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retroclouds

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Posts posted by retroclouds

  1. Posted

    Whauh, that’s a very good demo. Thumbs up !

     

    First time around I could not copy paste (didn’t get the line feeds). This time I took the html source and replaced quotes, greater and less than and off we went.

     

    Elevator Action is on my list (among circa 100 other TI projects).

     

    :)

     

    thanks. It was just an attempt to do some scrolling in extended basic.

    yeah, Elevator Action is real nice and quite doable on the TI.

    Ofcourse I would opt for writing it in assembly language ;)

     

    However, I think having a game with a "wall" in extended basic and scrolling left/right during gameplay could be doable.

    You are basically only redefining one character.

  6. Posted

    Last week (and this afternoon) I had a little fun playing around with Extended Basic.

    I tried to see if I could do a scroll simulation and came up with the descending elevator.

     

    Dunno what I'm gonna do with it, as it's just a little demo.

    But thought of posting it here anyway. Enjoy ;)

     

     

    REM ##################
REM # INITIALISATION #
REM ##################
10 CALL CLEAR :: CALL SCREEN(1) :: CALL COLOR(1,5,8,2,16,2,3,16,2,4,16,2,5,16,2,6,16,2,7,16,2)  
15 CALL CHAR(32,"00FEFEFE007F7F7F", 33, "00FEFEFE007F7F7F",34,"0000000000000000", 63, "1818181818181818") 
16 CALL CHAR(47,"0000000000000000") ::  CALL HCHAR(24,1,33,32) :: CALL MAGNIFY(4)
17 CALL CHAR(36,"1FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF",37,"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF",38,"F8FFFFFFFFFFFFFF",39,"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF")
18 CALL CHAR(64,"3F7F7F7F7F7F7F7F",65,"7F7F7F7F7F7F7F7F",66,"FCFEFEFEFEFEFEFE",67,"FEFEFEFEFEFEFEFE")
19 CALL VCHAR(1,5,47,120) :: CALL VCHAR(1,1,34,48) :: CALL VCHAR(1,31,34,48) :: CALL HCHAR(1,1,47,32)
20 DISPLAY AT(1,:"POINTS/00000//LIVES/3"
21 CALL SPRITE(#1,64,7,25,37,9,0,#2,64,7,45,37,9,0,#3,36,10,21,37,9,0,#4,36,10,50,37,9,0)
22 CALL POSITION(#1,A,B) :: CALL VCHAR(2,7,63,A/5) :: IF A<50 THEN GOTO 22
23 CALL VCHAR(8,7,63,6) :: CALL MOTION(#1,3,0,#2,3,0,#3,3,0,#4,3,0)
REM #################
REM # SCROLL BRICKS #
REM #################
100 CALL CHAR(32,"00FEFEFE007F7F7F",33,"00FEFEFE007F7F7F")
101 CALL CHAR(32,"FEFEFE007F7F7F00",33,"FEFEFE007F7F7F00")
102 CALL CHAR(32,"FEFE007F7F7F00FE",33,"FEFE007F7F7F00FE")
103 CALL CHAR(32,"FE007F7F7F00FEFE",33,"FE007F7F7F00FEFE")
104 CALL CHAR(32,"007F7F7F00FEFEFE",33,"007F7F7F00FEFEFE")
105 CALL CHAR(32,"7F7F7F00FEFEFE00",33,"7F7F7F00FEFEFE00")
106 CALL CHAR(32,"7F7F00FEFEFE007F",33,"7F7F00FEFEFE007F")
107 CALL CHAR(32,"7F00FEFEFE007F7F",33,"7F00FEFEFE007F7F")
108 CALL POSITION(#1,A,B) :: IF A>83 THEN CALL VCHAR(14,7,63,3)
109 IF A<110 THEN GOTO 100
REM ############################
REM # SCROLL BRICKS AND GROUND #
REM ############################
110 CALL CHAR(32,"00FEFEFE007F7F7F",33,"00FEFEFE007F7F00")
111 CALL CHAR(32,"FEFEFE007F7F7F00",33,"FEFEFE007F7F0000")
112 CALL CHAR(32,"FEFE007F7F7F00FE",33,"FEFE007F7F000000")
113 CALL CHAR(32,"FE007F7F7F00FEFE",33,"FE007F7F00000000")
114 CALL CHAR(32,"007F7F7F00FEFEFE",33,"007F7F0000000000")
115 CALL CHAR(32,"7F7F7F00FEFEFE00",33,"7F7F000000000000")
116 CALL CHAR(32,"7F7F00FEFEFE007F",33,"7F00000000000000")
117 CALL CHAR(32,"7F00FEFEFE007F7F",33,"0000000000000000")
118 CALL POSITION(#1,A,B) :: IF A<124 THEN GOTO 110
119 CALL MOTION(#1,0,0,#2,0,0,#3,0,0,#4,0,0)
120 GOTO 120

