the troubles are past.

 

And as i stated, again i tried this and that, i even tried MESS, but returned to Nostalgia.

Formost because i llike to have a specific sized window, else such doesn't works so well,

As you can see the clip is "clean" no or less blurring even in the lower resolutions, that's because the clip is captured in the proper size for YT and has a height of 720pixels,

i don't have to rescale, YT don't has to rescale and the quality will be preserved best.

 

---

 

i'm already a bit off topic, like always and will leave further....

Just because i talked about "Game Factory" (or wouldn't it have) wasn't that a nice toy?

How is that, Intellivision was even first to create a sort of "games construction kit" very simple but hey already the idea is great.

 

Since i'm a lousy programmer but a somewhat better artist at least i like such toys.

Last year i worked out a few games with GACK

[Gernot]

INTERMISSION

 

@revolutionika

 

Yes i do hacked it, is that nasty?

I'm used to be called a lunatic, don't hold back.

 

no problem as long as you keep the size, to change a string is usually never a problem,

to change a specific data like the length in minutes neither.

 

Yeah certainly it's somewhat nasty to lay hands on any software,

but until now, not a single soul in the world knew that i did it.

 

And yes of course i feel free the same with that as with any softs, it's certainly a bit nasty.

But if something isn't like i would like it why shouldn't i fit it to my pleasure?

 

Changed Nostalgia as well a little to my personal flavour.

Hacked "Frontier" up and down, not much i didn't tried in this game.

For FE2 and FFE i could say "which ship you like to see in it? i will hack it for you"

"do you like something strange? a orange blob on the ship? no problem".

(obviously one could say to script models was like i knew it already, it's quite similar to what i did already with my hacks,

only far easier to work with a "speaky language" as to dig through hex data, to compare and find the meaning for each single word).

of course i had a sort of "mentor", apart from Tom Morton and John Jordan a third guy disassembled Frontier,

he posted his results in the web and this was my guideline to the objects in FE2, how does that work? he asked himself and i asked that myself as well.

What's the trick behind to use only vertices with even numbers where is the right side of the model? how does this huge guy have solved this and that

and he's really a huge one. Honestly our whole team, even with TomM and J.J. we never reached really what David Braben reached almost alone.

Especially when we take to account that it's today far easier to make a program and large parts of FE2 are written in assembler, else it wouldn't have fittet on a single floppy,

this was a limitation by the publisher "one disk or forget it - games with more as one disk don't sell good" i guess id didn't sold well nonetheless "Frontier" was never a game for the masses

and likewise i was the only one who like "Vectron" i was the only one who really liked "Frontier", most of my friends disliked it because you "have nothing to do" which is wrong, but you have to write the story yourself,

there is no given path, but exactly this i like about it and i know everybody who is addicted to this games likes especially this, apart from "dammit i forgot to buy a atmospheric shield.... pffft"

And how much i strut about such with the recent devs of pioneer, "yeah i know 3200 we will have mind controlled fighter planes for sure, but that's no fun to play, fun to play is if you have to maintain it yourself.

I even dislike if the landing gear retracts automatically, certainly that's reasonable, but again either i like to play a game or i just click on the right button

and this sort of games i never liked, how "fantastic" the gfx might ever have looked

certainly a battle computer will beat any human, but where's the fun? forget the realsim, realistic in FE2 are only the newtonian laws the rest is sci-fi and this means fiction foremost.

And besides in FE2 3200 is more like 1800, privateers with shitty ships who do dangerous jobs, that's the game, not to have computer controlled missiles and a perfect battle computer, this will end up in a point and click adventure.

I always said: "can't you imagine such a scenario, it's like in Star-Wars, the technology for hyperspace is cheap and many tribes use it which have no idea about how it works, that's the situation in FE2.

Factions like Federation or the Empire have no interest in a open War, though privateers will do that on their own responsability, that's not a stupid scenario, it's easy to imagine,

politicians keep clean even if there is a war going on. Perhaps they neither have interest in a reliable technology it would udermine their control.

It doesn't matters that space piracy will never happen as imagined in the game or in sci-fi stories. In FE2 and Pioneer it works only because the scanner is very limited, to imagine would be something different

and certainly you couldn't hide in the whole solar system. But it's a GAME! hallo? No imagination or what? Can't you look at this with some humor?

 

in the end the difference is; a cheap point and click adventure is good for the publisher, it won't last longer as a weekend, a game like FE2 which keeps a player busy for years is rather bad from their pov.

My stepson liked Zelda much, he loved to play Zelda on the SNES and truely this game has depth, it keeps you busy a long time. Certainly i had to buy him a Gamecube and the sequel to Zelda,

but it lasted exactly a weekend and he finished the game, i don't have to tell you how disappointed he was)

 

It's a long time runner and over all the decades it wasn't sold bad, it's just not a game for everyone.

 

Ah well and Mr. Braben was so free to ship the original disks of FE2 with a hex editor, quasi "dudes do your worst".

 

Changed also editors to see if there are some hidden or disabled features, a example would be the course editor of TWPGA2000,

the field in the status bar for x,y,z was to short and the value for z was cut off often, why not change that?

They claimed "a common user can't make horizons because it needs advanced knowledge about photography and graphics",

i simply assumed i have them and allowed to import user created horizons, i don't like to be patronized.

And they do look good on the remake of the "Intellivision PGA Golf"

My first version(s) was made with the library that came with the editor, but it looks always like california, trees and everything is quite different as here.

Thus i wen't on a "photo safari" through the near to me cantons, trees bushes and even horizons.

It's still under construction, many years i couldn't use it because TWPGA2000 failed to run on my newer machines, recently i found a acceptable solution.

It still crashes often, but it runs.

 

me isn't a common user (and my sister/brother neither) no one is a "common user" he doesn't exists.

not even my 80 year old mother is a common user, she hates her macbook, she dislikes electronics. either my father was the one who was responsible for all the technical things

and since he's dead it's me "Gernot i have a problem i have no picture on my tv" - "ok i come to visit you"

 

ever wondered how the "Intellivison Golf" would look in 3D?

(ah cool parses YT clips automatic)

It's known the AI players can't play custom curses well, as you see they play extremely unimaginative and play often simply straight in direction of the pin.

(they would need to know how to play this course, sometimes they act proper, but most times they hit in the trees).

A reason why computergolf courses look to me often very repetive, straight, dogleg left, dogleg right, but never to extreme.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Gernot

[Rev]

I was just wondering if you hacked the rom, if you could post rom file?

 

Thanks!

[Gernot]

Maybe something more retro inspired:

 

 

Gernot, oh sorry his name is Gernot as well, ok "Hello Kitty"'s comment (developer of GACK and G(ames)L(overs)Basic)

"Du lässt ja Gack richtig Grafik auskotzen" (you let GACK vomit graphics).

 

I even was so free to copy a game as good as this is possible with GACK,

 

 

but i cancelled that after level two, because i had different ideas what to do with it.

But check the level Boss, it's the maximum you can get out of GACK, and it needed a good plan to make this animation even if it looks very sloppy.

