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Vorticon

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Posts posted by Vorticon

  1. Posted

    IMO you should start with something that gives you visual feedback, since *seeing* something happen on the screen is good for motivation and your moral. Assembly can be intimidating when you are starting out, and it can sometimes be frustrating just trying to get something to run, let alone the results you want. Thus, start with simple things like clearing the screen. Then write a text message to the screen, like the traditional "Hello World". Finally animate a single character. After that, you might start looking in to how you can control moving that character with the joystick or keyboard.

     

    There are a lot of assembly related posts in this forum, do a search or look back a few pages. Ask questions, and don't give up! :-)

    I would also add that this is a good time to document all the little routines you test out because you will likely need them in the future for larger programs. For example, you probably want a screen clearing routine, a keyboard input routine and a binary to ASCII routine to display data, just for starters. Remember that in assembly you will need to create all the essential utilities you take for granted in higher level languages, and if memory serves me correctly, the sooner you get these worked out, the easier your future programming will become. Good luck and keep at it because it's very rewarding in the end :)

  2. Posted

    Marc, are you attending this year? There is a rumor that you are working on something interesting ;)

     

    I can't be there this year. We did a tonsillectomy, oral surgery and braces this spring. My deductible still isn't met and my cash stash looks like a popcorn fart. Seems I always miss the good years ;(.

     

    Since Tim is my northern connection I am waiting for him to chime in on his attendance prospects. I have a bit of something he might show if he can muster the drive south (sorry bud, I saw the bus coming and couldn't resist throwing you under it ;-). Ernie may show the SID software he finished.

     

    You guys have fun. I am sorry I am going to miss meeting the K and and anyone else ;-). Perhaps one of the brainier of the bunch can set up some kind of George Jettson video phone ??

     

    Well... I had planned to reserve one of the executive suites so that folks could pop in and set up equipment or talk 'shop'. Last week I had to pull back from those plans for a few reasons. Fortunately, I didn't announce my intent ;) It looks like a Saturday morning commute to Evanston is more likely, though if a few things settle down I may chance a Friday night arrival. I won't know until Thursday at the earlies.

     

    It is also doubtful that the cooler of adult beverages (or Diet Coke, Matthew!) will be tagging along this time either but there is always some hope. grin

     

    PS - That was my room last year, Vorticon, it's just that Marcus helped me break an RGB monitor and all things went south from there. Or did that start from the cooler contents? I honestly do -not- remember :D

     

    You are probably correct (on both counts!) :)

    I'm still trying to finish up the beta version of my new XB game before the Faire, and will likely still need to do some more coding on Friday night in order to have something relatively demo grade by Sat. The game is called Clear for Action, and is a naval combat simulation in the age of sail based on an original game of the same name for the Atari and TRS80 computers back in 1984. It's already too large to fit into one program, so now it's in 2 parts chained together, and I will more than likely need to break it down into 3 parts before it's finished...

    While I'm at it, please allow me vent and say that I never programmed something so large in XB, and I can categorically state that XB (and Basic in general) is a very poor fit for complex and lengthy projects due to its extreme lack of structure. There is so much spaghetti code in my program with all those GOTO's that I'm afraid to let it go for too long for fear of completely losing track of the general program structure and flow. Had I done this in Pascal, I would have been long finished by now and it would have been a heck of a lot more readable as well as efficient.

    There! I feel better already :D

  5. Posted

     

    I can't be there this year. We did a tonsillectomy, oral surgery and braces this spring. My deductible still isn't met and my cash stash looks like a popcorn fart. Seems I always miss the good years ;(.

     

    Since Tim is my northern connection I am waiting for him to chime in on his attendance prospects. I have a bit of something he might show if he can muster the drive south (sorry bud, I saw the bus coming and couldn't resist throwing you under it ;-). Ernie may show the SID software he finished.

     

    You guys have fun. I am sorry I am going to miss meeting the K and and anyone else ;-). Perhaps one of the brainier of the bunch can set up some kind of George Jettson video phone ??

    Yup, that'll do it... We'll miss you, and there is always next year!

  7. Posted · Edited by Vorticon

    The hotel everyone seems to be staying at, the Best Western, has a conference room available on Friday from 7am to 11pm for $200. I'm waiting for an answer from them if they will do a half day, from 3pm to 11pm (since most people won't be there until later), at a reduced rate.

     

    It would be nice to get at least 8 people to commit to chipping in so it would only be $25 each. I'll be the first to put my name on the list.

     

    Sign me up. If I leave early on Friday morning, I should be in Evanston by 1-2pm.

