the official Channel F thread!

[kleeder]

Quote

Music does get some trashy sound to it

THATS THE BEST PART OF IT !!!!

[e5frog]

Sometimes, when done right. Sleizsa gets more raw in Duo and even more in Trio. 

 

Some tunes are limping forward accompanied by a mess of sounds like it was random data testing what kind of sounds they can make.
Experimental music, sure, intentional?  

WTF?
https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/3669/
https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/13123/
 

Better options, inno particular order:
https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/34347/

https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/30291/
https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/40187/
https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/34675/
https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/27130/

https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/33210/
https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/42491/

https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/33259/
https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/20845/

https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/29989/

https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/40189/
https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/42474/

https://battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/30731/

Should be played back on a real machine though as emulation isn't true to the original - the emulator can play back samples for example.

Looking forward to someone releasing The Beatles "White Album" on a white Channel F cartridge. 

 

 

If anyone wants a tune in their game, ask on Battle of the Bits. 
There's room for a controller check in the code but not a whole lot else - so in-game tunes is perhaps not an option but definitely something for an intro screen.  

[e5frog]

On 11/29/2021 at 6:16 PM, Mikebloke said:

Nothing stopping us making new ones I guess, could easily be mapped to the existing buttons. 4 directional, 2 twists and 2 for pull and push. Not sure on the details of the port but presumably the other buttons would have to be mapped for up and right, etc to get the other numbers, unless it can handle the 4 console buttons mapped via controller port? 

Port has GND and eight directions
I guess it's easy if you use both ports for one pad, if wanting to use one port for each pad it gets a little more difficult if you want controlled used with more than one button. 

With 16 buttons to use, perhaps each button could be a combination of two signals getting grounded. 
The early version has 5V pullups on each signal (no outside connectors though) so maybe 5V can be drawn and electronics added, maybe encode the keypresses as and report back an 8 bit number on the controller input - which would cover all key combinations. Electronics would scan the keyboard and just put data on the port, any modern PIC or whatever would probably be good enough.
 

Console buttons are alone on a CPU port, can't be reached from controllers. 

 

I bought a box, switches and knobs a few years ago - haven't gotten around to making anything. Drilling the holes nicely is probably what made me delay it initially. 

There's no software anyway...   "hen and the egg" situation.   

[ubersaurus]

I noticed the FND Collectables page has gone down. Has anyone saved the typed up Channel F game instructions and scans and whatnot?

[e5frog]

He warned about it, not sure if an offline solution is possible. 

I started saving some but quickly realized it would be a lot of work and hoped someone else would swipe it. 

 

Not sure I could fit it in my current payment plan (available space package) but it would be nice to present it online again. 

 

@FND

If the whole thing was available to download as a package - that would be great (torrent?). 

 

[+stupus]

I wonder if Albert might be interested to host it here at atariage?

Otherwise Marty from the Atari Museum might be willing to?

 

[ubersaurus]

I know Ballyalley was backed up in full on the Internet Archive. That would probably be a good home for the Channel F stuff on his page - either as just the whole website or specific parts of it. If there's interest there I'd say reaching out to Jason Scott would be a good first step.

Edited December 9, 2021 by ubersaurus

[+jgkspsx]

I would be happy to host the files as well. But they should definitely be in the Internet Archive.

[Mikebloke]

Another small little game:

 

Bucket Filler

 

This is my interpretation of the "bucket filling" game that was originally expected to release on the Magnavox Odyssey, but due to various cuts, didn't make it. This is based purely on my understanding of how the game was apparently supposed to run: The game was able to filter the screen blocks of colour (colour was one of the things that was ultimately removed to save money for the Odyssey), the idea of the game was that you pressed the button, and you filled (or emptied) your bucket, filling the screen until it was all your colour.

 

A 2 player game, press the button down to fill a line of the screen your colour. The game ends when the middle line reaches either the top or the bottom of the screen. Press button 4 on the console to reset.