To make this Alien type monster alive i had to imagine the games screen different, i tiled it (of course it is already tiled) for the whole animation, that was some 24 quads if i remember this right

each quad is playing back his own little animation of the level boss, that's the trick behind, else such a large object wouldn't be possibe to animate with GACK.

A sprite is limited to max 64x64 pixels.

 

 

the sfx are handcrafted as well, you can't import a waveform to GACK, you have to use the built in synthesizer,

first it has annoyed me like many, but then i thought "yeah cool, that's individual".

 

might look very familiar...

 

 

was that "Mooncresta"? - no it's a level from "Galactic Invasion"

in which you find reminescenses to old space shooters, "Moncresta", "Galaxian" and "Phoenix".

 

This is finished and works as a standalone game just say i want it and i will link it.

It would be even possible to play them in a browser, but i didn't own the full release of GACK and "Hello Kitty" was already so kind to offer me a special version for free.

Just because he likes my style.

 

Following was the last project and it should have turned into something real special (for GACK, it's a sort of "Battle of Midway" over european territory),

but i have to say i left it unfinished, it's boring sometimes to place endless enemies, really, at least to me,

Background and sprites are all ready i can spend weeks to create a few planes, i just have to place the path for some levels or have to refine them.

This is to me the biggest leak of GACK, i can't select a level to test it, above level three it really gets boring to repetively play through the same shit over and over, invulnerable or not.

 

the goal was to copy a game without to copy something simply as a complete opposite to what i did with "Cyrapi" (piracy )

Right that's no "Spitfire" that's player two "Mosquito"

 

but not enough shoot 'em up's, jump & run ok but can i get more out of it, how far i can go with this tool?

I always liked "Frog Bog", let's see i thought if i can't make something similar,

erm well it turned to a platform sort of jump&run not bad and tackling to catch the insects with the short as a shot tongue

 

oh sorry i thought i have made a clip of this little game, but it looks like not.

 

another thing, you might know "Choplifter", well i have seen this Game right a week ago for the first time (but i know one similar existed as a coin-op), nonetheless i had a similar idea.

What about a copter without weapons and a lot of mean enemies?

The goal is (yeah you know it) to save the poor injured soldiers, but also i cancelled this project, i don't know it's good for a level but somehow...

and you gain to many lifes in GACK, i can't (or yet for the version i used back then) give you points alone for a bonus, i can only give life and points.

But he changed this already and as you can see by the date it must be already three years ago when i made "Radars Nightmare".

 

 

another idea was to say "ok GACK is easy to handle, you can edit levels one after the other but i assume many haven't the graphical talent. why not make a game which would be easy like 1,2,3

to create new levels? something systematic" neither that is new and it's certainly leaned on games i knew from the past.

 

 

for this one i copied myself and re-used the sprites and sounds of a different older project named "Adventure", in Adventure the "Cowboy" would be a enemy in the western world,

here he is to see as adventurer, it's a maze game and the trick is for GACK to keep the screen small, else the enemies are to easy to predetermine, (this i worked out already for adventure where the screen is even smaller, you shouldn't see what's ahead or only less as needed).

 

I wouldn't have named it "Adventure" when the character wouldn't be a archer, maybe nonetheless, but the archer was the basic idea, instead of heavy guns or flamethrowers,

his shot frequency is low though you don't have to waste shots even if you have endless arrows.

 

You can't let a enemy follow you, it's all only made with fixed paths for the enemies, but like you see in the example for "animation and movement and conjunction" one can get a lot out of that if used clever.

In this game as well as in adventure enemies disappear and re-appear this makes them less predictable (you have seen the "men eating" plants in Cro-Man, they are from Adventure as well, to ones surprise in Adventure you will have some which only appear/disappear and some similar looking can walk, already the vanishing plants are mean in adventure, because all what you see of them is one single pixel, this pixel i needed to place them else i would know where they are when i place them, shitty yeah i should have started the animation vice versa. But nonethelees even i walk often into them, and i made it, strange no?)

 

Even for this one i need usally a few tries before i make it to the last level (so far, it could have "endless" levels, the only thing hindering is this missing level selector).

 

and for how it's called "Castle of Doom"? i even wen't a little meaner with the walking men-eating plants they additionally vanish, three of them and i tell you you would assume it's random, but it's not.

 

Sorry for the name "Minotaur" sounds very familiar, but it's greek mytholgy and it can be used by who ever it likes to.

Shorter as "Castle" in levels but more challenging, it really only would need some random stuff and it would be (almost) perfect, in the second level you see four doors when you enter the wrong one you are...

Doomed!

How it is now at least after the third turn you know which door to take, but imagine if this would be randomly, the chances would be 3:1 you enter the wrong door.

that is mean and would be even meaner in the final level, when you played the game nearly to the end and loose because of some random shit.

I was thinking about to give hints to the player that's why you see this roman number "II" on a wall in level 3, similar it could be made in level one to show somewhere a hidden "III" and a attentive player will know rightaway which door to take.

 

If it wouldn't be GACK and would be a specific engine it's easy to imagine to randomize the number a level before it's used and one could show the randomly selected number.

Yes "Indy" inspired me to this and one could hide the numbers even more, maybe in a sort of riddle, i like such, or you have to count something rather uncommon, three chickens in a window or something else you don't expect immediatly it's a number. Of course in attempt one and two you would fail before you would know that maybe a little detail has changed, e.g. like the three chickens from three to one or five or whatever is the "magic number" you will need in the next level.

Play a tune maybe, this is one of the best ideas in "Indy", play a tune and this tune changes each time you play, though you have to learn it each time new.

 

take this as inspiration, like i said i'm a shitty programmer but i'm quite good graphics and i know exactly what i like to see in a game.

 

Someone else ever thought about a "malus level"?

However that's cool and for Adventure the final level will be a malus level, already all through the game when you kill a harmless animal you receive a malus, but the final level should be ony malus,

but don't expect that they will be friendly animals like the Deer i used in level one, no in the final level you will have to face wild besties but you aren't allowed to kill them, i could take all the points from a player that was the idea. You would have to make a compromise either to loose lifes which would mean no success, or you kill some animals and take this bitter pill to loose some or many of your points.

"know your enemies" that was the idea, in the western level you face a old chief, certainly shooting him down is the worst you can do, but don't walk into him then he will harm you, leave him smoking his pipe. Kill the gangsters, but let the good ones stay well and that mustn't be or isn't easy because you have to shoot and you have to expect that this or that shot will miss his target, thus this chief is in big danger to be killed by you.

[Gernot]

to your request revolutionika.

 

If that is wanted yes, or maybe a slightly altered hack, i guess the potsmoke66 presents i the starting screen goes a little to far.

but this takes only minutes to compare them in a hex editor and create a new one only with the shortenet endurance.

I know it would be perfect for a cup or match of some sort between many players, because it's short.

to play every game 2x45 mins would be far to long to have a match i.e. here.

 

I will do that for you (all of you, i can see already a championship here, coolest would be right in the browser, but we will see), it's a sneeze.

 

ah, yes i even changed all strings to german, i guess that won't be suitable, but wait i should have a very first version, that should be fine.

