2005 Stella Programmer's Contest

[EricBall]

I've still not decided exactly what I want to do, though I do have some ideas.  A question, though: how should a games that requires loading each level be handled?  Assume, hypothetically, that there are 16 levels of 256 bytes each.

 

Anyone have any thoughts?

1011001[/snapback]

Traditionally SC games are coded as #1. For Leprechaun I plan on using load #0 for the main game w/ the first level, then #1 for the first level, #2 for the second, etc. On a CD I'd probably store each level as a separate track. (To better support Glenn's joy2serial auto-load fob idea.)

 

One thing to consider is how the various emulators & RAMcarts handle multi-load games. i.e. for CC2 each load is a separate file with the load # as part of the filename, but for Stella & Z26 all of the loads are concatenated into a separate file. (Which means #2 probably won't work with either.) (CC1 will be just like SC, KK doesn't support SC.)

 

For your audio idea, why not just read one bit per kernel line? That's ~24 bytes/frame with a frequency bandwith of 7850Hz. Although it would probably be possible to sync the frame to the data, how would you restart the data stream?

[Gateway]

Less than a month left!

 

Unfortunately for me, many other "life" priorities have taken precedence despite my plan to get a few BatariBasic programs started this summer.

 

At the least, I've got a Globetrotter collectible I'm putting together for release soon, that is related to this hobby.

 

I've been following in the member blogs, and in the Programming forums, but there doesn't seem to be very many official entries, if any, thus far. Though there may be several last minute surprises that are being worked on. Also, I've been signed up for the Stella list for a long time, but haven't seen much open discussion about people's contest entries, which, IIRC, is a requirement of the contest.

Edited June 13, 2006 by Gateway

[+batari]

Less than a month left!

 

Unfortunately for me, many other "life" priorities have taken precedence despite my plan to get a few BatariBasic programs started this summer.

 

At the least, I've got a Globetrotter collectible I'm putting together for release soon, that is related to this hobby.

 

I've been following in the member blogs, and in the Programming forums, but there doesn't seem to be very many official entries, if any, thus far. Though there may be several last minute surprises that are being worked on. Also, I've been signed up for the Stella list for a long time, but haven't seen much open discussion about people's contest entries, which, IIRC, is a requirement of the contest.

Maybe there have been no entries yet because there hasn't been an official release of bB for nearly 10 months. There have been some newer builds but they have been buggy and aren't properly documented. And some people are waiting for promised features to be implemented before they try programming in bB.

 

It's Glenn's contest, but I'd like to see the deadline for the bB contest postponed and possibly re-announced with the upcoming official release of bB (this summer, I hope!) If so, I will help things along by offering a consolation prize for anyone who enters: I'll make you a cart of your game and mail to you, optionally with a custom label of your own design.

[potatohead]

Unfortunately for me, many other "life" priorities have taken precedence despite my plan to get a few BatariBasic programs started this summer.

 

Put me in that boat too

 

(there is light at the end of the tunnel though)

 

Greets, everyone!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

IMO this just proves that no programmer is in the hobby for money. And that we all seem to prefer following our own schedule.

 

Which is good!

[potatohead]

IMO this just proves that no programmer is in the hobby for money. And that we all seem to prefer following our own schedule.

 

Which is good!

 

Totally.

 

Old hardware is just cool! That's why I'm involved when I can.

 

And it is good!

[MausBoy]

I can't believe I've been obsessively reading this forum since I found it and I never looked at this thread. I definately would have entered the bB contest, but I read the thing on the day of the deadline, go figure.

 

Good luck everyone.

[supercat]

I wonder if I should dust off my Arkanoid clone (SuperCharger) and finish that off?

[MausBoy]

**So I thought I might sneak in by the end of today and spent all day on sprites for MAUS, but I didn't save any of them. Then I clicked a link on biglist.com and my computer froze. I'm stupid and Windows sucks. I'm kind of frustrated now but I still have quite a big of time left today so it's worth it, to represent MAUS Games in this contest.

