Berks Four (64K) - New Release

[256 colors]

Don't forget the release of Berks 4 can be played on Yape too for the PLUS 4

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

CONGRATULATIONS to Berks Four for being nominated in the 2019 Atari Homebrew Awards!

 

Be sure to vote for your favourite homebrew games of 2019 with the links below and watch the awards LIVE on February 1, 2020!

 

Awards Show: February 1, 2020 @ 12:00PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT LIVE on the ZeroPage Homebrew Twitch Channel!

 

Atari Homebrew Awards Categories (VOTE IN ALL!!):

• Atari 2600: Best Homebrew
• Atari 7800: Best Homebrew (New!)
• Atari 8-Bit/5200: Best Homebrew (New!)
• Atari 2600: Best ≤ 4K Homebrew (2600) (New!)
• Atari 2600: Best Graphics
• Atari 2600: Best Music & Sound
• Atari 2600: Best Packaging
• Atari 2600: Best WIP

[+sramirez2008]

@Nojeee I just watched the replay of ZeroPageHomebrew's Twitch stream and this game looks amazing. Any chance of getting this converted for use with the Atari 5200?

 

Thanks.

[TrekMD]

This game looks cool!

[Nojeee]

13 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

@Nojeee I just watched the replay of ZeroPageHomebrew's Twitch stream and this game looks amazing. Any chance of getting this converted for use with the Atari 5200?

 

Thanks.

I have to admit I've never programmed anything on the Atari 5200 so I'm not sure whether the code could be easily adapted to suit the system. The final A8 version only had a few bytes free and there was a lot of swapping stuff around in RAM to make things fit. The code and data ended up around 48KB so it wouldn't squeeze into a 32KB cartridge ... but might work with some sort of bank switching?

 

I'd certainly be willing to look into it.

 

Jon

[Wrathchild]

2 hours ago, Nojeee said:

I'd certainly be willing to look into it.

I don't mind giving you a hand as have done many ports from A8->5200
So long as the working RAM is not > 16KB then it should be possible.
Also some of the data can be compress to ROM and extracted to RAM if needs be and might squeeze in, but bank switching a possibility too

I'll drop you a PM later

[+sramirez2008]

3 hours ago, Nojeee said:

I'd certainly be willing to look into it.

 

Jon

On behalf of the 5200 community, thanks for considering this.?

 

1 hour ago, Wrathchild said:

I don't mind giving you a hand as have done many ports from A8->5200
So long as the working RAM is not > 16KB then it should be possible.
Also some of the data can be compress to ROM and extracted to RAM if needs be and might squeeze in, but bank switching a possibility too

I'll drop you a PM later

Thank you for wanting to help.  I really like this game and would like to be able to play it on a 5200, but will understand if this can't happen.  

 

Thank you both for considering this.?

[Nojeee]

1 hour ago, Wrathchild said:

I don't mind giving you a hand as have done many ports from A8->5200
So long as the working RAM is not > 16KB then it should be possible.
Also some of the data can be compress to ROM and extracted to RAM if needs be and might squeeze in, but bank switching a possibility too

I'll drop you a PM later

Any pointers would be much appreciated. The main game would definitely run with 16KB RAM - it’s just the location map that might complicate things.

 

I doubt if compression would allow it to fit into 32KB as the main data area is ‘hand compressed’ already. I quickly tested zipping the final .exe and it’s still greater than 32KB. I’ve written games with cartridge banking before so as long as MADS handles it then there shouldn’t be a problem with the code - it’s just any hardware quirks that I’m unsure about.

 

I look forward to your PM as you’ll probably be able to let me know about any pitfalls.

 

Jon

[+bhall408]

On 3/23/2019 at 2:53 PM, Nojeee said:

Finally, the game uses all of the available 64K of memory and needs a 2-stage load to get everything into place. I've tested the bootable ATR disk on my 130XE and it runs fine. I'd be interested to hear if it runs ok from any of the cartridge utilities.

 

Would it be theoretically possible to do an XEX/OBJ?

 

Is the 1st stage of the loader doing something that isn't normally done/possible via XEX?

 

Is it "just" a matter of getting all the data from the disk into the proper spots in RAM?

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

14 minutes ago, bhall408 said:

 

Would it be theoretically possible to do an XEX/OBJ?

 

Yes, Homesoft already did it. Search for Berks Four or simply download disk 447:

http://www.mushca.com/f/atari/index.php?idx=9

[+bhall408]

13 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

Yes, Homesoft already did it. Search for Berks Four or simply download disk 447:

http://www.mushca.com/f/atari/index.php?idx=9

That did the trick! Hopefully there is no difference between that and the ATR version!

[+bhall408]

On 4/29/2021 at 6:47 PM, bhall408 said:

That did the trick! Hopefully there is no difference between that and the ATR version!

For those wondering why -- we're planning on adding 800 support to Argon later this year, and we figure for (at least) the initial implementation we will only be supporting CAR and XEX/OBJ to keep things simple. ie, formats where we can read the file and jam it into memory directly (with the caveat of supporting load/run addresses "as you go" in XEX/OBJ)