Cupcakus
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Posts posted by Cupcakus
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Yah I figured this tool already existed, I was curious to see if both tools produced the same size packed sprite or if there was a difference. However the sprpck you attached only has a cygwin.dll in it :-)
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Hey All,
I picked up a Lynx at California Extreme, and because I'm completely nuts, I can't truly enjoy a new game console, until I've written code for it, and I understand how it works.
Long story short, I was having trouble getting my head wrapped around how the sprite data has to be set up for packed sprites, so I wrote a tool to convert 16 color bitmaps into Lynx packed sprite data. Tools like this may already exist, but in any case, I thought I'd share the tool and it's source in case anyone else wants a head start, or wants to make the tool more useful. It could be better, IE: by changing the draw direction in the data it may be possible to get better compression, but I'm not figuring out the algorithm to do that :-). Depending on how many repeating pixels you have in your sprite, you can get a lot of space savings by packing your sprites up with this tool.
I used VC++ 2008, but it's all std c, so you should be able to compile it for Linux or Mac by removing the precompiled header nonsense.
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Most of those suggestions are already in play... however I made very poor use of indirect addressing and pointers. A lot of areas are rediculously silly like,
if player 1
do xyz to player1
if player 2
do xyz to player 2
if player 3
do xyx to player 3
etc...
xyz is the same exact thing each time, and could be 20 or so lines long.
Wheras it would be much more efficient to load a pointer first
do xyz to (player)
This is one of those programming 101 things I was ignoring because I thought I had plenty of room to spare on the cart and it was easier to read. But it burned me
I also have an insane number of NOP's in the kernel to make everything display correctly. This may be unavoidable, but there's a lot of rom space wasted this way, I may replace some with useless but more intensive opcodes so I can use less space, or maybe I could stick some usefull code in there too... I just wish I had time to figure it out
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The program is 4k, and should not have to be bigger... I could go 8k bank switched and even tried to figure it out at one point, but it's just not necessary. Spending the last couple days reading over it, the code is sloppy in a lot of places and I have a lot of unneccessary data that can be cleaned up.
The problem ends up being that the code has to be tighter, and better written to make everything fit (which is very common in 2600 development).
There's no reason to make the cost per unit of a cart go up because I'm a lazy programmer
I answered the flash cart question in my original post.
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I've seen this show, it's really really lame... Allthough I was really amused at how poorly big mean guard dogs actually guard a home... But congrats on a new free kickass security system!!!
The robber guy is rough as hell with stuff... he basically takes whatever he can as fast as he can and that usually involves just grabbing things and throwing them.
Take anything you don't want damaged (They'll replace it if it's broken, but if they dent a mint box or something I bet you're hosed)...
Then fill up three or four whole dresser drawers with sex toys and lube, and a horse's saddle, just cause that'll make the show much more entertaining to watch when he rips open the drawers and starts throwing crap.
Or even better, install those child resistant latches on every drawer, so the drawers only come out a couple inches and you have to push the latch down to open it all the day... mwah ha ha ha ha, that would be hilarious...
Congrats again...
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OK, but I'm gonna tell them you said they had to do it...
My web site is down due to Al moving the AA servers, he's empowered me to fix it, but it sorely needs updating so don't expect that too soon either. Here are some screen shots of the game on the main AA page though...
http://www.atariage.com/development_page.h...evelopmentID=56
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Just kidding...
Was that rude or what? Very Sorry, but it made you look didn't it!...
The fact is scince the last time I talked about finishing the game I havn't even looked at the code. My focus has been on my growing family and my career which has taken a recent course for the better, but has only served to cement my lack of 2600 play time.
So I guess the question begs, when *will* it be finished? At this rate, I wouldn't hold your breath, maybe never? Maybe we just release it in ROM form as an unfinished prototype or something, I dunno.... The worst part is, and always has been scince the show it missed two years ago is that it's really, really closed to being finished.
I ran out of cart space and got frustrated and set it aside for a day, I ended up getting hired the next day to do real work, and I havn't given it much work scince.
I over complicated the AI which will save a lot of cart space if and when that get's refactored and I never implemented the game play for the bomb card... Which shouldn't be too difficult.
So I suppose my question at this point is. Is the community OK with waiting an undertermined amount of time before this ever gets released? Is there some really bored soul that wants to take it over and finish it? Or should I just release it as is and forget about it... (Mostly unplayable as the AI will lock up eventually and think forever)
Well that was a whole lot of typing for a whole lot of nothing new to report, I'm very sorry. I bothered to post this because I actually put a couple hours into the source today, mostly relearning what I was doing, and fixing a few minor bugs, and I decided I might poke my head out of the closet again.
(Where's the flash cart?)
Gone, I lost all of my work on that project in a computer meltdown, thankfully I had backups of the Kablamo stuff. It's fantastic to see Kroko came up with a superior design anyway. If I ever revive the project, I will make it a direct PC->2600 link for programmers to use as a dev tool, and I beg Kroko to make more carts cause I want one!!! :-)
Let the punishment begin...
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Consider myself poked :-) Kablamo! is back on my plate
I've been really busy as of late, with real work, and with some promising internet projects.
(Shameless plug)
I wrote the Vampire card game for GameTableOnline.com, stop by and play sometime lol
I found the Kablamo source, blew the dust off of it, and I'm going to spend the next week making minor changes, and considering what's left to be done. I'll post an update here when I make my determination.