(It opens with "Potsmoke66 Super Fussball" and Home/Guest is Heim/Gast, keeper/kicker i kept because we call it the same especially in switzerland, goalie usually, if i say keeper everyone would guess of hockey)

 

here we go,

i had to make a new one, i chose this time "World Cup Football" (Was that wanted to name a soccer "football"?), my other hacks are based on "Super Soccer" i'm not sure if there is a difference at all between them, but the code is different so there must be a difference, the release is latest and i simply assume it must be somewhat better else it wouldn't be slightly different.

Also i had problems to make from the existing .bin a .rom and took because of that a already converted version, what i wonder now how does bin2rom "know" or get hindered by a change at position 0x0552 from 0x2D to 0x0A?

However it works, that's what counts in the end.

 

The file is still named World Cup Football, maybe you like to change that to something unique, recognized it will be as a different rom because it has a different chcksum.

 

 

World Cup Football (1985) (Nice Ideas).zip

Edited January 12, 2015 by Gernot

[Rev]

I am getting scared....

[intvnut]

jzintv (as i recently assume) and other emulators pretend for a rom below 8k i guess simply 8k byte (i assume the first 8k must be used completely no matter how the size is for real), even 16k is "standard", such files can be converted i.e. with

 

The default memory map jzIntv uses when there is no .CFG file is as follows:

.

[mapping]
$0000 - $0FFF = $5000    ; First 4K words (8K bytes) at address $5000
$1000 - $1FFF = $6000    ; Next 4K words (8K bytes) at address $6000
$2000 - $2FFF = $D000    ; Next 4K words (8K bytes) at address $D000
$3000 - $3FFF = $F000    ; Last 4K words (8K bytes) at address $F000

.

This is the same default mapping used by INTVPC.EXE on the Intellivision Lives! CD, which is why jzIntv does this. Several games on Intellivision Lives! do not have a .CFG file, if I recall correctly, but work fine with the inferred config above. It works for games up to 16K words (32K bytes), as long as they're compatible with that address map.

 

Right now, IntyBASIC programmers have to be mindful of crossing the $6FFF boundary, as the assembler will continue assembling at $7000. $7000 is special in the Intellivision. If the Intellivision sees ROM at $7000, it will jump directly to $7000 before the EXEC is fully initialized. The Keyboard Component and ECS put ROM here to intercept bootup and perform their own initialization.

 

 

preferred it far to jzintv (sorry joe your games are better, better as most, jzintv might be accurate foremost i feel this for the sound, but it's complicated, a .ini would be a idea?, to define each time the place of exec and grom. further what was the idea of only 320x200, "wrong" 640x480?

 

I guess I've just always wrapped it in a batch file if I wanted to set default flags. :-) Also, jzIntv looks at the variable JZINTV_ROM_PATH to search for ROMs. If you set that up, and put all your ROMs (including GROM and EXEC) in a folder in that path, jzIntv will always find them. By default, even if you don't set that up, jzIntv should look in jzintv/rom/ for those files.

 

As far as resolutions go: The current development build of jzIntv lets you set arbitrary resolutions. It doesn't handle window resize events, though. It only lets you set the resolution at startup. It's a step forward. Longer term, I want to handle resize events, and handle different resolutions for full-screen vs. windowed.

 

BTW, 640x480 is closer to how the real Intellivision displays things. The pixels on the Intellivision aren't square. They're slightly taller than wide, at least on NTSC displays.

Edited January 12, 2015 by intvnut

[Gernot]

Something like this default mapping i expected, else yes certain .bins without a config wouldn't work, right, looks like nostalgia leaks of that and dependsonly either on the internal harcoded configuration or on a present .cfg file,

Still it messes it up often, right now when i made the 2x10mins soccer and used first a bin it refused to recognize it and terminatet the configuration before it really ended with this rotten "<>" which prevents the pogram from recognizing the .bin. Still it refuses to recognize it after i changed it manually, but i know this problem, you will have to remove it from the folder, erase the entry, safe it, restart nostalgia,quit it, enter the proper config, save it, restart again, cross fingers and then it might work.

 

 

 

but i'm used to cross fingers, i was co-dev of pioneer and crossed fingers often, praying "please this time without a crash" - "oh no not again, why does t crash wen i point on neptune? what's the damned reason? It was the first error our new devs made and they simply wasn't aware that this problem was because they removed the alpha channel from the rings color settings. I'm just a modeller more or less, but to me it's obvious i can't have no data or a 0 when the engine expects a value. TomM carefully wrote error messages and was always taking care to remove a error as soon as one appeared, our new devs "hacked" countless errors in it and have no interest to fix them before they implement something new, neither that the engine outputs something senseful now if you have a error, already such lets me have doubts about their professionality. Sometimes really sometimes i assumed they only moved and took over the lead to destroy our project, i really assumed for a while they was hired by a competitor. I even dared to tell them this right in the face, which wasn't very clever of me or finally the reason for punching me out. But stil i don't understand their way, i liked to make it as good as i can, TomM even, it doesn't had to be the coolest and most modern space-sim to us, but it should run flawless, that was Tom's goal, his goal was to get rid of the errors in Frontier, which is hard enough because i know rightaway that this won't be possible 100% with all the procedural generated things, you simply have to expect "radical" values which will lead to "radical" results. Thus Errors like that a System is shown as inhabited on the starmap but if you enter it there is no starport, that's common. If you tweak that you loose the magic of procedural generated things. Daniel who did a good job with the procedural generated planets made the mistake to tweak it to much imho and due to that the planets look very similar through all the galaxy, when we started it was vice versa and it has leaded to extremes, but in the end i think that was better, we have no idea how a extraterrestrial planet looks, all we know for real are our 10. Thus why shouldn't have i.e. Proxima 3 mountains which rake 30km in the sky? it looks at least fantastic or extraterrestrial. One reason for the procedural generating is you can't map a galaxy, this is the only way to have a galaxy already on the space of a floppy, but even our computers today have no chance to map the whole galaxy. A second one from my pov is that it leaves what we can imagine far behind or of what we would say looks proper, but depending on what do we say that? most haven't seen anything else as mother earth for real)

 

 

 

 

a default batch, yes that would help, but on the other hand i'm satisfied how it is.

 

resolutiuons? respectively relation of, are you sure?

that's because usually a NTSC comes closer to a letterbox format, while our PAL screen had a few lines more.

I can't make that proof but if at all it would have been displayed wrong on a PAL screen, but if i remember right i had a thick frame around the picture and i didn't think it was streched, thus i assume (i say i assume) that.

Before i decided the relation for a height of 720 for a nice YT clip i simply referred to the wiki and isn't it (however it is diplayed finally on a NTSC or PAL screen)

160 × 196 internally which fits quite good to 320x200, but i'm aware on the screen it's something different, i just usually assumed that our PAL pictures was wrong and streched in height if at all.

I know such can be problematic but for the Intellivision the letterbox looks proper and it's certainly or from my pov not wrong if i.e. a square is a square.

