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First Spear

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Posts posted by First Spear

  1. Posted

    There are quite a few "rough songs" in the programming forum. Not too many are ROM, but IntyBASIC source that you can compile into ROM or bin/cfg yourself.

     

    The other day I pulled up some music demos on my Intellivision just for some music. They were such things as...

     

    The Nutcracker (3 parts)

    Take on Me (2 versions?)

    I'm so Sexy

    Secret Agent Man

    Copacabana

    Creep

     

    These were basically good. I was curious were I could find more music/demos like this to download for my Intellivision?

     

  2. Posted

    Maybe simulate throwing a discus with the controller. A player has to do the spin while the gyroscope in the controller tracks the movement and then pushing a side button does the release, and then on-screen the disc flies properly.

     

     

    I am now thinking that the console needs a light gun, or an equivalent "target shooting" thing with the controllers. I have no idea how it would be done at this juncture, but I think it's needed. Duck Hunt on the NES was a real attractor back in the day (not that shooting ducks for fun is that PC in 2018).

  4. Posted

    I'm not mixing things up. But if the sample works for you, I must have some other config thing happening. Thanks for verifying.

     

    The sample works 100% for me. Are you mixing up left and right? It seems to me that in jzintv, the left controller is mapped by the cursor keys and numeric keyboard to the right of a PC keyboard, while the right controller is mapped by various keys on the left hand side of a PC keyboard + numeric keys on top of the keyboard.

  5. Posted

    Apologies in advance if this doesnt come out right. I am in a doctor office waiting room... I probably should have led with this in the first place.

     

    In the code below, there is a line keypad=cont. And further in the code, actions are taken based on the value of keypad. The value of keypad is populated regardless of whether a button is pushed on controller 1 or 2. However, if I change the code line to keypad=cont1, and then push a button on the left controller, I do not get a usable value in the keypad variable. If I change the line to keypad=cont2 and push a button on the right controller, I do not get a usable value either.

     

    Im not sure what is happening.

     

    Below is a copy-paste from the contrib/keypad.bas file included in the IntyBASIC disto.

     

    Thanks.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    REM Module: KEYPAD.BAS

    REM

    REM Description: Raw keypad demonstration - A demo for IntyBASIC.

    REM Author: Mark Ball

    REM Date: 01/01/16

    REM Version: 1.03F

    REM

    REM HISTORY

    REM -------

    REM 1.00F 13/07/15 - First release

    REM 1.01F 13/07/15 - Modified instruction text.

    REM 1.02F 13/07/15 - Added side buttons.

    REM 1.03F 01/01/16 - Added pause buttons.

    REM

     

    ' We need some important constants.

    include "constants.bas"

     

    cls ' Clear the screen.

     

    ' Display some instructions.

    print at screenpos(0,0), "Press buttons on a"

    print at screenpos(0,1), "controller's keypad"

    print at screenpos(0,4), "Button ..."

    print at screenpos(0,5), "Value ...."

     

    loop:

    wait ' Wait for the vertical blank.

    keypad=cont ' Get the raw hand controller value at this instant.

     

    print at screenpos(11,5), <3>keypad ' Display the controller response.

     

    ' Check if a keypad button is down,

    if keypad=0 then print at screenpos(11,4), " ": goto loop

     

    ' A keypad button is down, so display what it is.

    if keypad=KEYPAD_0 then print at screenpos(11,4), "0"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_1 then print at screenpos(11,4), "1"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_2 then print at screenpos(11,4), "2"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_3 then print at screenpos(11,4), "3"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_4 then print at screenpos(11,4), "4"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_5 then print at screenpos(11,4), "5"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_6 then print at screenpos(11,4), "6"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_7 then print at screenpos(11,4), "7"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_8 then print at screenpos(11,4), "8"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_9 then print at screenpos(11,4), "9"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_ENTER then print at screenpos(11,4), "enter"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_CLEAR then print at screenpos(11,4), "clear"

    if keypad=KEYPAD_PAUSE then print at screenpos(11,4), "pause"

    if keypad=BUTTON_1 then print at screenpos(11,4), "top"

    if keypad=BUTTON_2 then print at screenpos(11,4), "b-left"

    if keypad=BUTTON_3 then print at screenpos(11,4), "b-right"

     

     

    ' Keep checking for keypad buttons.

    goto loop

  6. Posted

    Slightly chaning the subject, what is a smart way to read the GRAM shape that is occupying BACKTAB #66, for example? I want to temporarily save the GRAM value for that is there, change it to something, and then change it back later.

     

    Thanks.

