Fishsta

2 new Vince Apps games up on www.fishsta.co.uk They are: Last Stand and Rescue

2 new games hopefully to be up tonight... both of them by a chap called Vince Apps. This listing typing has also hungered my creative juices (or something)... I've got a program planned in my head that I'm hoping to get typed up over the next few days.

I would hazard a guess at Monty Python's Life of Brian. In a Spartacus kind of situation, the people set to be crucified on the crosses are asked who is Brian of Nazareth for a reprieve. Brian is too busy shouting at his friends who have left him to die, so "Mr Cheeky" quips "I'm Brian of Nazareth". Brian, incensed shouts that he's Brian, to which everyone starts joining in, "I'm Brian!" One man, whose wife is also being crucified says "I'm Brian, and so's my wife!" I'll not completely spoil the rest if you haven't seen it. But you should.

Not sure how you embed a Youtube video, so I'll just copy and paste the link in and see how it goes...

As you can see from the above updated screenshot, the error has been fixed. Wahey!

Yep, that's the one. I guess that's what happens when you type a listing in furiously on Notepad and then paste it into Classic99 without checking it. I do playtest before saving these, honest I do...

Just spotted a glaring graphical error with Forklift Truck. A new version will be uploaded later. Look at the screenshot, it's pretty obvious what it is (and yes, the battery looks odd in the screenshot, that's been sorted since that was taken... it's something else.)

Absolutely. Everything there so far is all standard TI Basic. Partially selfish reasons, I never had Extended Basic as a youngster, so I'm not exactly au fait with the commands and differences. However, I do have some EXBAS listings to type in that I often wondered what the results would be like, so I will eventually try my hand at them. Also, need to do a couple of pages on "How To Get Started" with Classic99, for unfamiliar users.

Thanks for that! Sorted now. Can't believe I never uploaded the file.

They're there now. Hope you enjoy. Right now it's 5 to 2 in the morning, I'm fed up of troubleshooting / HTML editing / image resizing, can hardly keep my eyes open and I'm in work at 8am. I'm off to bed. G'night.

6 new games will be added tonight. They range from frankly awful to actually not bad.

I'm back. And my website's updated. Hopefully tomorrow will see another game added to the TI99/4A section, but the big news is that I've completely revamped the site to look less like a Geocities homepage from 1998... which is where my website started out. I'd be interested to know what you think. www.fishsta.co.uk is the address.

Ooh, I might join in with this. I'm crap, but hey, it's worth a go.

I just added this programme to www.fishsta.co.uk This is one from the British TI Home Computer Users Club Newsletters, but what got me was the clever way John Stocks has got the TI to convert X/Y Co-ordinates into a CHAR string to compute the graph. Has anyone seen anything like this used anywhere else? To some here, it might seem simple, but to me, it's almost incredible that someone could convert a sequence of X/Y co-ords into Hexadecimal code by means of a formula, and produce these results. He says the first few lines are editable, so in theory we could produce easy SIN/TAN/COS graphs, or even random graphs. Admittedly very slowly. You will probably want to overdrive it. Other well-known computers, such as the Spectrum, had the PLOT command, which is obviously sadly absent in standard TI Basic. Anyway, if anyone can come up with interesting lines to replace lines 100-120 in this programme, I'd be curious to try them myself.

LOL... "Dishsta". Thanks for that, Opry. Enjoyed it! Great choice of music, too. And Cheers for the plug! Here's a program I got from the TI Home Computer Users Club, written by a dutchman. To be added to www.fishsta.co.uk soon. Once it gets going, it's quite entertaining. FASCINAT.zip

Wrote this small program as a musing, but the end results seemed to be not so worthwhile. Still, you might like to see at least what my thought process was. On something a bit faster than TI Basic, it might look something like decent. WHTENOIZ.zip

I did this program as a "Basic Musing". With it I made 10 random Char strings. Obviously TI Basic cycles too slowly to make any decent attempt at making it look like white noise. Alright, my knowledge of TI BASIC is a bit limited, but it was flooding back somewhat with typing old listings. WHTENOIZ.zip

Another new game added, "Slalom Run" Anyone want to post their high scores? Download available on the TI Games page. Opry99er, are you submitting that game for inclusion on www.fishsta.co.uk? By all means, I'll add it, but the original idea was to resurrect games from back in the day. Not complaining about new material, far from it, I think it's marvellous that old computers are STILL having new software developed for them (I mean, look at how well Prince of Persia ended up being ported to the Spectrum, and who would EVER have thought it was capable of it?), just being honest that it wasn't what I planned, but part of me says any new TI99/4A resource (which is what I'm trying to be) should provide as much as it can to help keep the scene alive. So what I'd do is split the TI Games section up, into a section for games from the "heyday" and a section for games made since. As long as you'd be alright with that, I'd be more than happy to help promote any game submitted. Again, in the spirit of honesty, I'm discovering that work expands to fill time available. I hoped to get 2 or 3 games on this weekend, and due to various commitments only been able to get 1 up. Better than nothing, but less than I want to give.

Sorry for the slow updates. However, I've had a couple of things to deal with. I AM going to start flooding some games this weekend. In the meantime, how's this for the game download page? The actual Download link should be working in about half an hour or so.

Some great advice, there folks, much appreciated. I will see how it goes tonight, hopefully. The danger is, if I get them all working, you might not see me posting them for weeks whilst I get stuck playing them...

So that would be your guess, original recording too loud? I'm confused as to what the "Noise Level" value in Tape994a actually does. Do you know?

Well, last night I tried my new (old) cassette recorder in conjunction with both the tape to disk programmes CS1er and TAPE994a. FINALLY, a modicum of success... but still a failure. I managed to actually create some kind of disk image, unfortunately with several "bad" records. Listening to the sound from the tape, this one sounds good quality, no added hiss or tape stretch, so I felt hopeful. Upon loading the disk image file into Classic99, I listed the programme. Line numbers 100-1960 were blank except for about 2 or 3 odd lines, from 1960 to the end (somewhere in the 4000's) the listing seems to have been successfully preserved. The WAV file used was recorded in Audacity with the tape recorder on maximum volume, then, still in Audacity, I removed the silence from the beginning and end and amplified the sound (with no clipping). Chris36's guide (from the www.fishsta.co.uk) thread was REALLY helpful, but I'm hoping someone would know what (hopefully minor) adjustment I need to make to the setup I've got to get it actually pull the programme through correctly. I feel like I'm ALMOST there! Any advice folks? If I can get this working, the proverbial floodgates could open...

First tapped in listing, it's the "Game of Chase". Load into Classic99 by copying into the DSK1 folder, and in TI Basic typing OLD DSK1.GMECHASE Typing that listing in brought some memories back. Still no luck with getting a tape lead to work with my real TI, so I'm going to have to get CS1ER or TAPE994A to save the day... and the tapes. GMECHASE.zip

www.fishsta.co.uk updated, UK version of the "Read This First" manual added. Hopefully the first games will be available by Sunday.

Thanks ti99userclub, I'll take a good look through that later. After a quick search, I can't find a UK version of the "Read This First" manual. So I've scanned it. Hopefully add it to the site tonight. For now, here's a quick taster. Games hopefully to start appearing this weekend. HOPEFULLY.