RevEng

It sounds like you just need to put this in your .bas: const player0colors=1 And then use player1colors as usual, but they'll apply to player0 instead of player1.

Another easy way to use the new std_kernel.asm is to just copy it in the same directory as your .bas file. bB will use asm files in this directory before the official ones. I prefer this method, as it keeps the official bB dir clean.

It looks like the pinouts are right, and from what I read the genesis pads are supposed to be backward compatible with the SMS controllers, so my best guess is that they should work. But I haven't tried them myself, so I couldn't swear to it.

The RBox designer has built a version of it that doesn't use the $30 devkit. Looks pretty sweet!

All things being equal, yes a level assists in reducing force by increasing the distance travelled. (the reason why it's slower to control a joystick) But things aren't equal here. Gamepads are built around carbon-dot switches rather than the typical mechanical switches. I'll use a cx-40 joystick to press down on a genesis gamepad and let you know which one activates first, but I'd be very surprised if it was the joystick. Also, controlling a gamepad should be done by rocking your thumb around. The motion is minimal compared to engaging your wrists. I'm still of the belief that "scientific facts" on superiority of one controller over another is academic and pointless. The majority of people on this thread seem to prefer to match the controller they're using to the style of game they're playing. Maybe your scientific facts on analog controllers vs. digital controllers are less important for some games than you're assuming, and other factors (like the ability to vary the input) are more important for some games. If that's the case, than an unqualified "superior" label for digital controls is unwarranted.

You may not perceive it, but it's a scientific fact that smaller muscles move faster, and smaller appendages have less momentum. It's one of the reasons a cheetah can run faster than a horse. Leverage isn't an issue with gamepads. It takes less effort to engage a pad than it does a joystick. (another superiority!) There's no scientific basis for having less control with a thumb than with a wrist+finger combination. Our fingers are more dexterious and suited to fine-motor coordination than our wrists. Try writing a sentence with your wrist and fingers vs. the usual way of laying your hand on the page and just using the fingers. I can guarantee the result of wrist+fingers will be less precise than using the fingers. So there's no reason to maintain a bias for the joystick, given that gamepads are scientifically superior. Use the superior tool!

On a more serious note, atariski, why do you bother with digital joysticks? Gamepads are superior to joysticks, according to the scientific facts. The throw distance in a gamepad is a lot smaller than a joystick, and you use smaller+faster muscle groups to control a gamepad. (fingers vs wrist) Both factors lead to improved response times, especially important in games like pacman, montezuma's revenge, etc.

I think it's a denial of service attack. HackMii.com is loading, but very slowly.

That doesn't even make any sense! Maybe if you weren't so emotional you'd be able to see my logic.

You missed one. -that doesn't make any sense (i.e. I have no logical counter-argument)

When I want to move a little right and a lot up it can't be done on a digital stick without introducing lots of error. Moving in a cardinal direction for a a portion of second another for the rest of the second is a terrible approximation. Lots of error there, unless you're claiming you can change directions in 60ths of a second. I've repeated it hundereds of times myself along with others, and the results are that certain controllers work well with some games, and other controllers work with others. If you look at the results of your poll you'll see your "scientific fact" is in dispute. Your mother was more than willing. If anything she took advantage of me. Don't know what my mother has to do with this. But then again your whole message was just incoherent nonsense anyway. Next time read slower and and less emotion. If you try hard enough you'll be able to shed your bias and it will make sense!

Yes and I also admit to the badness of digital controls with other games. So by your logic digital controls are inferior. You're still missing the link in logic. It has not been repeatedly confirmed that digital controls are superior. You have a hypothesis that you're desperately trying to pawn off as fact by talking about qualities of analog sticks that irrelevant to game play. Your mother was more than willing. If anything she took advantage of me.

Try looking at it again with less emotion. The fact that some games are better with a digital stick does not prove that digital sticks are superior. You're missing a few links in your logic chain. Atariski said his scientic fact was proven by playing hundreds of games himself. I can only take him at his word. Certainly. But I'm not the one claiming my opinion is the proof for a scientific fact. You clearly don't understand what a scientific fact is. 2X=1, X=0.5 is not a scientific fact. Its a mathematical statement. Maybe you should look up what a scientific fact is before claiming something as one.

Congratulations! Your experiment with a sample size of one subject has scientifically proven that for atariski digital controllers are superior. I eagerly await other scientific atariski facts, like how red is superior to blue, and which lucky number is superior. Others here like to call these these conclusions made from studies with a sample size of one subject "opinions". Its the more intellectually honest thing to do.

