Andrew Davie
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Posts posted by Andrew Davie
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... but will it run Boulder Dash®? 3E, 32K at the moment.
So, does that mean you're going to finish it?
Let's not hijack the thread
It's finished enough that I'm curious if it will run on Harmony. -
BTW can it do most of the stuff the CC2 can ?
It won't support 7800 games, but it will support most 2600 bankswitching schemes (up to 32K) and loading from SD card via an on-screen menu.
Chris
... but will it run Boulder Dash®? 3E, 32K at the moment.
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If I got it for free, yes. But no, I paid a great amount of money to get this one. This is a nice copy of the game. The last one that was offered in this condition was a few years ago.
I've already received some nice trade offers and some $$$ amounts, but I need to get something close to the amount I am asking for or just put it away in the dungeon for another time......no biggie...
I just want to get back what I paid for it.I'll offer a copy of NTSC Boulder Dash ® in trade
LOL
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Eh... Not so much, I find nice looking Atari's all the time, and I never pay more than about $20 for them, and that's only if they come with games and joysticks and the like. Mint to a collector means "MINT" never used, sealed in the box, with a fine layer of dust from the Atari warehouse.
I disagree. What you describe is "New In Box", not "Mint". If I hear "mint condition", I have the understanding that the item in question is technically used, but in immaculate condition. Something that has been used, but it wouldn't necessarily be obvious that it had been.
To me, mint means there are absolutely no faults whatsoever. Just as if it left the factory. Not a scratch, nor a scuff, nor a fingerprint on it. If there's even the slightest of scuffs, or minor stuff visible only in a certain light in closeup... it's not mint. "Mint" is reserved for the best of the best, and if you sell me something "mint" it better damn well be perfect perfect.
Cheers
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Andrew Davie was just on TV showing off his Russian calculator collection.
Yep. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/collectors/segments/s2663201.htm
Cheers
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I picked up Boulder Dash today and... well... it's pretty cool. And I thought what a shame to leave it. But then I thought... no, it's a part of my past life and I've moved on. But I kind of feel that it really really needs to have the correct official music in it, so I went and listened to a few of the examples people have done for this. There's one on YouTube which is pretty good, and a couple here too.
So, what I'd like to do is not necessarily revive the project, but at least put the correct music in and see where things go from there. Could all you music/sound geniuses with an interest in contributing please post your latest/greatest Boulder Dash Music efforts... and I'll make an effort to move things along just a little bit. Who knows what might happen.
Cheers
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Anyway, how do you count? Just the total length of all source code files?
Yep. just sum the #lines in the .asm files. I know there's embedded data but let's not worry too much about that.
I'm quite astounded BD is so small (relatively) compared to Qb.
Cheers
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Just for the record, I recently counted the lines of source code. Roughly 11,000 lines, including comments.
Qb was 5600 which is quite amazing, really. Wondering how "big" other programmers' are
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I agree on several things you just wrote, as stated b4 Andrew will get what's coming for him.
You just cannot assume things when you don't know the story behind it. It clearly costs money also, I dunno how much $ your prodruction costed but it's pretty darn exspensive.
Edit: FYI the game states it's programmed by Andrew. So no need for mentioning it twice, right.
We ARE all getting a little excited, aren't we!
I do not want or expect royalties. I'm happy the game has survived. Yes, I would have liked a copy back in 2006, but since the prototype in my opinion belonged to the person who found it at the market (and subsequent buyers), all I could do was politely request a copy and/or make tongue-in-cheek vague legal threats. It's been a bit frustrating waiting for so long, but I'm reasonably patient. Probably the property actually belongs to the successor of Beam Software (both the physical cart AND the binary), but it's a pretty cloudy area. Personally I don't think there'd be an issue with a limited release, in fact I'd be delighted to see this. It's not a great game, just an interesting one because of the relatively huge sprites.
I would be happy to contribute to a release for a small return -- for example, personally signing the manual or box... or something similar. I'd gladly take a free copy if it were offered, and happily buy one if not. It's not a big issue for me. As I said, delighted for it to have survived, and I just wanted a physical copy on cartridge sometime sooner rather than later.
