ChocolateCake

I have a high level design question. My idea is for a side scrolling "mining" type game where a ship flies through an asteroid belt and must shoot rocks out of his path. (Its really a maze game.) I think this will require more than 32 "sprites" and was wondering what is the functional difference between characters and sprites? I read in the documentation that the sprites offer some collision detection. Can a game have more than 32 "objects" -- IOW would I be able to maintain a data structure (maybe a 2d array) of characters that are used to draw the "maze" and detect collisions between them and player objects?

The reason why the free Hitech C compiler for CP/M doesn't work under Vista is because the CP/M emulator for DOS named 22NICE is a 16bit application which is no longer supported by Windows Vista. Because of that, the GUI named CCI that simply create batch files to run in a DOS window and try running the 22NICE program just give an error message about 16bit application not compatible with Vista. But, I was able to use 22NICE under DOSBOX by doing my own batch files rather than using CCI... it's not the perfect solution but Vista is just making thing just even worst, and not only because of the compiler... the tools programmed in VisualBasic 5 and 6 need a DLL that is no longer already installed with Windows, and even if you download the missing DLL, the application may not look like what it supposed to be, specially the graphic tools. Someone did try VirtualPC to "switch to XP" to run programs and it seems to be a working solution for him. Oh, I see. Given that my notebook is vista, it seems the path of least resistance is to use Cygwin/sdcc. If that doesnt work out I can use your workarounds, the CP/M emulator, and maybe a virtual PC so I can use the old DLLs. Thanks.

Hello! I was recently reunited with my beloved ColecoVision after over 20 years! (My first computer was an Apple IIe and I have not owned another console since the CV.) Perhaps it is just nostalgia, but I find that most of the CV games are quite playable as opposed to the majority of 2600 games which are too primitive. The console seems to have a certain magic to it and some of the ports; the Centipede port in particular, lead me to believe that the majority of games did not fully exploit the capabilities of the system. To be honest, some of the ports are poor. I work as a software developer in UNIX environment so I would like to use Cygwin/sdcc for development, but realize that most development is done with CP/M emulator and Hi-Tech compiler. The youtube video states that the Gui ide for hi-tech compiler will not work under vista, and as my laptop is vista/cygwin (have decided against dual boot), i am leaning towards sdcc. I would like to be able to tinker with a CV game whereever I am. However, there does not seem to be as much documentation for sdcc and its linux libs. The cpm libs used by hitech seem better documented. 1) If I move ahead with cygwin/sdcc, will I be shooting myself in the foot and wish I had gone with hitech? Any known limitations? 2) Will hi-tech/CPM ide work on vista? 3) Do any of the emulators run under linux/cygwin? 4) What is best emulator that gives high chance of working on CV eprom? 5) Do most guys developing scrollers code in z80 assmbly? I've got an idea for an R-Type shooter with horizontal scrolling. Most CV titles are single screen maze/puzzle games. I have already skimmed benvienues c-language docs, the CV bios descriptions. Havent read the sdcc c-library stuff yet DB seems to have coded quite a few utilities for sound, sprite/character development, its not clear if equivalents exists for the sdcc stuff. Advice apprecited. Thanks, -CC

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