But eh, some coin ops used the screen 90° rotated and the resolution is completely wrong if you take the internal resolution as layout, they need certainly the relation of the screen and not their own resolution.

However to me it looks wrong in 640x480.

or in other terms if i circle isn't a circle then it's not proper to me, for consoles i would say however it was displayed, for coin ops i would say however the internal resolution is, what counts is finally the proper appearance of a geometry.

But with the same right one could say what counts is only how it appeared on my tv screen, i can't deny this.

 

I don't like to counter you, that was just some thoughts about resolution and screen relations.

 

I would like to get me a intellivision back again really, especially right now, already i hope i didn't throwed this bag full of cartriges away, in fact i had many doubles and not a large selection.

The final one one i bought for a very low price from the former dealer, held back then even a circuits layout of the intellivision simply everything which was lurking around in his storage (the demo cartridge as well)

But dammit on the other hand i didn't even own a tv. that's first due to lack of money second (a old tv wouldn't be such expensive) it's because tv holds me back from gaming and modeling.

I guess i would end up as lame as most long time unemployed, you have to get rid of that thing if you have no job, else it's to easy just to turn it on from 8:00 AM to 1:00AM and then you become this typical

"long time unemployed beer drunk idiot". Certainly i'm a messy of some sort, i always was.

To throw away something i can use or i can fix when i'm in the mood for that is simply out of mind to me.

Except yes for the intellivision, argh i still get a little angry about you pops, you shouldn't have disassembled it, really not.

I know you also said "old junk", but dear daddy are you aware that this "old junk" is "vintage" now and a rarity?

 

It's the only machine i'm missing, i still have my A500, A4000, a SEGA Master system and the SNES and certainly i would still have my intellivision, broken controllers, well not so long ago this would have been absolutely no problem

and was no problem anyway i fixed one i certainly could have fixed the other, when i was in the mood for it (else it makes no sense and it didn't turns out well).

I wouldn't sell any of them, but not to long ago i wanted to know how much such a rotten "miggy" is worth today, the computer itself not much, but the peripherals,

god how can they dare to take for a original powersupply this amount of money, it isn't worth the tenth part of that and a fitting new one would be as good as the old.

One i bought from a friend thus it was cheap and most i payed in naturals, the second A500 i inherited from a copyshop, i was fixing the aircondition there and saw that poor girl completely alone forgotten in some corner.

What do i have to give you for this piece of junk? - nothing my friend take it home.

.

Whatever some might say about computergames, computer in general or the web, it's far less harmful as tv.

Each and every "idiot" always connects terrorism to violent computer games, it can't be more wrong.

Right now after the assasination in paris they make this wrong reasoning again and make games responsible for the gaining violence in our society.

But i know a game satisfies, you can be anything in a game, anything which pleases you and well you might get frustrated when you loose but you still have a chance to win or to get better.

But Telvision shows us a life of fantasy, something a normal person never can reach, all this spotless perfect never have to care abaout money people and beautiful they are even.

What leaves that in you? frustration, next day you are again frustrated about your shitty life and so on, you never get happy.

Already this fact let's have tv a far higher agression potential as any game how violent it might look.

Additionally and that's why our politicians lie about that, we are rsponsible ourself for terrorism, not because we probably trained some of them

but because of this false world, because of steady lying and that you can't trust in nothing no more.

A proper dress count's today far more as any education ort talent one has and here is the reason for violence,

i'm by myself often like to cut off some heads, but i know they are like a Medusa and if i cut one off 10 new will grow.

 

both i guess "amigoids" and "intelloids" are a special sort, they really hang to their old machines, to us there never existed something better.

and truely it makes sense, the Intellivision was different, better even if that wasn't noticed at first sight, the software was quite different no?

Ambitious, teaching, entertaining and often not only a game of some sort.

Same geraldine & me feel for our miggy, there was never a better computer or better games to play on a computer.

Of course both we own our modern machines, but i guess we hate them, it's only a must not a "like to".

 

Recenty i have no TV or a multiscan monitor to run my old amigas, that's a bit sad.

On the other hand should i really spend again so many hours in front of that ray-gun?

It's as good to playthem emulated on a PC, god how i would have hated only to think about that youvcan once emuzlate a miggy proper on a PC.

 

But ok, i can still tease my new machine and telling her when i'm angry that she's a rotten lathe controller from 1949 and worthes a shit, that she still is locked up by a simple IO error of a drive.

 

A quote which would fit also well to my signature:

"I really hate this damned machine,

it never does what i want it,

it only does what i tell it".

 

and one to make all developers angry:

"any working program is obsolate"

 

Where do you find such quotes now? (i know where, a different company maybe it was their own idea or they captured mine)

Because i told our devs wouldn't it be nice to display randomly a quote at start, especially which are more or less related to computing?

nah, "lunatic" or youre nuts was the answer (yeah, it makes no difference to th game, but nonetheless it's nice).

I had to do it in "Sputnik" myself and it's a good idea and i can't recently remember the name of that game, but really not to long ago i stumbled over this in a clip

and i thought (for one more time) "who's right robert you or me? maybe im a lunatic, but my ideas are good".

 

I found them on a old "fish disk" for the miggy.

and each is a nice quote, something which let's you smile a little.

 

likewise for my randomly generated ship names, but i know a player likes to have something individual in a game, this is my ship, my special cobby or conny

and this a swell as varying equipment, different textures or whatever of exchangeable parts.

and in a script i'm allowed to make it rare, i can tell only 1 of 1000 has this special skin if i like to.

but it was all shitty - only later i started to understand it was only shitty because all that isn't longer possible with collada,

though it had to be declared as shitty else they would have to tell the community that i was right and they was wrong.

 

Noithing was worth, except for walterar he picked up a lot of my ideas.

I changed the naming routine, rather simplyi just added a few more tables to select from and classyfied the names, though a outdoor world will always be named different as a hostile world .

outdoor is "Eden, Paradise, (New) Africa, America" whatever you can imagine reminds us of mother earth.

hostile worlds are name "someones name ...hollow, ...grave, ...fate" everything which reminds you of something bad.

population influences the selection as well, we should use the power the scripts give us, but it didn't pleased them.

The game spits out all this variables and we leave them unattendet, that's stupid no?

 

The same for the cities, certainly it's secondary and it's on the other hand not, right when i striggled so hard with them Steve *Coolhand" helpd me a little and as a sort of veteran his word has a little weight,

he answered gernot don't underestimate yourself and graphics are certainly not the game, but it's what the user attends as first, it's catchy and everyone likes it.

 

But our cities how they ended up, skyscrapers and worse sorry but they look like "plattenbauten" (cheap concrete buildings) from GDR or USSR but not like something from 3200.

TomM implemented at least the possibility to differ already between "starport building" something which belongs as a peripheral to a starport, "city building" which are buildings in general

and "city power" to define powerplants. It was imagined to implement more and of course the very first i was asking for was i like, no i need to have a possibility to differ between hostile and outdoor even for the models.

Since outdoor buildings will look quite different from a "moonbase" and recently we have grey skyscrapers on a moon or any hostile planet(oid).