Edited July 1, 2006 by MausBoy

[Albert]

The link at the beginning of this thread to the contest information goes to the World of Warcraft Community Site. Is this contest still on?

 

..Al

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Here is the link to the [stella] Programmers List archive:

 

http://atari2600.org/pipermail/stella/

[Cybergoth]

The link at the beginning of this thread to the contest information goes to the World of Warcraft Community Site. Is this contest still on?

 

The deadline closes in a few hours. Glenn will announce the winners on the 1st of august

[Albert]

Here is the link to the [stella] Programmers List archive:

 

http://atari2600.org/pipermail/stella/

This is the broken link I was talking about:

 

http://thedig.dyndns.org/?action=contest.details

 

..Al

[MausBoy]

The deadline closes in a few hours. Glenn will announce the winners on the 1st of august

 

It's only 5pm here, I was hoping I still had the rest of today. Ah well, maybe next year.

[+batari]

The link at the beginning of this thread to the contest information goes to the World of Warcraft Community Site. Is this contest still on?

 

The deadline closes in a few hours. Glenn will announce the winners on the 1st of august

I'd be surprised if the contest is actually still on. Glenn's been awfully quiet about it, never followed up about the promised "details and bonus prizes" and to date not a single official entry has been announced.

[Cybergoth]

Well, he said something regarding the SC contest and the lack of entries, but there's like 50 or 60 possible BASIC game submissions available by now, or?

[+batari]

Well, he said something regarding the SC contest and the lack of entries, but there's like 50 or 60 possible BASIC game submissions available by now, or?

True, though I wonder if any were actually submitted.

[MausBoy]

Jess Ragan submitted his game Solar Plexus. It's a great game, I'd say he has a good chance of winning.

[s0c7]

As far as I know, Jess was the only one that submitted a game.

 

Competitions for money aren't really my thing (this is true of some of the others in the scene I know as well). If the compo had been more something along the lines of "best game(s) gets published" or something, I think there would have been more interest.

 

For now, I'm mainly interested in the 2006 minigame compo. See if I can improve on my showing from last year. As soon as I finish the refueling stage in F-4 and get it cleaned up a little more I'll be submitting it.

[mos6507]

Okay, here I am.

 

I took down my website a while back. I figured this thread was sufficient in explaining the contest.

 

I am disappointed with the progress on the Supercharger homebrew front. I'm sure Leprechaun will get finished and it looks good. PoP is also very promising. Neither are complete yet, and even if they were, I was hoping to see a few more entries than that to make it competitive. So I can't give an award in that category.

 

I devoted most of my effort in the last year helping design the Chimera Supercharger replacement cartridge. I had hoped that this would provide an extra catalyst for developers since it could be used both as a development platform and as a cheap "preloaded" Supercharger homebrew cartridge. That project has also taken longer than expected.

 

I've seen some interesting bBasic games, but the problem with them is that they are very much constant works-in-progress. At some point the developers have to do a code-freeze and formally submit them as entries. Then I'll be able to evaluate them. I can't scan the forums looking for games. They have to be formally submitted.

 

If I get at least 3-4 submissions then I'll honor the bBasic contest.

 

So if you've got a game, spend a few days polishing it off and send me a private message!

Edited July 6, 2006 by mos6507

[supercat]

I designed an Arkanoid kernel for the Supercharger that would have considerable promise. I guess I find it a little hard to get excited about doing development on the Supercharger given that it's possible to design hardware that's both cheaper and more versatile (an XC9536XL, a RAM, a flash, an oscillator, a voltage regulator, and a few resistors). While the SuperCharger's memory architecture is clever, and has some advantages compared with any of its contemporaries, it requires more complex hardware (at minimum, an XC9572XL instead of an XC9536XL) and is more of a nuisance to work with.

