kl99
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Posts posted by kl99
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This whole contest could be renamed the "Learn to Really, Really Appreciate Extended BASIC contest."
Is Extended Basic out yet?
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Vern Jensen created a game called Virus Attack programmed in c99 which is an excellent clone of Dr. Mario. You can find it on the tigameshelf.net site.
Yes, I figured that out AFTER I started programming the game. Whatever. The challenge here is doing it in TI Basic, isn't it?
Thanks for the info, though.
BR
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Well, i have renamed the game from Dr.99 to "Virus Fever".
If I have enough memory, I will include the attached title image to the title screen!
If not, then it's for the game manual (and cartridge label?
).If you take a look on the title image, you will say: hey, 3 colors won't work in TI Basic.
But if you take a closer look you will see that on a 8x8 basis there will never be more than 2 colors in one char.
I must say that I am proud of it.
From now on I will report my progress in this thread instead of the general BoCC thread.
Be ready for updates...
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Thanks for the explanation, Tursi!
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What has still to be done in my game:
) numeric-matrix adaption of the code, that checks for 4+ stones of the same color and removes them.
) create the code, that checks after removement of any stones if there are any remaining stones above that have to fall down (a taff one!)
) intelligent generator for the initial stones and viruses on the screen (a taff one!)
) add score
) add virus counter
) add game over check
) add preview on the next pill
) add level and speed select screen (speed is already implemented)
) add cool title screen (depending on the remaining memory)
) optimize sounds
I have done the followings things:
) code, that checks for 4+ stones of the same color and removes them (so far the code is only for a standing pill, not a lying one)
) virus counter
) game over check and game over screen with opportunity to play again
) stage clear check
) preview on the next pill
) level select
) code optimization to reduce memory usage [data & for next - loops, reduce variables used,...]
) code resorting & resorted the used ascii-chars to optimize color charset usage
) designed the viruses differently for each color
) have created a game screen - mockup, based on an actual screenshot from my program, in an image editor on my pc
It's 7.5 KB for now.
The upcoming taff challenge is the generation of the initial screen which gets filled 'randomly' with viruses.
Depending on the level we talk about 4 to 84 viruses on the screen.
During generation you got to make sure that not 4+ of the same color are in a row or a column.
The original Nintendo version seems to use presaved initial screens. I am thinking this because resetting the emu often leads to the same viruses at the same locations. Depending on the level, more of the presaved data is used or not. This would be the fastest option for the game start but would lack variety. Memory usage could be safed with compression but decrypting the compression algorithym would lead to less speed.
As soon as I find time to integrate the visual changes I have planned for the game screen, a snapshot will be shown!
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... Movement is slow because a lot of GCHAR checks are happening for both the player and the Minotaur, with updating the timer slowing things further. ...
Try building a two dimensional matrix with numeric values where you save your maze. You will no longer need those GCHARs. For me it gained a lot of speed, especially in TI Basic.
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I hope that it will run faster in TI Basic when I check with GCHAR instead, at least while the pill is moving.
Awesome! If you have data in a matrix/multi-dimensional array (and it's not a string to parse), it's gonna be way faster than GCHAR.... Of course, if you're displaying that matrix, a string is way faster (inaccurate invaders)... In a game loop, you can really only get away with 1 GCHAR (or 2 if you're lucky)... It eats up lots of power.
But glad to see some secret projects coming out of the woodworks. Said it before, but I'm pretty amazed with what we're doing here and think we coulda ruled the world (or at least gotten published in 99'er - what'd they pay? $100? like $2 an hour for me).
-H
I have changed the matrix from a string matrix to numeric values matrix and it's indeed faster now. Switching from keyboard to joystick and optimizing the main loop gave me another gain in speed/smoothness. It's no pain to play the game in TI Basic anymore, although it uses sounds in gameplay! In XB it's extra cool but that's another story!
I have read that numeric variables do cost a lot of memory, 10 Bytes each, is that true? Is that the case as well, if I define a numeric 2-dimensional matrix like DIM M(7,15) ?
Am I right that a program runs the same speed, independend how much free RAM is avaiable? If it runs it runs, right? Asked the other way around: An Instruction like Call HChar needs the same amount of time to execute whether it's performed in a 2K program or an 10K program, right?
What has still to be done in my game:
) numeric-matrix adaption of the code, that checks for 4+ stones of the same color and removes them.
) create the code, that checks after removement of any stones if there are any remaining stones above that have to fall down (a taff one!)
) intelligent generator for the initial stones and viruses on the screen (a taff one!)
