Vorticon

Hmmmmm.....The manley man programmers club ??? Where can I get a T-shirt ? I don't doubt that it is true that emulation is faster and easier but since it is a hobby whats a few extra minutes ? Slow down and enjoy the scenery ? Personally I don't see it as wasted time at all. BTW, My last assembly project was around 300K of DV-80 and from saving the source, assembling and running the object is less than 5 minutes provided you are using the right tools. Reliability can be an issue but it just adds one more adventure to the hobby (if your so inclined.) Hopefully you don't totally abandon your console work. The manley men club waits for your return 300K of source assembled in less than 5 minutes??? No freaking way! What kind of tools are you using? If I was able to replicate this kind of speed, I would stand on top of my PEB and beat my chest in triumph

You're probably right. Nonetheless, there is something vaguely manly about programming an entire project on the real thing Truth be told though, this is only practical for Basic/XB, and possibly C99 and P-code projects. I don't know about Turbo Forth yet. But when it comes to large assembly projects, emulation is likely necessary unless one has reliable equipment and lots of time, both of which are in short supply these days I switched my Skychart project half-way through to emulation after spending 15-20 minutes for each compilation cycle to complete on real hardware, and now Ultimate Planet is also living in emulation for the same reason as well as hardware issues. As long as the finished project runs on the real thing, then that's what counts after all...

I've been only using Notepad++ for a few days and it's going to be very hard to go back to standard text editing on the TI Coming from me, it sounds like heresy!

Marc, put me down for a card if you ever end up producing a batch. I already have one but it's flaky and I would like to have a backup. A card will never be everything for everybody, and that's OK as long as there are enough takers. I personally loved my IDE card and it made my life a lot easier.

I noticed today that the default filtering in Classic 99 makes the characters appear very mushy and they lose definition. Turning filtering off results in the closest reproduction of TI graphics looks on a monitor. Ultimate Planet initially looked terrible with filtering on, and it took me a while to figure out why. I know, I know, RTFM Out of curiosity, why was this feature included?

I settled on Notepad++. Makes the source much more readable. I could get used to this

I couldn't sleep so I tried out the fixed winasm99 above. Vorticon's game seems to work better with assembled with the bugfixed asm994a. The game pieces appear and you can move them around. Not sure what else planet_s should do at this point. Yes, that did it. I'm now all set to resume development As for the current state of the game, that's pretty much all you can do at the moment. I have several sheets of handwritten code I need to type in that will provide additional things like jettisoning units from transports and some other minor enhancements, and I should get that done this week (with debugging likely to take most of that time...). The AI will be next.

You don't have to "convert them", they are already TI hardware ready. You only have to get them over to your real TI, and for that, if you have a CF7, you can use TI-DIR. If you don't have a CF7, then you can use MagicFM. Finally, you can take that cartridge .bin file created by asm994a, burn it to an EPROM, and stick it in a multi-cart board and plug it in to your TI. The reason I asked is because TIDIR labels them as DOS type... That's easy enough then. Thanks.

What I like most about it is the speed of compilation and the fact that I am not limited by the size of the source files as I am under the TI environment. Coupled with Classic 99's ability to process the object files directly without conversion really makes for an ideal development package. Now how would one convert these object files to work on real hardware?

Sorry but my eyes glazed over when I saw it was 43 pages! In retrospect, given the time I spent today trying to figure things out, I should have read the manual first That's the thing! The listing looks perfectly fine, so I could not figure out where the issue was...

Thanks Matt Option 2 is what I have settled on with the help of ceratophyllum, assuming I can get Asm994a to assemble correctly. I have version 3.009, and if you can email me the newer version I would greatly appreciate it! I am too far into the program to convert it to cart format at this point, although I might consider it once it's complete and if there is enough interest out there. Otherwise, my only option will be to replicate my real hardware workflow using PReditor for editing and the EA assembler, which will also work fine with me as I am quite used to it and will be pretty speedy under Classic 99 with Overdrive on. I was planning on doing some work on Ultimate Planet this afternoon, and I ended up spending most of my time figuring out how to work with the emulators In the long run though this will be a better option from a reliability standpoint.

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Thanks I did figure it out: I was deleting the .obj suffix before running the file. This is definitely not a standard way of loading files, but I guess emulators are allowed artistic license he he... Now my problem is that Asm994a is not assembling the source code correctly because that hex field you get when you start the program should have been populated with units (check the Ultimate Planet posts for pictures). The units are there, just not being displayed for some odd reason. The source code assembles fine when using the standard assembler under the EA cart in Classic 99, so I guess it must be a bug with Asm994a or maybe it's expecting something I am not providing. It came with only a skeleton of docs, so I don't know how to fix this. Suddenly V9t9 is starting to look real good now

OK well I'm stumped then... I'm attaching my source file for Asm994a, so could you please see if you are able to assemble it and run it under EA#3? planet_s.zip

So if I understand you correctly, you just take the hex object file produced by the assembler, which is essentially a PC text file, throw it in Classic 99' DSK1 without converting it to TI format and load it with EA option 3? This really should not work, and as far as I can tell it does not. Can you please detail exactly what you are doing so I can try to duplicate it? I thought that EA #3 required a compressed object code, not a hex list file...

