dalves

So I upgraded the old version of jzintv that was on my Raspberry Pi with the newest Linux version from the website. The -b setting looks great and it now looks like what I am used to seeing with Intellivision games. That said, all the games load and play great with the exception of the Intellivoice games and Space Patrol. With the updated jzintv files, they won't run. If I use the older jzintv files, the intellivoice games and Space Patrol work perfectly. I'm trying to figure out what I may be missing with the upgrade.

I am interested to try this, but wondering if there is a specific place I need to enter the -b flag in the retropie config I'm using. Below is what I currently have. I didn't know if I would add it between the -z1 and -p? jzintv = "/opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/bin/jzintv -z1 -p /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS -q %ROM%" default = "jzintv"

I will check various games tonight to check the extended scroll boarder. The thing that makes me wonder if it's that, is the games that show the border offset using JZINTV on my Raspberry Pi, have perfectly aligned borders when I use the same ROM in my MESS emulator. I will check, but my memory is that every game with a colored boarder used on my Raspberry Pi had the border offset.

I didn't see a specific forum for this, so I figured I'd ask here. I have recently build a Raspberry Pi 3 and got a bunch of emulators running on it. I have JZINTV as my intellivision emulatior, and it works fine. However, on games that use a colored boarder, the border on the right side of the screen is cut in half. I never noticed this when using JZINTV on my computer, but since I still use MESS as my main emulator, it may be true there as well. When I asked about this on the Retropie forums,I was told this is a flaw in JZINTV. I'm just wondering if any one has noticed this before, and if it may be a screen setting issue. Thanks...

Thanks artrag for the information. My apologies for being a dunce, but where do I edit that information? I didn't see a config file.

Hey all, I thought I had asked this question before but couldn't find any post about it, so maybe I just was thinking about asking it. I had been using MESS as my intellivision emulator, but really want to use jzintv exclusively. Is there a way to configure jzintv to display at a 4:3 aspect ratio instead of stretching to fill the whole screen?

I bought a Missile Domination cart a little while ago and it's great. I am getting a new Raspberry Pi set up and was wondering if the ROM for it is available anywhere. I checked a couple links where it may have been available once upon a time, but nothing now.

Thanks for the kind words and feedback. mmarrero thank you SO much for changing the .bas file to show how I could use DATA to process that information. That helps a ton. It makes it easier for me to understand how it is working when I see it applied to code I was writing. I'm wondering if I may want to draw the mountains and backgrounds using DATA in the future. That may be the next test. I wasn't sure if PRINT statements add more to the ROM size than #BACKTAB statements do, or if they're about the same. The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly is one of my favorite movies of all time, and making a game based on it has been more fun than it has felt like work. I was hoping to make it in the style of GTA or Red Dead Redemption, where you have missions you can complete in order to finish the game, or it can be open world where you just fight, and find food and water to survive. Like the movie, I'm hoping to have clues to where the money is buried depend on which character you play as. Still a lot of work to be done, but it's been fun and I'm hoping it will be a good game when its done with some decent replay value. I meant to ask another question. If I use CONT1.KEY= command to scroll through text dialog in the game, it sees a single press of the key like I pressed it two or three times. Do I need a WAIT command to have it see the press of that keypad button as a single press? Or do I need to add a command to turn the KEY off after it's pressed?

I am using the IntyBASIC SDK and I do include the Constants.bas as well. I was thinking this morning that I may need to build a test program to see what statements I use, and the way I write them, are adding more to the ROM size and then find ways to work around it. I am using a lot of "IF" and "PRINT" statements and I know there are things I can do to be more efficient. I've attached the latest .BAS file if anyone is curious. Bear in mind this is still very much in the "Sketching" phase and the code is messy and not as organized as I would like. I did try to label things with names that make it easier to follow what they are doing. GBU8.BAS

I believe when I checked the ROM size yesterday it was about 40k. I know there are more efficient ways to do the code, and I need to learn them. The use of DATA and PEEK/POKE are things I've always had kind of a mental block for and I know I should take the time to learn and not worry that I may spend a little less time "Creating" for the time being. As a musician, I used to compare my programming ability to a kid who is learning to play guitar for the first time. As soon as that kid learns how to play a power chord, he has the ability to "Fake" his way through any song. He will be a better musician if he learns how to play chords like a G minor 7th, but he's so happy that he can play songs at all, that he neglects learning more... I would say that's a pretty accurate description of me when it comes to programming... I was hoping to have something playable that I could post soon, but right now the game is not much more than having your character be able to walk across a 900 screen map that changes biomes and time of day. I'm implementing "Health", "Hunger", and "Thirst" meters that are effected by temperature, biomes, and tasks. The missions and battles were going to be added later.

The 900 main screens that make up the map are mostly similar. Using a similar background and changing the foreground subtlety to create the illusion that you are passing through different areas. I am doing this using my very limited programming knowledge. Below is kind of an example of what I'm doing for the 900 screens. If screennumber=200 then screenground=1:#groundcolor=cs_brown:screenfill=12:landmark=5 Screenground is made up of a couple gravel patterns. Screenfill would be a series of numbered print screens that would add rocks, trees, and other items. Landmark is added to draw specific buildings, or structures in the game. When I checked this morning, my .bas file was 68k. I know I can shrink the file size just by reducing the size of current variable names. I also think I may have some overall code that could use some cleaning up and just be written more efficiently. The game is still in the "Sketching" stages.

