Vorticon

I'll trade you one warm Minnesota day for a week of 97+. I'll throw in my A/C bill to sweeten the pot . Be careful what you wish for! We hit 105 last weekend!!! Today it's in the 50's though. The temperature ranges in this state have more in common with the Moon than Earth (-40 to 105) over a year... We get hit with huge heating AND electric bills

To be honest, it's really hard to sit behind a keyboard when there is nice and warm weather outside, especially when one lives in Minnesota Between the pool, R/C planes, model rockets and backyard astronomy, my spare time is all used up

Nice work Matt! Hopefully we'll have boards available by Faire time.

Unfortunately, I was never able to get either of my two kids interested in the TI despite my best efforts... There was a brief time a long time ago (they are now 16 and 21) when they played Terry Turtle's adventure and Soundtrack Trolley on the MBX, but that did not last long My son still makes fun of me when he sees me playing an old TI game, and he can't seem to get past the relatively primitive graphics. I really think kids these days are less imaginative than a generation or two ago when one's imagination filled in the gaps left by the blocky graphics (or even ASCII text). I guess who needs imagination when we can now recreate entire worlds in exacting detail on modern machines... It's a damn shame if you ask me

Tell me about it. I just built a brand new PC for my son so he can play Crysis 2, because his two year old laptop can't cut it anymore . This time around, I put in the best components I could lay my hands on (top shelf Alienware performance at half the cost. Thanks Newegg.com!), so maybe it will last him 3 years. Maybe...

Looking forward to it!

Where's the damn rope! But seriously, I have to agree with you (reluctantly). I think our inclination to code for the lowest common denominator may be limiting the kind of projects we could do with the TI. I think the SAMS card is woefully underutilized, and so is the P-Code card, simply because not a lot of TIers have the needed hardware. I like using real hardware for nostalgic reasons, even though practically speaking emulation is far better from an efficiency standpoint. I will definitely obtain an 8K cart somehow (buy one or build one) just so I can play Adam's game on the real thing, and I think I will not be alone in this. Maybe the old adage will hold true: if you code it, they will build the needed hardware

OK. I got connected, but nothing happens after that...

Tried this afternoon. No answer...

Beautiful! I can't wait to play the finished product! The execution speed is practically assembly like, especially the scrolling. I really have to get going with TF at some point

Quick update: I have the AI broad lines on paper but have decided to delay implementation until the combat mechanics are finalized. I'm currently in the process of setting up the combat resolution tables, satellite and production centers attacks, and meteorites auto-motion. Completed the targeting implementation where now a unit can target an enemy unit at a distance depending on its firing range. Also, when you select a unit that has already been committed to combat, the target hex will be highlighted. This is very useful when you have a lot of attacking units and you forget what each is targeting. I should (hopefully) have another updated download and pictures with all this stuff finalized within the next couple of weeks.

Interesting. Unfortunately, now I have to learn French as well as TI Assembly language. 8^) I would start with assembly

Check out the pinned programming resources topic.

tigameshelf.net

Ahhh.... There is actually some life to the P-Code project in Classic 99. Excellent! By the way, where can I find documentation for Turbo Forth? I have a couple of Forth books, but I'd like some kind of user manual specific to TF itself...

Marc, I suspect collision detection will deteriorate proportionately to sprite velocity given all the background work that is happening, more so than with usual sprite to sprite detection, unless you predefine sprites for selected areas on the screen that you want to detect collision against. Am I understanding this correctly? I also assume that this is useful only for mobile tiles, because otherwise you could simply check the (X,Y) position of the sprite against a fixed table of tile coordinates with appropriate range checking, i.e. if sprite is within X and Y of the uppper left corner of a tile, then detection occurs. If Sprite is X,Y and tile is x,y, then the sign of X-x and Y-y should tell you which quadrant you are in to further refine the detection. Am I completely off here?

My Eprom came in the mail today and I am now the proud owner of a Turbo Forth cart! Now if I can get my hands on that mystical TF book. Hmmm....

You should not have a problem with any kind of file as long as it is zipped, at least in my experience... I assume the file has the .zip extension, right?

So basically any GPL programs I produce in the future will have to be emulator only... Bummer.

OK I have a really dumb question, but please bear in mind that my architectural knowledge of the TI hardware is pretty basic: I figured out how to make REA work under Classic 99. Now, what is needed to get it working on a real TI? I assume a cart will have to be made with an REA Eprom, but are there any other hardware requirements?

Where is Owen??? I have not heard from him on this forum for quite a while now, and I miss his enthusiasm

Put me down for one please!

Unfortunately I will then still have to do comparision instructions... BTW, I had no idea you could display pictures on a VCS machine! Looks like a great program, especially on that limited platform. I recently programmed a full casino blackjack program for 5 players (4 computer controlled) for the TRS80 Model IV in Turbo Pascal, and it was a b*** to design, so I am impressed at what people can still pull off with the VCS...

Copying code between files is sometimes necessary when I add code to a large file which makes it too big to fit in the editor buffer, and so I have to transfer some code to another file to make some room in the original file. It is a cumbersome process at best. I have already shifted the development of Ultimate Planet to Classic 99/asm994a/Kate running under Ubuntu Linux However, I am in the process of upgrading my console with 32K on 16bit bus and a faster crystal, and so my next project will likely be again done on real hardware

Fascinating... As you said, it's simple, but one would have to look at it in detail to notice. Thanks for the explanation. I'm afraid I'm going to have to stick with DIV though because Ultimate Planet is based on a classic table top 1980 wargame, and all the combat resolution tables use a 6-sided dice. I worry that I may unbalance the game if I expand the tables arbitrarily... Here are a few screen shots of the original game for the curious: http://laurent36.typepad.com/.a/6a013486df16fc970c0133f3bd044c970b-pi http://laurent36.typepad.com/.a/6a013486df16fc970c0133f3bd0471970b-pi http://laurent36.typepad.com/.a/6a013486df16fc970c0133f3bd0492970b-pi