For accuracy with an analog stick one doesn't need to know the exact accurate position of the stick. Nobody is thinking "I need to move up at 27% of full speed... Adjusting sick to 27% of the throw distance" The analog stick provides 100% accuracy from the perspective that I'm able to move the player at my intended varying relative rate. And I'm hardly unique in that ability. So tell me, how does one accurately use a digital stick to move a player at a heading 5 degrees from straight up?

No, I claim that you don't need to know the exact state to play certain games better with an analog stick. There really isn't a hindrance not to know that the stickis pressed up 73%. I just need to know I pressed it up a little more than a second ago. The analog joystick doesn't need to perfectly replace the flight controls. It just has to do a better job than a digital joystick, which it does. The difference is, the games that work better with digital controls are the ones that are designed (surprise) to move the player at a constant rate. When the gameplay requires more subtle control variation, analog is better. You seem to live in a weird world where you have a choice of only 1 controller. The controller that is superior is the one that matches the game you are playing. I pick the controller to match the game style. It provides 100% control 100% of the time.

This is the hilarious part. You seem to think that one needs to be to hit a precise angle for analog controllers to more useful than digital controllers in certain kinds of games. If only there was some kind of feedback mechanism that would show if you were pushing far enough... like maybe if your character would move slower when you pressed less, or your plane would rise slower than full speed. Ah well, too bad there's no such feedback mechanism. So where's the peer reviewed study to support your scientific fact? Which scientists have posited your assertion? Like many others have said. Use the right tool for the right job. Certain games work better for digital controls, and others work better with analog sticks.

The irony here being that I have no trouble with fractional movement with an analog joystick. Seems like people who can't master analog controls are projecting their own inadequacies as scientific fact.

With a digital joystick there's always a chance that you accidentally press an angle instead of a true direction, given that our hands aren't designed to move in a perfect circle. It's just too difficult to know exactly where in that circle you are applying pressure, and there's no feedback, so it's too imprecise. That's why the one-button controller is superior to the digital joystick. It's a scientific fact!

In many respects, doing retro development is tedious work. So its best to pick a platform you have some love or affinity for. Failing that, you should pick the environment you find the most interesting. Otherwise you'll get sick of the tedium during the rough patches. @GroovyBee: why not just use the 6507 stack? I know it eats into the ram, but the programmer just needs to understand that and use globals where possible.

Nah, that's a fair-use exemption. The world can be a much more understandable place if you actually take the time to research things before you assume you already know how they work.

Distributing your work - putting it on the Internet - isn't giving away the copyrights to your work. Distributing your work does not imply that anyone receiving it has the right to make another copy. ID Software didn't give away their source code - they released it under a specific license. If ID had just put up the software for download, nobody else would have the right to distribute it. That's how copyright works nearly universally - all rights are reserved by the copyright owner - unless they give those rights away in a document. (or unless the rights fall under fair-use exemptions.) Stop guessing at the laws. It's easy enough to download any country's country's copyright act, or the Berne Convention text. The laws aren't as difficult to read as one might think.

emkay, you're confusing non-enforcement with legal standing. The two are not the same thing. Just because a copyright owner doesn't enforce his copyright in certain situations doesn't mean that usage isn't contrary to the copyright laws. So far as European countries, the long list of those that follow the Berne Convention don't have exceptions for non-profit unauthorized copying. And if you check out Article 6 of the convention, you'll see clearly that an Artist has "moral rights" to object to coversions and usage of his work, independent of his economic rights.

There's nothing in any land's copyright law about the selling copies being not legal and giving away copies being legal. If the unauthorized copies are made for profit, it makes suing the unauthorized copier a more attractive legal option, but it does nothing to change the actual legal standing. So far as US copyright law, copying to computer memory in a way not explicitly authorized by the copyright owner (akin to your translator example) isn't a copyright exception. In MDY Indus. LLC v. Blizzard Entm't, Inc. the court found that running game software in a manner outside of the explicit rights granted caused an unauthorized ram copy of WoW to be made (it was launched by a bot instead of a user), and as such was contrary to copyright laws. You example is one where people choose not to litigate out of common sense and no financial incentive, but it's not an example that proves legal standing. Anyway, nobody cares about the legality of it all. The issue is about taking credit for someone else's contribution. Why not be accurate and add a "converted by..." note?

Really nice man! I wonder how a wood-burned "label" would work out. Maybe you could get a stencil and just "draw" in the stencil with a high output laser pointer.