  8. Posted

    OK can we get back to the Faire topic now? If we're going to have a gathering on Friday too, I might consider leaving Thursday night so I can have all of Friday available. How many of us here are up to this? I'll also post a similar question on the Yahoo site :D

  9. Posted

    Now let's be fair to Hal here. The actual main event on Saturday IS the Faire, not Friday or Sunday, or even Sat night, and it is strictly TI.

     

    I'm totally giving Hal the credit he deserves, please don't take it otherwise. He held the Faire together all these years, and I'm glad he continues to arrange it. But I only live 3.5 hours drive away, however, some people are traveling from other continents! IMO, *one* 5-hour day (we always seem to have to wait for the mom-to-mom sale to be over at noon before we can get in...) in a small room, with no separate space for presentations, is hardly a "Faire", and hard to swallow for someone coming from so far away (like the UK, or even anyone who has to fly in).

     

    I simply want to expand it a little and make it more worth-while for those who are less interested in the "good ol' days", and more interested in hacking code and hardware, trading gear, checking out rare stuff, etc.

    I'm with you, but I'm still glad we have a Faire in any form and someone still willing to put it together. I for one certainly don't have the time or energy to pull off something like that... Did you look into some meeting space at the Best Western for Friday?

  11. Posted

    Hehe, no, not really. I was thinking more about some sightseeing in general (on my own, with family or with some TI friends). But also much more TI arranged stuff, like code corners, concurrent presentation sessions to choose from, time for questions/evaluation, more days, better premises (3 or more rooms, coffee area), official plans/agenda available (maybe even a site - and some documentation of what happened etc.). Just off my head.

     

    ;)

     

    Yeah, we talked about format after the Faire last year, and it stirs a lot of controversy and emotion. Hal runs the Faire the way he has been for the last 20 years, and he deserves a lot of credit for keeping it together. At this point though, there seems to be more "Faire" than "TI" in the event.

     

    As for more days, rooms, talks, etc., to do that stuff you would have to: 1. charge people (which just may kill the whole thing), and 2. get more people to come (which I don't see happening since we are already an extremely small community, and divided too.)

     

    Technically the Faire *is* three days... If you were to come and be around on Friday, then there will be TI stuff to do, at least this year there will be. Saturday is the main "event" at the library, and afterwards, personally, I'm planning on continuing the hacking sessions at the hotel. Sunday was typically the "everyone goes home" day, but if people wanted to continue with presentations, hacking, sessions, etc. then there is no reason not to do so.

    Now let's be fair to Hal here. The actual main event on Saturday IS the Faire, not Friday or Sunday, or even Sat night, and it is strictly TI. I agree though that the content has gotten softer over the past 2-3 years mainly because there are not as many developers around anymore. I also think that presentations should be kept at 10 min max with at least 45min to an hour in between to allow people to connect and talk shop. It's a real bummer that the Library kicks us out so soon, so maybe we should get a conference room on Friday afternoon and have a pre-Faire of sorts.

  12. Posted

    i will be coming from europe (austria) to chicago, staying from 2nd of november to 7th in best western university plaza.

    hoping to meet some ti friends! :)

    That's great Klaus! We'll hook up on Friday afternoon.

  14. Posted

    Hmm, I decided some months ago that I would be skipping the Faire this year. I'm still not sure, kind on the fence right the moment. Does anyone have any interest in trying to "do something" Friday afternoon / evening, other than sitting around drinking? Personally I'd rather talk about hardware, hack on some software, discuss ideas, etc. Also, something similar on Saturday after the "main event" at the library (they kick us out at like 4 or 5pm.) Again, I'm not much interested in sitting around "socializing" and drinking. I'd rather retreat to a room full of gear, talk shop, learn, teach, hack code, etc.

     

    The Best Western is pretty much the alternative "affordable" hotel, so maybe we could get a small conference room to use? Or maybe they have large suites? Thoughts?

    Come on Matt! You have to come! The Friday night get together is really a re-acquaintance with fellow TIers who haven't seen each other for at least a year, and having a beer or too during that time is fine but certainly not the purpose of the gathering. I would definitely be up to joining you and other hackers later on (like last year) to discuss tech topics. I'll even bring along my little ELF computer for show and tell as well as my CP/M card. If you guys are up to it, I can also bring a wargame to play.

    As for Sat night, well, the pub crawl is a crazy but beloved tradition, but one does not need to get drunk to still have fun. Besides, we can still have all sorts of interesting discussions during that time.

    I'll be happy to share the cost of a small conference room for Friday if you want to research it. Who else is interested in this other than you, Willsy and myself?

  15. Posted

    I'm looking for an XB sound routine that generates the sound of a cannon. I am terrible at this sort of stuff, so if anyone here has something along these lines, would you mind sharing it?

