Mr SQL

Here is a fantastic BASIC Programming video I shared on the Programming Forum that is great for learning to write games with batari BASIC, SuperCharger BASIC or even the classic Atari 2600 BASIC Programing Cart - the programmer walks you through writing a short Pong game in BASIC. How to reduce flicker in BASIC and other concepts applicable to Atari 2600 programming are covered as well. Interesting Trivia: the earlier ZX-80 was much like the Atari in the respect of having to write gameloops that ran in the vertical blanks in order to avoid screen roll, a command for this was added to the ZX-81 BASIC ROM:

Found this excellent BASIC programming tutorial for the ZX-81 - Awesome presentation and observations illustrate the fun of 80's programming in 1K of BASIC on the ZX81 inspiring creativity with a clearly illustrated walk through building a complete Pong game with tips and tricks for optimizing program size and reducing flicker.

Great game! Never played this before, gameplay reminds me of Canyon Climber.

Very cool I can't wait to play this version! The flipped squares are back - I was just about to play the latest release with the new BS scheme but noticed the squares are reversed again; interestingly they were reversed in the last couple of pics posted, but I didn't notice until I sat down to play.

Thanks guys I'm looking forward to playing this on the real hardware again! Al thanks for the low level merge instructions, hoping there will be a new Uno BIOS released presently so I don't have to do the rebuild.

@Al_Nafuur how can I update the Uno Cart for the new BS scheme or get it to auto-recognize, like you were able to do with the wireless version of the cart?

Found another release of SuperBlitz in a Tape mix from T&D Subscription Software. It's available for Download here for anyone who has CoCo3 hardware or the emulator: https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Disks/Magazines/T&D Software.zip Subscription Software mix Tapes: T&D Subscription software was very cool sending subscribers a new mix Tape (or floppy mix) containing several games every month, the games included fantastic ports of classic Atari 2600 games like Chambers and Sailor Man, an awesome port of Popeye. The screenshots for games from other issues show Draconian and LunchTime, both awesome ports. Interestingly some of these excellent quality games were repros having been released years earlier by other companies and some were then repro'd again in turn to end up printed as Type-in's in magazines, like SuperBlitz. Imagine getting a new Tape in the mail every month with classics and homebrews for the Atari 2600? A new Atari 2600 Mix Tape is comming out - A French company is putting together a one-off release of a Coffee Table Atari book with a SuperCharger mix Tape. The unreleased SuperCharger game Berzerk Friendly Fire, and several SuperCharger homebrew repros will be included! I will also be including an unreleased version of 10 Line Blitz that plays the same except the illusion is missing for fun coffee table discussion. Tape mixes are a lot of fun, it was awesome to collect a full set with all those interesting ports of the classics! The zip download I linked above has the full set from T&D.

Agree on the perspective - the ARM is running the gameloop and not just helping with the setup/processing which is more like one of the better Jag game where the more powerful processors are used instead of the 68K. It's fantastic for fans to have strong opinions about games, but no one should get carried defending ARM games so as to throw "gatekeeper troll" insults at the classic programmers like the ZeroPage show; consider programmers who wrote games in the 80's, including John, simply percieve this as a 32-bit game. The Atari Pong Developer Challenge was a good example on changing perspective in mainstream culture; all the 32-bit games in the show were considered Atari 2600 games based on the retro look and feel regardless of platform. Similarly, games we wrote in the 80's on contemporary systems are all concievably Atari 2600 games too because we strived for the look and feel.

And there is another awesome Machine Language port of BLITZ here by @frenchy_frogger I have a Blitz genre folder on my flashcart with all of these ports including Caynon Bomber. I like playing different ports of the same genre for the major and subtle design differences the programmer/artist creates. Does anyone know of any other homebrews or classics inspired by BLITZ?