) add score
) add virus counter
) add game over check
) add preview on the next pill
) add level and speed select screen (speed is already implemented)
) add cool title screen (depending on the remaining memory)
) optimize sounds
When I get the main program features to run, I will release a test version.
It's really fun to program, it's a creative process, and it's a mind challenge. I don't know why we have this 'nerd' reputation.
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How's everyone's BASIC contest entries going?
Adamantyr
Well well. Many hours went into coding since it's the first Basic/XB project since coming back to the TI World.
My brother and I used to code back in the 90s though.
The game will be called Dr.99 (title is almost fixed) and will be, guess it, a Dr. Mario clone for the TI.
I can't believe what difference in speed it is running my game in TI Basic and TI Extended Basic (utilizing the 32K).
For now it's compatible with both 'worlds' and has around 6.2KByte.
In XB is actually arcade-like playable. I have not finalized the code for input yet but it is really enjoyable, and I often fall into playing when I actually wanna test something.
In TI Basic, well you can play but the computer doesn't react as fast to your inputs as in XB. That's bad! As speed is part of the game, that is my pain point! I am still hoping to optimize the code in order to bring it into an enjoyable game even in TI Basic.
To get into detail, maybe someone can help or give a good advice:
I have built up a 2 dimensional string matrix.
M$(15) for rows 0 - 15 (16 rows), with 8 characters each because there are 8 columns.
The matrix gets filled with the stones and viruses in the 'lower area'.
The matrix is shown up on the screen afterwards.
When the first pill (2 chars) drops into the game, I have the choice of checking the neighbours either with the GCHAR command or check the value in the matrix.
If the player presses 'right', the right neighbour has to be checked.
If the player presses 'left', the left neighbour has to be checked.
If the pill drops one row, the neighbour below has to be checked.
[As the player can turn the '2-char' pill, checking differs whether the pill is lying (y/x y/x+1) or standing (y/y y+1/x).]
Right now I am checking against the matrix, when the pill is moving and when I want to check if there are 4 of the same colour that shall be erased.
When a pill gets erased or drops onto something the matrix gets updated.
I hope that it will run faster in TI Basic when I check with GCHAR instead, at least while the pill is moving.
And the other hope is to optimize the main loop with the keyboard input.
Other question:
Is there a better (faster) way than to simply set all the chars one by one like:
110 CALL CHAR(33,"2639879084738974")
120 CALL CHAR(40,"5634785634785634")
..
300 CALL CHAR(96,"2984273442389742")
br, Klaus
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Will the F18A feature 60hz and 50hz?
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Played around with my new ntsc unit.
It's fascinating how different games look, sound and feel in ntsc versus pal.
The screen is squeezed in pal all the time, because again 720x480 are used, but shown on a 720x576 pixel screen.
Sprites look different on ntsc, they gain more height than on pal.
Colors are more vivid on ntsc composite output than on pal video modulator out.
Burger Time has all the lifes shown on the screen in ntsc. On pal the first life (face of the cook) is not fully shown, only the right half of it is visible. The music and gameplay is very notable of higher speed in ntsc.
Car Wars giving me a little bit of shock the first time I tried it in ntsc, because the motor sound, where it asks you to press a key to start the race, is completely different in ntsc versus pal. In pal it is a continues, never-ending homogen sound (no pause) versus a repeated bummering sound with a pause in ntsc. I thought I connected the audio cable somehow wrong. My brother felt the same.
Parsec gave me an extraordinary experience as I have seen for the first time that the colors on the ground weren't yellow afer all. Vertical 1px thick lines were clearly output as blue, green, and 2 other colors. And those lines switched colors within the object. This gave the object another dimension of realism. Although I have read that this is only a compositing artefact I don't want to believe this yet. It looks more like a feature to me. I will take pictures and put it on my blog.
The faster timing in ntsc was doing a lot of games justice as the game did play better, at least it felt that way.
The title screen of TI looks a lot better in ntsc. The colors in the color bar don't interfere each other the way they do in the pal video modulator output. The pal screen is squeezed. Comparing those titlescreen I know feel, that TI could have done a better job with the pal output! Damn we need that F18A matthew!
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I have compared the output of the US Power Cable with that of the European Power Cable.
US:
Output1: 18 VAC / 1,35 AMPS
Output2: 8,5 VAC / 0,15 A
Europe:
Output1: 16 V~ / 1,6 A
Output2: 8 V~ / 0,15 A
To me as an electronic newbie that doesn't look like the same output.