As it stands, I think I ran out of ROM space, so I will have to clean some things up and make some changes, but I think it'll be OK... it's the same 99% done it was over a year ago so hopefully I can find the time to get it finished once and for all.
I feel like crap for dropping the ball on this one, I intend to finish it.
Thanks for checking up on me :-) I never thought anyone would be so interested in my little project.
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Yeah I figgured it had already been picked up :-)
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I saw it on IGN, they had an article of it... It's just like all the other controller to TV conversions that have been coming out just about every year... only this one is dedicated to paddle games, and looks to be just like real paddles...
Which is really cool, considering they keep putting paddle games on the joystick versions, and they end up sucking...
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My apologees if this has already been posted... been quite a while scince I poked my head in here...
Thought these were super cool though...
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The timepiece is just another thing to get... And drop... Patience works fine for me. The sun will rise eventually, eventually what you need will appear in the treasure room.
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Cupcakus has a video of his "perfect" score of Raiders of the lost arkhttp://www.atariage.com/~clarkin/accomplish.html
or more directly...
http://www.atariage.com/~clarkin/view_page...82(Perfect).zip
Thanks for remembering! Aside from a really long wait for the sun in the map room, and putting my items in a challenging order for the Yar appearance, that vid is a perfect game. That is a game demonstrating the most points possible in a game of Raiders.
I think TwinGalaxies even put me in the books for that vid... Yay me!!!
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Found my notes from when I was designing the flash cart, hope this helps.
Cartridge Pins From The Front Left to Right (PROM facing up)
1 -> Q3
2 -> Q4
3 -> Q5
4 -> Q6
5 -> Q7
6 -> /CE (Inverted)
7 -> A10
8 -> A11
9 -> A9
10 -> A8
11 -> Vcc
12 -> GND
Back (Pins from the back, left to right if back side is facing you, or right to left if front side is facing you)
12 -> A7
11 -> A6
10 -> A5
9 -> A4
8 -> A3
7 -> A2
6 -> A1
5 -> A0
4 -> Q0
3 -> Q1
2 -> Q2
1 -> Prom GND (Pin 12)
/OE goes to GND
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it's been a while for me as well... but if I remember correctly the pinout is similar, however you have to gnd the /WE and invert the /CE on the EPROM.
Larger EPROM's can work, but the extra address lines have to be grounded some how, and the other lines have to be soldered to the PCB correctly.
Your best bet is probably to get one of the Pixels Past PCB's here on AA which are all set for the 4k EPROM and inverter.
--Chris
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I believe Monty Python was the theme of this one
I didn't get it with the meow's... But the talking bolgna sandwich saying the scene is silly gave it away :-)
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NES --> There is definetly a homebrew scene for this. I wrote a few small demos for the NES before I decided on VCS homebrewing.
Game Gear --> ? Got me... I hope so :-)
PS1/PS2 --> Sony sold a special homebrew PS1 in the hopes that regular joes could produce a real game Sony could publish... It started with a Y? and it was black. By the time I found out they existed, Sony was no longer selling them :-(
Saturn --> ?
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I bought it for XBox when I got my new HDTV (It was the only 1080i XBox game I could think of that I wanted)
It's incredible fun if you are a simpsons nut, like me, if your not though... the game isn't all that exciting. The cars are tragically hard to control, and most of the missions make no sense.
It was definetly a good buy for me though. :-) I was almost done with Lisa's levels, when I decided to play back through Knights of the old republic one more time being 'EVIL' as much as possible :-)
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Operation Flash Point is one of my most favorite games ever... I let a friend borrow the disc, and I never got it back :-(
I would really, really love to play that again.
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I have all of the US releases my local GameStop ever had when it was out... (Even both Dive Alerts) :-) I really like the little toy. I wish more games were released for it.. but you can't have it all :-)
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I don't know.. I think this is good in a bad way.. it's a real eye opener to the flaws in the MS operating system and how badly they need to be fixed and horrible costs to the people involved..It really is hardly microsoft's fault... unless they are the ones that stole it. (Unlikely) outlook has a plethera of security holes, most of which have been patched for months, buffer overrun preview window in particular.
Whoever did this will brag and will be caught. This does unfortunetly expose the HL2 engine to the world, but speaking as a homebrewer, that can't be too bad.
I'm torn in all directions over this. I feel for Valve, who should have known better to protect their systems. HL2 is Valve... they should have protected it with everything they had. On the other hand, some new really cool games, and homebrews can come of this which is very exciting.
This is the first time ever a cutting edge FPS engine has become open source. It makes me all tingly :-)
Oh well.. They better hurry up and finish it and get it on shelves before John Q. Hacker does.
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The whole selling point for the NGage is multiplayer... which ends up being a waste, because as of yet you can't play others over GSM, and bluetooth is a waste of time.
$300 is not that extraordinary for a hyped up phone... That's what my sidekick cost.
The GBA goes wireless soon... so I'm not sure what reason if any there really is to spend money on an NGage and it's software....
But as we all know.. If Yugi says we should buy it... it will sell like no tomorrow.
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Hmmmmm freeeeeee
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Lynx Sprite Packing Tool
in Atari Lynx Programming
Posted
The results were exactly the same, which is encouraging I guess.