the official Channel F thread!

[TheFairChild]

On 10/1/2024 at 7:15 PM, e5frog said:

perhaps add a delay and/or detect that there's no controller indata (release) before restarting. 

Thanks! I actually ended up replacing the debounce mechanism I had in place with your "check for release" idea (it works better for a board game, I think debouncing would be more useful in an arcade game where you want continuous input).

 

I think I am done with this game for now. Added since last time:

- I reorganized the code a lot (maybe too much, I guess that's me trying to apply modern software development methods to an old assembly language ;))

- the game now has 3 game modes: Quick Game (or Best of 1 basically), Bo3 and Bo5

- scores (both for the current game, and for the match in case of Bo3 or Bo5) are displayed in the sidebar - pretty simple to do once you understand BCD

- chips flipping is slightly animated (nothing fancy, just a delay when flipping pieces to see what is being flipped)

- at the end of a game, I made it so that you need to "pull up" the button to go to the next game (to avoid inadvertent presses). That's the Alt on Mame for those of us testing with emulators only

 

The master branch on github is up to date.

 

That was a nice trip down memory lane I must admit, last weeks were pretty fun digging around ChannelF history. Amazing community.

If someone needs help or something, development related or not, and if I can help with my limited abilities, don't hesitate to ping me.

 

Some screenshots:

 

  

Edited October 11 by TheFairChild

[TheFairChild]

I also posted it on itch.io as @Mikebloke suggested, just for the posterity

https://sonyc.itch.io/reversif

[e5frog]

What does it say at the bottom right, grey text?

[Mikebloke]

54 minutes ago, TheFairChild said:

I also posted it on itch.io as @Mikebloke suggested, just for the posterity

https://sonyc.itch.io/reversif

Nice, I've added it to my "channel F games by other people" collection, I do get quite a few views and I'd say 90+% of my downloads is now from that site. It certainly helps me keep going.

 

Got another game on the way just need to get round to finishing it, this weekend maybe!

[TheFairChild]

2 hours ago, e5frog said:

What does it say at the bottom right, grey text?

It says Bo1, Bo3, or Bo5  Maybe fonts 4x3 are a bit too small...

[+fdr4prez]

27 minutes ago, TheFairChild said:

It says Bo1, Bo3, or Bo5  Maybe fonts 4x3 are a bit too small...

 

 

oh, that's short for Best of 1, Best of 3 or Best of 5, yeah?

 

based on the menu selection:

 

Quick game = Best of 1 (Bo1)

[e5frog]

No need to shrink if it's not needed. 

Edited October 11 by e5frog

[TheFairChild]

True, that looks a lot better!

[e5frog]

Tested it with picoVideocart - which sometimes work - there's a lot of work left to be done on that, if it's ever possible to make a fully compatible unit with these low priced items. 

Might do a real test from eprom and real IC:s later but this was a quick way of trying it.

I have a BackBit on the way - it's a costly but probably working option.

 

Running on a 2MHz old version console, if it works there it works on everything else (same goes for the inadequate picoVideocart). 

Using this particular eight channel positions early 80's Peony TV (which I have never seen or heard about before)

https://www.finna.fi/Record/tm_ah.M011-50160

It's adjusted differently than the imaginary screen size of DASM/MESS, but that differs between TV:s and consoles - it's not a digital image format. 

Image could be more or less left/right/up/down/zoom in/out. 

 

(this TV also needs the neck coil to be twisted as the image is slightly rotated.)
Anyway:

 

 

Nothing to say about that except for the green fill could overlap a bit more than it does. Filling from real coordinates (not the routine adjusted to 4,4) 0,0 to 63,106 usually works in all variations I have tried. 

For a revisit or next project I also recommend just setting the palette columns and then fill screen if you don't want to clear to background using the built-in clearscreen routine. 

 

Using the picoVideocart I could not use the left controller properly (seems fine in emulation), pushing forward starts a Bo1-game, backwards draws a blue dot by the R and resets and other movements have no effect. 

If there's similar errors it usually varies between restarts but it kept (not) working the same - again: it might just be the picoVideocart. 
Right controller works fine.

 

In game there are no problems at all, could have a lower fill with blue (possibly up and right as well) and for some reason the lower grey line isn't fully drawn, this might also be because of the picoVideocart - or maybe too little delay in the drawing routine. 

