macgoo

Yes indeed, my entire point was Dragon's Lair could have been done arcade perfect on any machine if someone bothered to build the simple control interface to attach a suitable Laserdisc player to the computer. This was done for MSX, Atari ST, Amiga and PC back in the 80s. Why re-invent the wheel and an oval wheel at that given they're trying to fit a quart in a pint pot A genlock would only be required to overlay graphics, you could probably get by without it seeing as there was a version that used the arcade laserdisc on PC and ST (Michtron? Microdeal? can't remember who sold it)

It only took me an hour to be the first person in the world to confirm with evidence the exact release date of the PAL Commodore 64 release in 1982, add to this stupid pathetic comments like the "A500 with improved chipset over the Amiga 1000" and I went right off the Retro Gamer magazine long long ago. I could, and will, write a more entertaining and factually correct retro e-mag for free. Just waiting for some famous people to respond with content as promised and then we can publish our first issue

Dragons Lair via Laserdisc+genlock is the ONLY way to do it.

SID has it's musically qualities. But, I wonder why people put so much into a sound device that has more flaws than goods ... for a synthesizer.... The huge selling amount of C64s doesn't mean SID would lead the world, as in that time people prefered to listen to real music, when playing games on the computer. It's a huge fanbase, that still lives , and possibly held alive due to the SID tunes. POKEY tunes alone really wouldn't.... btw... you like experimental music? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00fCjpdF69g And yet people pay $1000s of dollars for early analogue synths today because they release what a load of rubbish and limiting artistically the FM digital synths were. It's not the SID that people loved in the grand scheme of things, it's the sound of analogue synths which people like Matt Grey and Martin Galways squeezed out of the little SID. They share the same disadvantages in terms of repeatable identical setup/sound on two of the same make/model of synth units but at the same time I think the world over people would agree the sound of analogue synths is just better than all that Rick Astley type rubbish. Something like the Ensoniq 32 oscillator sound chip designed by the designer of SID is much more desirable to me than say an 8 channel sample playback chip with no effects processing of the Acorn RISC computers. The only reason I own a Ninbendo DS is to play around with the DS10 cartridge And yes those sounds in that video are quite bizarre but good! There was a C64 tune for a game with Ghosts in it and I think those sounds would go better in that tune (forget the name at the moment).

For well built and sturdy you will not be able to beat the 800, unfortunately it will not run later software that requires a 64K or larger XL/XE system. The ability to have 4 players for Mule is in its favor though. There have been discussions about a replacement OS upgrade board which allows the ability to select between 800 mode and XE mode with up to 576K, the design of which is complete and some prototypes built, but which has not been produced. There are also limited upgrades available for this machine. My next choice would be the 1200XL, followed closely by the 800XL. The quality of the XL circuit boards is superior to those of the XE line, and the XLs can be upgraded with extra memory which was their main disadvantage in comparison to the 130XE. The quality of the XE lines circuit board is a major disadvantage when installing mods/upgrades, it is much easier to damage when doing so. Bill For PAL territories (PAL/NTSC only availability should be mentioned in first post really) the 1200XL is not an option is it? If so get an 800XL for 64kb games and 800 if 48kb is enough as it has a lovely keyboard I think and 4 joystick ports. 65 n 130XE/XEGS keyboard is worse than C64 one so be aware of that if you plan on typing.

I do feel they lost their way and innovation. What have they done between Wipeout Pure (PSP) and the latest PS Vita Wipeout? They did a racing game similar to Hang On for the Amiga, it was actually really good. And of course Shadow of the Beast was one hell of an amazing sounding and looking game on a stock 512kb Amiga. Even the FM Towns Marty version was c0ck compared to the A/Vs of the Amiga original. Some real genius coding by Reflections.

If only Ninbendo would come to an end, nothing but bad news for gamers from NES to 3Dfuxxor and PiSS console lol Utter babyfied bollox from day one, FAIL

The best racing game of all time was not ported to the Xbox 360 properly (5fps when it rains is a joke!) and not even released on the PS3!! Now Criterion have decided to do their own version of Need For Speed : Most Wanted!. I've seen the trailer and obviously it does not include the best car ever sold in the world (BMW M3 GTR 2003-2007) but I am worried it will be one of those games centred on multiplayer and not the actual single player game, which is what makes NFS:MW the best racing game ever programmed for any system at any time on this planet. There was a lot of gay back slapping and hoo-haa about Criterion doing it when the E3 trailer was shown (yeah so what, their games are nothing special in my book) but they better not make it some leaderboard based wank with token cop cars and stupid story! NO! Don't remake stuff and ruin it for god sake.