 

BucketFiller.bin

 

Ok this was just a little game I thought I'd do that I felt comfortable doing in a very short amount of time and did it without copy pasting anything but the blit code, and I quite like the fact that its a game that actually; I don't think has been represented visually in any way online (at least none that I know of, if anyone has a video of the game running on its original prototype, I'd like to see it!) though I believe it has been on tour before with the prototypes of the Odyssey. Because of that, I have just guessed how it works. But seeing the description on many websites, this is how I thought it might look (perhaps was meant to be horizontal, perhaps I could do that too...).

[e5frog]

10 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

Bucket Filler

 

This is my interpretation of the "bucket filling" game that was originally expected to release on the Magnavox Odyssey, but due to various cuts, didn't make it. This is based purely on my understanding of how the game was apparently supposed to run: The game was able to filter the screen blocks of colour (colour was one of the things that was ultimately removed to save money for the Odyssey), the idea of the game was that you pressed the button, and you filled (or emptied) your bucket, filling the screen until it was all your colour.

 

Great to see more stuff from you, I could probably stuff these mini-games easily into the Multi-Cart. "Mikebloke's Mini Fun"

What are the controls for the players? VICE for the C= computers has a neat joystick representation in the lower right part of the window - missing that in MAME/MESSUI/MESS. Earlier version had a tendency to crash, turning all controls into the latest pressed button when trying to change them (at least on my PC). The one I'm using now "messui 0.23x" doesn't seem to have that function at all - can't change buttons when running it. EQS213AW for player 1 (reasonable and close together at least) and DZC4RFXV - which is totally crazy and prevents any two player games on the same keyboard - even with two keyboards the layout is terrible. 

Anyway, I'll guess for now, I was able to move the red field all the way to the bottom. 
As far as I can tell downwards plunge move the field in your direction, if both hold their button nothing happens - and that's it?

I have an idea, player needs to choose a direction, can't be the same as the one before, other player try to choose the same (attack and defend). If player 1 choose a used direction he looses ground, if player 2 guesses the direction he gets more ground etc. Could be enjoyable

If you want newcomers to learn from you, please also post the code. It's useful for oneself as well if you have a seven year break and don't remember what you did last time.
 

[Mikebloke]

9 minutes ago, e5frog said:

Great to see more stuff from you, I could probably stuff these mini-games easily into the Multi-Cart. "Mikebloke's Mini Fun"

What are the controls for the players? VICE for the C= computers has a neat joystick representation in the lower right part of the window - missing that in MAME/MESSUI/MESS. Earlier version had a tendency to crash, turning all controls into the latest pressed button when trying to change them (at least on my PC). The one I'm using now "messui 0.23x" doesn't seem to have that function at all - can't change buttons when running it. EQS213AW for player 1 (reasonable and close together at least) and DZC4RFXV - which is totally crazy and prevents any two player games on the same keyboard - even with two keyboards the layout is terrible. 

Anyway, I'll guess for now, I was able to move the red field all the way to the bottom. 
As far as I can tell downwards plunge move the field in your direction, if both hold their button nothing happens - and that's it?

I have an idea, player needs to choose a direction, can't be the same as the one before, other player try to choose the same (attack and defend). If player 1 choose a used direction he looses ground, if player 2 guesses the direction he gets more ground etc. Could be enjoyable

If you want newcomers to learn from you, please also post the code. It's useful for oneself as well if you have a seven year break and don't remember what you did last time.
 

Thanks e5frog! I have wondered once I finished the 'Autoslalom' game whether all 3 of those black and white games can be combined to one ROM which might be worthy of an inclusion... I'd like to think I could get all 3 into less than 4kb! Is there a limit on how big the multicart can handle?

 

Yeah I have to admit the default controls in Mess doesn't feel natural - what I have is player one is arrow keys, then the others are shift, spacebar, alt and ctrl - which makes me lean towards using my left hand on the left side of the keyboard for those controls. On the other hand player 2 is RDFG (instead of traditional WASD) and then Q, W, A and S are the other buttons. Its alterable, but I have to admit I have played on a controller before when playing with kids. So with this game, Ctrl is push down for red and A is push down for blue, but I don't like it either!

 

In mess0210b that I still use, Options - Joysticks - Joystick 1/2 lets you alter the keys.

