Kyle22 Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Try This. TurboNTSC.atr 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thorfdbg Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Can you post the fixed version? Here you go: tbxl.zip Greetings, Thomas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted May 8, 2015 Author Share Posted May 8, 2015 Thankyou, I will look into those later. It might be a good start for optimizing and updating. Anything we do will have to be done in both the TB interpreter and TB runtime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted May 9, 2015 Author Share Posted May 9, 2015 (edited) At this point I never suggested putting Turbo Basic to run directly from a cartridge. I know there is one that just loads Turbo Basic or Compiler into RAM and disables the cartridge. One alternative is relocate everything to $A000 to $BFFF and use a bank switching cartridge like AtariMax or Williams that only map 8K of Atari Memory from $A000 to $BFFF, the entire bank is swapped out with a write to the $D5xx area. This would also allow it to work with SpartaDos because it will not be loading anything under the OS ROM area. Anyone doing this will need to figure out a whole new bank switching scheme also. Also I am not sure if TurboBasic is using any self-modifying code that needs to run from RAM, if it does, putting it onto a EPROM would certainly be out. Edited May 9, 2015 by peteym5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Well guys, the author of TB is found, he lives in my old hometown. Everything is underway to establish a first contact. But(!) we would like to do this the same way, as we have done with ACTION!. So one wrong move and we are kicked out. Therefore, just be cool for while. Hope, that by the end of this year it may be done. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Well guys, the author of TB is found, he lives in my old hometown. Everything is underway to establish a first contact. But(!) we would like to do this the same way, as we have done with ACTION!. So one wrong move and we are kicked out. Therefore, just be cool for while. Hope, that by the end of this year it may be done. That's awesome! Wonderful news. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 We haven't got it so far... Meanwhile, there is the MAC/65 source code and of course the BASIC XE source code. Cool would be, to implement in TB the EXTEND function from XE (for up to 4 MB programs...), the editor from Action! and the floating point routines from: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Hypra-Soft-Basic All this on open source and Atari is save for coming decades... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thorfdbg Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 the floating point routines from: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Hypra-Soft-Basic It is not quite that simple. Floating point is unfortunately spread over several parts, the math ROM and the Basic ROM. The Math ROM contains elementary algebraic operations, +,-,*,/ but also some transcendental functions like log and exp. For all that, a floating point package with improved precision exists in Os++ (the atari++ replacement Os). However, math on Atari also consists of a set of functions in Atari Basic. That is, sin(), cos(), sqrt() and the power function. For some strange reason, they are in the BASIC rom. Needless to say, the Atari implementations are pretty crappy, the mathematical approximations are naive and the choice of the floating point model is equally naive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pirx Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 And who needs all that maths anyways. It is not like we are going to calculate anything on 8-bitter anymore and oldskool gamez need at best some simple fixed point arithmetic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F#READY Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Agree completely with Pirx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 I don't do so. If you see the Atari as a game machine, then it is o. k.. But the Atari can do a lot more. I have proved this many times. I am interested in the serious stuff. With Hypra-Soft-Basic this is proved one more(!) time. @thorfdbg: " Floating point is unfortunately spread over several parts, the math ROM and the Basic ROM. " Sure, but buggy, because they were under pressure to finished, they were limited to 8 KB-ROMs and other reasons. If you would have given Bill Wilkinson the needed time, a kind of Hypra-Soft-Basic concerning calculations would have been finished further. The more precision, the more time the 6502 needs. Facing games, that is not good. Please take into account, that the Atari Basic is in real 10 KB in size. The 2 KB FP routines from the OS have to be added. Carol Shaw (author of the Atari Calculator) had to completely rewrite the FP routines. Just imagine the Atari had made a breakthrough in business, the world now (especially IBM) would look different. " Needless to say, the Atari implementations are pretty crappy, the mathematical approximations are naive and the choice of the floating point model is equally naive. " Completely reject this, Bill Wilkinson is not naive, he is a hero. Saying this from today with all the knowledge is easy, but go back to the 70's and redo this! Maybe, we should look to Steve Wozniak FPs for the Apple II. If you title him the same, then I have work to you. If you are that smart, why don't bring to Action! bug list #3 to zero? Can you deliver the next day or week? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F#READY Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 The question remains, who needs it? Personally i never used/needed FP on the Atari and i try to avoid FP in general, but i'm probably the ignorant exception? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 " Needless to say, the Atari implementations are pretty crappy, the mathematical approximations are naive and the choice of the floating point model is equally naive. " Completely reject this, Bill Wilkinson is not naive, ... Nobody said that. But he was motivated to deliver quick - with the bonus - normally this has an impact to quality... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 The question remains, who needs it? Problem is, that Basic is relying on FP. You have no alternative when using Basic. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pirx Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Can you deliver the next day or week? This reasoning I have heard many times before, possibly even used myself, but it is not really good - I can not play teutonic trash metal myself at all, but it does not mean I cannot dislike it or compare to other implementations of music Anyway, I do respect your opinion on serious stuff on our 8-bitter. I have tried this in my time and it was fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 @F#READY In your country the ESA location could have use it. I myself had a need for this in school! My colleagues from the the super sonic department can only start, if they can calculate up to 50 digits... Of course, it is not the question: 'Who needs an iPhone', but there are people, who are interested in this, maybe muss less, then the gamers, but enough. Just ask yourself, why Calculators with kept back for years and never delivered to Europe officially! There are reasons for... -> Fuji? @pirx Sure, even the serious stuff is fun, that is why I do it. Just saying, that when you have all(!) the facts, even the historic ones, you may have a different mind on this. Of course, you are totally free in your likes and dislikes. I just mean, if you judge, you should be in complete knowledge. Maybe this not always possible, but you can try. A good thing is to hear all the podcasts from Kevin: https://itunes.apple.com/de/podcast/antic-the-atari-8-bit-podcast/id663593797?mt=2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 An important improvement would be a command that draws all the requested sprites at the same moment. Now it's impossible to precisely move overlapped sprites without machine language routines. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Agree, but please stand by, we are working on a Super Basics which fits all. For this, some people have to be contacted... In case of Clinton Parker that took 9.5 years... Maybe, we can do this a little faster... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 An important improvement would be a command that draws all the requested sprites at the same moment. Now it's impossible to overlap sprites without machine language routines. In Turbo-Basic you can use "PAUSE 0" to wait for a blank and then modify positions etc. Alternatively you could wait for VCOUNT to issue modifications during v-blank... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 In Turbo-Basic you can use "PAUSE 0" to wait for a blank and then modify positions etc. Alternatively you could wait for VCOUNT to issue modifications during v-blank... I don't think it's so simple. Could you please make an example (when you have time) of two overlapped players that move in the same moment? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pirx Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 @Philsan - you know what - my little 10 liner "Flappy" used exactly this technique (pause 0) and overlapping was OK. What was not OK was vertical position of second set of sprites - the main character used all 4 sprites. So pause 0 really works good for horizontal alignment. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 (edited) Could you please make an example (when you have time) of two overlapped players that move in the same moment? Like pirx, Fandal and I used this technique for 10-liners "Broad's Revenge". Remove the "PAUSE 0" there and inspect the tearing... Edit: Even the players don't move horizontally... Edited June 26, 2015 by Irgendwer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pirx Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 @pirx Sure, even the serious stuff is fun, that is why I do it. Just saying, that when you have all(!) the facts, even the historic ones, you may have a different mind on this. Of course, you are totally free in your likes and dislikes. I just mean, if you judge, you should be in complete knowledge. Maybe this not always possible, but you can try. A good thing is to hear all the podcasts ... I am still not getting this - I mean if something is suboptimal, the knowledge of genuine effort, cost and dedication is not changing my notion of sub-optimality. A good example may be Roman aqueducts - a true engineering and construction marvel that was meticulously erected where thousands times cheaper solution like a water tower could be employed. What a dramatic waste of time, money and effort. So, aqueducts were pretty and hard to build, worked as intended, provided great value for all users and still I think I have the right to criticise their optimality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fujidude Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 I think "naive" was really the wrong description of the Atari8 floating point package. I'm sure its programmers (whoever they were, remember the FP is in the OS ROMS, not BASIC) were anything but naive. It was not of high quality or performance though to be sure. Then we have Atari 8K BASIC. Yes Bill W. (and others) worked on that, and they aren't naive or poorly skilled either. They did make a BASIC though, that relied ENTIRELY on the slow, rather crusty OS FP package. This happened most likely due to time and space constraints. If I recall, BASIC-XL (or perhaps just BASIC-XE) has improved floating point support. Really the best thing though, would have been to support INTs and other non float type numbers. That way for 90%+ of the programming that doesn't need floats, it doesn't suffer from a slow and poorly float package. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 @Philsan - you know what - my little 10 liner "Flappy" used exactly this technique (pause 0) and overlapping was OK. What was not OK was vertical position of second set of sprites - the main character used all 4 sprites. So pause 0 really works good for horizontal alignment. Like pirx, Fandal and I used this technique for 10-liners "Broad's Revenge". Remove the "PAUSE 0" there and inspect the tearing... Edit: Even the players don't move horizontally... Very interesting examples, but unfortunately the code isn't easy to understand, at least for me. Maybe you can write the code in more than 10 lines, so I can understand. I only need an example of two overlapped sprites that move horizontally and vertically. What I am trying to say is that A8 miss an easy Basic to write games (with Atari VCS batariBasic you can move 10 multicolor sprites easily!). I think new Altirra Basic and its PMG commands (from OSS Basic XL) are very good but it's impossible two move two sprites in sync. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.