Is there an ADAM emulator that works in VISTA/7/XP? Some DOS emulator is around but doesn't really work on todays PistaChios

As an owner of one since 1986 I can tell you the truth about this machine. 1. It is possible to have 8mb Fast RAM and 512kb Chip RAM. Most come with just 512kb Chip, you will need a side expansion to add the fast ram (512k-8mb). So the only games that won't run are those that specifically need the A500Plus/A3000 chipset with 1mb Chip RAM. 2. Price, well I can't see the pictures and condition is everything. It's not cheap at 202 dollars unless it has no yellowing at all and the box has zero scuffs and all the manuals are also mint. 3. The build quality is far superior than the A500, the keyboard is a joy to use and it takes less space on your desk. All but the very first Summer/Autumn1985 NTSC machines have exactly the same features as the A500 technically. Once you boot Kickstart disk from cold boot it is held in protected memory and even a keyboard reset won't clear it. Bad side is parts are harder to come by though. The two games you mention will run fine on an A1000 and so will Shadow of the Beast/Sword of Sodan/ALL Cinemaware games/Battlesquadron/Marble Madness. Very few games needed the 1mb Graphics chip to work, even Stardust runs on my A1000 (it is a 1mb game though). I use mine for serious work with a Kickstart 2.1 disk and with a 2mb expansion I have 2.25mb free when using Kickstart 2.1. Basically unless you want to use the 1280x256 4 colour mode there is no difference between the A1000 and A500Plus really.

Original internet is Compunet in the UK for Commodore 64 computers. Why? You could view/download.... Music Video Demos Games Pictures. You could chat to people..... All at once in a public chatroom Invite people into your private chatroom One to one in private just like MSN You could send and receive.... "emails" files So there you have it, Compunet did everything the HTTP based internet of today does, amazing eh?

Yeah that and their over generous reviews put me off.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19350856

2 seconds into it and you couldn't even get the name right, CBM was not the registered name. 30 seconds into reading it I noticed a 2nd massive error, Simon's Basic worked fine without a disk drive or even tape deck. Also you need to know why the 64/VIC had that V2 Basic (research your facts if you want to flame) and remember that in 1982 we all typed in games listings full of Peek/Poke/Data statements not drawing spyrograph circles with plot commands like poofs in plastic sandals The hardware = better games listings to type in = only thing 99% of us cared about. And finally Acorn computer's Basic pissed all over ALL Microsoft Basics even before 1982. If you need help just ask an expert or something

i'd just like to point out that i disagree with this statement... ...they come in bottles too! This is true! Also doing a horizontal pic of a bottle of coke works best for A8 and a vertical pic of a coke bottle on C64 is better suited.

Cola = diabetes in a can diet cola = cancer in a can I can see Olympics are ALL about the betterment of the human body's ability to achieve greater and greater things and nothing about a massive scam for londoners to pay for some twats in govt/big companies to get even more rich lol

I thought about that with my Lotus 2 game as the trees are half all the char graphics if I updated let side on one frame then right hand side on other frame it would save on chipset bandwidth and CPU time but the effect will be undetectable if the game was to be at 20fps or better as long as the road is done properly every frame. I don't know enough about the unique features of A8 chipset to comment specifically sorry Jose but as long as your game is running about 20-25fps and the side graphics updated 10fps alternately for a combined out of sync 20fps it will work just fine visually. (many Amiga animation routines updated odd scan lines and even scan lines alternately in 320x256 non interlaced mode and you only notice it is doing this if you watch a youtube video of the demo so same principle)

Hey no problem I am doing my bit to spread the word to all the people who may be interested. Defender of the Crown was one of the first games I owned, and they took the time between Amiga and ST release to actually improve the gameplay as well as making it look and sound as nice as possible. With all the rubbish being launched yearly I think they deserve a chance to show us how Cinemaware can use DirectX 11 on Win7.