 

Getting more into making the games is making me wonder about Eprom or other solutions so I can test on real hardware - but I think what I need to do either way is also test for release of a key before its treated as another keypress. The idea should be that players would have to keep pressing but I appreciate at the moment you can just hold it down! Once its reached the edge yes, it prevents further movement. If this was on a real odyssey, I imagine it wouldn't even have that much of an end and you could go back up and down! but I wanted a sense that someone had actually won, and then a need to reset. I'll probably work on this some more with some alternative versions including a start screen and some graphics for winning - because hey why not!

 

I have recently found https://www.assemblytutorial.com/ which although it doesn't cover the F8 / Channel F system it made me wonder if something similar can be done as well. At the moment I reference the VES wiki a lot for specific things like which bit is which key for reading, the instruction set, etc. I don't feel worthy enough of doing the equivalent version when I'm still starting out but I might do something that can be printed and easily used (I already have a few things printed from the original PDFs and some of the pages you've done on the VES wiki).

 

I'm up for releasing the code of this version, I think its fairly simple and has enough things that can be altered to get people started - I'll give a shot at optimising it and commenting it and release it soon.

 

Think I'm nearly ready to take a shot at finishing my Simon game as well now, even when I started that I was very unconfident about what I was doing, whereas small projects like this helps me practice.

[e5frog]

3 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

Thanks e5frog! I have wondered once I finished the 'Autoslalom' game whether all 3 of those black and white games can be combined to one ROM which might be worthy of an inclusion... I'd like to think I could get all 3 into less than 4kb! Is there a limit on how big the multicart can handle?

 

Yeah I have to admit the default controls in Mess doesn't feel natural - what I have is player one is arrow keys, then the others are shift, spacebar, alt and ctrl - which makes me lean towards using my left hand on the left side of the keyboard for those controls. On the other hand player 2 is RDFG (instead of traditional WASD) and then Q, W, A and S are the other buttons. Its alterable, but I have to admit I have played on a controller before when playing with kids. So with this game, Ctrl is push down for red and A is push down for blue, but I don't like it either!

 

In mess0210b that I still use, Options - Joysticks - Joystick 1/2 lets you alter the keys.

 

Getting more into making the games is making me wonder about Eprom or other solutions so I can test on real hardware - but I think what I need to do either way is also test for release of a key before its treated as another keypress. The idea should be that players would have to keep pressing but I appreciate at the moment you can just hold it down! Once its reached the edge yes, it prevents further movement. If this was on a real odyssey, I imagine it wouldn't even have that much of an end and you could go back up and down! but I wanted a sense that someone had actually won, and then a need to reset. I'll probably work on this some more with some alternative versions including a start screen and some graphics for winning - because hey why not!

 

I have recently found https://www.assemblytutorial.com/ which although it doesn't cover the F8 / Channel F system it made me wonder if something similar can be done as well. At the moment I reference the VES wiki a lot for specific things like which bit is which key for reading, the instruction set, etc. I don't feel worthy enough of doing the equivalent version when I'm still starting out but I might do something that can be printed and easily used (I already have a few things printed from the original PDFs and some of the pages you've done on the VES wiki).

 

I'm up for releasing the code of this version, I think its fairly simple and has enough things that can be altered to get people started - I'll give a shot at optimising it and commenting it and release it soon.

 

Think I'm nearly ready to take a shot at finishing my Simon game as well now, even when I started that I was very unconfident about what I was doing, whereas small projects like this helps me practice.

Slots are 16KiB but usable is only 12KiB, $0800-$3FFF where $2800-$2FFF points to RAM, there's a lot of unused space that still can be reached.

Things have been added to the initial required setup, that's why it seems odd. 

 

Yes, the older versions are better... the new programmers has messed things up a bit - but also added new support, like for the Multi-Cart if you mount the whole ROM image. 

 

If you pressed the controller and you'd get a bar, if instead the game continues as usual even if you hold the button (sensing raising edge, from OFF to ON and not just ON) that would make it a challenge as it wouldn't lock up. The one with the least arthritis wins! 

EDIT: ...or if you needed to twist the knob back and forth to make it "pump", which is easier than the plunging motion on the controller.