I preferred it vice versa and thought myself, ok if i can't differ then i make selaed buildings they will fit to the hostile worlds which are far more as outdoor and they even didn't look to bad on a outdoor world.

 

I worked out a flowchart what is needed to differ buildings really in the Frontier style, and sorry if it was possible 1993 it should be a sneeze in 2010.

But i didn't worked it out for them, i lately found a dev from australia who mailed me and said "listen you are 100% right and i like to make a game with you".

Wow i was completely overwhelmed.

Recently i lost a little contact to him, it's my fault, but i told him that he let's me fear a little, i mean after all this time i thought i'm the idiot and then comes a professional game designer and honors me?

That's to much, that can break such a poor heart.

 

But well, maybe dear geraldine has first to kick my ass.

If i hate to disappoint one then it's her, i never met her we know us only from Frontier forums and later the pioneer project, but she always calmed me down when i lost my temper.

I guess a few years ago she was one of the first who used always and everywhere her real name Geraldine.

I asked her if she has a specific reason, she said "i'm Geraldine"(? why should i use any other name)

ok that convinced me, i'm gernot and since then i changed most of my old nicknames to Gernot or Gernot66, because yeah, i'm Gernot.

And somehow i feel this makes school and i see more and more ppl who post under their real name, that's fine.

 

Of course "potsmoke66" was neither a bad nick for me, it suits me well, when i registered to "3D meshes" the first question of a US user was if i never feared to be banned from a forum for this nick.

Feared? certainly not this, i fear other things the downfall human race i fear, but not to be banned from a forum because of "smokes pot".

It never was a problem.

But Gernot is better, Geraldine really convinced me with her simple but 100% logical answer.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Gernot

[Rev]

Have you had any other issues with the BIN files as related to nostalgia? The CFG file, is that always configured the same?

[Gernot]

nope

 

and

 

no

 

i guess intvnut explained it right here right good.

 

I'm not sure but let's say Nostalgia is nitpicking, no i assume it doesn't uses such a standart .cfg.

I noticed that all mappings of the games which was released up to the release date of nostalgia5 is present in nostalgia (i use to browse programs with a hex-editor).

Obvious Nostalgia depends on this table more as on the games.ndb (database), you can delete it and nostalgia rebuilds it from the internal configurations.

As long as a specific crc result is known and present, which is usually to assume, there is no problem to expect with .bin files, but as soon as it's a unknown one it often writes junk to the games.ndb.

But i've readed on intellivision.us, topic was i guess the "the ultimate pc interface" (but it could be a different one), that the author recommends the converting of all .bin to the .rom format as well.

Just because the mapping is integrated and just in case, it's safer (exactly the same what i thought).

 

Left are only two, which you can convert properly to the intellicart format but they won't work in nostalgia because they need a special mapping for the ECS RAM, but as soon as it's a .rom nostalgia doesn't accepts any mapping,

which is obvious because it's usually not needed to have one for a .rom.

But if one is not that extremely interested in "Games Factory" as i am it won't matter much.

The second is "World Series Major League Baseball" but i'm a europoean and i have no idea about Baseball, likewise for Football i can't see where's the fun in it.

 

To me, even if Soccer was neither my sport, Soccer makes more sense,

Ice-Hockey that's a game, fast and i don't need spectcular fights, i like to see a good match like the ones we had when the USSR still existed, it was a beutiful team work they had. And recently in Soccer we have to much individualists,

it's simply not good if you work only for money and the team doesn't matters in which you play (not only in sports, this counts as well for work & business, but probably human race must even first cut off a leg to get healed), Soccer isn't Tennis and well better start to play Tennis if you are such a individualist.

My sport was skiing (suitable for individualists), born between mountains which rake almost vertical out of the ground this is almost obvious.

 

I'm not sure "Chess" (a.c.'s KChess as well) needs RAM to but it's not mapped to the ECS extension, but i can't tell from far if there is a problem when converted to the .rom format, they work and i assume it's ok,

because if it's not properly configured it won't work at all, or you can see only the title screen but nothing happens.

I'm not a big Chess fan, i'm not good in Chess, i played it often with a friend (on a board of course, erm until i smashed once the board "in his face", then he never liked to play chess again with me. It was more a accident, certainly i loosed temper, but i just hammered with my fist on the board and unfortunatly it hittet him, he didn't took that to serious we are really good friends, he knows me well. To be honest i hate to loose but it has getting far better over the decades, today i don't mind if i loose a game, could be because i lost all what was really worth in my life. Divorced, but didn't like to, i loved my wife and my children and it was a extremly hard decision, it's like you have to cut yourself a leg off. After that nothing was the same. A deep depression followed on which i'm still working i guess, behind this mask of a clown... you know.) in my youth which whom i also often played tennis on the inty, i said i'm not good but to me it looks that it's a quite strong Chess program for the intellivision, slow, certain draws can take a night to be calculated (no joke) if you don't force the program to take the one on which it's working.

Personally i like Backgammon better as Chess, but i'm not allowed to gamble there are ppl in this world which are not allowed to play for money. It was the Board game which i played with my wife very often, she's a Meghrib (she's from Morocco and has Berber roots, proud not easy to handle) and Backgammon belongs there.

 

 

i like all this kind of SEUCK, while i have to say if one guesses the release date of games factory and that it's a cartridge for a (expanded) console then it's far better as SEUCK which was released '87 for the C64 and the Amiga.

It's certainly very limited but it's not bound to shoot 'em up alone, i like that toy where i copied the "running girl" from. SEUCK is clumsy to handle with all the disk swappings needed, anything else as comfortable or easy to understand, while "Games Factory" can be understood by a child, you can experience it like a game. Games Factory comes with a quite diverse library for animated sprites and background tiles (both called "cards" in gf), for SEUCK you have to create all yourself.

 

"The mountains"

 

that was a lucky one, i opened right now the webcam of airfield mollis and this picture appeared, 5mins earlier or later it wouldn't been the same.

 

---

 

Erm, if one is rich, please support he airfield mollis, book a flight with a Hunter, if i had the right money i would do that immediatly, or when do you get the chance to fly in a fighterplane?

Really they need the support, since the airfield is private, it was before a army airfiled, they have problems to maintain the airfileld, it's expensive, but it would be sad, it's home of the "Hunter Club"

which is keeping a few double seated Hunter trainers alive.

One you have seen prob. already the "Graffiti Hunter" he's out of service and they allowed some young fellows to spray-art the machine (i asked them, it would be flyable, it's just to expensive to keep both in the needed shape to fly them. You have to fly a jet from time to time and if not you have to start the engines at least. I remember well when we still homed the "Gloster Vampire/Venom" that every winter they took the machines out of the hangar and started the engines, a horrible noise, anyway a horrible noise the "Venom" produces. They used to start in direction of the town (i assume they wouldn't have reached the needed height wether that they could have turned in front of the mountain you see on the picture, but didn't reached more as 30m height, it felt like the roof was falling in when they started. Hunter and Tiger later on started in direction of the mountain.

I feel it's a bad deal to replace the Tiger with the Vikken, you can't flap in a Vikken like a Tiger, the Tiger is build for Aircraftcarriers, thus you can flap up the anyway short wings.