But the trees need green (different green to background) black and brown. Road needs grey and background is green but separate register to green on trees. This means road can only have grey + whatever you set as multicolour 1 and 2 so that means grey+black+brown. If you draw lines only on edge of road 1 char separating grey and white boundary sure, but white lines inside grey road is impossible. If you remove the green/light green raster effect on ground then you can make the grey on road the background colour and the green of the grass at side of road the same colour register as green in the leaves of the tree. This means the white on the grey of the road is an open canvas and you can use any colour you like in each char block. If the green is set as Multicolor1 or Multicolor two and brown or black is set as free colour for char block you lose 3 colour rocks (unless rocks have green mould on them hehe) but you can do the white lines on grey road AND green grass exactly as my first picture. Hell you could even blow 3 sprites for the lines on the grey road and move the white lines at edge of road 1 char outside grey/green boundary. There are many options. But 3 sprites for all cars you must overtake is not enough, that means one large car and one small car in distance or three small cars in distance maximum. Not very exciting with only 2 cars to overtake It's all compromise and needs a lot of thinking. I was interested how it would best be possible on A8 though not the difficulties of my C64 proposed game engine

I couldn't find this anywhere here (did a search on Cinemaware as a single word) but I would like to bring it to your attention. They are trying to kickstart development of a HD re-imagining of Wings for PC/iOS devices and Android. I thought some people may be interested....they made some excellent ST games in the past. Anyway the woman in the videos is really pretty and has nice ample sized bosoms...just like all the Cinemaware games and artwork so worth posting about just for that no? http://www.cinemaware.com http://www.kickstart...s-directors-cut

Didn't really understand what you need to know as white lines were for static mockup screen but latest screen I uploaded was black lines instead of white. This is how it could work for me. (Ignore the cars and clouds as these are multicolour sprites with their own palette of 3 colours and transparent to show what is underneath,blue sky in this case or grey of road). Global background colour for sky is set to blue at vertical=0, with a raster interrupt used at the point the ground meets the sky the global background colour is set to green for the ground. For char block graphics below sky at point of horizon Global multicolour 1= Black Global multicolour 2= brown (rocks, road and trees can exist here but overlap from ground to sky so this is why sky must be background colour set to blue and ground background colour set to green then trees can be written anywhere and you will see sky and ground showing through) So for the trees you can pick green as the unique colour for the char block you are writing to, I chose green. So tree is green as free choice colour and can also use global multi colour (GMC) too which give black, brown and green. You could set green as a one of the GMC and have brown as the free colour too, but then the rocks have only black and green + 1 free colour to use, green is not useful for rock graphics so you would be limited to 2 colour graphics. For the rocks you can use black and brown as they are GMC 1 and 2 too but as long as it is in a different 4x8px char block you can set the colour to orange or red to make nice golden rocks. The green on the ground each side of the road is the background colour of screen we set to green with raster interrupt. Now the reason this is green AND tree green is the same colour ie free selected char colour number 3 for tree graphics, it is duplicated because when you make the light/dark green stripes on the raster interrupt which changes the value set for background graphics. This means you will get the stripes on the grass next to the road but not on the green leaves of the tree as you are changing only background colour from horizon to bottom of screen with raster interrupts just like Space Harrier The road can have brown or black in each 4x8px char block of course as all char positions can so we use grey as the free colour number 3 to make the road shape over striped green background colour, and we can do black stripes of course over green or grey area of ground as this is one of the global colours for whole screen. The road uses less chars than the left and right side of the road = so drawing in just the road = faster game engine. As I understand it on A8 you mean if ROM character written to screen is between 0-127 you get colour PF2 and if you write ROM character 128-255 you get PF3 colour? On C64 maximum colours in one 4x8 pixel block is 1+3 set for entire screen and fixed (multicolour 1 and 2 plus background colour) This is fixed for ALL chars on screen unless you do a raster interrupt (or DLI on A8 I guess). The only extra colour you can choose is one more unique colour for each 4x8 char block. It looks like then we are both limited to maximum 4 colours in each 4x8px char block and the same design restrictions would apply. On C64 you can have all 16 colours on screen of chars yes BUT 3 of those colours are the same in all chars on the whole screen technically and only one colour can be different and selected for each char block of 4x8 pixels. Also only 4 colours can exist in any 4x8 pixel block (3 of which are the same for the whole screen). Anything beyond that is down to raster interrupts to swap colour registers for background, MC1 and MC2 global multi colour registers. To get white lines on grey road you would need TWO free colours as you can't change multicolour global colour 1 or 2 across a horizontal line and you are using two of black/green/brown to make the trees. So as trees need black brown and green you can have only the following on road depending on what colours you design to set MC1 and MC2 for screen background + grey char colour of road + MC1 black + MC2 brown background + grey char colour of road + MC1 black + MC2 green background + grey char colour of road + MC1 green + MC2 brown White is impossible to have on road unless you are making trees with snow on them and change black on screen to white for MC1 or MC2 register (sky/ground blue/green background set by simple raster at Y position of horizon using raster interrupt across whole scanline so doesn't really matter for road graphic chars in grey written to screen)