 

For the next upload, feel free to include bin and code in a zip, please.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2021 by e5frog

[Mikebloke]

On 12/11/2021 at 5:01 PM, e5frog said:

If you pressed the controller and you'd get a bar, if instead the game continues as usual even if you hold the button (sensing raising edge, from OFF to ON and not just ON) that would make it a challenge as it wouldn't lock up. The one with the least arthritis wins! 

EDIT: ...or if you needed to twist the knob back and forth to make it "pump", which is easier than the plunging motion on the controller.

 

For the next upload, feel free to include bin and code in a zip, please.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes need to add sensing off to on, fixed a graphical bug on my part though, I did start documenting code but I think I'm going overboard for absolute beginners, might cut it down again.

 

Working on another short project, nearly done - I can't find background red (pink?) though, background blue seems to be $c3, green, grey and black seem easy to find - does anyone know where background red is?

 

Edit: Wait, is grey the "background red"?

Edited December 13, 2021 by Mikebloke

[e5frog]

There's only grey, green, blue, black as line backgrounds. (yes, grey "is the red") 

The other colors need to be filled manually.

 

I usually write comments for my future self, for when - in X years - I have totally forgotten all about the program. 

[Mikebloke]

3 days of working has led to what I can consider to be something that resembles a game!

 

Shark.bin

 

Shark is a 1 player game where you try to catch the fish while avoiding the shark.

Use Player 1 controls to move across the screen

Push button down to start game

Pull button up / Button 4 on console to reset

 

 On day 1 of development I got the characters for the game on the screen, this is my first actual attempt at something that can be moved which is not a solid block.

 

 On day 2 of development I added scoring, including an on screen display and a game over screen. The Score for your current session (green) is below your session highscore (blue)

 

 On day 3 of development I tied it all together, added a start screen, added better randomisation of the fish movement and spawn and added an increasing difficulty as you score points

 

There is still some things I would like to do to edit this, and I think there is one issue which causes a freeze I need to sort out. Regardless, I'm happy with what I've produced so far.

[Ashevent]

Looks Fun!

[e5frog]

Nice @Mikebloke, some graphics is outside the "safe area", which is the part of the screen inside the checkered frame on a test image. 
Some parts on the outer edges may not show on a "vintage" TV.

 

Chris had a problem like this where the score wasn't showing up completely on his TV, so he shrunk the playfield (Kevin vs Tomatoes) for the next version. 

It can look perfectly fine on some TV:s - manufacturers weren't very thorough setting the TV up at the factory and not everyone can (dare) adjust these things themselves.

 

If comparing to other original games, Pac-Man and SABA#20 is a stretch (especially Pac-Man). 

If taking screenshots of all originals and placing them transparently on top of eachother should give a good idea of the safe area.  

 

... and some TV:s will show several pixels past the edge of the MESS visible area - which is why it's a good idea to work with a larger area than between coordinates 4,4 - 106, 62. 

 

Will try the game this evening, looks fun!

 

[Mikebloke]

1 hour ago, e5frog said:

Nice @Mikebloke, some graphics is outside the "safe area", which is the part of the screen inside the checkered frame on a test image. 
Some parts on the outer edges may not show on a "vintage" TV.

 

Chris had a problem like this where the score wasn't showing up completely on his TV, so he shrunk the playfield (Kevin vs Tomatoes) for the next version. 

It can look perfectly fine on some TV:s - manufacturers weren't very thorough setting the TV up at the factory and not everyone can (dare) adjust these things themselves.

 

If comparing to other original games, Pac-Man and SABA#20 is a stretch (especially Pac-Man). 

If taking screenshots of all originals and placing them transparently on top of eachother should give a good idea of the safe area.  

 

... and some TV:s will show several pixels past the edge of the MESS visible area - which is why it's a good idea to work with a larger area than between coordinates 4,4 - 106, 62. 

 

Will try the game this evening, looks fun!

 

Thanks, I did wonder about this, obviously with the emulator you get the full possible experience. It would be easy enough to adjust values to move things more into the centre. I'll do that in my next update. I do need to work on the randomisation a little bit more, not quite happy with it yet. 

 

From a learning experience I've done a lot with this which was new, though I still look at lines from what others have produced and get confused. 

