Tjoppen

I'm going to guess it's the bits to a 32 byte wallflower. I've experimented with 16-byters myself, but the CPU, RAM and TIA starting in a random state presents a problem. I've managed to crash Stella multiple times (it seems to expect a sane startup being done).

Do the upscaling inside the kernel. There should be enough time to process one byte per scanline, so you compute the next block line while the current one is being drawn (6+6 byte buffer). Then you only need to shift and copy 30 bytes during VBLANK. Ah, and always keep the data flipped IMO - it just means that Y runs up instead of down.

Yep, alex_79 nailed it. I should add that the colour does work correctly on my TV set even though I'm not doing VSYNC. If you manage to get it to play at the correct speed the audio may be a bit off. I suspect this because bit-banging PCM data without doing VSYNC doesn't work very well in Stella. Both xSqueeker (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=58051) and Sound Coder (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=59283) demonstrate this problem. But maybe this doesn't happen if using the normal sounds "as intended"..

Hehe

I pastebin'd the bastard instead: http://pastebin.com/yLGwc623

You should store the data transposed in RAM, so you can access each column of playfield with the same Y value. I did a little analysis of your kernel: LDY $8E LF29C: STX COLUPF LDA $00A0,Y ;why STA PF0 INY ;are LDA $00A0,Y ;you STA PF1 INY ;wasting LDA $00A0,Y ;cycles STA PF2 INY ;on LDA $00A0,Y ;these STA PF0 INY ;instructions LDA $00A0,Y ;you STA PF1 INY ;could LDA $00A0,Y ;probably STA PF2 INY ;fit this in one scanline INX STA WSYNC ;why? LDA #$00 STA PF0 STA PF1 STA PF2 DEC $8F BEQ LF2D9 TYA ;this would be completely unnecessary SEC SBC #$06 TAY JMP LF2DE LF2D9: LDA #$0A STA $8F NOP ;wut STA WSYNC CPX #$C0 BNE LF29C Instead you should do something like: ldy #YRES-1 LoopY ldx #10 ;stretch factor LoopX sta WSYNC lda PF0DataL,Y sta PF0 lda PF1DataL,Y sta PF1 lda PF2DataL,Y sta PF2 ;do useful things, like set COLUPF lda PF0DataR,Y sta PF0 lda PF1DataR,Y sta PF1 lda PF2DataR,Y sta PF2 ;20-25-ish cycles to spare here dex bne LoopX dey bpl LoopY Something like the above should fit in one scanline. edit: OK, these forums could stand to suck less. DON'T REFORMAT MY CODE DAMNIT!

I forgot to post this a while back. It's a 128 byte intro (demo) for the Atari 2600. It placed 2nd in the 128 byte competition at Outline 2012. It doesn't work correctly in Stella, so you need to use MESS (with the 4k ROM) or a real machine (via say Harmony). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s91ujoAgdkc Links: http://www.pouet.net...php?which=60483 - pouet page http://www.acc.umu.s...s/hectoByte.zip - release, including source code

Finally managed to get the password to these forums to stick (please stop using Javascript login boxes). Anyway, I'll try and rustle the other involved in this from their slumber - assuming Albert is done moving we should be able to get this off the ground this year. edit: If any of the devs are reading this, check out the secret forum

Here you go: http://www.acc.umu.se/~tjoppen/files/vcs/Prost.mp3 edit: Direct link

A little text scroller intro thingy I threw together at Evoke in Köln (http://www.evoke.eu/2012/). Placed 9th / 12, which is OK considering the fierce competition. http://www.pouet.net...php?which=59703

I did some minor investigations on interlaced effects, but nothing came of it. For me it's not really worth it - horizontal resolution is the issue anyway

Heh, a surprisingly good rendition of Pinkie in just eight pixels. You could possibly make better use of P0 for the tail if you move it left a few pixels in the middle of the body when you're done drawing the mane (not sure if that's possible in bB though). Also, the gait is wrong - few quadrupeds walk/run like that. You should make it so the player can't move beyond the top of the screen, since that leaves even less area exposed. Something like the missile in Yars' Revenge that chases the player(s) around could work as a simple way to motivate the them to not stay in one place. On a side note, quite a few people have harassed me to make something MLP related on the VCS - I've declined though

Keatah, Tony: Just follow the links on the pouet page: http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=59283 -> http://www.acc.umu.se/~tjoppen/files/vcs/Sound_Coder_by_DSS.zip and http://www.acc.umu.se/~tjoppen/files/vcs/Sound_Coder.ogg

SvOlli: Sound Coder uses both the VDELPx trick and early HMOVE to get the 96 pixel intro graphics displayed. The release includes the source code: http://www.acc.umu.se/~tjoppen/files/vcs/Sound_Coder_by_DSS.zip

The codec is similar to DPCM and can be thought of as a state machine. I've posted about it in the programming forum earlier. The release includes source code and the encoder, so you can mess around with it if you like. AUDVx are updated every scanline. I'm not doing any VSYNC, which means it won't work properly in Stella. No, but I almost went with this: http://www.acc.umu.s.../vcs_roll'd.ogg (uses older, crappier version of the encoder) Demo parties still happen quite frequently. Check demoparty.net for a calendar.

Bumping because I'm interested in seeing what you guys have to say. Maybe I should have posted this in the programming forum?

Do you mean a keyboard-like program on the 2600, or on a PC? Well: So yeah, PC. Stella's TIASnd code combined with a bit of SDL. I might push it on github once it's more functional. Have you heard of Watari?

For graphics I usually write custom converters that take BMP input. For sound there's not much AFAICT. I'm working on a keyboard-like program so musicians can play around with the TIA sounds. At the moment it records WAV and dumps ASM tables, but there's still quite a lot of work required to get them into proper tables in the code.

Something me and Knoeki threw together for the oldskool demo competition at Stream 2012 - placed 2nd. It uses the 1-bit ADPCM compression technique I've mentioned in the coding subforum. http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=59283 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEYH1-MY9s8

Thanks for all the tips guys

Background: Our student union house is hosting a multi-game challenge of 12 3-person teams tomorrow. I've offered my Atari 2600 Jr for the event, but I'd like some input what would be decent games to choose from. At the moment I only have one joystick and one pair of paddles, but I'm trying to arrange for an extra joystick. Each round shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes - preferrably 5 minutes tops. Current ideas: Combat Medieval Mayhem

The NES CPU (2A03) also lacks BCD mode, to free up space for the sound generator.

Sounds like you should talk to Albert. He runs the AtariAge store if I'm not mistaken.

I used a simple 5-bit packing scheme for the text in Stella Lives!. See http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=59121 While the text display is pretty crappy the packer might be interesting to look at. It stuffs each line of six characters into four bytes. I was considering using Huffman compression, but I had enough ROM for the simpler approach to be fine. As for what takes up most ROM space, I'd say graphics and various tables.

It won't work. The paddles are analog, the driving controller is digital (2-bit gray coded signal). There's not much else to say really.