     

    The best way to craft sounds is to think about what they're made up of. A cannon is an explosive "whuf" sound, followed by a high-pitched whine of the cannon ball, going from high to low as it approaches the target.

     

    The explosion can be done just using the noise generator:

     

    100 FOR I=0 TO 30 STEP 5
110 CALL SOUND(-200,-7,I)
120 NEXT I

     

    The high-pitched whine is a little more difficult, as BASIC will tend to stutter a bit... try this:

     

    130 FOR I=1 TO 10
140 CALL SOUND(-500,2000-(I^3),0)
150 NEXT I

     

    The trick here is to start at a very high sound, but descend at an exponential rate, but still only have around 10-20 sound changes to make it fairly fast. Or you can just forgo the whine sound and stick with the explosion too, maybe add a reverb effect to it instead.

     

    I also need one with sounds of swords clashing, but if I recall correctly, 99'er magazine had a sound article that included this very particular sound pattern. I'll see if I can locate it.

     

    Yes, I've read the same article, but it's easy to recreate here. What you need is to use the multiple voices at high pitches, each slightly different, and have it fade over time:

     

    100 FOR I=0 TO 30 STEP 6
110 CALL SOUND(-100,3000,I,2000,I,1000,I)
120 NEXT I

     

    The fun of sound effects is playing around until you find the right ones!

     

    Adamantyr

     

    Thanks! I'll try these out tonight.

  17. Posted

    I'll be there and staying at the Best Western. Looking forward to seeing you all :)

     

    I'm also at the Best Western - The Best Western University Plaza - I think it's a block or two from the Library...?

    Depends how much beer you have in you :D . 2 blocks is about right.

  18. Posted

    Hi.

     

    I'm looking for an XB sound routine that generates the sound of a cannon. I am terrible at this sort of stuff, so if anyone here has something along these lines, would you mind sharing it?

    I also need one with sounds of swords clashing, but if I recall correctly, 99'er magazine had a sound article that included this very particular sound pattern. I'll see if I can locate it.

    In case you're wondering, I've decided to create a new XB game between now and Faire time so I can have something interesting to present because unfortunately it does not look like Ultimate Planet is going to make it in time (not even close). It's going to be quite a squeeze, but I think I can make it given how speedy XB programming can be. Forth would have been nice, but I don't have a good grasp of it yet...

  20. Posted

    This could be my last game for the TI-99/4A, as it just takes too much development time. But you never know.

    When will it be finished? Dunno, perhaps sometime in 2012, but might be later.

     

    it's the second worst news this month after Steve Job :(

    I concur, although the sad reality is that most of us have day jobs and other interests that make the creation of new games, especially in assembly, quite laborious. My Ultimate Planet game is still dragging on, mostly because it is competing with my many other hobbies, so I have given up on a "delivery date" and will just work at it whenever I can. I'm sure many other TIers out there share the same dilemma...

  21. Posted

    Thanks OX, I was going to post that link. I saw the book the other day on that site. I didn't know what it was and I was short on time, so I didn't download it. The books that I did download from the site were good quality.

     

    To any one else thinking about scanning books, check out the open source book scanner. It is very cool and I'm working on a setup for myself. Vorticon, that magazine article I "scanned" for you a few weeks ago was actually imaged with my digital camera. It let me keep the pages flat and not hurt the magazine. It was also faster than a scanner.

     

    http://www.diybookscanner.org/

    This looks like fun! Certainly seems better than using my standard flatbed scanner...

  24. Posted

    yesterday in the Android Market, I found this game: zDefence.

     

    I was surprised at the similarity with this ... In this way the fans of the game and have ti99 Android can experience the "thrill" to try this too:) ....

     

    I do not know if they are equal as a concept ... But it seems that the graphics ... : D

     

    http://www.androidear.com/news/amazonappstore-free-app-of-the-day-%E2%80%93-zdefense/?lang=it

    Hex-based wargaming has been around for quite a while, starting with table top games beautifully crafted and wickedly complex rules in the 60's and 70's :) Ultimate Planet is actually an adaptation of such a game although its original rules were simpler (I talk about this in an earlier post under this thread). If you are interested in this type of games, I would highly recommend the V for Victory series for the PC which were released in the early 90's and can be found online (hotud.com) although I own the original games. You can still run them using DosBox under Win 7. Another option is the modern Hearts of Iron III which you can still purchase, although this is quite a daunting game with all sorts of strategic, tactical, economic and political aspects and covers the entire WWII conflict and may not be your best first exposure to this genre.

    As for ZDefense, I downloaded it on my Android phone and will be playing with it a bit later today :)

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