 

Alongside working with 2 bit colour graphics competently for the first time, using DC more effectively for the score and the random movement and actually showing a score! There's a few other things I picked up. After spending 2-3 hours trying to make my own way of randomising the fish movement I broke and I looked up someone else's example of a lookup table I could emulate myself. I then blended that in with what I already had.

 

Even sleeping on it, I now can see how I can do some of the things I've done quicker. Some of the code in this version is looping or repeating lines of code rather than more effective forms, but I don't think it's too noticeable that this happens. 

 

Colission detection I'm not a huge fan of when a graphic touches another graphic even if it's the 'transparent' pixels, so it's purposely limited to what I consider 'realistic'. For example, if shark mouth is on your torso, you're dead. But if you pass shark tail you are OK. Same with fish, if its near your character hand that is a point, but if you brush past with your feet that does not count. 

 

I'd like to update it again today with shark that faces right when moving right, and for the Colission area to take that into account. 

[Mikebloke]

Ok some more improvements for 2nd version:

 

Shark2.bin

 

First off, I've adjusted the title screen and the play area to compensate for the x boundaries.

Secondly, I've added a third digit for score and highscore (I was already tracking score hundreds to avoid it speeding up more and overflowing to be very slow, but wasn't showing or recording it in highscore)

Finally, I've added a different animation for shark facing right, collision box is altered to reflect this too. There is a safe spot when facing right, so I need to deal with that, got a couple of ideas on how to handle that. The graphic is slightly different to make it looks more obvious which way it is facing.

I also did try to randomise the fish movement again, but its not much, if at all better. Still working on that one! I also fixed a minor graphical issue with the fish being taken leaving some pixels on the screen.

 

I'm wondering if speed up every 10 points is too slow, I wanted to improve the fish movement before I altered it. I also feel that its still a little too easy, and thinking my only other option might be to add a second shark, which will need to behave slightly differently to avoid them merging together. But happier than I was yesterday with it.

[e5frog]

Check my wiki for a pseudo randomizer if you want to, if you use it as a subroutine you'll get a new number in the register you store it just by calling it.

Either you start by calling it multiple times as you wait for user input at the beginning to mix it up a bit (sense no joystick input to avoid holding controller and get the same series of numbers) - or you just set a counter at startup, that counts while waiting for user input and you store that number inte the random number register. 

Works pretty well. 

https://channelf.se/veswiki/index.php?title=Snippet:Pseudorandom_numbers

 

I sometimes get two green dots left on the screen after grabbing the bugger from the left. Perhaps redraw it after it's hit using background color.

It's possible to stand in the middle of the shark and not get hurt (shark stops), aim seems to be on the back and not the dangerous end, if you want to take a break you just stand in the middle of the shark. 

Impressive work in such a short time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ubersaurus]

I did find the Channel F text manuals on the Channel F wiki and the Fairchild annual report scans on the Computer History Museum site, so those are good to have on hand with FND’s page down. It’s made me realize that no manuals are scanned online except for Videocart 1; I’ve had a little scanner and like six boxed games, so I may go ahead and scan my manuals for those and toss them on Archive. Encourage anyone else with the rare stuff to do the same, cuz like hell am I paying for Checkers!

[e5frog]

15 minutes ago, ubersaurus said:

It’s made me realize that no manuals are scanned online except for Videocart 1;

I think all of them are available in the files section on Facebook. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1180282045468082

Edited December 15, 2021 by e5frog

[ubersaurus]

Oh cool! That saves me time. I can scan Schach’s German manual at least.

[+jgkspsx]

51 minutes ago, e5frog said:

I think all of them are available in the files section on Facebook. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1180282045468082

It looks like there are several gaps. Are those okay to put on archive.org? Facebook is a bad place to leave historically relevant things.

[ubersaurus]

As far as I can tell the only gaps for North American carts are the manual for Checkers and any documentation that may have come with the democarts. I know Nate's been fine with his uploads to facebook being added to Ballyalley, so I assume this would also be fine to include on Archive.

 

On an aside, I'm currently working on mini-doc about the history of the Channel F - will definitely link it in once I've got it done and uploaded.

Edited December 15, 2021 by ubersaurus