I have bought an 80 Watt step down transformator for 23 euro.
I have tried it one hour ago, the console is fully operational with this transformator.
The composite output of a ntsc console is really better in terms of colors than any PAL console antenna output I have seen.
It's sharp, full of colors and the picture is correctly placed on the 704x480 (720x480) NTSC screen, no borders at all!
I am used to borders and a bad positioned picture, washed out colors, at least with the PAL video modulators I have here.
On NTSC there is however the usual composite artifacts when compared with YUV/RGB.
Now I get exciting about how good a PAL picture can be when the YUV output is used.
And I am excited if the PAL video modulator causes this bad positioning and borders of the picture or this is caused by the 9929A.
From first impressions the games run a bit faster on NTSC than on a PAL console.
THANKS for helping me get this machine running.
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Thanks for your replies.
Would it be possible to simply use the internal power board from a (defect) PAL console?
Or would it output something else to the mainboard than the US version?
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Hi!
My beige TI-99, US Model, NTSC, arrived today. *yeah*
PAL versus NTSC is not a problem as good European television are capable of both.
But in the US they use 110V while the standard in Europe is 220V.
What is needed to get the TI to work in a 220V environment?
br, kl99
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People were interested in stuff like the CF7+ nanoPEB, matthew's F18A project with VGA out!
I even told about ongoing programming contests and previewed our BoCC beta game to a couple.
There were users who knew the internals (VDP etc) quite well, although never owning a TI.
The old computer magazines must have covered this stuff really well.
We had several people who wanted to buy our console, or asked for cartridges.
There was a retro seller who thinks to have 4 TI consoles in his storage, but he wasn't sure and had none with him at the fair.
The hot topics were really Nintendo, Sega, PSP, XBOX stuff. From the old times the Atari was best avaiable.
Some Commodore and Atari computer stuff was avaiable, but not really much.
Thanks for the feebdback, I appreciate this!
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Bericht vom österreichischen TI-99 Club zur Börse findet ihr hier:
Liebe Grüße
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Well, the retro fair is over.
I am truely satisfied with the responses so far.
Check my TI-Blog for a report on the fair with a private photo-gallery.
br, Klaus
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Hi!
I am about to found a new TI-99 club for all Austrian people.
As far as I know there is no club at the moment.
It is meant for those who still like using TI-99 software or hardware, or just want to be up to date, talk about good old times.
I am planning lots of activities like regulary meetings, private forum, information exchange, p.d. software exchange, hardware fixing and enhancements, trades, regulary chat, website.
Club internal stuff will be only accessable for club members, all the other stuff, will be open to anybody.
Membership is planned to be free of costs.
The club needs a name! So I welcome any suggestions.
I will present the new club at the 2nd retro fair for classic games, which will be hosted this saturday in vienna.
The guys are so kind and will organize me a table to put on my TI-99 with a nanoPEB and a television set.
A flyer about the club will be at the entrance.
My hope is to find a few interested persons there.
The club needs members! So please contact me via private message.
Update from January 8th 2011:
Suggested name is: DANUBIA 99ers TI- and GENEVE User Group Austria
(former name of the Vienna User Group)
First meeting
12th of January 2011
Vienna
Details: PDF (German), PDF (English)
BR, Klaus
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hey kl99!!! Can you post pictures of that console? =)
Hi Opry99er!
check out http://ti99blog.webs.com for a picture, I uploaded for you.
BR, Klaus
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Hi Matthew!
You got a private message from me!
And I have two question I want to share:
On the TI-99 Mainbyte Page there are two ways described to enhance the visual picture quality:
http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/display/display.html
http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/display/display2.html
One uses a Resistor Fix, the other a Capacitor Fix.
Will the VGA picture Output of the F18A be influenced by these modifications or does F18A bypass these?
Sidestory:
My brother has got a console from the international ti-treffen 2009 in vienna, which sure has several modifications in it.
Besides a reset button and a german QWERTZ keyboard the visual output of the machine is way better than all other consoles we tried at the same setup and cables. The color contrast looks like those from the Emulators, in direct comparison the others look like they have washed out colors. The sharpness is very good and text is easily readable.
BR, Klaus
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Hi again!
I have tried reseating the VDP, the Sound Chip and the GROMs for now. Still not working.
As these pins on the chips are really likely to break, I have some fear of damaging the 2nd console, If I do more experimenting.
In one week there is a retro-faire in Vienna., I hope to find TI-99 stuff there, maybe even a console.