 

If anyone would like to design and produce a good programming fixture for the 4A50 board, I'd be more than happy to supply a 4A50 cart to play with. The carts do exist and do work; the DOS-based parallel-port programmer I have is something of a dog, though.

[djmips]

I designed an Arkanoid kernel for the Supercharger that would have considerable promise. I guess I find it a little hard to get excited about doing development on the Supercharger given that it's possible to design hardware that's both cheaper and more versatile (an XC9536XL, a RAM, a flash, an oscillator, a voltage regulator, and a few resistors). While the SuperCharger's memory architecture is clever, and has some advantages compared with any of its contemporaries, it requires more complex hardware (at minimum, an XC9572XL instead of an XC9536XL) and is more of a nuisance to work with.

 

If anyone would like to design and produce a good programming fixture for the 4A50 board, I'd be more than happy to supply a 4A50 cart to play with. The carts do exist and do work; the DOS-based parallel-port programmer I have is something of a dog, though.

 

What do you mean by programming fixture, can you be a little more specific about what you need? Are you talking hardware or software or a bit of both?

[+batari]

I designed an Arkanoid kernel for the Supercharger that would have considerable promise. I guess I find it a little hard to get excited about doing development on the Supercharger given that it's possible to design hardware that's both cheaper and more versatile (an XC9536XL, a RAM, a flash, an oscillator, a voltage regulator, and a few resistors). While the SuperCharger's memory architecture is clever, and has some advantages compared with any of its contemporaries, it requires more complex hardware (at minimum, an XC9572XL instead of an XC9536XL) and is more of a nuisance to work with.

 

If anyone would like to design and produce a good programming fixture for the 4A50 board, I'd be more than happy to supply a 4A50 cart to play with. The carts do exist and do work; the DOS-based parallel-port programmer I have is something of a dog, though.

 

What do you mean by programming fixture, can you be a little more specific about what you need? Are you talking hardware or software or a bit of both?

I'd think he means a USB/Serial standalone programmer.

 

But an easier step would be to add Windows support for the parallel-port programmer. If someone here is experienced with the Windows DDK, a driver/ Win32 application might not be too hard to write. I can't help in this regard, as the last time I compiled a Windows driver was maybe 5 years ago, and I don't have access to the appropriate tools anymore.

[supercat]

But an easier step would be to add Windows support for the parallel-port programmer. If someone here is experienced with the Windows DDK, a driver/ Win32 application might not be too hard to write. I can't help in this regard, as the last time I compiled a Windows driver was maybe 5 years ago, and I don't have access to the appropriate tools anymore.

 

How fast can Windows bit-bash stuff out the parallel port? Shifting out each bit requires two I/O port writes; doing one memory read or store operation requires about 240 I/O port writes. Programming each byte of flash requires four memory stores, so 960 I/O port writes. Can Windows actually manage that at a reasonable speed? Further, how easy is it to find parallel ports these days?

 

I've never used the ARM, but it would seem like it would be a good choice. Right now I'm looking at a Cypress PSOC. I think that should be able to do the necessary bitbashing at an almost-sustained speed of 6mbps. Doesn't seem too bad, though I'd probably have to use an FTDI chip or something to interface that to a USB port (which is what all PC's use nowadays).

[djmips]

I've done some of this before on Windows 2000 which I imagine is about the same as Windows XP.

 

In fact it was in order to program flash memory for Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance carts.

 

So, the main hurdle is to overcome the fact thatyou can't touch the ports unless you are in supervisor mode.

 

There is a driver available that allows any program that you want to access the parallel port.

 

I never had any problems with speed.

 

Parallel ports are still relatively common. I guess they probably don't include them on laptops anymore but for any motherboard that doesn't have one, you can get a PCI card version if need be.

 

I did Windows drivers DDK work in a past job. The DDK is no longer a free download but you can get it for shipping and handling. Ok I just ordered one. :-)