In a Bunker in central Switzerland they hang one after the other in a row on a crane (similar like in a aircraftcarriers belly), i can't see that you can do such with the Vikken.

I'm not a swiss, gosh that exists only here in switzerland, i'm a second gen. foreigner, i'm german, on the passport at least (and else as well) and i can't vote.

But my Vote was "ok, buy the Vikken, but only if it's sprayed red with a white cross on the fuselage, it will become part of "patrouille suisse" and it would be sad in gray,

besides i'mpretty sure today camouflage makes no longer sense for a fighterplane. Because if you can locate the plane with the eye it's anyway to late to shoot at him.

Thus they can be red or orange, or blank aluminium, it won't matter.

 

The second is the "Tiger Hunter" which is still in service and has a painting like a Tiger, there is a second reason for this name "Tiger Hunter", the Tiger (F-15, which is now also obsolate and will be replaced, even if i think, interesting the navy buys them back from the swiss army, they must still have a value) was the machine which followed the Hunter and they used to make Dogfights between the Hunter and the Tiger, eh, the Hunter hunts the Tiger and he's got a good chance to win (between the steep mountains)!

The hunter can fly very slow, which the short winged Tiger can't, you can almost wait behind a mountain to intercept the Tiger, he can't fly as close as the Hunter to the mountains.

There exists a nice clip on YT of such a dogfight.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Gernot

[Gernot]

Silly, i'm tos low in typing

 

a few words about the fighters and a few ideas about procedural generated stuff.

 

And right here i see that the Vikken is not suitable, you can't flap up wings, even if it has moveable wings for low speeds i can't see that he can be as suitable as a Tiger or the Hunter for this small country.

It's more like the Mirage was a Fighter which controls the air above a country, but you can't fly with a Mirage between mountains and i strongly assume the Vikken can't as well, he's to fast.

We had a handful of Mirages, that's enough and a Handful of Vikken would be enough to replace the Mirage, but it can't replace the Tiger, modern equipment is not all what counts,

you have to respect the conditions foremost, it's not like on open sea or over a desert! Climbing speed counts far more as endspeed, it's anyway the more important thing for a fighterplane.

 

---

 

That's also bound to our nature, it's anything else as easy to think in three dimensions, we used to orient us 2 dimensionally, height the "Stepppenmensch" doesn't needs to orient.

But if you fly its different you have all three dimensions in which you have to orient yourself and height is usually a little less attendet.

You can see this well also in space games like "pioneer" most orient themself "on level", if that is in a system or if that is on the galactical map, depth is unattendet, and since we have the full extension of the galaxy in

pioneer, i can tell you it's thick! it's damned thick, you won't expect that from what you see on pictures, a galaxy is huge in dimesions and if displayed in a graphic it irritates you.

If you play pioneer well you will see a 100 sectors each 8LY is deep (especially when you are able to jump a "lousy" 20-30LY).

Now obviousely when one starts a game he likes to explore the galaxy in pioneer a little, most i assume will start a attempt indirection of the centre, see we are stupid "Steppenmenschen".

But it won't matter in which direction you start your exploration, since it's procdural generated it's also somewhat repetive, because of nine numbers you can only draw a limited number of possibilities.

Further these nine numbers classify, position, system, life/nolife, how much population, and how the system is composed.

Thus if i change i.e. the last number for a specified generated system not much changes, perhaps a few names or amount of pop or composition of the atmosphere, but the system will look pretty the same.

System names are constructed from a table of syllables, drawn it's from the same numbers, thus if a system is named "Canada" (can happen) it will look with a high chance like a other system named "Canada".

Same numbers same result, real randomly doesn't exist - same numbers same result. If you take the internal clock as base you get something almost radomly, but it's still same numbers same results.

I can start and take the result from a first draw, that helps a little, or work with maths to get a better result, but it stays in the end - same numbers same result.

And that's ok, else procedural generating wouldn't work.

 

Else you can't have countless systems in a galaxy, there is only this way of procedural generating systems.

Such is to make in principles with little code.

Because what do we do? We draw randomly a few numbers that's it, base is a base number and this base will influence the whole generated galaxy.

Specify for the numbers what they will influence.

I'm pretty sure the dungeons in AD&D are made in a similar way.

It needs little but the effect is enormous, procedural generated things are something fantastic, not only to generate visible things like cities, it can build up a whole game.

And this game would have the possibility to change completely each time you play.

E.g. if i would change the base number randomly each time i play pioneer, each time i would play in a different galaxy.

ok, that's not wanted for pioneer, but it's a clue for a adventure game.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Gernot

[Nebulon]

Welcome.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing some of the stuff you've done on the Intellivision (as soon as I get home from work).

 

Do you program on any other systems? (with how super-fast your brain works, I'm guessing yes).

[Gernot]

oh sorry no programer, only a modeler/artist with a slight idea about programing

(sort of hacker, but i didn't think really good, just interested, most interest in objects and graphics,

but it's not hindering for a artist to have a idea what can be reached with wich tool.

I feel due to our "super machines", due to that most has such a high level,

scripts replaces programs and CAD to workout a geometry we have overseen or lost

how simple certain things can be made. We just don't have to care about power or size today.

A simple comparison, just look at the size of a text reader 20years ago and today, but what can i do with it?

read a text and in principles is one as good as the other.

Besides a high level has a drawback it's not flexible, likewise for BASIC you can't do something which can't be interpreted

and that's for modeling the same, with a CAD program i can only work in the limits the CAD program serves me).

 

I had read 30 years ago a very inspiring book about the future of computergames

and he predicted many things which today are common, but he also wrote about the risk of

high level languages.

I forgot the authors name, but Intellivision was a sort of reference

It seems that the dataglove was invented by the same ppl.

No possibility to use it, but the idea was born already.

MMO was predicted already though it's no wonder that i dreamed with 16 about a "ultimate space game".

 

If i something never believed then it's this

"i didn't thought it woul come this far with computers"

(Mr. Gates)

Erm sorry i thought with 16 it would come this far and i can imagine far more.

Not exactly certainly i didn't saw myself writing the words i write now and in the way i do it now.

One has to take to account in which decade it was.

I made some small steps, thanks to my father, he was the electronic addicted.

Computers hmmm, i remember i builded a few simple logical gates under his advice,

that was the start of Computers to me

Yes even this he drawed, we have to take care not to forget how the matter behind works

and we have reached this level!

 

I'm really just a (lunatic) artist,

But do you know Jeri Elsworth (if not look out for some YT clips of her)?

She's a sheer genius

and it started all with disassembling broken electronics (which reminds me strongly of myself especially when she blows up wrong connected condensers)

It's always better to have your craft learned by doing, no question left when you check her out.

 

Can't tell how fast my rinse of a brain works, rather slow compared to others i guess.

(does speed matter?)

 

cool, "space invader", can i keep this?

