Milli V Posted September 11, 2016 Share Posted September 11, 2016 I am putting together a programming contest for the Coleco Adam! http://retrosystemrescue.com/coleco-adam-programming-contest/ Milli 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digress Posted September 11, 2016 Share Posted September 11, 2016 sounds interesting. I haven't used smart basic in 20 years. I made a simple drawing program at the time. What is the goal of the contest. Is it to have a very detail game? Not sure the capabilities of smartbasic. Can it be compiled later on? Sprites, I assume music will work. What about put_frame calls. I guess that can all work too. Sounds like an interesting contest idea. maybe the winner could have a CIB release of the game as well but the game I guess would be public domain too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIAD Posted September 11, 2016 Share Posted September 11, 2016 sounds interesting. I haven't used smart basic in 20 years. I made a simple drawing program at the time. What is the goal of the contest. Is it to have a very detail game? Not sure the capabilities of smartbasic. Can it be compiled later on? Sprites, I assume music will work. What about put_frame calls. I guess that can all work too. Sounds like an interesting contest idea. maybe the winner could have a CIB release of the game as well but the game I guess would be public domain too. SmartBasic is powerful enough to create some very nice and detailed games, but some of the best ADAM programmers from the 80s and 90s (Sol Swift and Steve Pitman) developed machine language routines that were POKEd into memory and then CALLed when needed. There are a number of programs that will aid tremendously in this endeavor as far as graphics, sprites, etc. that were developed by Sol Swift (Digital Express) and a lot of SmartBasic programming information can be found in Sol's Nibbles & Bits newsletters that are available in PDF format on Joe Blenkle's website that is linked in the footer of my posts... for that matter, the NIAD newsletters on there contain a lot of SmartBASIC programming workshops as well. Here are some programs off the top of my head that will aid everyone: BootPIC Deluxe - for converting a graphics file to a boot screen that displays while SmartBASIC and the program loads. Can't use this with SuperBasic+ v3.0. Intel-LOAD v1.0 - for converting a SmartBASIC "A" type file to a Binary "H" type file that will load much faster. PowerPAINT - for creating full screen graphics files (store it in HGR file format) SpritePOWER - for creating sprite sets. FontPOWER - for creating font sets. CLIPPER - for creating clip-art (handy for changing small areas of the screen. File Manager v3.x - the best utility program that includes an ASCII / HEX editor. Also, I would not use plain old vanilla SmartBASIC v1.0 as your development platform, rather I would use SuperBASIC+ v3.0 by TCR Software seeing as the numerous bugs in SB V1.0 have been fixed. Everything listed above is available in the large ADAM software package that can be downloaded on Joe Blenkle's website. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIAD Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 (edited) I applaud your effort Milli and really am floored with the prizes that you will be awarding!!! I hope this contest will be well supported and will inspire more people to look at the ADAM as a possible development platform. Hmmm, might have to dust off the ole' programmer's cap and dive into this one. Wonder if I can submit a program that I released circa 1990, but never had the time to implement everything that I wanted and therefore sold it for only $9.95. Edited September 12, 2016 by NIAD 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValkerieSilk Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 So much for Visual Studio C# ;( BootPIC Deluxe - for converting a graphics file to a boot screen that displays while SmartBASIC and the program loads. Can't use this with SuperBasic+ v3.0. Intel-LOAD v1.0 - for converting a SmartBASIC "A" type file to a Binary "H" type file that will load much faster. PowerPAINT - for creating full screen graphics files (store it in HGR file format) SpritePOWER - for creating sprite sets. FontPOWER - for creating font sets. CLIPPER - for creating clip-art (handy for changing small areas of the screen. File Manager v3.x - the best utility program that includes an ASCII / HEX editor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted September 13, 2016 Share Posted September 13, 2016 BASIC only, I guess that leaves me out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIAD Posted September 13, 2016 Share Posted September 13, 2016 BASIC only, I guess that leaves me out. Hell with that, we need you in this competition! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milli V Posted September 13, 2016 Author Share Posted September 13, 2016 BASIC only, I guess that leaves me out. Smart Basic, Smart Logo - you can do ML also with a basic loader. I want to differentiate this from a Colecovision game contest so entries need to require something that is Adam specific. Full details coming soon. Milli Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted September 13, 2016 Share Posted September 13, 2016 Smart Basic, Smart Logo - you can do ML also with a basic loader. I want to differentiate this from a Colecovision game contest so entries need to require something that is Adam specific. Full details coming soon. Milli A BASIC loader would not be possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIAD Posted September 13, 2016 Share Posted September 13, 2016 I wouldn't be restrictive with the development platform just to inspire the most possible entries so I hope the SmartBasic and SmartLogo requirement can be reconsidered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ed1475 Posted September 14, 2016 Share Posted September 14, 2016 I've done some programming in SmartBasic and SmartLogo. I'm more of a beginning level programmer but I have a few games that are close to being finished that I could enter in the contest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milli V Posted September 14, 2016 Author Share Posted September 14, 2016 The rules have been posted: http://retrosystemrescue.com/coleco-adam-programming-contest/ Milli Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted September 14, 2016 Share Posted September 14, 2016 The rules have been posted: http://retrosystemrescue.com/coleco-adam-programming-contest/ Milli 4. Must be written in a language that was available when the Coleco Adam was on the market in 1983 – 1985. These include Smart Basic, Smart Logo, Assembly (Machine Language) and languages available under the CP/M operating system at the time FWIW, that would include C, Pascal, Cobol, Fortran, Forth, and possibly even Modula 2 and Algol depending on their release date... among others. Also note that you said "languages available", you did not specify we have to use the actual compiler that was available. No takebacks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milli V Posted September 14, 2016 Author Share Posted September 14, 2016 Any language available under CP/M is fine - if its interpreted you need to supply a copy of the language - if its compiled you dont - either way you need to supply the source code - want this to be a learning experience too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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