snicklin

Perl gets criticised a lot, but it is the perfect language for this. I have done Perl development on and off for over 20 years. The line numbers is so that you can add the line number from the source file, so that you can have a debugging routine. Imagine If a<6 then 'This should always happen do something else ' This should never happen print "Error at line #LINE#" endif I understand your reasoning for not releasing your program, especially as it is in Perl, so there is no real way to completely hide the code. I won't release the code for FBPP as I am working on a proprietary Go library which it uses and I do not wish to release that part, as I may want to make it commercial later on. Edit: Note that this library isn't just for Atari stuff, but as a library for lots of general computing tasks, creating hashes, network comms, reading and writing Excel files, reading files etc etc. I really like what you have been doing with your preprocessor. It is also interesting that we have both come up with preprocessors for different reasons. You for making your short games and me because I want to build tools to make it easier to build and debug more complex Basic programs.

Thank you too for the kind comment! Your preprocessor sounds very interesting. I really like your idea for including binary data. Is it something that you would also considering releasing onto here? I guess that it gives you a good advantage with the 10 liners What language did you use to create your preprocessor?

Hi, This is the first released version of my FastBasic Pre-processor, v0.1.1. This pre-processor should give you some more capabilities for developing with FastBasic on a PC. These capabilities include the ability to include other files in your main Basic file, text tag replacement and inserting line numbers into your output. The full capability list is in the included help file. The idea is that you run this prior to running the FastBasic cross-compiler. If you find any bugs, please let me know in your comments below, along with the text files that didn't work for you. FBPP-0.1.1.zip

I understand why some people might be against getting the Atari to play MP3's, but at the same time, there could be a use for it. I think that it wouldn't be bad if we had a large game on a large cartridge or some SD solution and on the title screen, it could play some nice music in the background. As for "people are only doing to show that the Atari can do it", then you could say the same about the videos of Top Gear playing off a banked cartridge. But you have to look at science itself. Often people wonder why scientists are spending a fortune to find out why Corn Flakes go soggy at an atomic level when milk is added, but discoveries like that lead to other things of more use. Perhaps some MP3 snippets could be used for sound effects and cartridge banked video could be used on small TV screens within a game as part of the plot?

Thank you so much to everyone for all your time and efforts with these games.

I know, his games were bad, real bad. I do like "Leapster" though. And "Castle Top" grew on me... "Domain of the Undead" http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-domain-of-the-undead_6166.html was so bad that it inspired a book that you may or may not know about: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Attack-Flickering-Skeletons-Terrible-Probably/dp/1783524138/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=attack+of+the+flickering+skeletons&qid=1636719893&sr=8-1 You can see more from Ashens here:

How would a plain black for the floor, no shading or anything look to you? Is this possible?

I can see why you say that. It does have that feeling. It was a decent game. I've Googled around, and I don't know if this page is "definitive" or "speculative" in what is said, but you can take a look anyway, unfortunately it doesn't mention New York City the game, though the writer is a big Atari fan. https://www.gamespew.com/2015/07/the-dna-of-grand-theft-auto/

This sounds like a nice enough idea, with some variety in it. I find that a lot of Atari games tend to only have one game mechanic, not the variety offered here. To spice it up a little more, when you go off to buy your bacon, you could either buy the amount of bacon that you need to serve that customer or you could overbuy. But then you need to manage a budget, and if you can't serve someone else later on as you have no cheese in stock and no money left, you could lose a life and be given another $10 to play with for the next life. Maybe you should also be able to collect petrol for the car. If you drive too quickly, your car uses up the petrol at a higher rate. This could well be fun!

It's probably my brain, even some of the modern games confuse me as to what I am looking at. It's a very good game, well developed and there is a good attention to detail. Nevertheless, sometimes I can't work out if I am looking at a close by wall, I just lose my bearings. It might take me half a second to work it out, which in an action game can be deadly.

I was going to say something similar, that of using a small monitor. I tried it on my 32" 4K monitor from arms length distance away and it was confusing, but on my 14" CRT it will be better.

@rensoup I suggest that you take a rest from the Atari and enjoy real life for a while. Then come back with more energy and maybe if we are lucky, you might have another project for us on the go!

@Jetboot Jack That looks a nice little tool there, very impressive. Unfortunately I can't really provide any Mac support with this software. The reason that I have been able to code these applications pretty quickly is because for the last few months I've been working on an underlying library (called a 'Module' in Go) which does a hell of a lot of things. Within that I have addressed a lot of complexities and then I only have to do things once and not worry about complex code again. Anyway, whilst creating it, I realised that I couldn't test for a Mac as I don't have one and I suspect that a lot of my file handling logic wouldn't work on a Mac, otherwise I could just compile for the Mac also. So I've stuck to Windows. @Roydea6 , as mentioned, I've worked on a version which doesn't create all of the extra folders. Luckily there wasn't much work involved. Thanks for the feedback. SortItOut_Copy_Ext_Alpha_NoEmpty.zip