10LineBlitz inspired some lively discussion on the Facebook Homebrew games page! Here's my response to some of the questions and comments in the discussion: This is not bAtari BASIC - This game is written in SuperCharger BASIC which is similar to old-school BASIC like we used in the 80's. SuperCharger BASIC is available to download here with more BASIC games and utilities. How lage is a 10 line BASIC game really once the program is compiled to binary? This is a great point, the compiled size can be larger than you would expect because a single BASIC statement may generate multiple machine language statements. So Here's how big 10LineBLITZ is - first some info on the SuperCharger since that is the Cart it runs on, this is a Cart with a 6K RAM board to load games - the RAM made it a lot like the RAM boards for the 1975 Altair and this enables classic BASIC programming which is RAM based: Here is another picture from the SuperCharger BASIC IDE, showing the game being compiled into a ROM binary - In the picture the BASIC ROM occupies 2.2K, leaving 3.5K free to BASIC and 300 bytes of reserved space. The compiled game occupies about 1100 bytes of binary code in the ROM binary, and the BASIC runtime is 2.2k totaling just over 3K of ROM used: Discussion about the BASIC concatenator operator: The BASIC concatenator operator ":" is actually different than just another statement because it's horizontal structure allows nested if-then-else logic blocks. There is a more detailed explanation on my site near the bottom of the page using another 10 line BASIC game as example. Question about the score: There is another version of BLITZ here from the SillyVenture 2019 Atari art competition that provides a score in the form of rating your progress. This version is similar and contains the vanishing illusion demo, but interestingly it runs at twice the framerate and twice the Hz, so the faster game is more of an impossible-to-play demo. The version here with the ramping difficulty is I think the best so far... but I'm sure I'll write another version, Blitz is a fun classic to write and to play! More versions of Blitz! written in more versions of BASIC: The colorful picture in the opening post is SuperBlitz which I wrote in Microsoft BASIC in 1986 for the Radio Shack CoCo III, for anyone who wants to type-in or just read the classic BASIC listing it is here from Dynamic Color News, an 80's Color Computer magazine. I also wrote a version of Blitz in batari BASIC here in 2011, which uses a similar random algorithm to SuperBlitz to draw the buildings. Machine language versions of BLITZ - I wrote a Machine Language version in 1984 for the CoCo I/II after playing the game on the VIC-20; this version is availble in the CoCo archives here for anyone with an emulator or the classic hardware to play on: https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Disks/Games/City Bomber (The Saint John Gallery).zip

Yes changing the Hz can be stable and it is recommended by the programming manual using fractional math - many games show 4 player sprites rendered at 30 Hz by displaying them every other frame instead of every frame at 60 Hz. This is because the nonstandard video signal gives us twice the Hz of a 30 Hz NTSC broadcast signal to work with by throwing entire frames 60 times pre second instead of fields (half frames) to assemble 30 frames per second. There is no way however to get 120 Hz because you only start with 60, however fractional math to divide the signal can look very cosmetic in a game, here's an example with KC Monster Maze: The Maze is displayed at 60 Hz The four characters are displayed at 30 Hz (divide by 2, both character sprites every other frame) The 6 dancing dots and power pellet are displayed at 20 Hz (divide by 3, both missle sprites every third frame) When the screen scrolls all of those elements get divided by two again - The Maze is displayed at 30 Hz The four Characters are rendered at 15 Hz the 6 Dancing Dots and power Pellet are displayed at 10 Hz The frame division has to be perfect (no calling draw screen to load balance if you are using bB) when dividing the Hz but the results can look great on a classic Television. Stella emulation merges some of the frames by default on the latest Retron77 community build which can reduce flicker for games that don't rely on fractional math, but it makes a mess of the frame division used in games like KCMM and also some classics like ESB:

SuperBlitz with throttle control This enhanced military sim now let's you control the illusion! Featuring an improved Martial soundtrack, lighting strikes and Anti Aircraft missile systems. SuperBlitz is a rewrite of my 80's SuperBlitz port of Blitz that was sold on Disk and Tape and later a magazine type-in, the full history is in this thread: 10 Line Blitz is a new Atari game for the SuperCharger with many enhancements over 9 Line Blitz! 😎 Features: Algorithmic Music Composition - Changing musical scores and sound Fx, interactive and computer generated during gameplay. Ramping Difficulty - Game starts out easier to play than 9 line Blitz Optical Illusion - Optical illusion effect which vanishes as difficulty ramps! Advanced Play - BW switch Read hardware recommended and a classic Television, if using an emulator make sure to turn off phosphor effects and merge frames! BASIC just like you remember it back in the day! - This game was written in vintage BASIC using 10 lines of 120 characters or less: 0 data city 5,9,6,9,7,6,7,5,9,5,5,5,5,6,6,7,5,8,5,8,7,5,8,8,5,5,6,6,7,5,7,8,9,8,8,7,8,9,5,6,8,5,9,6,6,7,5,7,5,5,8,5 1 if g=0 then for j=0 to 9:player1(j)=189:player0(j)=pl(j):rowcolors(j)=178:next j else goto3:data pl 0,224,127,231,252 2 for j=20 to 71:k=j-20:k=city(k):for i=k to 9:vwpixel(j,i,on):next i,j:player0y=96:player0x=84:y=11:g=1:COLUP1=99 3 if f<player0y/52 and SWCHB|247=255 then f=f+1:goto 9 else AUDC1=7:AUDF1=BITIndex/5:AUDV1=BITIndex:f=0:rem Theme Music 4 COLUBK=0:AUDV0=0:scrollvirtualworldtoggle=1:BITIndex=BITIndex+1:missile0x=missile0x+2:data P 192,128,0 5 if joy0fire=1 and y>8 then AUDF0=12:AUDC0=9:SUSTAINFORFRAMES=15:x=BITIndex+9:i=96-player0y:i=i/10:y=1+i:remPlayahTune 6 if y<10 then vwpixel(x,y,bindplayer1):COLUP1=M(y):y=y+1:data M 99,84,180,164,50,68,196,148,244,84,36,9:rem Do Rainbow 7 if y<10 and vwpixel(x,y,poll)>0 then vwpixel(x,y,flip):player1x=0:player1y=0:AUDC0=y:y=21:AUDF0=4:AUDV0=15:rem Hit! 8 if BITIndex>71 then BITIndex=0:player0y=player0y-2 else missile1x=missile1x+1:missile1y=missile1y+3:rem 10LINEBLITZ 9 if CXP0FB>126 or player0y=0 then CXCLR=0:g=0:for i=0 to255:AUDF0=i:AUDV0=i:COLUBK=$34:next else missile0y=missile0y+2 The BASIC compiler for the SuperCharger is available free on my site here Have Fun! EDIT New version: 10LINEBLITZ II Waves and Mission What's new? rem --- 10LINEBLITZ II - Waves and Missions rem --- Insignia on your Plane is revealed after you complete your Night Mission! rem --- Multiple Waves over differently colored Sky's and Cities rem --- More optical illusions: Some color combinations create unreal artifacting such as textured bricks - complete several rounds and describe what you encounter! rem --- note: Classic hardware and a CRT required to experience artifacting textures and additional illusions rem --- unique features rem --- Each Wave achieved keeps it's colors in Attract mode rem --- Unlimited continues to complete the Missions until powering off SuperBlitz Throttle Control: SUPERBLITZ.bin 10LINEBLITZII (code in post 7) 10LINEBLITZII.bin Original version of 10LINEBLITZ: 10LINEBLITZ.bin

… is an actual character instead of ...? Pretty cool RT! I just did Alt 0133 to try that I bet Google is likely able to match the three ASCII characters against the Ellipsis, maybe you could add both forms with one hidden to make it easier to find on your BASIC pages. Check out page 40 of the Radio Shack Color BASIC manual: https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Manuals/Hardware/Getting Started With Extended Color Basic (Tandy).pdf They use an ellipsis, but I think it's the three ASCII period characters and not a single character. What's strange though is in the back of that chapter though and throughout the book they use mathematical notation with THEN the denominator and IF the enumerator: IF/THEN

X2! And I think Video Chess is closer to 1300-1400 on level 5 so it's doing better than 1000. VC is close to Chess Challenger imo, maybe it is improved over the computer chess proto?

X2 - the 5ply rocks! I played the game on the real hardware and the CPU took about 12-15 minutes a move, I left it on overnight and kept taking breaks, the game probably took about 4 hours. I was ahead at first chasing the night again but then made a blunder and lost after continuing the game the next day, I need to play another round! Andrew I am looking forward to pawn en passante! interesting history on this move is that pawns were initially only allowed one square, but the game took so long that an initial jump of two was allowed - this caveat came with the option for an immediate en passante move reply so the pawn couldn't jump past an enemy pawn to escape capture. It's caused some issues for early Chess engines which had release notes the engines could not defend against it.

I played two games of Chess against the last 4-ply and the engine is playing really well and was fast, most moves under 5 minutes Here are some notes on the games and a pic from my Kodak: I made a blunder and lost the first game just as it got interesting - in the second game, the engine responded to my classic d2-d4 opening by moving it's Knight, allowing me to chase the Knight for several moves with my pawns gaining position. In the screenshot the Engine just took my pawn with a Bishop (red hilight) using the pawn to capture would have been better but B1-B3 is the next move either way; an opening book to prevent loss of initial positioning or an algorithm to weigh position lost from wasted moves could improve gameplay further but the 4-ply engine is challenging right now! I have to take my time thinking about my moves. I would love to try a 5-ply with this version of the engine if the CPU can move within 20 or even 30 minutes!

Fantastic! I don't mind waiting and will give you my feedback on this one after playing Today - very awesome the black screen is back that lets me think more reflectively about the game - excellent option to check the depth of the search with the button, I will use that occassionally and time some of the moves, but I will not use the SELECT to cheat during the game. Some observations on the "quiescense" algorithm from your description - it sounds like the CPU will miss the need for a deeper search during a 3p when the 3p encounters moves that are just setting up to do a capture, or a forced capture that will happen one or two moves deeper than the initial search and not trigger the quiescence.

