sack-c0s

Sounds like a gameboy running nanoloop to me

I remember in the 80s they taught LOGO in schools in the UK on BBC computers. Some people laugh at it but between that and my C64 I learned enough and eventually ended up with a job as a software engineer at a graphics company, so it can't have been all bad. It was fun running the turtle around a piece of paper to make it draw, although I think we did quite literally hang it (from its own cable) by spinning it endlessly until it wrapped the cable around itself. Now I'm thinking about it I've got a mix of LOGO and lightcycles in my head... wonder what I can do with that?

I think the real danger with the C128 is if the VIC-II was 'upgraded' it would probably end up changing the undocumented behaviour of the chip which a lot of people had learned to exploit, meaning people would either have to fall back to not using it (no FLI colour modes, border sprites, etc.) or just ignore it, so I suspect it wasn't going to work out either way. But what would've been so wrong with a C64 that had a switchable CPU speed and 128K RAM?

i can't remember the specs of the SMS off the top of my head... are the NES graphics i did any good for it? sorry it's been so long for a reply - I got the job, so things have been a bit hectic... I think they should be, the only problem with the mastersystem is the lack of control over the palette - you can place colours pretty nicely, but you just don't get much choice in picking them. Basically the palette entries are 4-bit (so the RG can be 0,85,170 or 255) and each tile can use either the first 16 colours or the second. sprites and the border colour have to come from the second 16. But having had a play with the NES screenshot and tweaking it a bit I think they would be usable

Having looked at the Meka emulator and some Docs I think I've got a handle on how the Sega mastersystem works now and seeing as I've got a certain game running (hello TMR!) but not quite complete that's already written in Z80 with the logic and machine dependent stuff separated from each other I might get them done in parallel. I should also get back to my Amiga code too, but right now I'm waiting for job interview results and I need to do as much as I bloodywell can to keep that off my mind so a burst of productivity is needed

Wonder what would have happened if they were successful - Acorn took a similar route with the ARM and it left them with a pretty nice legacy

Can it be called 'look what the British C64 owner coded'?

And this is just plain ugly.. Objectively Ow me eyes!! Still looks better than the Spectrum version And probably less painful than the c64 version... I think in this case the A8 wins by not having a version

I think he was exaggerating. I've done it millions of times

8x faster? possibly more actually. For planar modes you have to load, OR a bit in (or AND it out) and store 8 times, that's 3 operations per bit, 24 operations total (excluding how you get the and/or masks to start with). chunky is a load and store to get a pixel onscreen. potentially it could be up to 20 times faster like-for-like.

Can't argue with that... War makes for better games though. Although love only requires 2 sprites (3 if you're feeling kinky) In terms of a c64 vs A8 forum I think you'd need 2. One to act as a 'reach out' for the curious (which is what half of us were doing here in the first place) and the other as a battleground (basically to keep rockford out of the way )

S'just the colon is non-standard, only some assemblers support multiple commands on the one line. In that case don't read 90% of BBC or Archimedes code then, it'll give you a migrane

Personally on the girl front I've been spending my time enjoying myself with Paula, Agnus and Denise. They're a fun trio...

'tya:pha' nonstandard? it's just 2 perfectly standard instructions on the same line isn't it? makes sense to do it that way to me because if something comes between them due to a dodgy cut+paste it'll screw up the register preservation.

Commodore BASIC v2 - because it's so terrible you realise you're using PEEK and POKE commands all the time and your code flow is almost what the assembler equivalent would be, so you end up switching to 6502 easily. It's so utterly bad it actually helps you learn

so far as speed is concerned in 2009 you can't really code anything usable on a 6502-based machine where assembler speed is going to be a problem surely?

I've written some simple code on the ST and ported it to the Amiga and haven't even touched the blitter yet and the screen management (being able to repoint the video addresses on a line by line basis and the screen buffer format) actually removes a lot of overhead that I had on the ST from working around its video memory format. What I've gained from having linear planes has wiped out any advantage of having a faster CPU. But more experienced 68k coders might prove me wrong on this one - it's just my experience.

aparrently zarch on the archimedes was very sub-optimal, using byte stores to do the polygon filling instead of handling the byte cases then fast filling with long words or using multiple stores and it still goes impressively fast. I have to wonder what frontier might've been like if the Archimedes was more of a commercially viable machine and was written on there.

well I came here *because I like Atari* so went to an Atari forum. If I wanted to ask questions about the 64 I'd go to lemon. Okay... If Brits suck just eradicate everything British coded or built from around you and see what you're left with. That includes all the embedded ARM CPUs

I think TMR has the domain name ready to go

yawwn... you guys do realise that I've managed to learn 68k assembler and a whole new machine (Atari ST), whilst all you've done is have this stupid 300+ page argument, right? Just saying is all...

Oh come on - that was a low blow... Reminding me I had this on my mobile so I'd end up playing it for a few hours instead of coding. Distraction techniques should be banned I've been wondering about coding a little game so might go looking at some of the little mobile games to see if there's any that call out to me. Canabalt is quite cool actually - I think both platforms can do a decent job of it so it's all going to be in the extra polish. The platform I want to play with is undecided - probably C64 because I've been missing it, although I've got an Atari ST framework going now. Odd thing about coding that framework is the little demo effects I've been playing with use a shedload of rastertime on an 8mhz ST and I can do them so much quicker on the 8-bit atari. Try kefrens bars or a chessboard zoomer and you'll see what I mean. Not sure about the atari vs c64, but I'm beginning to think the atari 800 beats the ST I'm off to *ahem* research Canabalt for a bit longer.....

[Looks at several incomplete games dotted around his hard disks, whistles innocently!] Unfinished games? Don't know what you mean guv. Stuff that, i have enough problems with English most days!! So do I - you try learning another language (last job interview I had to answer questions about c++ in Spanish which took some thinking about). You end up learning one word and forgetting another - and it's never the same word. You end up in the state where you have 2 words for half the objects in your house and none whatsoever for the other half! Biggest problem with Spanish? they're all bloody Z80 fanboys around here

I'd take out adverts on the side of buses that say 'The platform wars are over, now stop worrying and enjoy life'