Silkworm - Playable Demo/Test

[+MrFish]

 

Reposting this against strict orders from command control...

 

 

 

Silkworm [PAL] (Eagle).xex

 

[Beeblebrox]

Nice. Now if this had some colourful enemy sprite multiplexing, (a la last squadron), and colour explosions, (ditto), plus some more dli coloured parallax scrolling in the background, a variety of weapon upgrades, (and maybe even some digitized Sound FX) this would look and play very nicely.... 

 

Aside the A8 limitations I do appreciate the above demo is a faithful port of the original but it has the basis of a cool horizontal showcase shooter for the A8.

 

Love the subtle chopper animation as it tilts when manovering.

 

As a reminder here is the Atari ST version, (with as it happens very jerky scrolling):

 

[TGB1718]

Can't get it to run,

SDX says memory conflict even with 'X'

 

put on a bootable floppy and it crashes

 

put on SD card and run from SIDE3 loader - crashes

 

how did you get it to run Beeb ?

[Beeblebrox]

I just ran it quickly in altirra. I'll try and run it on real hardware, including stock and also an U1MB A8 on my side3, a little later.

[Beeblebrox]

@TGB1718   ok I've had the same issue on real hardware off Side3 on the following:

 

800XL (256k Rambo XL)

800XL U1MB

 

Both just boot to the blue screen with cursor and hang

 

I tried U1MB with 320k and 576k as well as 1088k, and also with PBI HDD off. Same crash.

[flashjazzcat]

Obnoxiously loads at $700 and overwrites the binary loader module.

 

[+MrFish]

10 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Obnoxiously loads at $700 and overwrites the binary loader module.

@Eagle

 

[Peri Noid]

11 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Obnoxiously loads at $700 and overwrites the binary loader module.

XBIOS-only?  

[flashjazzcat]

2 minutes ago, Peri Noid said:

XBIOS-only?  

It might be appropriate.

[+MrFish]

20 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Obnoxiously loads at $700 and overwrites the binary loader module.

 

On 3/14/2023 at 12:40 PM, Eagle said:

Please do not put this on A8 forum  

 

Maybe that's why he gave those instructions. Haha...

 

[Wrathchild]

Run it through exomiser?

[flashjazzcat]

Well, it deliberately uses $700-$7C0 rather than any other 193 byte area immediately below the subsequent segment which loads at $1000, and it stores nothing in between, so I don't know.

[+MrFish]

19 minutes ago, Peri Noid said:

XBIOS-only?  

 

 

[Wrathchild]

OK, so: exomizer.exe sfx $1000 -n -t 168 -Di_table_addr=$500 -Di_load_addr=$4000 -o "Silkworm [PAL] (Eagle, Exomizer).xex" "Silkworm [PAL] (Eagle).xex"

 

Old loader:

EXE: Loading program 0006-0007 to 02E0-02E1
EXE: Loading program 000C-00AA to 0600-069E
EXE: Loading program 00AF-0171 to 0700-07C2
EXE: Loading program 0176-3098 to 1000-3F22
EXE: Loading program 309D-489C to 6400-7BFF
EXE: Loading program 48A1-54A0 to 8000-8BFF
EXE: Launching at 1000

 

New loader:

 

EXE: Loading program 0006-21CB to 4000-61C5
EXE: Loading program 21D0-21D1 to 02E0-02E1
EXE: Launching at 4000
 

Silkworm [PAL] (Eagle, Exomizer).xex

[Eagle]

@MrFishwhyyyyyyy?  

[+MrFish]

3 minutes ago, Eagle said:

@MrFishwhyyyyyyy?  

I was in a "what if?" mood.

 

[Eagle]

This is from 2012 🙈

I started A7800 version. You can find video on forum. 

[+MrFish]

25 minutes ago, Eagle said:

This is from 2012 🙈

I don't recall seeing it back then. I do remember @Tezz doing a couple Silkworm demos... and I remember seeing your Cybernoid demos back then.

  

25 minutes ago, Eagle said:

I started A7800 version. You can find video on forum. 

Yeah, it's coming along well.

 

Any plans to work further on an Atari 8-bit computer version?

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

4 hours ago, Peri Noid said:

XBIOS-only?  

 

Nope, since its size is less than 32KB, one can also use Supercopy to convert it to a DOS-friendly file. The new DOS-friendly file (on an ATR image) can be loaded, but pressing Reset will crash the computer...

http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-super-copy_15934.html

 

Silkworm.zip

[solo/ng]

Eagle dropped it for XL/XE

 

instead he is doing uber version for 7800:

 

[+MrFish]

1 hour ago, solo/ng said:

Eagle dropped it for XL/XE

 

instead he is doing uber version for 7800:

Yeah, well, the XL/XE's are too hard for some people to program. So, I can empathize. 

 

[twh/f2]

On 4/3/2023 at 7:52 PM, MrFish said:

 

Reposting this against strict orders from command control...

 

 

 

Silkworm [PAL] (Eagle).xex 21.16 kB · 30 downloads

 

 

impressive demo. another example of looking into some kind of parellel universe where the Atari 800/XL/XE platform was supported on a much larger scale by the game industry.

 

No matter how limited the platform was - if there was a market a conversion was done (see all those ports on ZX spectrum, BBC). It's a bit sad though, that it seems like the Atari 800 platform was actually a very pleasant platform, that just nobody wanted to support 😞

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[+MrFish]

20 minutes ago, twh/f2 said:

impressive demo. another example of looking into some kind of parellel universe where the Atari 800/XL/XE platform was supported on a much larger scale by the game industry.

 

No matter how limited the platform was - if there was a market a conversion was done (see all those ports on ZX spectrum, BBC). It's a bit sad though, that it seems like the Atari 800 platform was actually a very pleasant platform, that just nobody wanted to support 😞

 

Making commercial software isn't a charity.

 

On the brighter side, holes in the software library means loads of opportunities for modern developers. The Atari 8-bit computers still have a bright future ahead.