glurk Posted April 2, 2022 Share Posted April 2, 2022 This wasn't supposed to work. Back in January, I did a partial disassembly of Activision's "Tennis." I couldn't figure it all out, so I quit on it and posted what I had finished in the 2600 forum. And mostly forgot about it. But recently, I had an idea. What if instead of figuring it all out, I JUST took the disassembly I had and made it work on the 8bits by changing GRP0 to GRAFP0, COLUBK to COLBK, etc, etc etc... To my great surprise, it actually worked. A bit more work, and I added in some graphics for the playfield stuff, a sound routine, and my ubiquitous logo. And it's all working pretty well. Some minor issues, but I thought I'd get a demo out there. This one balances things out for me, as I've now done 2 Steve Cartwright's. 2 David Crane's and 2 Alan Miller's... I'll polish this one off at a later time, but for now: tenny.bin 21 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted April 2, 2022 Share Posted April 2, 2022 I played the crap out of this on my 2600 back in the day - cant wait to give this a try! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glurk Posted April 2, 2022 Author Share Posted April 2, 2022 I'm calling these the FINAL releases. I can't find any bugs... OPTION changes difficulty settings, although computer kicks my butt regardless... Same as the original version, LOL. I may try, at a later time, to get this on the 5200. NTSC and PAL for now. Tennis - FINAL [NTSC].car Tennis - FINAL [PAL].car 4 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACML Posted April 2, 2022 Share Posted April 2, 2022 (edited) 39 minutes ago, glurk said: I'm calling these the FINAL releases. I can't find any bugs... OPTION changes difficulty settings, although computer kicks my butt regardless... Same as the original version, LOL. I may try, at a later time, to get this on the 5200. NTSC and PAL for now. Tennis - FINAL [NTSC].car 8.02 kB · 3 downloads Tennis - FINAL [PAL].car 8.02 kB · 1 download This is awesome! Any chance someone could make an XEX version, please....? That way you can load it right off a SIO2SD. Edited April 2, 2022 by ACML Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glurk Posted April 2, 2022 Author Share Posted April 2, 2022 I left out a memory-clear part, and was getting a whistling sound on some hardware, so new ones: Tennis - FINAL [NTSC].car Tennis - FINAL [PAL].car If someone (else) wants to make a XEX version, they are welcome to. But these run in cartridge 'diagnostic mode' so it might be easier said than done... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glurk Posted April 3, 2022 Author Share Posted April 3, 2022 (edited) REALLY FINAL this time, I hope, LOL... These fix a small graphics issue with out-of-bounds balls. It was easy enough to fix, and makes it look better than having a glitch... There will be no 5200 version, due to programming difficulties. I could probably make it work, with much time and effort, but this game is not really worth taking up that much time on. Not that I think I've done a bad port, I just don't think it's a particularly inspiring game... EDIT: I goofed, I uploaded ones without the fix added. I'll post them later, I'm in need of rest and getting sloppy... Edited April 3, 2022 by glurk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glurk Posted April 3, 2022 Author Share Posted April 3, 2022 OK, now I got em... Just a couple small fixes to finish this off. Not much changed from the original Activision game on this one, black-webby net and a yellow ball (which is hard to even notice). Some few other tiny unnoticeable things... This was kind of an easy (accidental) port, it was an experiment that worked. Turns out that the original 2600 kernel for this one was so "loose" (not cycle-counting precise, "tight") that it ported over to the 8bits and just worked. I didn't have to do very much at all. I could have gone crazy with this, and added more court lines, and texturified grass, blah, blah. But that's never been my intent, and I suck at graphic art anyways. But it's a nice little Tennis 'simulation' and the first Tennis game to use this perspective I think (read that somewhere...) Fixed versions: Tennis - FINAL [NTSC].car Tennis - FINAL [PAL].car 10 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted April 3, 2022 Share Posted April 3, 2022 Great conversion, not sure why I feel so smug when I win a point (my thumbs hurt now ? ) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted April 3, 2022 Share Posted April 3, 2022 Its all in the angles with this one - once you figure it out you can win the easy difficulty - harder difficulty is almost impossible! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted April 3, 2022 Share Posted April 3, 2022 58 minutes ago, Goochman said: Its all in the angles with this one How do you get the angles ? I couldn't seem to make it go anywhere I wanted regardless of the joystick position Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted April 3, 2022 Share Posted April 3, 2022 Something seems to be going on with their feet. In the 800 version they lose and regain their feet at various times. I don't see this happening in the 2600 version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted April 3, 2022 Share Posted April 3, 2022 2 hours ago, MrFish said: Something seems to be going on with their feet. Their heads are different too - as if there's an off-by-1 error on both the top and the bottom of the players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glurk Posted April 3, 2022 Author Share Posted April 3, 2022 I was already aware of those sprite issues. But the data is at the same LSB offsets as the original, and I even tried a +1 / -1 bump to no avail. I put it down to minor timing differences and left it at that, because it seems to have zero effect on gameplay. It might be an easy fix, it might take weeks to track down, who knows. I chose to just leave it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted April 3, 2022 Share Posted April 3, 2022 There are some other oddities with the sprites too. If you look at their rackets, they don't have the same shape, and sometimes appear square in the 800 version. Also, their extended arm should always look as seen in the 2600 screenshot above. I had a look into the ROM, and the sprite data looks to be correct. So, it has to be something with how they're being rendered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devwebcl Posted April 3, 2022 Share Posted April 3, 2022 Thanks for this conversion! I always wanted to have this game in a8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glurk Posted April 4, 2022 Author Share Posted April 4, 2022 Just FYI to all... I've located and fixed the sprite issues noted by @MrFish and @SpiceWare but I'm going to go over the code a bit more before I release the new ones. It was a combination of issues. For one thing on the 2600, all the TIA registers are zero-page but on the 8 bit, the ANTIC/GTIA registers are NOT. So the stores take longer to GRAFP0 than to GRP0 for example. So I sorted thru all that crap... It does look better now, but must test a bit more before release. 4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glurk Posted April 4, 2022 Author Share Posted April 4, 2022 Sometimes it takes a while to get all the kinks out. Probably a good thing that people point out these issues, keeps me on my toes. I was probably going to let this one slip, but I've found and fixed the sprite problems, and now it's a better game and more like the original. So, again: Tennis - FINAL [NTSC].car Tennis - FINAL [PAL].car I still don't think I'll be able to do a 5200 version though. I tried again, and it's just not working out at all... Sorry about that. This game is programmed in a whole different way than all the others I've done, it's basically a bare-metal port of the 2600 kernel. And it was from scratch, in that I did the whole 2600 disassembly and conversion all on my own. But it doesn't use any of the framework stuff I usually use, so it won't readily convert to 5200. 17 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted April 4, 2022 Share Posted April 4, 2022 If you chuck the sources onto the DM thread for 5200 porting I added you to then we can take a look 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 5200 port ready 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGHMW Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 Well since both @glurk and @Wrathchild are ON A ROLL, is a port of Chopper Command anywhere near a remote possibility in the future? Just a thought. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 On 4/4/2022 at 5:32 AM, glurk said: Sometimes it takes a while to get all the kinks out. Probably a good thing that people point out these issues, keeps me on my toes. I was probably going to let this one slip, but I've found and fixed the sprite problems, and now it's a better game and more like the original. So, again: Tennis - FINAL [NTSC].car 8.02 kB · 134 downloads Tennis - FINAL [PAL].car 8.02 kB · 66 downloads I still don't think I'll be able to do a 5200 version though. I tried again, and it's just not working out at all... Sorry about that. This game is programmed in a whole different way than all the others I've done, it's basically a bare-metal port of the 2600 kernel. And it was from scratch, in that I did the whole 2600 disassembly and conversion all on my own. But it doesn't use any of the framework stuff I usually use, so it won't readily convert to 5200. Love this, you have won the race against time and it's working nicely. I missed this earlier and just caught up today. Thank you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACML Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 On 4/4/2022 at 5:46 AM, Wrathchild said: If you chuck the sources onto the DM thread for 5200 porting I added you to then we can take a look Love this port. Still would be greatly appreciative if someone could make this an XEX file so it could be loaded with a SIO2SD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eea Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 18 hours ago, ACML said: Love this port. Still would be greatly appreciative if someone could make this an XEX file so it could be loaded with a SIO2SD. tenny.xex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACML Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 56 minutes ago, eea said: tenny.xex 15.61 kB · 4 downloads Thank You very much. Brings back memories. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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