Didn't it have repeating cursor before?  Hold right and it would keep a steady pace to the right - I really liked that instead of pushing once per step. 

 

 

 

Here's the winning screen (I won - as I was playing alone). 

Here's how Hockey looks on this TV:

 

 

Are there no sounds at all or did I miss them?

 

 

 

Impressive work @TheFairChild!
I hope we'll see more titles from you. 
Maybe a five-in-a-row next?

 

Edited October 12 by e5frog

[TheFairChild]

Wahoo, that's really cool to see it running "for real" !

3 hours ago, e5frog said:

0,0 to 63,106 usually works

Good to know, I will update that.

 

3 hours ago, e5frog said:

For a revisit or next project I also recommend just setting the palette columns and then fill screen if you don't want to clear to background using the built-in clearscreen routine.

When I read that, I finally understood what I read about the palette on the VESWiki! Thanks, that would indeed be much more efficient.

 

Quote

Didn't it have repeating cursor before?  Hold right and it would keep a steady pace to the right - I really liked that instead of pushing once per step. 

Yes, it did, but I was using some debounce mechanism for that. I lost that when I started using the "Wait for release" trick. I may change back to debouncing, at least for moving on the board.

 

No idea why the left controller doesn't work though. On MAME, do you know why controller is mapped to the arrow keys/Ctrl key? Is it the left or right one?

About the line that is not fully plotted on the sidebar, maybe it has to do with the fact that I changed the delay in plot to "4" (instead of the original "6"). I will try to change it back for the next version.

 

Quote

Are there no sounds at all or did I miss them?

There are no sounds at the moment, you didn't miss them

I read about the theory of playing sound on VESWiki, but didn't get around to try it yet. Maybe in the next few days.

 

I also would like a "vs Computer" mode. There are a few ways that I can think of to make a simple AI to play against.

 

Thanks so much for all your feedback.

[e5frog]

21 hours ago, TheFairChild said:

No idea why the left controller doesn't work though. On MAME, do you know why controller is mapped to the arrow keys/Ctrl key? Is it the left or right one?

About the line that is not fully plotted on the sidebar, maybe it has to do with the fact that I changed the delay in plot to "4" (instead of the original "6"). I will try to change it back for the next version.

Not sure if these are real problems or if they're caused by the picoVideocart - I can do a proper test. 

[e5frog]

Did a proper test with original hardware, no problems at all (like the purple pico cart has with some consoles) - works exactly as in emulation.

 

When commenting on the release check I meant it could be added on the end screen only, the repeating movement when gaming was very nice. Perhaps I should fork it and reintroduce it. 

 

Any ideas how to add a computer opponent (please don't call it AI)?

I guess it could be made unbeatable... which, I heard, is a common way of doing it and then dumb it down. Maybe some random sequence is played occasionally and more random draws for more "stupid" computer.

Edited 20 hours ago by e5frog

[TheFairChild]

7 hours ago, e5frog said:

Did a proper test with original hardware, no problems at all (like the purple pico cart has with some consoles) - works exactly as in emulation.

That's awesome!

 

The last version on github (and itch.io) has a number of fixes, and one main new feature:

- the titlescreen and the sidebar extend a bit more to the bottom now, to try fixing the issue you had on a real TV

- also changed the delay between plots from 4 to 6 (it was 6 on the veswiki, it was my fault for changing it to 4 like in Videocart 21; maybe that's what was causing the bad white line in the sidebar)

- using the palette set with blit now, instead of the Bios clrscreen, as you suggested

- changed the fonts and the text to make it bigger: as you said, no need to shrink it if it's not needed!

- and finally, I spent a few hours the last week-end to add a computer opponent

 

7 hours ago, e5frog said:

I guess it could be made unbeatable... which, I heard, is a common way of doing it and then dumb it down. Maybe some random sequence is played occasionally and more random draws for more "stupid" computer.

The version I did is basically using a scoring system (number of chips it can flip basically), along with positional weighting to determine the best move. When several moves of equal weight (or score) can be played, a random one is chosen (thanks for the LFSR implementation, pretty interesting!). It is not unbeatable, but can give some challenge if you don't pay attention.