I have had some private offers and communications, so please don't assume that nobody has done anything.
Cheers
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I think Andrew is waiting for the the ROM on a 'CART' rather than a ROM BIN file (and he's been waiting for awhile now)
Seems to me he's more than willing to see his work spread out to be enjoyed by others.. All he ask is for one of the first early reproduced carts..
Sorry for butting in but that's my take on his wording..
Exactly! And I'm happy to pay for the cart.
Cheers
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Why not give Andrew a cut of the profits from the repros? That's what Al does with homebrews and Andrew is the author of the game.
Tempest
Exactly what I've suggested several times already. If the game uses a fairly simple mapper, I could even help with making repros like I did with Hoppin' Mad.
As I said, it's been 20 years (this year!) since I last saw it. It uses the simplest of mappers, I think it's MMC1, though don't quote me on that. As to "cut of the profits" I already said -- all I want is a copy on cart.
Cheers
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Andrew, do you have your employment stuff from Beam?
In actuality all I want is a copy on a cart
I haven't seen it for almost 20 years.Cheers
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... and if he doesn't get a hand out copy of game he didn't give a shit enough about to ensure that he kept it backed up somewhere, he is going to have a hell of time getting it back in court.
It is to my eternal regret that I did not, in fact, keep ANY source code or binaries when I left Beam Software. I was legally required to delete/return all work that I had done whilst working for them and I did not want to leave myself open to ANY suggestion of impropriety. In particular, I deleted ALL software, tools, binaries, etc.. As I said, to my eternal regret, as some important work was lost for good.
A few years ago I found a box of floppies that I'd missed, which had some interesting source code related to Bigfoot scrolling system, and some other stuff I forget. But of course these were kept inadvertantly and I have, of course, never distributed them.
Note, I did not just TELL Beam I deleted stuff. I *actually* deleted stuff, because it was the right thing to do. To accuse me of "not giving a shit" is quite incorrect. I cared, but the moral and legal requirements were an overriding issue in regards to "keeping copies" of work done whilst I was at Beam. At the time, I thought that the game was going to production and I had no reason to suspect it would be "lost" and never published.
Cheers
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That's nothing. CPUWIZ is only 7. He joined AA as a newborn.
Yep, I started soldering when I was 6 months old.
I think the question was referring to physical, not mental, age.
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Heh... as it turns out the new owner of the proto, to my knowledge still, wants to organise a repro run of the game and hence asked me not to release the ROM until further notice.
Looks like I'm going to have to resort to legal threats/action to recover what is, in reality, my intellectual hard work. After all, I developed this on my own when based in Chicago, and it was never paid for or released by a publisher. I've been a nice guy so far...
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Actually, really bad on my part... I still haven't gotten around to doing anything for it to be published yet. Oooooooooookay, let's see if I can remember this month...!
Which year?
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Any ideas are welcome.
How about using a macro?
MAC SHIP; 1st parameter the var name prefix {1}_PositionX .word {1}_PositionZ .word {1}_VelocityX .word {1}_VelocityZ .word {1}_Direction .byte ENDM ; declare the ships... SHIP Ship1 SHIP Ship2Then you'd access the vars as "Ship1_PositionX", etc. The above will work, barring any minor typos.
Having said that, I don't think this is a great way to define variables. I'd have each variable indexed by ship number. Where you have word variables, split into two with a low/high, or double the index before lookup.
Just for reference, macros can do interesting stuff... here's a few to browse through...
ROM_BANK_SIZE = $800 MAC NEWBANK; bank name SEG {1} ORG ORIGIN RORG $F000 BANK_START SET * {1} SET ORIGIN / 2048 ORIGIN SET ORIGIN + 2048 _CURRENT_BANK SET {1} ENDM MAC DEFINE_1K_SEGMENT; {seg name} ALIGN $400 SEGMENT_{1} SET * BANK_{1} SET _CURRENT_BANK ENDM MAC CHECK_BANK_SIZE; name .TEMP = * - BANK_START ECHO {1}, "(2K) SIZE = ", .TEMP, ", FREE=", ROM_BANK_SIZE - .TEMP #if ( .TEMP ) > ROM_BANK_SIZE ECHO "BANK OVERFLOW @ ", * - ORIGIN ERR #endif ENDM MAC CHECK_HALF_BANK_SIZE; name ; This macro is for checking the first 1K of ROM bank data that is to be copied to RAM. ; Note that these ROM banks can contain 2K, so this macro will generally go 'halfway' .TEMP = * - BANK_START ECHO {1}, "(1K) SIZE = ", .TEMP, ", FREE=", ROM_BANK_SIZE/2 - .TEMP #if ( .TEMP ) > ROM_BANK_SIZE/2 ECHO "BANK OVERFLOW @ ", * - ORIGIN ERR #endif ENDM MAC OVERLAY; {name} SEG.U OVERLAY_{1} org Overlay ENDM ;-------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAC VALIDATE_OVERLAY LIST OFF #if * - Overlay > OVERLAY_SIZE ERR #endif LIST ON ENDM ;-------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Macro inserts a page break if the object would overlap a page MAC OPTIONAL_PAGEBREAK; { string, size } LIST OFF IF (>( * + {2} -1 )) > ( >* ) EARLY_LOCATION SET * ALIGN 256 ECHO "PAGE BREAK INSERTED FOR ", {1} ECHO "REQUESTED SIZE = ", {2} ECHO "WASTED SPACE = ", *-EARLY_LOCATION ECHO "PAGEBREAK LOCATION = ", * ENDIF LIST ON ENDM MAC CHECK_PAGE_CROSSING LIST OFF #if ( >BLOCK_END != >BLOCK_START ) ECHO "PAGE CROSSING @ ", BLOCK_START #endif LIST ON ENDM MAC CHECKPAGE LIST OFF IF >. != >{1} ECHO "" ECHO "ERROR: different pages! (", {1}, ",", ., ")" ECHO "" ERR ENDIF LIST ON ENDM MAC CHECKPAGE_BNE LIST OFF IF 0;>(. + 2) != >{1} ECHO "" ECHO "ERROR: different pages! (", {1}, ",", ., ")" ECHO "" ERR ENDIF LIST ON bne {1} ENDM MAC CHECKPAGE_BPL LIST OFF IF (>(.+2 )) != >{1} ECHO "" ECHO "ERROR: different pages! (", {1}, ",", ., ")" ECHO "" ERR ENDIF LIST ON bpl {1} ENDM IDENTITY SET 0 MAC IDENT; {object} #if DEBUG=YES lda #IDENTITY sta debug_ident lda {1} sta debug_object #endif IDENTITY SET IDENTITY + 1 ENDMCheers
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Well, Andrew asked me about the latest source code a few days ago. Whatever that means...
IIRC the levels where all defined completely, some objects needed a bit of work. What was not completed was the overall framework (scoring, timers, level progress, options etc.). Also we were still tuning the game engine to avoid slowdowns. Then there were some bugs and last not least we were wondering about a different, less restricted bankswitching/RAM board.
So maybe 2/3rd were done.
Yes, the levels are all defined. The major 'bug' is that the creatures (butterflies, boulders, etc) are processed in a different order than the original, and this affects the physics -- sometimes things behave slightly differently. It's not particularly noticeable, but it's not exactly the same as the original - more like 99.5% the same. That's because the original scans a board left to right top to bottom and does things when it finds particular objects at each board location. The 2600 version doesn't have time to do that scan, so all objects are managed in a stack. The stack isn't sorted, so objects tend to get processed in a different order. It shouldn't be impossible to fix -- just sort the stack before processing.
Scoring is done, timers are done, level progress is done.
A title/selection screen needs doing. Also intermission screens.
There are slowdowns, probably unavoidable given the current bankswitch scheme (3E). Switching to a better scheme (4A50) would probably (at a guess) speed up the game 20% but unfortunately that's not going to happen. The engine is rather complex at this stage and much of it I've forgotten (although it's reasonably well commented). I don't have any plans to do a conversion.