  7. Posted

    Here's a litle vid I took of it all. I changed some screen colors so you could watch these blocky letters load up... Insane that I had to do over 70 CALL HCHAR or VCHAR to make this screen work. Anyway, here it is

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBuOXEeh6B8

     

    Just watched the vid. Nice, nice, very nice :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

    Looking forward seeing more :)

     

    Actually I played around with Extended Basic last week. The first time in 22 years or so.

    I forgot how powerful it is. It's not really lightning fast, but you can really do some amazing stuff with it :cool:

  8. Posted

    It has 8 jumpers, can take up to a 27C040 (512K) EPROM, and has two switch headers for manual switching of the four 128K bank-switched banks (if a 512K chip is installed)...

     

    Picture 1

    Picture 2

    Picture 3

     

    What do you guys think?

     

    (Thanks to Tursi, Jim F, Stuart Conner, sometimes99er, and many others.....)

     

    Beautiful, very beautiful :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

     

    By the way: I'm currently finishing my utility+tutorial for handling realignment issues & code references accross multiple banks ;)

  11. Posted

    Moving along nicely. ROM consumption at 21%.

     

    I took a look at data compression routines. Compression time is not an issue. Data will be compressed before we create the ROM. Decompression time is usually not an issue. I’m trying to steer clear of the need for 32K RAM Expansion, so I won’t actually have any “workspace”. I need to decompress nicely in a rollout manner directly to VDP. The more exotic compression techniques seem to work best with 2K chunks and up. Also a decompression routine takes space too.

     

    ScratchPad has 32 bytes for CPU workspace and 32 bytes for stack of return addresses. So there’s 192 bytes left for controlling all the action.

     

    Simple RLE on my main static character patterns alone reduces data size from 728 bytes to 466. This would work nicely on several other data chunks. The submarines and clouds will have to stay uncompressed in ROM as we need clean sources to do effective software scrolls (at least I think so). And remember we’re not “just” scrolling in one or another direction.

     

    One large preliminary setup of VDP (setting several screens, color sets, sprite lists and patterns) using decompression might be an idea.

     

    :cool:

     

     

    Now, that is what I call interesting stuff :cool:

     

    As the clouds will move rather slowly would having a decompressed version in VDP

    be an option ? You could work on it in "parts" divided accross multiple frames and once

    complete, move it into the pattern table.

     

    Then again, such logic would also take some code space to implement.

     

    What I did in the cartridge version of Pitfall was to "page-out" certain parts of scratch-pad memory to the VDP,

    use the new free space as work-buffer and when finished "page-in" into scratch pad again. That works pretty well.

     

    However, I did not use any compression techniques in Pitfall! so looking forward learning on how you proceed ;)

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    Thanks for the detailed description on how you proceed. That is very interesting stuff.

     

    Lately I tried and import different TI graphic objects into Flash (Adobe) and could easily move them about etc. using the built-in ActionScript2 (syntax like Javascript). Using layers I simply put the ship and the border on top of the clouds and then adjust the position of the clouds (wider than the screen) once in a while with something like clouds._x = clouds._x + 2.

     

    Oh on a sidenote, did you know a TMS9918 VDP implementation was done in javascript (using canvas for drawing).

    It's part of an MSX emulator written in javascript. Check here

    I have some plans for doing a utility that will be using this VDP implementation.

     

    As far as the RGPC naming is concerned, no use in changing its name now, with only a few more weeks remaining ;)

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    For this phase colors, graphics, layouts, overall actions and priorities are identified. The next phase is routines and tests. I’ll detour for a few sound experiments on the way. Next phase will be tying things together and tuning. Finally the last phase is mainly “out of the box”, such stuff as manual and art, and then probably a bit of fine tuning.