You can see the computer move the cursor when it knows what to play, this is silly, but this is actually a touch that I really like

 

One way it could be made (a lot) better is by adding:

- minimax: basically allowing the computer to look-ahead several moves. However, I am soon running short of registers (still not using the schach ram)

- also add some alpha-beta pruning: basically pruning moves that we know have no future => this is an optimization of minimax

- then there are some trickier things: special endgame strategies, some pattern recognition (especially along the borders of the board, there are some nice tricks to play)

 

7 hours ago, e5frog said:

the repeating movement when gaming was very nice. Perhaps I should fork it and reintroduce it.

I didn't add it back yet, but shouldn't be too hard. I will give it a go tomorrow maybe.

If you prefer, I can add you as collaborator on the repository (if you have a github account). Or you can fork it of course

 

The game now sits at ~6kb. That's fat  This is really interesting, because reorganizing the code the way I did, with maybe too much MACRO use, made the code easier to debug/features easier to add, but at the expense of the size. There were some clever tricks that I used in the first version (like reusing registers in a crazy way) that I couldn't do once I started using MACROs/routines. This really makes you realize how far we have come in terms of computer programming science / methods.

Edited 12 hours ago by TheFairChild

[doug0909]

I'm really enjoying the Channel F  games from Android play store, especially Dodge It, Shooting Gallery, and Robot War, all of which play nicely on a touch screen. 

 

Here's the link for Robot War...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.channelfllc.channelfrobotwar

 

But what's this company behind them?

 

https://channelf.com/

 

 

 

 

[Mikebloke]

5 hours ago, doug0909 said:

I'm really enjoying the Channel F  games from Android play store, especially Dodge It, Shooting Gallery, and Robot War, all of which play nicely on a touch screen. 

 

Here's the link for Robot War...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.channelfllc.channelfrobotwar

 

But what's this company behind them?

 

https://channelf.com/

 

 

 

 

My understand is some dad and his kid got the rights to the name by US laws of abandonment. I think their intention was to make a game actually on the system and make out they were the first to do so despite people like e5frog being instrumental in getting homebrew carts made for years.

 

It looks like they've given up on making actual channel F games as the mobile games look like they've been made in java and are obviously beyond what the channel F would have actually done.

 

Interestingly I can't download the games, it's not available in my country (the UK) so either they've purposely set it to be certain countries only or they've coded the games so badly it doesn't actually fulfil most countries privacy policies. The Google play store suggests it takes location and other data, which for a game like that is an interesting bit of data to take.

 

Edit: if I got this right, the app allows itself to track all your financial credentials on your phone and isn't data protected in anyway, oh dear!

Edited 4 hours ago by Mikebloke

[TheFairChild]

9 hours ago, TheFairChild said:

the repeating movement when gaming was very nice. Perhaps I should fork it and reintroduce it

Debounce is back on the master branch

[TheFairChild]

1 hour ago, Mikebloke said:

Edit: if I got this right, the app allows itself to track all your financial credentials on your phone and isn't data protected in anyway, oh dear!

I think you are referring to the "Financial Info" share permission. This is only the history of in-app purchases if I remember Android dev correctly, not your actual financial credentials.

I can't download the app either in my country, so I can't test it, but if there is no in-app transactions, then this is just a useless permission that they could have forgotten to remove.

 

On their website (channelf.com), they say "CHANNEL F is a trademark of Skalectrotechny, LLC.". Never heard of that Skalectrotechny company, and Google doesn't seem to know about it either.

[e5frog]

It's the Skalny-people, they registered the Channel F buttons as trademark as well as words "Channel F" and "Videocart". Sell/sold hoodies and other stuff with cut and paste Channel F console imagery - like those services where you can upload an image and get it printed on anything.

They made the board game Skal(ny)boar(d)ga(me), both as a physical game and as a  Channel F game - as download only.

I made a cart for Ron, disassembled and cleaned things up to get a binary exactly the original. Pretty nice work but difficult to understand without instructions. 

Don't know who programmed it but there are some easy improvements that can be made to increase performance.

I'd guess one of them hang around here as well.

You can't get the phone games in Sweden either, an emulator on the phone would have been really cool instead of remakes.

[e5frog]

1 hour ago, TheFairChild said:

Debounce is back on the master branch

Wohoooo!

[e5frog]

11 hours ago, TheFairChild said:

The game now sits at ~6kb. That's fat  This is really interesting, because reorganizing the code the way I did, with maybe too much MACRO use, made the code easier to debug/features easier to add, but at the expense of the size. 

Yes, there's s lot of macros, had to disassemble and remake the previous version into a single file to understand it all.   That's of course a lack of skill on my part.