Thanks DZ, I appreciate it. I think I was falling into the thought of it being Kilobytes instead of Kilodecles. My open world game I'm working on is currently 900 screens (30 horizontal x 30 vertical). My fear was getting it almost done and then finding out the game is too big, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it. I'm hoping to have something more playable soon that I can post.

Thanks DZ. I searched the forums for "Reverse Video" and found a few posts where you described how to get more out of Color Stack, but this link seems to be more in depth. I tried doing the reverse video trick this morning, but might have done something wrong because it didn't do what I was expecting. I did try using a user made solid 8x8 GRAM card as a solid color while doing the Stack Advance. That seems to have some promise. Random question: Is there a max ROM size for an Intellivision game? I read somewhere that the LTO Flash (Which I have) can hold ROMs up to 42k. I didn't know if that was the max ROM size that can be used in an emulator. The open world game I'm currently working on has 900 screens and already has a ROM size of about 35k, and there is still so much I have to add to it. I know I can do things to streamline my code and knock the file size down, but I didn't know if 42k would be the cap I'd have to stay under.

Thanks DZ, I will try that and I'll search the forum as well. Thanks again for the information and help.

Thanks DZ, I believe I understand what you mean. Are there any examples of how using the reverse video would be written, or is it simply that I would draw a revered GRAM card and use a BACKTAB command to place it at the same location to advance the color stack? I was thinking changing from Color Stack to Foreground/Background mode may be my solution, but I realized that some of my graphics use some of the higher color numbers for both the foreground and the background.

Hey guys, I was wondering if there is a way to advance the Color Stack more than one step? In a game I am working on I am using Color Stack mode to change the colors between the sky, ground,etc. (MODE 0,STACK_CYAN,STACK_TAN,STACK_BROWN,STACK_BLUE) I'm using Cyan for the sky, Tan and Brown, as the ground colors, and I was hoping to use Blue for a pond in the middle of one of the screens. The problem I'm having is trying to use the CS_ADVANCE to draw the pond, but then need to get back to Tan to color the ground again. Below is an example of what I'm trying to do. Cyan ____________ Tan-Tan-Tan Tan - Blue - Tan Tan-Tan-Tan I know I could just use PRINT or BACKTAB with BLUE as the color to draw the water without advancing the color stack, but I was hoping to use one of my GRAM cards to draw waves on the water. This is where using the Color Stack would come in handy if I could advance it more than one step. I've also thought I may have to switch to Foreground/Background mode, but trying to see if there may be a way to work this out in Color Stack. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Hey DZ, thank you for your description and information. In the version of Worm War 1 I'm trying to make, the blocks that enter the field of play I knew I would have to create using Backtab. I'm thinking I could use the background collision/Space Armada approach to get this to work. I mentioned Astrosmash because it seemed like there could be a lot of targets on screen at a time and I didn't know if they did that by multiplexing or a combination of MOB/Backtab targets. The choppy movement of the player's ship and spinning asteroids in Astrosmash made me wonder if they weren't MOBs but were drawn with Backtab animations. As always, I am very grateful for you all taking the time to provide answers and information. I think I'll try the background collision detection in Worm War 1 first and see if I can get it to work the way I hope it will. I'll be sure to post a ROM and/or BAS file for anyone who is interested.

I guess I'm still learning some of what you can and can't do with the Intellivision and how to work around some of the limitations. Thinking about games like Space Armada and Astrosmash make me think wonder how they did some of the animations and collision detection. That said, I'm not going to waste people's time by playing 20 questions about "How'd they do this" on older Intellivision games. I'll try what you guys suggested and see what results I can get with it. Thanks again for the feedback and information.

Thanks DZ. I will have to experiment a bit. I was thinking I may be able to work something out between using MOB and Backtab to form a type of collision detection for specific Backtab locations. I think more experimenting may be needed.

Thanks Nanochess. I think I'm understanding better. So in a game like Space Armada, where the rows of aliens are not actual sprites, you can use this form of collision detection with the background because there is nothing else in the background except the aliens? If that is the case, then I'm sure I can use sprites for screens that have lots of graphics in the background.

Thank you Nanochess. I will try that and see if I can get it to work. I assume doing it that way will look for the MOB to come in contact with any part of the Background? If I was going to have a drawn background, but only have parts of the background with collision detection with the MOB, I assume I would have to do something with Backtab in order to indicate the specific location of the background image that the sprite will interact with?

Hey Guys, I took a bit of a break from programming, but trying to get back into it and finish some of the projects I've been working on. Earlier in this thread I mentioned I was trying to learn how to do collision detection between sprites and backtab. I meant to ask if anyone knew of some .bas examples that show how this is done? I'm fooling around with an idea for kind of an open world adventure game based off of the movie, "The Good, The bad, & The Ugly". Not sure how big I can make the map, but I'll be sure to post it once I have something more playable.

I had taken a bit from programming for a bit, but looking to get back into it as the fall and winter months will be approaching. Many people here have been very helpful by submitting samples of their code so others could learn how to program. I would have sworn that once a while back I stumbled onto a site that had code for some of the original Mattel Intellivision games, like Space Armada, Astrosmash, and others. I've never been able to find them since. I was wondering if anyone here knows if the code of those games have ever been released and if there is anyway to have access to them? I apologize if the question has been asked before.