     

     

    Sorry, recursive is the way to go unfortunately... I had to do it with Mad Bomber to change the foreground pixel of the building. For and next of course. $200 is the backtab address, I don't use the constant.bas since I don't want to remember how to spell the words.

    for x=0 to 239
    #Mcard= peek ($200+x) 'get the backtab card information
    #Mcard=#Mcard/8 'delete the first 3 bits
    #Mcard=#Mcard*8 'add the 3 zero to the first 3 bits
    poke($200+x,#Mcard) 'write the result back to the backtab

    next x

    This is for the entire screen. If you need to trim part of the screen, then

    for x=0 to 199
    #Mcard= peek ($200+40+x) 'get the backtab card information
    #Mcard=#Mcard/8 'delete the first 3 bits
    #Mcard=#Mcard*8 'add the 3 zero to the first 3 bits
    poke($200+40+x,#Mcard) 'write the result back to the backtab
    next x
    [snip]

  7. Posted

    Thanks. But what I don't understand is why when I choose to read from cont1 instead of cont, the value is not read from cont1. I am only able to get a value from cont1 if I choose to read cont. I'm using the vanialla sample of keypad.bas.

     

    Thanks.

     

     

    As far as I understand, CONT1 and CONT2 contain the decoded value of hand-controller-1 and hand-controller-2, respectively; and CONT is the ANDed combination of both. The latter is useful for single-player games, because it gets input from whichever controller is active (of course, in a single-player mode, you only expect either of the hand-controllers to be used at a time, not both at once).

     

     

     

    If you intend to accept input from each hand-controller discretely, then I recommend reading CONT1 and CONT2. Otherwise, you're safe with CONT.

     

    Note that all of these variables are updated during IntyBASIC's main loop, so once per frame.

     

    -dZ.

  9. Posted

    Speculation and imagination time, as I am fairly sure it is impossible, but...

     

    What would it take to show a gradient color pattern, like the one shown on the image, on an Intellivision? I know enough about the "character based characteristics" of how the Inty generates images with cards, and the standard 2-colors-per-card limit, but am wondering if there is a way to make the STIC do something crazy to display still images.

     

     

     

    post-31694-0-86047400-1532484818.jpg

     

     

    Thanks.

  10. Posted

    Looking at the contrib\keypad.bas sample, line 29 gets the value from both controllers with "cont". Changing it to "cont1" does not get the value from the left controller only. What is the right way to update the sample to only get values from the left controller? Of course I'll ask how to do it for other controllers, later.

     

    Thanks.

     

     

  11. Posted

    IR sensor and microswitch to detect a special tape with super-clear header area?! Just another example of places for the unit to be unreliable.

     

    You guys are doing great, great, great work. Thank you for sharing! It is now easy to see why these never really made it, they were more of an engineering-driven project than a marketing-driven project; I can imagine that if a business unit leader said "let's make this" instead of Papa Intellivision, it would have had 1/2 the features, been more reliable, and sold. Wow, the KC was just too complex to survive as a real product.

     

     

    Hey all,

     

    Another bit of an update on Ron's KC. Se[snip]

  13. Posted

    A re-imagined Space Hawk would be awesome. I played a lot of it when it was new (goes back to "that's all we had to play so of course we played it") but I think it's basically forgotten now. If it gets a good backstory and 2019 graphics and smoother play, it's a win as resembling Asteroids with an infinite play field. Maybe like http://atariage.com/forums/topic/263171-wishing-for-a-new-intellivision-game-space-squadron/?p=3715956

     

    (snip)

    And this may ruffle some feathers...but take Space Hawk and give it better/clearer purpose and gameplay.

    (snip)

  14. Posted

    Wow, I have been away for a while. Spent a lot of time chasing down the jokers at Intv Prime to make headway on their game*. Anyway, the last time I saw this thread, I was on page 7... There were lots of opinions on this posted, some of them were even good. :) Here's my $.02:

     

    This forum, God bless it, is The Intellivision Echo Chamber. Of course people here want a cartridge slot. Of course people here want the full classic Intellivision experience from the 80's/90's.

     

    From what I gather from the livestreams and media postings, this console isn't about "us" on this forum. "Us" are probably going to buy anything with The Running Man on it, we'd buy a dog turd if it had Running Man Frosting on it. I think the idea is to fill a niche in gaming, going back to when video games were marketed and advertised (2 different things) to people that were not gamerz. Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo want the mega-bucks games with big productions, games that create recurring revenue streams. I'm not sure if they can make any money at all if they go low on pricing and availability, they are locked into competing at the high end. For every family affluent enough to have an Xbox One X, there are 50 that don't in my estimation. Those 50 families probably have a mix of Android tablets of phones for games, and tablet-controlled games are just not that great. Also, the high-end games take a lot of learning, the "pick up and play" aspect is just about dead. There are rare exceptions on the high end - I found Overcooked on the Xbox to be a great 4-player local co-op family fun game, my family of 4 understood and played after 10 minutes. Anyway, there are probably millions of worldwide units that could be sold to people that can't shell out a ton of $ for a console plus games plus BS like Fortnite Skins, people that want to play something fun, fast.