I AM A SPACE INVADER, one couldn't describe it better.

phew and i landed in the "Frogs" space (two dimensional lifeforms in "Raumpatroullie"

 

Star Strike, i forgot this when i talked about my favorite games

 

Something else,

"B-17 Bomber" was not sold in Germany it was censored because you can see it's ww2 and it's europe.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Gernot

[Rev]

This thread is interesting. Have you thought about writing a novel?

[Nebulon]

This thread is interesting. Have you thought about writing a novel?

Actually, that's not a bad idea.

 

If you get in contact with some of the people on here who are in the process of writing retro-gaming books, they might need artwork.

 

And yep, Jeri Elsworth is a fine example of expertise through practice.

[ACFinPGH]

This thread is interesting. Have you thought about writing a novel?

Does this thread not qualify?

[Gernot]

Soon i fired up all my powder...

 

Writing a Novel (space novel?), when i think about something like that or just to guess a story for a comic then i think i have no good idea for a *story.

I need a vis-a-vis, someone says something or some given topic (even if i might leave this topic).

 

Even if i write sometimes a lot i find it easier to express myself with a picture (what i do far to less).

 

*Probably i underestimate myself even in this, perhaps yes i guess at least i'm a dreamer and i can imagine easy a storyline or the environment, but to write the story?

Usually everything seems then to me useless, everything was already written what news can i tell?

But it's stupid to think such, i know, everything was even sung and everything was already painted, though that's not a good mind setting.

 

I guess what i really would like is that i could write the storyline, in direction like i explained already, i would like if players together would write each their own story but nonetheless they are set all in the same situation.

On the other hand we do this dayly anyway, but it's something different if you are set in a universe where everyhing is possible.

I.e. personally i think chances that there is another inhabited world in this galaxy might be lower as we guess, i would say it's 1:1 that there is or not (but Dr. Mitchell changed my pov to that a little, why not? the chance is even high that they are already here, usually i would say "nuts", but he's no idiot, though it's worth to think about. Over a endless time everything which is possible will happen as long as it's in the range of possibilities, we just don't know when it happens. Thus if there is extraterrestrial life then the chances are quite high they visited us. On the other hand, when i take certain experiences from Pioneer to account, wow, the galaxy is huge, and look at this as very problematic. Because if i had ships with a range like in the game, some 30LY, then i get nowhere but i can check every system, but you really get nowhere and even 10'000 explorers would be from my pov a low number, if your range would be longer you loose granularity, you would miss a lot of systems, the problem is we have no idea in which direction we should search, it could be a neighbour, it could be on the other end of the galaxy, and yes without something which brings me over the large gap of this "few" LY it's not to think about, but that's vitally. Realistic looked at it we must say it's "handwavy" it breaks all laws of physics. But we have to stay open minded, even Newton said that he has to accept "tomorrow" someone will refute his law of gravity. We only try to describe what is our universe from our point of view, how it is "for real" we don't know. Thus in principles we haven't come much farer with our knowledge as the "Steppenmensch", because he did pretty the same, he described his environment from his pov. Of course gravity will stay and the apple won't fall upwards, it's just we describe what is the reason for this. And we shouldn't forget real randomly exists, how often happens something let's say like when i posted that picture from the airfield, it was luck, it was in the right moment, certainly the sun stands low and it's to see the whole day on this webcam, but shortly after she would have hided behind the mountain, but it's a short time she doesn't appears for long between the "Glärnisch" you see in front and the mountains to the right. And easy in this season it could be it would all hide behind wall of thick fog. I believe in balance, that's why i said i'm not allowed to gamble, it's like you only have a certain amount of luck on a account and i really have no luck as soon as a play for money, but as long as it's just for fun it's ok. Maybe that's a mindsetting, but it's not a wrong one. How many bugs one has in his glibber is also luck, a straight nose in the same way).

"Hypedrives" out of mind, but in a story...

 

 

I don't know i leak a bit of eager, i mean 10 years ago i met in zurich two paperless swiss, a couple, both was sold as children just like slaves, that's a story! (up to this day they really had no papers, they didn't existed one could say, that's how he opened his speak and said: "can you imagine...") But you know i heard this story and didn't thought myself much (to see this as a chance, i heard a lot of biographies in my life, as good as i can write a lot of bla bla, as good i can listen if someone tells me his life, I take ppl serious, no one has to sleep under a bridge without a good reason), but a few years later someone wrote a book exactly about the biography of this couple, because it's such a fascinating thematic, slaves in a so called civilised land, they made even a movie about that.

[Gernot]

But this is truely a nice progress, a few years ago i didn't noticed so much interest in retro-gaming, especially not Intellivision, i didn't expected it.

 

Yes some and ok i was interested in something complete different, Pioneer really lasted me out, i took myself only time for this, mostly, even when i was "punched out" i still made models, still a few one like them and some i guess miss foremost the classic Frontier ships, cloned in the "meanest" way you can copy-clone something, the geometry reflects exactly what i found in "frontier, first encounters", every single verticle is the same, build due the scripting format in a similar way (vector1, v2, v3, create triangle, basically of course the LUA models resource offers "primitives" like a cylinder or a sphere and the most interesting thing of all "bezier shapes", but even this is similar to how the models in frontier are build especially the bezier stuff), but as far as i know Frontier.dev had no big problem with that. It's on the other hand a transscription and not only extracted with a tool, i needed one to that, this was offered by "Theunis deJong" who wrote a program which interpreted the objects in frontier in human readable text. Before i stumbled over Pioneer, to be honest it was Geraldine, i stumbled over it before but didn't spendet much attention to this project, i mainly hacked on base of that the objects in FFE3D a russian direct3d wrapper for firstencounters resp. john jordans ffewin or jjffe. Small details like to make the registration on certain ships visible, reposition the laser or thruster flames. But also to show them how they can solve certain problems with their chhosen model format .x. Because before they was convinced transparent parts wouldn't be possible in ffed3d, but it is, also how to export a animated model proper from blender because not everybody can afford 3dsmax. But wow, as soon as i understood how pionner works i knew it's not just a half finished copy of frontier and from my pov the new devs destroyed this spirit, to me the scripted objects was essential, certainly the game or the rules are the same, but i know Tom's idea was to solve it in this way, it's not really the same, it's not exactly copy, but it works in the same way.

Apart from that i'm still convinced it's a good thing to learn how to script a geometry, i doesn't harms and certain things you certainly understand better, certain limits i.e.

I saw the LMR like a educational toy, "hey look how easy it is to..."

I thought for a while even about that it would be a good idea to make a sort of library, though one could create a UI and one doesn't had to script, something like LEGO, but still a interested one could learn easy how the mechanics behind work, all in a "speaky language".

 

To me it was already fascinating to play around with a 2dimensional "bezier toy", i mean i really had no idea how the shit works, though i browsed through the web to see if i find something which can explain me this

without a mathematical expression, because this tells you a shit (but looks intelligent). And of course some exist and you can play around with that and see how the curve gets deformed.

But imagine you have a toy to create shapes, that's the idea, "oh cool when i pull on this verticle...". Apart from that it will be your customized personal spaceship,

one could link that with the game and you would have to pay for this possibility, why not.

 

Similar could be done with building a story editor, scripting is easy but still a "average user" don't likes to script but might have some good ideas he likes to see in a game.