     

    I don’t have access to the real hardware, so any testing and feedback will be appreciated.

     

    :)

     

    Below some of the updated character and sprite designs ...

     

    0037.png

     

    Interesting stuff :cool:

    Just out of curiosity. How do you test the animations and convert them to patterns ?

    Have you written an own converter for that ?

    • Like 1

  15. Posted

    The Pitfall! cartridge for the TI-99/4A is becoming reality!

     

    I finished debugging and testing last week and the EPROMS and PCB's for

    the first batch are currently in the works.

     

    You can see a youtube video of the cartridge version here

    Next week I will be contacting the folks that are on the pre-order list for the first batch.

    If all works out well, cartridges can be sent out by the end of February :)

  16. Posted

    OK, you got me. :twisted: Of course all the errors and strange things are introduced intentionally... it should be a crap game, right?

     

    Even the mouse is a bit sloppily drawn and converted... some pixels are off to the original drawing, and in fact even the original drawing is sloppy so you can't quite make out where some of the pixels should really be. :-)

     

    And yes, the Incorrect Subprogram error message is also part of the design. Line 590 exists, but it's a DATA line, so no subprogram here at all. I'm not even sure if the error message exists with the wording I gave it.

     

    As for the collision detection, if I really introduced "sharp" collision detection, the mouse wouldn't fit in the maze because it's slightly too big. And even if it did fit, it could not move from the start to the finish, because there's actually no way from the start of the finish... it's all dead ends. :-)

    So I've left out the collision detection, but I've crossed the joystick axis instead in order to make it a bit harder to play.

     

    And to give it a surprise ending, I included the "deadly" arrow (this, in fact, is the only collision detection) with the even more sloppily drawn mouse explosion and the error message at the end.

     

    Oh, and the distorted "characters" are also designed that way... I intentionally laid the characters making up the sprite somewhere inside of the visible alphabet so that some of the characters displayed get redefined as well.

     

    All in all, I think my game is positioned somewhere between genius (custom speech generated with custom coding tables!) and sheer madness. :-)

     

    Oh man, you really got me there :D

  17. Posted

    I couldn't resist. I know this contest isn't up yet.. but here's my crap game. ;)

     

    post-12959-126233767021_thumb.jpg

     

    The ZIP file includes both the program (Extended BASIC file in TIFILES format) and the text listing.

     

    The game comes up, and shows both your hand, and the computer's hand, over a button, with a light in the middle. When the light lights up, hit your button before the computer does by pressing space bar. The game resets after updating the score. ;)

     

    CrapGameTursi.zip

     

    Excellent crap grame :thumbsup: ... and not that easy, let me tell you. :D

  18. Posted · Edited by retroclouds

    This is the BASIC format of the "boss" stage level... or "inside the honeycomb" stage... Still working on ironing it out and adding a few new accents

     

    100 CALL CLEAR

    110 CALL SCREEN(6)

    111 FOR I=1 TO 4

    115 CALL SOUND(400,165,1)

    120 CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,523,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,494,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,523,1)

    130 CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,587,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,330,2,659,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,587,1)

    140 CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,523,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,165,2,440,2,494,1)

    150 CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,523,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,494,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,523,1)

    160 CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,587,1) :: CALL SOUND(400,220,2,330,2,659,1)

    170 NEXT I

     

    wow, that sounds real nice! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

    I just tried it in Extended Basic using classic99's paste functionality.

    I clipped the call sound statements right here from the post and pasted it in classic99. Nice ;)

     

    soundsample_hcr.PNG

  19. Posted

    Just tried your game in classic99.

     

    mapcraze.PNG

     

    Somehow I get some weird effects. I can move the mouse over the maze without bumping into the walls.

    It means I can just move to the right (is a bit complicated as the controls are reversed, joystick emulation?).

    Anyway, when I get to the exit speech starts but then a "INCORRECT SUBPROGRAM IN 590" happens.

     

    I presume that this could be an issue with classic99 in combination with the "speech" output.

    That is weird though. Also attempted to try it in win994a but failed because I couldn't add it to a disk image.

    Again, a reason to try it on the bare metal in the next few days, will let you know ;)

  20. Posted

    My favourites for conversion are definitly "Munchman" and "Parsec".

    Ofcourse Parsec would have to be without speech. Unless using opcodes' future opgrade module.