     

    Borrowing from the Intellivision library looks like it fits the bill for modern games. A fully updated Utopia with 21st Century graphics and sound and internet play and algorithms/heuristics that don't have to fit into 4k is a great idea. A 21st Century version of Tron Maze-a-Tron (with none of the quirks and tons of space for programming logic, hey make it where people can learn inadvertently) would be good. 21st Century versions of Sea Battle, Shark Shark, Microsurgeon, Burgertime, Dracula, all awesome. So a company that wants to do that basically has to buy/license the whole Intellivision catalog, there's no reason to license and not take the Intellivision name as well...

     

    For the classic Inty, maybe it will work like the Mega II chip inside the Apple IIGS, where an entire IIe was fitted to a chip placed on the motherboard, and when classic mode was needed, the chip went "live" but otherwise the IIGS electronics ruled. An adapter for a cartridge slot would be necessary for carts, but really I doubt they would sell more than 5,000 of them (being liberal).

     

    Also on the classic side, I would like to see a download mechanism for the classic side to give independent/homebrew publishers a way to sell more of their stuff. Take awesome titles like Christmas Carol, Sydney Hunter, Boulderdash, etc etc etc that are stuck with us in Intyland and sell 200-400 copies - I would love to see the developers get more exposure (and sales) on a console with millions of new potential distribution points. And if it's download-only then the publishers would be protected from piracy.

     

    One thing the console will need is marketing and advertising. I think Tommy Tallarico knows how to bring that kind of heat. If he doesn't then the system will fail. But if he reaches the customers where they are, with the right message (fast playability, low cost, fun exclusives, family friendly), they will sell, regardless of what we The Intellivision Faithful will do.

     

    And hey, our hardware is not going to last forever. Our stuff was built tough, but like my Newton and Apple II stuff, parts and things get more and more scarce. Having access to affordable ways to play the games I want gets more important with every disc press+roll. I am still waiting to offer something inappropriate for someone to get my Intellivision reliably and simply connected to my modern TV, converters to do the HDMI work are $200 by themselves. A console under $200 that lets me play Dungeons & Dragons on my flat screen HDMI TV with no BS? Sold!

     

     

     

     

     

    * For those that eventually play The Minstrel's Legend, get used to the scene attached to this post - TPK.

    post-31694-0-84411300-1532049284_thumb.jpg

     

    • Like 2

  19. Posted

    Hi. I am only using Color Stack Mode for this. The background color for all tiles is black only, only color 0 is on the stack.

     

    I wanted the fastest way in IntyBASIC to (1) detect the foreground color of a given tile and (2) change the foreground color of any given BACKTAB tile to another color.

     

    There is a lot of great help here on this thread. Thanks everyone! I dont quite have the quick-and-easy IntyBASIC Procedure yet, but am working on it.

  20. Posted

    It's safe to guess that current license holders of games like Tron Solar Sailer and Burgertime and Lock-n-Chase and White Water will not allow inclusion on the next-gen console without a huge fee, which would drive the console cost up. Games like Hockey, etc will already be baked into the console. Having a full cartridge port just sounds expensive and will be nice for maybe 2% of the system buyers.

     

    So that means an add-on would be needed for the console.... Really. If I want to play Beauty and the Beast now, I use my LTO Flash (all of my original carts are stored away except for Boulderdash and a few others). If I want to play distributed ROMs like Christmas Carol or Jawcrusher, I use my LTO Flash.

     

    I would like to see an add-on that allows cartridges to plug-in and loads the games into an emulator; even the slowest IO method is 100k per second, that means most Intellivision games load in less than one second.

     

    I would imagine that any game requiring voice could get it through software emulation of the SP0256-012 orator chip, just as jzIntv does now. Same for the ECS.

     

     

    The Apple IIGS is not an Apple II like its predecessors, it's a custom 16-bit computer with an entire IIe on a chip (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_II); hardware and software acts like a IIGS or a IIe based on softswitches. I could imagine that the new Intellivision would behave in the same way - make something completely new that contains a miniaturized version of the old stuff, and flip back and forth as needed. Emulation.

    • Like 1

  21. Posted · Edited by First Spear

     

    Masters of POKE and/or GRAM, what is a way to set the foreground color of all 64 items in GRAM to foreground color of black? Hmmm how to do it to the GROM Items as well? In Color Stack mode.

    I dont want to change the foreground color of every item displayed on BACKTAB (eg I dont want to for...next from 0 to 239) because that wont give the effect I'm going for.

     

    Bonus ask - how to read the foreground color of any given BACKTAB tile?

    Thanks!

  24. Posted

    I have a Harmony cart and System Changer. There are some 2600 games worth playing. :) one wrinkle with it is that you cannot have an RGB-modded Intellivision with the System Changer because of the way the video circuitry is used, so if your Inty is hooked to a modern TV be aware of that. HTH. Enjoy!

    • Like 1
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