Jump to content
IGNORED

Stella Programming Guide spelling errors


Recommended Posts

Stella Programming Guide spelling errors

 

With Andrew's tutorial .. I've been reading the Stella Programming Guide .. but I am astonished at how many spelling errors are throughout that republication. Sure Charles Sunnet did a great job restructuring it .. but now that it is in PDF format, I guess it would be a difficult job trying to redo the text.

 

There are a few HTML ized versions out there .. That would be a start for correcting the errors. Or has someone already done that? The one HTML version I looked at preserved all the spelling errors.

 

Now if I took one HTML version and corrected all the spelling errors I have found .. and someone else proofreads it .. might that become the authorized King James Version of the Stella Programming Guide? Then perhaps someone can convert it back to PDF and post here on Atariage?

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Want to make a list of technical errors?  On which page numbers?

Sorry, I don't have a complete list of those errors, but I'll can give you a few:

 

VDELPx don't delay they player graphics by just one line. When enabled they write into an invisible shadow register (e.g. GRP0_2), which is copied into the visible register (e.g. GRP0) when something is written to the opposite player graphics register (e.g. GRP1).

 

And VDELBL also doesn't delay the ball just by one line. The ball then also uses a shadow register which is triggered by writing into GRP1.

 

And I am missing some quite important timings, e.g. when you have to write to the PF-registers before and after they are displayed. This is important especially for PF2 in the reflected PF mode (@48!). Here are my timings (no guarantee!):


| PF0 |   PF1   |   PF2   | PF0 |   PF1   |   PF2   | REF=0

|4   7|7       0|0       7|4   7|7       0|0       7|

|22.26|27 ..  37|38 ..  47|48.53|54 ..  63|64 ..  75|



| PF0 |   PF1   |   PF2   |   PF2   |   PF1   | PF0 | REF=1

|4   7|7       0|0       7|7       0|0       7|7   4|

|22.26|27 ..  37|38 ..  47|48 ..  58|59 ..  69|70.75|

 

Then the warning about the 24 cycles after HMOVE should also be mentioned for RESPx.

 

And IIRC the "HMOVE Blanks" are not mentioned at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Were any of these errors fixed in the revised version Atari did in the late 80s?

 

Where is this revised version? All I can find is the PDF/ HTML of the 1979 version. The whole thing needs to be corrected, revised and reproofed.

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

 

I have been toying with the idea of writing a completely new technical guide, as a part of the '2600 for Newbies tutorial. I don't see why we need to stick to Atari's version at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been toying with the idea of writing a completely new technical guide, as a part of the '2600 for Newbies tutorial.  I don't see why we need to stick to Atari's version at all.

 

I was going to approach you and see if you wanted to do this .. New text, graphics and illustrations. That would be great!

 

I still think that it would be historically important to preserve what Steve Wright at Atari had written. Just correct the spelling errors and other technical errors.

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Were any of these errors fixed in the revised version Atari did in the late 80s?

 

Where is this revised version? All I can find is the PDF/ HTML of the 1979 version. The whole thing needs to be corrected, revised and reproofed.

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

 

Look here.

 

Mitch

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

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