Robert M

To elborate on my earlier idea. You can extend the idea to 9x9 and carve out areas to make it look more like the original Archon board turned 90 degrees.

How about 2 separate partially symetrical PF kernel? One that reflects only PF1, and another that reflects only PF2. Then you can have rooms with detail on the edges, or rooms with detail in the middle.

To simplify things, you might consider using a board like the rough mockup below. Notice that there are only 2 colors on each row of squares.

Yes, that is swell, but just try adding the possible 9 different game piece sprites on the middle line of the board, and don't forget to add the 3 markers for the power squares. Plus remember that those 9 game pieces can be any of 2 colors and they are not white or black. So if you use the sprites for the game pieces, then you can not use the missles at all for the game board. It could be done, but the flicker will cause siezures IMO. If anyone can design for that worst case display scenario, then the remainder of game is a breeze. A better course of action would be to design and Archon-like game that captures the feel of Archon, but is designed with the limitations of the VCS system in mind. Cheers

I think option C is the best choice for this game. All vertical motion in the game is jumping and maybe gates opening and closing. The motion should be so quick that single line vertical motion is overkill, IMO. Nice demo BTW.

Nevermind, I finally found a website with some of the level maps and other info about the game. http://home.zonnet.nl/class-pc/prince_of_p...persia/maps.htm

Its possible, but only with potentially heavy flicker on the game board view. The battle mode just combat on steroids which is definitely doable on the 2600. Giving the monsters all different attack modes and strengths and such is no problem at all. The big obstacle is game board with its 3 colors per line, and up to 9 different sprites per line.

Does anyone know a website that has screenshots of the original game. I have never seen it, and when I Google all I get are the modern 3D versions. thanks!

Hmmm, looking at the votes it seems that the biggest ship and one of the medium ships are getting the most votes. I am thinking that I can use the biggest ship and add the feature that the landing gear retracts, which will reduce the ship in size some. The player will then have to decide when to deploy or retract the landing gear. For those worried that there will not be enough landing zones/variety, I am designing the kernel to allow vertical scrolling. I plan for the landing area to be a network of tunnels about 3 screens high. I know I will be able to fit 2 different landing zone layouts in 4K and possibly 3. Thanks all for the feedback.

Wait nevermind. I don't have an extra backgammon. I thought that said blackjack. Sorry.

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I love the game Go. It is an incredible game. There are a number of variations on the rules which can make learning it difficult. Here is my favorite set of rules since it is the shortest set of rules I have found. This is the set of rules I used to learn the game. I hope you find them useful. Rules for Go: 1. Go is played on a 19x19 square grid of points. You place stones on the intersections, not inside the squares formed by the lines. As a beginner I recommend first playing on a 7x7 board, then 11x11 and so on until you are comfortable enough to try 19x19. 2. Each point on the grid may be colored black, white, or empty. 3. Starting with an empty grid, the players alternate turns, starting with black. 4. A turn is either a pass; or a move THAT DOES NOT REPEAT AN EARLIER GRID COLORING (that last bit is critical to avoid an infinite loop). 5. A move consists of coloring an empty point one's own color; then clearing the opponent color, and then clearing one's own color. Note the order of clearing. It is critical. 6. Clearing a color is the process of emptying all points of that color which don't reach a point colored empty. 6a. A point P is said to reach empty, if a path of vertically or horizontally connected (NOT DIAGONALLY!) points of P's color to a space colored empty. 6b. Note: When you clear a color. First you find all the points that do not reach empty, and then you remove them all at once. You don't find one point that doesn't clear and remove it and then test another. All points that don't clear are removed simultaneously. First for the player whose turn it is not, and then for the player whose turn it is. 7. The game ends after two consecutive passes. 8. A player's score is the number of points of her color, plus the number of empty points that only reach her color. (You can also include all of you opponents pieces removed from the board from the clearing process, but that is optional) 9. The player with the higher score is the winner. A tie score is a tie game. -------------- Some examples can make these rules more clear: Given that: + is empty w is white b is black ++++++++ ++b+++++ +bwA++++ ++b+++++ ++++++++ Above: If black colors the point marked A as black, then the w point in the middle can not clear to empty and it is removed from the board. ++++++++ ++b+++++ +bAb++++ ++b+++++ ++++++++ If white colors the point marked A. All the b points clear to empty, but the w point at A does not and it is removed. The white player's move did nothing, and if you are counted captured stones, then it gave black an extra point. ++++++++ ++bw++++ +bwAw+++ ++bw++++ ++++++++ If black colors the point marked A, then the w space surrounded by b spaces will not clear and that point is captured. The newly placed b will clear however because the w space was captured. The white player CAN NOT place their next piece where the last one was just captured because that would return the board back to the same state it had at the start of black'c previous turn. White must place a piece somewhere else. Then the next turn, (if black did not protect that space) the white player may place at the captured point and capture the black at A placed 2 turns ago. (See rule 4 above) ++++++++ ++bbb+++ +bwwwb++ ++bbwb++ ++++A+++ The same principles for capture apply to connected points of one color of any size. If black colors the space marked A, then all 4 w spaces are captures and removed from the board. An obvious question at this point may be: "Is there any way to make pieces permanently safe from capture and thereby cement the capture of territory needed to win the game?" The answer is yes! You make a collection of points safe from capture by having the group contain two or more "eyes". An eye is an empty point wholly surrounded by a connected set of points all of one color. Here is a picture of region with 2 eyes. +wwww+++ wbbbbbww+ wbAbBbbbw wbbwbbwww +wwwww++ the points marked A and B above are empty and therefore they are eyes. The white player has surrounded the black region, but the region can clear to either eye, so it is not captured by white. If white places a piece on A, then the black region clears to B and the white piece at A is removed. The opposite happens if white places at B. the black region is immune to attack as long as it has 2 or more eyes. So the goal in GO is to create regions with 2 eyes, and then expand them as far as possible to capture territory. Meanwhile you must block you opponent from doing the same as much as possible. Eventually the board will be filled by regions of immune color, and both players will have to pass and the game will end. Enjoy!

I'm a little shocked myself, but I am not complaining.

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Yes! Paper combat was all the rage when I was a kid. Better than a pencil though is a roller ball pen. With practice you can hold the pen upright with one finger and push it along making it roll on the ball tip. Playing that way you can even put crude shields around items by writing a heavy line thus making a groove that the pen falls into and gets deflected. Good fun!

If I had been thinking clearly, I would have done this right away. But, I didn't. So please find attached a zipped binary. You can move the ship around with Joy1, and select the different designs with the Select switch. There is no gravity or collision detection. Cheers! lander029.bin.gz

The problem there is that I am using VDELPx to get a single scanine of resolution for vertical positioning and the color registers are not supported with the VDELPx registers. So I would have to recolor the P0 sprite every scanline. I don't think I will have the cycles to do that in the current kernel because I am reusing P1 about 8 to 10 times for landing zone indicators and repositioning (as you know) can suck up nearly all the cycles in a scanline (Hence the striped background). Cheers!

"lander Lander" = Lunar Lander

You mean Jupiter Lander, no? (Lunar Lander would have a rotating ship as in Thrust, Gravitar, Asteroids, Omega Race, Space War...) Anyway, I like the first ship best. Cool to see a game like that finally in the works for the VCS! Greetings, Manuel Your right, Jupiter Lander. I considered the rotating ship of lander Lander, but that's more effort than I am interested in at this time. Thanks everyone for the feedback so far.

Hello, I have begun working on a lunar lander clone for the VCS. I need some help to decide what the lander ship should look like. I have attached an image with some designs. The bigger the ship, the more details it can have. With a smaller ship however I can squeeze more landing zones and winding tunnels onto the playfield. So take a look at the designs and tell me which ones you prefer. Pretend they are numbered from top to bottom starting with the one at the top being number 1. Cheers!

The punching problem is because the code seems to check for the player's shot hitting the player himself and treating it like the shot hitting a wall. Very strange. You either need to change the collision detection algorithm to not include the player sprite in the player shot collision tests, or you need to set the player's shot to begin farther to the left or right to account for the wider robot player graphic. Cheers!

Thanks for the interest so far. I have added some additional lynx items: - Cyber Virus - Bubble Trouble - Dracula - Paperboy - Gordo 106 http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZrmundschauQQhtZ-1 Regards,

Yup! Its a lazy susan turntable inside. I had some end labels that had fallen off of carts so I trimmed them a little and slid them into label slots located between the cartridge slots. You can see them in the pictures somewhat indented from the positions of the carts. Cheers!

Thanks, its a FloppyMaster 150. I have not been able to find more. Let me know if you find a source. Cheers!

Hello, I found a rotary floppy disk organizer at a thrift store recently. I noticed that the slots for disks were wide enough for Atari carts (5 disks per slot). I decided to buy it and see if I could make it into a cartridge organizer. It took some cutting, grinding and sanding to remove some plastic inside the unit to make them fit, but I finally got it to work. It holds 25 carts (of standard size) and I can put my little TV on top of it. I used a can of flat black spray paint and an Atari Logo auto decal to spruce it up. Do you like it?