Here's the scenario: You've made a brand new best friend here on AtariAge and you are discussing sharing all of your shareware collections with one another. You don't want to send massive zip files though whereby the other person has already got 90% of what you've got. Or you could want to fit it all onto a nice cheap USB stick of limited size.... So really, you want them to know what you've got and for them to send you what you haven't got. And then you can reciprocate the other way around, that way you've both got all the same files at the end of it. Well today is your lucky day! Following on from my the two utilities I wrote earlier today (Sort It Out! and Where Is It?) ... here are two more utilities.... 1) What Have I Got? - Run this on your computer by double clicking it in the root of your shareware folder. This will then create a text file full of checksums. Then send that to your new best buddy. 2) What Can I Give? - Your buddy takes your WhatHaveIGot.txt file and places it in the root of their shareware folder, alongside WhatCanIGive.exe. Double click WhatCanIGive.exe and this will then grab everything that they have got which you haven't. Everything will be placed into ToSend.zip. Next step, reciprocate! Use at your own risk! WhatCanIGive.zip WhatHaveIGot.zip

Thanks for the feedback and the helpful tip!

I've just taken a look into this and MS are no longer supplying this software, only updates to existing customers. If possible, could you submit it here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/filesubmission , and then they can take a closer look? I tried to do it myself, but it was asking for information I don't have.

Thanks for testing this out @Roydea6 . Whether the empty folders get created or not was something that I was considering during the creation of this utility. As it is designed to be just "click and go", that doesn't leave the option to be able to toggle this. However, I hope to find some time over this weekend to create a slightly different version of this which does not create the empty folders. Thanks for that feedback. Edit: To answer your question directly: I was thinking that people may use this program more than once, putting all the atr, xex etc files in the folder and running it again, therefore in time, all the folders will be used up, or at least most of them. As for the virus, well, I've just compiled it myself from scratch and I reckon that the external library that I am using ( https://github.com/jung-kurt/gofpdf ) is probably meaning that it is getting flagged unfortunately. Which anti-virus are you using? Is anyone else having the same issue or does it work for you?

So I've just released the above and then I thought that I'd play some games, but didn't know which folders to look in. For example, I wanted to play Gauntlet, but didn't know if it was in my ATR folder or my XEX folder. So then I thought, why not document it all to a PDF file? Here you go, here is another utility I've knocked up. It will only work with the folder structure created from SortItOut. Any problems, let me know... Also, use at your own risk, though there is no file moving or deletion involved with this program.... Usage: Have this .exe file in the folder above "Sorted". Double click on it. Go back to "Sorted" folder to find a "FileList.pdf" file created. Programmed in Go (Golang for search engines)... SortItOut-WhereIsIt_1_0_0.zip

Have you ever been in the situation whereby you have a whole load of Atari files in one folder and you just want to sort them out into a format which is better for your SD card solution? Or just so that you can browse your files easier? Indeed I have, a fair few times. It takes a long time to sort out all your files doesn't it? No longer though (provided you are a Windows user). Please see the attached zip file for a new solution to this age old problem. Feedback is appreciated and will enable the creation of different versions of this program that work in slightly different ways. Usage: Drop the .exe file into the folder that you want to sort and simply double click it. Then, everything will get copied into sorted folders. The folders will be sorted like this: RootFolder RootFolder->Sorted RootFolder->Sorted->[FileType] RootFolder->Sorted->[FileType]->[0-9][A-Z] So, a file named "Blobby.atr" which is in the root folder will be copied to: RootFolder->Sorted->ATR->B->Blobby.atr Limitations: - For the first release, it will copy rather than move files, in-case of bugs. - It will not copy files with no extension. - It will not copy files with the extensions of "go" or "exe". - It will not copy files that do not start with an alphanumeric character. - Not tested with non-English based character sets. - The format of the file structure is static. Program usage must remain simple. - All files must be in the root folder, folder reading has not been implemented. - USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. SortItOut_Copy_Ext_Alpha.zip SortItOut_Copy_Ext_Alpha.txt

Eh? I thought that the Flashbacks only played Atari 2600 games?? Please correct me if I am wrong, I am very happy to be corrected...

I have just woken up and what a treat to behold. I have had a quick look and it looks very, very good. Shame I have to go to work. Thank you to all involved, you have a masterpiece on your hands here.

And now my ultimate punishment for speaking up is that I am now tired and need to go to bed for work tomorrow. So I will miss out if it becomes available today, all you lucky people will get it before I do.

Erm, erm, no rush @rensoup ! On a serious note, do what you need to, fix all that you can. I am just very surprised that a dev would name a date! I'm a dev by trade, and I know how estimating can be difficult to get right.

You were/are a very brave person @rensoup for naming dates and times!

That looks better, though the old palette wasn't that bad. I have a question for you, once you've finished coding and had a little rest, would you be able to write us up a story of the programming process? I love to hear the issues that programmers had (technically, not those with other AA users) and why you decided to do something one way rather than another. Of course, if you don't feel like doing that, or if you're not sure you could gather enough energy to do that, it's OK. It was just a request...