Hi. I finally decided today to move the Ultimate Planet development from real hardware to emulation because my ram disk and IDE card are getting flaky and I did not want to risk losing my work to glitches. Besides, even with these cards, compilation is getting ever slower as the program grows in size. Now, after moving my files to my PC, I need a little guidance on how to proceed from there. With my previous large assembly project (SkyChart), I had used V9T9 as my emulation platform, but the old PC I have dedicated to DOS is starting to also become unstable, so I figured I'll try a modern platform for a change. I used TIDIR to convert my source files to PC text files, then used the ASM994a program to assemble them without errors or warnings generated. I ended up with a nice list file which will be very helpful for debugging, a hex object file, and a compressed object file (COF). I assume that only the latter is needed for running the program. Here's my question: how do I convert that COF file to an option 3 file that will run under Classic 99? Using TIDIR, I converted it to TI file which yielded a V9t9 format, then converted to latter to TIFILES format, and finally tried to run it under Classic 99 only to get an I/O error 2. Where am I going wrong? Is there a better way to go about assembling source files under emulation outside of using the old creaky TI Assembler?

Well, let me first finish the single player game then we'll see A 2 player game on 2 consoles connected via PIO should not be too hard to set up, but certainly not trivial. As for multiplayer games via PIO, after mulling over what Matthew and I had discussed a few months ago it will likely need more hardware support than just cables, plus it would be difficult to test on real hardware... I was still hoping to have time to create a small demo program for 2 players via PIO for the Faire, but maybe if I keep my focus on Ultimate Planet and finish the single player version early then I might be able to have 2 player version available by Faire time. I have nearly completed the player interface now and I'll post a test version within a week or two and ask for input before embarking on the AI development. and why not imagining through modem ? the first ( i think ) network TI99 game ! ;p Sure, although a wargame tends to be a bit slow for modem, especially if you are connecting long distance! I don't have the necessary knowledge of modem communication, although I'm sure I can learn it if I had the time. How about save files instead that could be exchanged via email? Kind of like postal chess in a way. Each player will create a save file after their turn ,which would include the current state of the game, and send it to the other player who will then update the game then in turn make his/her move. So on and so forth... This should be fairly easy to implement I think.

Earlier in this thread there was a comment along the lines that the TI99 did not have classic wargames for it. Can I ask if Avalon Hill ever release titles for the TI99? Avalon Hill released quite a number of wargames in the early 80's for the TRS 80, Atari, Commodore and Apple computers, most of them on cassette and programmed in Basic. For the most part they were passable at best in quality, but had the interesting feature of including a playing board and counters in order to compensate for the lack of graphics. Unfortunately, the TI got completely bypassed, with only one exception: a galaxy trade and conquest game called Galaxy. A review of it can be found here http://www.orphantech.com/reviews/2009/12/8/galaxy-avalon-hill-1984.html Not really a wargame though. The only wargame I have ever came across for the TI is Roman Wars programmed in XB and is posted on the TI Gameshelf. Not a bad game at all actually, and quite involved given the memory limitations of the XB environment.

What?! So soon??? Thanks man! I'm going to try it out as soon as I get a chance this week. I have to admit that with all the goodies included in Classic 99, I'm having a much harder time justifying developing on real hardware... The debugger itself is worth its weight in gold!

I see. Thanks BTW the scrolling looks great

Sure, when I get some free time :)By the way, I plan on posting the BOCC contest entries on the Gameshelf site, unless I hear any objections from the authors. I think it will beef up the TI BASIC section nicely with some quality games. I can also post any compiled versions if available.

Yes... It sounds like a good starter project. I have spare joysticks lying around and I also have a brand new joystick 9 pin bare metal piece with exposed connectors. Should I Frankenstein splice an old cable or go with the NOS (1986 on the box) component? Most likely easiest and most educational would be to take an old pair of TI joysticks and cut the cord on the joystick end (not the connector end. .) Strip the wires (can't remember how many there are) and figure out which is common, which is the button and which are the directions. That way you can use the cable assembly with out going through the pain of building one. Put a sprite on the screen and use call joyst & call key to move it around and detect the button. randomly touch wires until something happens. One of those wires will be the common one. Lather, rinse repeat until all 6 wires are sorted out and labeled. Although I don't think it would really hurt anything you should keep the wires from grounding out on any nearby objects when bare. Report back your findings. You call that easy How about just going to Thierry Nouspikel's site and just looking up the joystick connector pinouts As far as I am concerned, I found that the Prostick sold by TexinTreasures works beautifully although it does require an adapter. My score on Parsec took a quantum leap upwards after I started using it he he...

Well, let me first finish the single player game then we'll see A 2 player game on 2 consoles connected via PIO should not be too hard to set up, but certainly not trivial. As for multiplayer games via PIO, after mulling over what Matthew and I had discussed a few months ago it will likely need more hardware support than just cables, plus it would be difficult to test on real hardware... I was still hoping to have time to create a small demo program for 2 players via PIO for the Faire, but maybe if I keep my focus on Ultimate Planet and finish the single player version early then I might be able to have 2 player version available by Faire time. I have nearly completed the player interface now and I'll post a test version within a week or two and ask for input before embarking on the AI development.

Nice work Owen This is going to be a very exciting Faire in November!

Marc, what exactly are you suggesting? A new run of cards or an updated version of it? I can vouch that these cards are incredibly finicky because of the difficulty in achieving high quality surface mount solder joints. My card has recently become unreliable for no particular reason, and I'm seriously considering switching to a SCSI card from SNUG...