Sorry but this statement pisses me off. The inference that anyone who enjoys the Wii and its controllers isn't playing a "real" video game is about as bullshit a statement as I've seen on this website for a long time. Because you are attaching emotion to the issue. Did you google the Amiga 1000 TV show thing that is EXACTLY like Kinect gaming today? Did you google image search the Le Stick joystick or the Steering wheel you hold in the air like the one you attach on the Wii-mote which allowed you to play Lotus Challenge 2 on an Amiga or Atari ST. I am pointing out facts, you are pointing out emotional subjective preference for an improvement to an already existing alternative way of using game consoles or computers for entertainment. Financially Wii is not outselling BOTH PS3 and 360 and even Kinect/Wii/PS3 Move games combined do not sell more than traditionally controlled games. The simple fact is games using some sort of joystick have existed since Atari's 1972 Space War cabinet. The Wii/Kinect/Move are something else. The fact that they run on a 360 or PS3 is neither here nor there. You can use an internal combustion engine with 4 wheels suspension and steering to do either Formula 1 racing or WRC Rallying. They are not the same thing. If you like your motion games then that's cool, BUT just as WRC Rally cars will never replace Formula 1 racing cars I would not be interested in a console where it only caters for this new party game/toy/casual pass time sort of thing. If you like it that's great but there is no way in hell I would trade even a Joypad for playing FPS/Shootemups/Beatem ups/Driving games for holding a dinner plate in front of a video camera making woolly inputs to control my car onscreen. If that is YOUR thing then great. Games have existed for 40 years and Wii/Kinect is not going to make gaming better...only add an additional option. To the guy who said steering wheel and pedals yes I agree, I have that too and that's great but kind of takes up the whole room (have the one that comes with the car shaped metal cage) but I was just drawing a line between waving your arms about making iffy control inputs and being able to use a dedicated joypad to make pixel perfect accurate game inputs. So I stand by my comment, saying Wii/Kinect are the next thing is like saying Formula 1 racing will be replaced by Rally sport racing. Not true. The next big thing would have to be the equivalent of going from Formula 1 racing to anti-gravity racers like in Wipeout. They don't exist yet and nor does the next big thing. The next big thing is removing the physical interaction and taking direct feed of muscle/joint inputs AND giving 7.1 surround sound in your ears AND head tracking stereoscopic displays that feed directly (or as close as it makes no difference) images into your eyes. Scientists already use visual equipment like this today to experiment on fooling the brain into virtual out of body experiences by feeding a view of yourself as seen 3 feet behind via a camera and how your brain actually quite quickly decides you're floating in space 3 feet behind your body in some bizarre thing. Now couple that with sound, direct input of movement of all limbs into a 3D model of a DirectX 12 representation of yourself. This freaky shit works with the body of a mannequin with a 480p webcam placed on it's chest or just a live feed of an SD video camera on a stand behind you. Just imagine how it would work with real time Playstation 4/Windows 8 graphics? Until then Wii/Kinect are not there enough to be anything other than just another type of gaming, a new type invented by people using Amiga 1000s in 1980s or the French company who sold the 'Le Stick' joystick for use with C64s etc. Then and only then will a new type of gaming exist, Virtual Reality will finally be here at last and we can move into the world of gaming, marketing bullshit by Nintendo/Microsoft claim you are 'in the game' now but they are nobs if they believe that as are people who think Wii/Kinect are anything new that wasn't around a quarter of a century ago in a more rough and ready form. Marketing PR twats WANT it to be the next big thing but it isn't, if it was that great rather than just technology which opens up the market to increase the user base by introducing an alternative less geeky option (ie what Sony did with the Playstation one and sold 120million units of the first piece of gaming tech they ever sold and wiped the floor with Sega and Nintendo). If you like it then great, enjoy, but it is neither new nor something a SKILLED games player would ever use in preference to make a serious attempt at completing a computer game that requires pure skill and accuracy in game character control. All that's happened is 60 million people who would NEVER purchase a PS3/360 now own a console called Wii. And Microsoft being the greedy twats they are wanted in on this new group of console owners hence Kinect is born. Can you make Call of Duty 4 or DIRT 3 better by Kinect, nope. Here endeth the discussion for me. And I am in the group of gamers who is waiting for the last 40 years of gaming technology to have a worthy successor....ie the true VR technology I have already described and is scientifically proven to work on even the most basic non interactive visuals being fed to your eyes and no surround sound and no direct input from your own joints and muscles translated to what image is fed to your eyes. We are on the dawn of a new age, 10 years from now you REALLY will be playing Forbidden Forest as Paul Norman imagined it in his mind. Until then even with Kinect and Wii it is not possible.