I made even suggestions in this direction but was not noticed well i guess.

One could generate stories (and models or parts of), wherefore do whe have the procedural generated universe?

But before we thought about such we implemented i don't know how many translations in different languages, that's nice but not essential.

And to write a story, a event, has gettin far to complicated.

I know some say Tom's scripts wasn't "clean" scripted (from a programers pov), but i also know "dirty" is better to understand, he's idea was to force users to work on the scripts, to make it understandable.

And not that a small team elaborates the missions and events.

But it takes a while until you understand how to work with tables or a process you call in the back, but if everything is in the same script and good explained everyone can understand how to script a mission.

As simple as possible, "call ship in range of tons (or a specific one), with this "danger level", at this timepoint and in this sector/system/orbit" bam!

No big thing, and if you keep it this simple everyone understands it.

I know you can do alot with that, but if you make a i.e. pre-selection for what sort of ship it will be to complex a common user loses the overview.

Even here is a simple random number the easiest, why make i science out of it? It won't matter, it's a ship and it attacks me.

And if the drawn numbers are based on the systems seed (number), well you already have a specific sort of ships in this system (same number, same results), what more is needed?

 

Erm, one could build levels in a adventure or jump and run game in such a way, random numbers are really no big thing.

If you have once a library of sprites and background tiles likewise i made them for this "SEUCK" game, you only would need rules how to build such a level.

Endless fun on 16 kB guaranteed.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Gernot

[Gernot]

tell me how these boxes look, they look like new no? and the whole rest looks even like new, a little expensive for SFr 180.- but the condition is excellent.

 

i assume they even smell like new

 

 

---

 

something else, sound seems to be the biggest problem to emulate.

I don't know how it's solved, a dump of the original chip?

I just thought a little about that and since i know this chip a little because i experimented with it (but it's more then 30 years ago, my father discovered it in a magazine and thought it's a cute toy)

It's a small synthesizer and i asked myself rightnow if it wouldn't be better to use a software synthesizer, the results i reach in GACK which to the disappoint of some uses such a synthesizer to create the sounds

can produce quite good noise (but it's finally played back from a buffered .wav, that's why a gack game needs quite long to load, all the waveforms will first be generated, i guess because you can produce only one signal at a time with such a simple synthesizer). and i guess that's the problem, the noise generator and probaly even the LFO (low freq. oscillator) & VLO (very low freq. oscillator).

Noise, in principles a "unsuitable" semiconductor, how can that be proper reproduced? (by banging on the hardware) and also a VLO i imagine as problematic, digitized.

I just guess, maybe a software synthesizer using the same schematic like the chip would offer better results, it might not be accurate, but to be accurate you need that chip, it's a little "moog".

Hows that called? a discrete element .

 

The typical crash sound from "Auto Racing" was rather easy to reach, on the hardware.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Gernot

[Gernot]

I guess jzintv is the better choice (and i shot to early as usual, it's ment to be displayed proper on a 4:3 screen, i'm a idiot)

The sound is somewhat better (i feel)

 

Hint: (i don't know if this is already known)

A lower sampling rate results in smoother sound (in general for old games, at least this is my experience)

 

 

For those who like to start games from a shortcut, a collection of icons, 256x256 though you can see something on them:

 

icons.zip

 

really i favor this most and that's another reason for jzintv, won't need any GUI, resp. a folder with shortcuts to the games is to me the best GUI.

 

And for the games of which i still got the overlays (yippie!) it's if needed at all anyway better to have them right beside the keyboard if you have no original controller (some i printed out, it's really better).

 

[intvnut]

something else, sound seems to be the biggest problem to emulate.

I don't know how it's solved, a dump of the original chip?

I just thought a little about that and since i know this chip a little because i experimented with it (but it's more then 30 years ago, my father discovered it in a magazine and thought it's a cute toy)

It's a small synthesizer and i asked myself rightnow if it wouldn't be better to use a software synthesizer, the results i reach in GACK which to the disappoint of some uses such a synthesizer to create the sounds

can produce quite good noise (but it's finally played back from a buffered .wav, that's why a gack game needs quite long to load, all the waveforms will first be generated, i guess because you can produce only one signal at a time with such a simple synthesizer). and i guess that's the problem, the noise generator and probaly even the LFO (low freq. oscillator) & VLO (very low freq. oscillator).

Noise, in principles a "unsuitable" semiconductor, how can that be proper reproduced? (by banging on the hardware) and also a VLO i imagine as problematic, digitized.

I just guess, maybe a software synthesizer using the same schematic like the chip would offer better results, it might not be accurate, but to be accurate you need that chip, it's a little "moog".

Hows that called? a discrete element .

 

The typical crash sound from "Auto Racing" was rather easy to reach, on the hardware.

 

The PSG has 3 square wave oscillators and 1 noise channel. All four channels are fully digital, producing a series of 1s and 0s at a sampling rate of about 223721Hz (NTSC) or 250000 Hz (PAL). The noise channel is computed by a 17-bit Linear Feedback Shift Register with the polynomial 0x10004. All of the channels work by dividing down the incoming clock (3579545Hz for NTSC, 4000000Hz for PAL) first by 16, and again by the programmed pitch. For the noise channel, the noise pitch controls how often the LFSR advances.

 

The PSG lets you enable tone and noise on each channel separately. When you enable both, tone and noise get mixed multiplicatively: The output is 1 only when both the noise and the tone are both outputting 1. That is, the digital output of the channel is the Boolean AND of the tone generator for that channel and the shared noise generator.

 

Each of the three channels then go to a D/A converter. This D/A converter takes the volume for that channel and converts it to a logarithmic level. A digital 0 is 0 volts. A digital 1 is gets a voltage between 0 and maximum voltage based on the volume for that channel. Every two steps down halves the magnitude of the output. That is:

• 15 gives full volume (call it 1.0)
• 14 is sqrt(2) lower than 15. (1.0 / sqrt(2) = 0.707 approx)
• 13 is half of 15. (1.0 / 2 = 0.5)
• 12 is 2*sqrt(2) lower than 15. (1.0 / (2*sqrt(2)) = 0.354 approx)
• ... and so on.

The three channels then get summed together. The summing isn't quite linear either. I posted a table someone else had measured on actual silicon on this post. jzIntv doesn't actually use that table. It uses a simpler equation that seems to work well enough. (It's mostly linear except for very loud sounds.)

 

The most common and most noticeable inaccuracy with PSG sounds involves mixing the tone with the noise. If you just add tone and noise, you won't get the 'gritty' sounds used for things like the tanks in Armor Battle, or the really impressive bridge-explosion sounds in River Raid. They'll just sound "mushy." You actually have to multiply the noise with the tone to get the right effect.

 

jzIntv does compute the PSG samples at the native rate, and then uses a simple sliding window filter to average PSG samples over a window of time to output samples at more typical sound card rates. (eg. 44.1kHz, or whatever audio rate you provide jzIntv.) The window size is computed as 2 * (psg_rate / sample_rate).

Edited January 16, 2015 by intvnut