adamantyr

Yes, I use a look-up table for my integer-based trig functions in my CRPG for creating circling sprites in fact. Another area I was going to use a look-up table for was damage by player type in my Gauntlet clone. If you recall, the various classes have 0, 10%, 20% and 30% damage reduction. Instead of calculating damage on the fly, I would have a look-up table for each monster type and class type to just fetch the exact amount of health damage caused. Since it's an action game, speed would be essential.

It depends on the context of the use. Part of thousands of repetitive operations, performance is definitely a concern. If I had a performance-critical operation that depended upon determining the value of a fraction of a number, I wouldn't even use shifts and adds. I would generate a look-up table to instantly fetch the value needed.

I can try, I honestly attribute it more to Windows drivers than Classic99. Sometimes Classic99 takes a moment to start up, and you can visibly hear the "pop" when the sound abruptly comes on. I'll see if I can get a more consistent repro.

Yeah, if I was making such a routine for general use in my applications, I'd make it a BLWP to isolate it, allow you to set any ratio you want.

Actually, based on the original code, I think the post topic was supposed to be 0.375. So a zero was added.

On the TI, you can also use the MPY and DIV operations to do this in a tighter fashion: * Multiply by 0.375 (Which is what I think the original poster meant...) * R1 - Contains 2-byte value (0 to 65535) * Returns in same value MP0375 LI R0,3 * Set R0 to 3 MPY R0,R1 * Multiply target value by 3 LI R0,8 * Set R0 to value 8 DIV R0,R1 * Divide (value*3) by 8, quotient is in R1, remainder in R2 RT

I've noticed that myself, I get a lot of pops, clicks, and buzzes at start-up, and occasional weirdness. I can work with it just fine, and it replicates the actual TI sounds, so I'm not making a lot of noise about it. I think Mike has mentioned a time or two that he has to eventually re-write the entire sound platform. Along with a myriad of other tasks. Maybe if I ever get my game done I'll help him out...

I recall in the 90s there was an accelerator card in the works... Looking it up in MICROpendium it looks like it was being made by Don O'Neil. It was eventually dropped, presumably due to some hardware issues.

Absolutely not. Seahawks fan here. I can't stand the Cowboys.

Sears and KMart were both mis-managed deliberately into the ground by a corporate shark who made one final attempt to bail out the company solely to squeeze a few extra dollars out of it. I'm glad he was denied the opportunity. There are successful brick and mortar store chains still, I work for one! E-Commerce is critical to any business these days, so you need a strong web presence in addition to a physical store. At least until Amazon invents teleport technology anyway...

So I was checking out the NFL website today, and what is this, a reference to the TI! "... Worth noting is that the Cowboys are not exactly the NFL's version of the iPad Pro with a mounted virtual pencil. The way Dallas plays defense, runs the football and keeps the passing game mostly simple is more synonymous with the TI-99/4A home computer, which was from the era when "Family Ties" was crushing in the ratings and John Robinson's Rams pants were pulled up to the midriff ..." Full Article here: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001008960/article/nfl-power-rankings-colts-cowboys-roll-into-divisional-round

Yeah both Kmart and Sears. We bought our TI at Jafco, my box still has the stickers on it. Jafco became a store called Best in the 90s and closed completely in the late 90s.

I try and design my own, rather than do ports. Although my "Gauntlet clone" is hedging the line a bit, but I'm planning on it having differences to make it better in certain areas.

If you can share a zip file with the complete program so we can use Classic99 to debug in and find out what's going on, along with the assembly source code, I'm sure we can figure out what's going wrong pretty fast.

If you don't mind my asking, what was the bug that blocked you? I'd be happy to help...

I have several of them myself, including: - Rattlesnake Bend - Zoom Flume - Castle Darkholm - Wizard's End - Witch's Brew - Oliver Twist Here they are in a zip file, on DSK format: Asgard Adventures.zip I don't think I've won any of them personally except Castle Darkholm, which is not a complicated one because it burns MOST of the memory on absolutely enormous amounts of descriptive text. It's kind of nice though in that regard, because it's trying to do something different with the engine. Wizard's End is the weirdest one, because you rotate between three characters as you explore a dungeon in an AD&D style adventure. The manual offers a decent background but the game is clearly more limited than it presents. (It lists several AD&D spells for example, but notes that "not all of them may be present in game")

I hope you finish Dungeons of Asgard! Seeing it was one of the things that prompted me to start using the AMS. I feel like we're writing two different kinds of CRPG's as well; yours more closely resembles one of the classic console games like Dragon Warrior. (Which I spent many hours playing!)

Hey, don't let me intimidate you into not releasing! I'm probably several months off... A 32x32 size dragon? You mean, like this?

I have two "on hold" projects myself. One is the Gauntlet clone, the other is a Roguelike. I intend to pick them back up once I have the CRPG done.

One that isn't on the list, Castlequest. I like the idea of a multi-screen side scroller type game on the TI, we haven't had too many of them.

Thanks! Still engine testing and refining things.

I can say that if we did do Fest-West in Vegas, my girlfriend would be thrilled to come with me.

I believe the Weiland Adventure Editor, distributed by Tex-Comp, is the only one around. I have fond memories of playing the old two word text adventures on the TI... it helped that the TI version was in 40 columns and had a very nice lower-case font to boot. My only complaint about them now is that the 12K limit imposed fills up pretty quick. That and some of the adventures are just freaking IMPOSSIBLE without the clue book. I won Golden Voyage on my own without any hints, and amazingly without having seen the Sinbad movies that it borrowed from. But Savage Island still gives me headaches...

The drive to Vancouver or anywhere relatively close is all right for me. (Albeit still more than 3 hours, I get a hotel room just because otherwise I'd be exhausted.) It's too bad Seattle is out, the DoubleTree in Seattle near Seatac is actually a really nice hotel, I went there for Paizo Con last year. It has wings that have a very classic 70's/80's style to them that kind of fits a retro computer con. Or a remake of the Shining...

Poor kid! It's happened to all of us. It's always good to keep notes on all your programming projects. All of Aperture's levels were sketched out on graph paper, I found my archive of it not long ago. For my CRPG I used to keep tons of paper notes, these days I'm mostly digital, due to the sheer amount of data. I've even considered putting up the files on GitHub so I can track changes more easily... I've had a few times where files haven't been kept in sync between desktop, laptop and USB stick.