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It sounds like the Pascal version for the CC40 computer The latter was really not too bad given the hardware limitations, but it is almost unforgivable for a full fledged compiler like Turbo Pasc 99. Could it possibly be an omission in the manual? Stranger things have happened...

Very nice idea One suggestion though: it would be easier if one could move the bricks in all directions instead of just right and left. This will facilitate the placement of the bricks. I don't think you really need sprites with this program especially since you are compiling it and therefore have a lot of speed available. One way to handle the situation where one brick overlaps another is to save the underlying brick in a temporary variable and then restore it when the overlapping brick moves away. If you want to get fancy, you can even have a small window in a corner that will show the content of the area under the overlapping brick for reference. With this set up, then one will have the option of replacing one brick with another, making for easy editing. You really can get very creative with this program! Just like Legos

Great! That's 2 of us so far. Any version of TF should be fine, and there are no other restrictions. Willsy, are you going to participate as well?

Hi. In order to jump start the use of Turbo Forth and give TI'ers an appreciation of how powerful that language is, I am launching a Turbo Forth game competition, where the competitors will have till the 2012 Chicago Faire in October to create a game in Turbo Forth. The only restriction will be that no embedded assembly language be used in order to level the field for those who do not have assembly skills. Judging will be by a yet to be determined panel during the Chicago Faire event, and there will be only one grand prize: a brand new in box 6K CC40 handheld computer. Since I plan to also run, I will of course exclude myself from the judging. I am hoping that we will get at least 6 people to join so we can have a healthy competition. If you are interested, please let me know here. If you don't know forth, well you have plenty of time to learn it still! And you don't even need to own the Turbo Forth cart because it's already fully implemented in the Classic 99 emulator. What say you?

Willsy, at the risk of repeating what many others have said, THANK YOU for your work on Turbo Forth. It's a monumental achievement

OK that's it. I'm re-installing my p-code card in my PEB and I'm dusting off the manuals and disks Maybe we can revive Pascal, at least on this forum! I wish UCSD pascal works on Classic 99. Tursi, any chance of this happening in the near future?

I finally started learning Forth using Brodie's book, but I'm doing it on a Cosmac Elf clone (ELF2K) connected to a Heathkit H19 text terminal. The included Forth in ROM is only a small subset of standard Forth, so it's forcing me to recreate many of the standard words, which is a great learning experience. Once I got over the initial shock of how Forth is structured, it started making a lot of sense. I figured I'll move to Turbo Forth once Willsy publishes the full manual (come on buddy! We're still waiting ). My goal is to have a Turbo Forth program ready for the 2012 Chicago Faire.

You're right. I have only 3 DSSD drives, and in the past I have found these to be pretty sufficient. I wish we could have support for the IDE card or the HRD... It would make it blazing fast.

That's obviously a lot of hardware, which is why I found Turbo Pasc 99 attractive. The good news is that I still have all the UCSD pascal hardware and software, and it's just a question of re-familiarizing myself with the system.

Yes, that's an interesting thing. What language did you use to make the benchs? Guillaume. I used straight assembly language and created a very short and simple timing loop to compare results.

In the mean time, how about upgrading the crystal and placing the 32K RAM expansion on the 16bit bus? This combination will give you about a 54% performance boost from my testing: 8bit RAM and stock crystal: 39s (baseline) 16bit RAM and stock crystal: 21s (46% faster) 14.3 MHz crystal + 8bit RAM: 32s (18% faster) 14.3 MHz crystal + 16bit RAM: 18s (54% faster) This is where you can find the detailed instructions: http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/upgrades.asp

Are you certain about this? With no records or pointer support, I may as well program in TI Basic... If this is truly the case, then I agree sticking with UCSD Pascal is definitely the way to go. Too bad I wasted so much time translating the manual

I don't see why you can't, as long as you are careful which CRU bits you are setting as this could affect hardware. It's actually a good idea

Sure, but it would take the charm out of using the real machine

I still program in Turbo Pascal 3.0 on my IBM PCJr to this day I'm looking into upgrading to version 5.5 pro so I can take advantage of Units, and I actually installed that version on Jr and it runs great! (In case you are wondering, I have a parallel Zip drive connected to it that acts like a hard drive). I'll send you what I have so far and you can take a stab at it. Knowing German obviously will be a big help here...

I have played with it a while back, but it's pretty cumbersome to use unfortunately. There is a much better product called Turbo Pasc' 99 which is a true compiler and does not require special hardware, and I have copies of the disks and manual courtesy of Retroclouds, but the docs are in German. I have laboriously tried to translate them using OCR and Google Translate and some creative editing, but so far I've managed to do only about a quarter of the manual at best. If someone here is willing to take up that task, I'll be happy to send you what I have. I personally love Pascal, and it's unfortunate it has been pretty much abandoned in favor of C which is a monstrosity as far as I am concerned

Aren't we a sorry bunch

For the record, I do not post any software on the Gameshelf that is currently being sold legally. Retroclouds released Pitfall! to the public domain from the onset as a free download. There is a cart now that is available from 3rd parties for sale, but that is only for those who want to convenience or the collectible value of a physical cart. I however have absolutely no qualms about posting downloads for long obsolete or commercially abandoned games, and without a single exception all the authors that have contacted me since the creation of the Gameshelf were extremely happy to have their work on display and being enjoyed once more. Furthermore, I also have not had a single request from anyone about pulling a game download off the site. Not one... I'm getting real tired of those people who keep throwing long tirades about copyrights of long extinct games and would rather let the creative works of former authors stay buried than have them re-discovered by another generation of TIers.

Just bought my copy A great addition to my collection. It's really uplifting to have such high quality software still being produced 27+ years after the demise of the TI...

Beautiful and very devious game Marc Please put me down for a copy when you release the final version. How many levels are there?

Do you have the original manuals? I have them here and they are in my 'to do' scan list. I do, but my game does not follow them too faithfully except for the tables and formulas, which is why I had to create my own manual.

I'm glad you enjoyed it Don't feel bad about losing though: I have yet to beat Uranie as she is much bigger and has more guns and crew even though I programmed the dammed AI!!! How did the loading delay affect gameplay from your perspective? BTW, I have added a few additional details to the main manual as well as Appendix B and have reposted them. One of the things the manual omitted was the fact that you cannot turn if your ship's speed is less than 48. This should help you predict the computer opponent's ability to maneuver with the next turn. Also if a ships goes beyond the edge of the action area, then it will reappear on the opposite side. It's not terribly realistic, but it was either that or having it get stuck at the border

OK! Clear For Action is now officially finished (I hope ). Here are the files and manual, and it should be run from DSK1, although the manual has instructions for patching the files for any other device. As I have stated before, this is a large program in 4 sections, and there will be a delay between 25 and 40 seconds when each section loads. This is the best I could achieve given the limitations of XB. I will be posting the program when I update the Gameshelf site on Sunday, and I would appreciate if anybody here could test out the game and let me know if I missed any bugs prior to that. Thanks! ADDENDUM: I have updated the documentation files and corrected a few omissions. Please download the new PDF files. The program files are unchanged however. Action.zip Clear for Action Main Manual.pdf Clear For Action Appendices.pdf

I play it occasionally on my Atari Lynx, and I love it. I thought about converting it at some point, but never got too far with the planning. This would be a good game to develop using the Spectra libraries, or even Turbo Forth...

Lucky!!! I would kill to get my hands on one in such good shape and with the PS+manual! I'm very jealous...