    If I wouldn't have so many things on my plate right now, I would try to convert Munchman.

    That shouldn't be too hard. We do have the TMS9900 assembler source code of Munchman available.

    Based on LPC10 and voices in some Commodore 64 games like Impossible Mission and GhostBusters, it can be possible to hear voice by using software only if we can accept the action to stop... for about 1KB per second in ROM, and I don't know really how much RAM... but I guess it can be adapted.

     

    Don't know how much space a sample would take ?

    In PARSEC, TI used GROM for storing graphics and speech data.

    Here's a nice

    of PARSEC in action (including speech).

  21. Posted

    OK...I now have the cables Opry99er suggested, but I didn't make it to make a connection yet...

     

    on another note, I found out that my Speech synthesizer surprisingly has started working again, so I recorded the "Key are you" demo right from the machine (with a bit of distortion because the TV signal seems to come in very weak... don't know what to do about this).

     

    And there I discovered that the speech emulation doesn't seem as good as I thought... the pitch tables used in Win994A at least are different to the original ones. The speech in Win994A is spoken at about a 19% higher pitch than should be (at least the speech coming out of my KEYAREYOU program). Also, both in Win994A and MESS, the put-out speech sounds a bit "hollow" compared to the original, that is, as if a tape would play a bit too slow (although the actual pitch is higher).

     

    I'd like to help improve the speech support for the TI-99 chip in MESS if I could. But I'm not experienced in programming C... I'm only able to give tips in what could and should be changed.

     

    Yesterday I tried the "Key are you" demo on the real deal. At least that is what I attempted. I thought I had a terminal emulator II cartridge but I don't, so the next thing I tried was to load the TEII cartridge image in my gram kracker. That didn't work out to well. That has to do with the fact that my gram kracker isn't properly working. I think I have a broken GRAM chip inside. Tried with two speech synsthesizers but could not get the thing to work. The computer locked up.

    Dunno if it has to do with the gram kracker or if it's a problem with the combination speech/gram kracker/CF7+ device.

     

    Too bad :|

  22. Posted

    I like the sounds there, my brother. :) Keep us updated on your musical progress, as that is a dear subject to me. Additionally, Marc Hull has just completed his SIDBlaster99 card. All kinds of insane sh** possible with that card. You should check it out

    Thanks mate. Well, I like many of the later singles with Green Day. I thought this 21 Guns would support the war theme of the game, but now I don’t. Will be working on these ...

     

    • Title music
    • Sonar sound
    • Depth charge dropout
    • Ship engines
    • Ship explosion
    • Damage alarm
    • End of game explosion
    • End of game tune
    • Surface explosion
    • Missile launch
    • Sub explosion

    In the future I better just attach mp3 rather than include it with the site media tag.

     

    :)

     

     

    I wonder if any of the free samples at http://www.freesound.org would be of any use.

     

    Somehow if I see the Destroyer, I have to think about the 80's arcade game 1942 when it plays

    the military drums on title screen when inserting coin .....

     

    [edit] Man, I searched for some matching songs, and now I have the U96 theme "Das Boot" running in my head, horror. Sorry couldn't resist :D

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    What games for the TI-99/4A would you like to see get converted for the ColecoVision?

     

    My Top Ten:

    1. Parsec

    2. Alpiner

    3. TI Invaders

    4. Space Aggressor

    5. Hunt the Wumpus

    6. Hopper

    7. Car Wars

    8. Munchman

    9. Tennis

    10. Tunnels of Doom

     

    ~Ben

     

    My favourites for conversion are definitly "Munchman" and "Parsec".

    Ofcourse Parsec would have to be without speech. Unless using opcodes' future opgrade module.

    If I wouldn't have so many things on my plate right now, I would try to convert Munchman.

    That shouldn't be too hard. We do have the TMS9900 assembler source code of Munchman available.

  24. Posted

    I seriously considered doing a remake based on the colecovision version.

    Haven't done it because I know Bryan paid a lot for it.

     

    Still I think that programmer of the TI version was out to make a quick buck,

    most likely trying to get some cash out on efforts he invested 25 years ago :roll:

     

    As far as the game itself is concerned. I'm pretty sure a good version could be done in

    less than a year. With todays possibilities I'd go for a 32K cartridge (adding a decent title screen).

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