Text in Game

[EvoMikeUK]

Hi All,

 

What is the best way to deliver text-to-screen on the Atari?

Just a couple of short words here and there. I'm thinking using a few sprites but obviously this will lead to flicker.

 

A previous post eludes to the title-screen kernel, but I want to avoid using that.

 

Kind thanks,

 

Mike

Edited September 19, 2017 by EvoMikeUK

[+atari2600land]

Well, if you don't want to use a score, you could use the score for it. You could also use the pfblocks.

[EvoMikeUK]

Well, if you don't want to use a score, you could use the score for it. You could also use the pfblocks.

 

Is there a way, to alternate every, 3-5 seconds between score and a piece of text?

[+atari2600land]

It really depends on how much text you want to have. If you use the score, that means you'd be using all the numbers 0-9, which means that you'd only have A-F characters available to display messages and stuff. I was thinking without the score, you'd have 0-9 to work with whatever text you'd want. For instance, to make the letter D, you'd only need three of the 8 pixels, so that would help a little. An E would only need 2. So you could make a message "DE" using only 7 of the 8 pixels (counting spaces).