Since I am about to start a local TI club for Austria, there will be hopefully some way to fix this console locally some day, without shipping to America back and forth.
Matthew, I still highly appreciate your offer and I am a big fan of your VideoCard Replacement Project.
br, Klaus
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Thanks a lot to you for your replies.
I have disassembled the consoles.
It isn't the power switch, and is isn't the power board of the console. It must be something on the mainboard.
When using the mainboard from the other console the setup is working...
Nothing seemed loosened on the board, I pressed on all sockets with my finger.
With reseating all sockets you mean, take them completely out and insert them again, right?
Like here? http://www.pixcontroller.com/Products/RemovePIC.pdf
I can try that this weekend.
Wow, fixing at your place is such a nice offer, can't believe how wonderful our community is.
I still hope to be able to at least detect the source of the problem.
Thanks Mark and Matthew,
Klaus
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My knowledge is limited but as far as I know there are two official cartridges made, which uses Ti Basic.
Personal ??? and ??? .
Maybe we can check out their code for preventing FCTN+4 breaks the code.
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Hi!
During working on my BoCC game my shiny new console suddenly hang up.
Never happened before because I didn't use it that much yet.
I switched it off and on (Power on switch).
But since that it simply won't give me the famous title screen anymore.
) Power LED lights up
) It is showing black screen
) Is is making a deep noise (in a loop)
It's a Texas Instruments Black/Silver PAL Version.
Serial: R057005 40 83 ROI
Assembled in Italy
When I try another PAL console with the same power cable and video cable, everything is working.
So it can't be the power adapter.
I originally had a nanoPEB device connected to the console.
Once I figured out, the machine doesn't like to boot at all, I disconnected it.
No Cartridge is (was) placed in the slot.
When I insert a cartridge, the reset (pin1) seems to get triggered, but then I get a black screen and the noise again.
A few weeks ago I saw a very good checklist what to check in such a situation. But since I am reading a few hours each day about Ti-99, I simply can't remember where this checklist was. Maybe some user group newsletter in the whtech archives.
Can anyone give me an advice what could be wrong?
What should I check?
Many thanks, Klaus
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Excellent ! And awesome blog there too ! Your TI-99/4A looks like totally new !?
Thanks. It is almost new. I got it at ebay from Great Britain.
I am living in austria (europe). We had a big TI-99 collection, but we gave it all away, when I was 15.
Everything expect a magazine, the data tapes and our excercise books with the sprite definitions we did for our game programming.
Got to make some pictures from today's programming session, because we are coding on the real machine.
From start to the end!
Thanks for the feedback on the blog. The blog is still in development and is meant to be a diary of my experiences.
I even want to learn TI9900 assembler and share my knowledge on the blog. It won't be my first assembly language because I used to program the TI-92 in 68k assembler quite successfully. And opposite to the TI-92 the TI-99 has really good inside documentation.
Back to TI-Basic:
I made some speed tests yesterday regarding CALL VCHAR and CALL HCHAR.
If you only want to draw a single char on the screen, use CALL HCHAR, it is faster and do leave out the optional repeat parameter.
Use this:
CALL HCHAR(Y,X,ASCII)
instead of
CALL HCHAR(Y,X,ASCII,1)
CALL VCHAR(Y,X,ASCII)
CALL VCHAR(Y,X,ASCII,1)
It's not much difference, but some gain in performance.
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Virus Fever - BoCC Thread
in TI-99/4A Development
Posted
Well, screen & character adaption took some time but the visual adaption is finally done. Here it is an actual screen shot of the game play (shot done with the Classic 99 Emu):
I welcome any feedback!
What's the current status:
I am trying to minimize the memory used in the stack and by the program code. That's why it took quite a while to come up with a screen builder, that takes up less memory compared to the use of print commands in conjunction with strings.
I even tried to compress the hexadecimal code for the ascii-chars. Theoretically you could input a 16x16 char (256 bit) with only 37 (7bit) ascii-characters instead of 64 (4bit) hex-characters. Thats reduces the memory needed to almost the half! Decompressing the original Hexadecimal String takes quite long, so I aborted this plan for now.
The program uses 36 sectors now.
Stuff to include is:
) merge the virus generator code I did seperately into my game program
) increase intelligence of that virus generator code
) code, that checks for 4+ stones of the same color and removes them (so far the code is eone for a standing pill, not a lying one)
) create the code, that checks after removement of any stones if there are any remaining stones above that have to fall down (a taff one!)
) score (count points)
) add level and speed select screen
) add cool title screen (depending on the remaining memory)
) optimize sounds