This effort was more a proof of concept -- it was for me a kind of 'holy grail' for Atari 2600 programming. I've proved, I think (along with Thomas' help) that it CAN be done, and it can be done well. The major achievements were the 'character' based display system, the 'colour' display consisting of alternating colour bands, and the implementation of a system that actually allowed the game to be played at a decent speed. Also impressive (to me) were the amoeba functionality, which I thought about for a long time, and the magic wall which ended up costing almost no processing time at all.
It's been an interesting, sometimes enjoyable, sometimes very stressful, project. I pick it up now and then and have a play.
Cheers
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I found Frogger II for Atari and a sealed Hunt For Red October for NES at a pawn shop for two dollars each
I haven't opened the October game but as I understand it our very own Andrew Davie programmed that baby.
Wp
How strange I should read a random thread and see my name. Yes, I programmed NES Hunt for Red October. I'd leave it sealed.
Cheers
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This project is dead.
I don't have the time or inclination to push it over the line, so rather than leaving people hoping I'm calling an official end to it.
I may release the source code, sans any Boulder Dash content, at some future date.
Cheers
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I'm working on the drones right now. I managed to get them 16 pixels wide! So I can reasamble the original drones pretty close.
Very nice. Split screen is lovely too. Keep up the good work
I miss the graduated sky at the horizon, though...
Cheers
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LOOP INX;ok BNE LOOP; ok LOOP2 INX;ok BNE LOOP2; bad -- need space before mnemonic. BNE treated as a label, then tries to assemble "LOOP2" as a mnemonic, giving unknown mnemonic error. LOOP3 INX;bad -- space before label, so label is assembled as mnemonic, giving unknown mnemonic error BNE LOOP3;ok
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well i got the command line working now but im gettin this message
Unknown Mnemonic
It's trying to assemble the file, but it's seeing garbage.
Typically, you have an instruction (=mnemonic) which it doesn't recognise.
Something like a space before a label will cause this.
eg: The following is OK...
LOOP INX
BNE LOOP
eg: The following will give Unknown Mnemonic
LOOP INX
BNE LOOP
Why? Because of the space before LOOP. Labels must start in the first column.
One tip; when you're asking for help, please give as much relevant information as you can. You could, for example have told us exactly which mnemonic it was saying was unknown. You're more likely to get help if you do this.
Cheers
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The other people replying to this excellent suggestion are really being quite mean and missing the point. I, for one, think this is a brilliant idea. I'd like to appropriate and extend the idea to the arcane world of Interweb abbreviations too, and suggest that we use the easy to remember long forms of the interweb addresses. Instead of the odd http:// and ftp:// I suggest we type "hyper text transfer protocol://" and "file transfer protocol://". The slashes are difficult to remember, so we should spell those out. forward-slash and back-slash. All Interweb addresses starting with "www" should of course be entered in full, so the AA site is "hyper text transfer protocol:forward-slash forward-slash world wide web.atariage.com". Ah, but "com" is short for commercial, I think... that's tricky for newbies like me to remember, so let's expand that too.
Really, your best option is to actually hunker down and learn the mnemonics. They're standard. Your suggestion is a bit like wanting to use "et cetera" or "exempli gratia" for "etc." and "e.g.". But, if you really want to avoid the standard mnemonics, you might be able to use macros like this...
mac load_x_register ;%1
ldx %1
endm
usage:
load_x_register #2
Format might be slightly off, but in principle I think this might work for you.
Don't expect ANYONE to help you with your code!
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Question about shipping from Australia
in Auction Central
Posted
Unless you specifically asked/paid for air mail shipping, it's coming to you surface. If it's coming surface, then that means by ship. And ships don't leave all that often
well not carrying post, anyway. They may, so I understand, wait until the packages form a decent load and then ship them as one lot. I'd be quite unsurprised to see the shipping in this case take 2-3 months. It's happened to me occasionally, going the other way.
I think you need to talk to the seller and find out what shipping was actually used.
Cheers
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