Your routine for A8 or C64? Anyone have Chris Butler's email address? This is his last known game he was lead programmer on in 1999. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YQGQjDo2Ck

You have 2 common colour, 1 unique for each 4x8 pixel block. 4th colour is transparent or background yes. I did the original image as a static screen mockup and here it would be possible using either extended background mode. However then you can only have 64 characters in your font so a big problem for a game engine. In the static screen the road sides are grey cell colour, green is already a multicolour out of 2 global set colours and you have white as the background in extended background colour mode. This then allows you to set part of the background to green and part of the background white (ie under edge of road where it is 1 char width green and also under the grey road). Above the horizon it is still blue either by free choice (you can set 4 background colours for extended background mode) or rasters. As you can see this will not work at all for a game engine, with all that complex char colour swapping and mapping to calculate you would probably get less than 1/3 the speed of the game the way I intended. As the game stands you can either have no lines (looks horrible) or black lines on the road instead of white as black is one of the global set multicolour colours. Open to ideas This all started out as a static screen mockup nothing more and to make a fast game engine has taken a while to fit the compromises. I was told by someone on A8 you get 5 colours on char graphics for 160px double width mode and on C64 it always ends up in some char block "if only I had 1 more global colour" hence I posted it here. A8 has faster CPU for executing game engine, I believe more accuracy on scanline palette swaps due to DLI system not IRQs of C64 and one extra colour for non PM graphics displayed However I did it on the C64 because only one less colour and plenty of sprites at reasonable 160x100 effective resolution with unique colours for both sprites and char graphics. I never expected it to go this far, before you know it Andrew Morris or Shaun Southern will be sending me a PM somewhere wanting to know EVEN MORE! (they wrote Lotus 1,2,3 on Atari ST and Amiga/CD32) Anyway final mockup with rocks changed to grey + black BUT as orange and black are MC globally set options you can add orange and make a nice 3 colour rock for unique char blocks. If trees and rocks are intelligently spaced in game design they will never overlap and it will look much nice. I will do the rocks soon but for now just made it C64 screen mode legal and technically possible without 10 million multiplexed sprites and 3x extended background mode 4 colour palette swaps mixed between the raster bars for road/grass stripe effect which would be a waste of time exploring further. I hope we all had fun and learned new things on both sides anyway

I would say for realistic undulation of road horizon could go between 50 and 150px down. Depends on the height of screen, also now the car is not three but just two sprites 48h x 42v (21 and vertical expansion) the road looks too wide for car. The white road marks may need looking at too as the road is using last free colour for char grey and Multi color 1 and 2 are black and brown. That's been the snag for me, white lines are important.