One of my favorite block falling puzzle games was the VIC-20 classic BLITZ with each unique puzzle presented as a randomly generated City, the challenge being to drop blocks to fit the puzzle and specifically the spires. Here are three variations on this classic for the Atari: CityScape is in the classic BLITZ format with the addition of controlable speed, necessary to avoid the enemy ground crew on subsequent stages. Fluid City uses a side scrolling format that may not be possible on any 8-bit system without Atari architecture. You must drop blocks within a 30th of a second response time to solve the randomly generated puzzle because it is moving at 30 FPS! This game was a big hit at the 2019 Atari Art Festival in Gdansk and includes an impossible game (BW switch) which has the puzzle moving twice as fast. Bomb on Pixel City is a French port with very colorful graphics written in Assembly.

That's very interesting, the disk image is full of tables that get accessed by the program; it sounds like SDC-DOS has an error not present in the original DECB ROM. Very cool the cart has the ability to switch to DECB for full compatiblity to play the game.

I just began playing the latest versions - I would have noticed the color flip, interesting; white square must always be oriented on the lower right/queen on her own colour or the board instantly looks wrong; I remember a version of microchess by Peter Jennings released with that error on cart for the Color computer, was still playable though just doesn't feel right - I've added the off-colour variation to my Chess folder Demo between moves - demo is too jumpy for Chess imo; I really liked the black screen and also the smooth mood ring effect Video Chess achieves. Here's an interesting idea for a trippy demo that is smooth for Chess - something like the Plasma demo @SvOlli created between moves would have a surreal Chess feel which the jumpiness does not; problem of course is no vertical synch - maybe another kernel to keep just the synch only (eating just 10% of CPU and freeing most cycles for the Chess engine) to create the plasma effects or some smooth effects like the Atari Music Video which require synch. Also I imagine modern TV owners see only a blue screen like with Video Chess when the "smart" circuitry detects loss of synch and hides the video signal. Board - the new board colors look awesome on CRT with my Vader over unmodified RF I will post a pic presently but not using a phone - it felt like playing Adventure trying to get through security clearance prompts to send the pic as an email - I will take another pic with my Kodak that has an SD card when I get a chance.

Great thread topic! Asterix from 1983 which is an awesome arcade game I played only recently after purchasing an UnoCart, and also Klax from 1990 which some folk may not be aware of due to the late release of the game. The Uno flashcart lists the Atari games using a large friendly VIC-20 sized font with white letters on a bright blue background so I've been finding and playing games I never noticed before on the Harmony even though I had them - partially this was because I had folders with 700 ROM's unsorted while the Uno sorts games alphabetically and limits folder sizes to 80 ROM's which is very pagable.

The Astro Fortune Teller is a fun party game for the Color Computer featured at Rainbowfest 87 and advertised in Rainbow Magazine. I finally got the copy protection off, hope everyone enjoys the game! RUN"ASTRO.BIN" If you don't have the real hardware or an emulator you can use the online CoCo emulator Mocha to play http://www.haplessgenius.com/mocha/ Simply mount the image disc as the local file then type the command above. Remember to follow the rules ASTROFTR.DSK

Another CoCo programmer from bitd had discussed accessing the 256 color mode on the GIME; looks like that pic is doing the same - what is the link to the Discord discussion thread James?

New BASIC's for computers from the 70's and 80's like batari BASIC and SuperCharger BASIC for the Atari VCS allow you to write BASIC Video Games at Machine Language speed. One thing I really liked about the era were the programming books with screenshots on the cover of what looked like colorful Atari 2600 games that could apparently be written in BASIC, spanning systems with no color or sound. They didn't compare of course but BASIC games were tremendous fun and educational, they still inspire us BASIC design improvements kept up as hardware improved - This interesting video features the history with a powerful 90's BASIC for creating 3D games on the Sega Saturn:

Just played against the latest engine - it is moving really fast is this the 4ply version? The UI is really smooth, it did well at first then seemed to be moving to fast/not going enough moves deep to be 4x I think. I took a pic on my cell - have to figure out how to get it off of there again now - it looks like I have brighter artifact colors than Carl and Gray Defender, likely due to RF and no composite mod. Here is a breakdown pic from earlier discussion on the different atrifact colors available over NTSC from the patterns - I didn't find the crumpled paper pic with the 8 artifact colors but this one has 4 or 5, the emu is not showing them all I think: