splendidnut

@Shawn: What are you thinking in terms of price? Would it be just the case, or the guts also?

No luck yet. Anyone? Bueller?

But don't you need special hardware to really utilize it?

@Tempest Huh... now that you say it, I do remember seeing general midi listed in some game setup screens.

I'm unsure of general midi support in DOS games... Most DOS games from that era that I know of (Commander Keen series, Wolfenstein, Doom, Jazz Jackrabbit, etc...) really only supported SoundBlaster (or any card that was compatible). Sound effects and music were usually played thru either the Yamaha FM chip on the SoundBlaster or the one/two audio output channels (depending on the version of SoundBlaster). Many other brands of soundcards from that era basically copied or emulated the behavior of the SoundBlaster. Also, part of selecting a soundcard all depends on whether you care if you have to be running in windows or not. I remember having a soundcard (Aureal Vortex I believe) which required you to be running in Windows (Command Prompt in Win9x) if you wanted SoundBlaster support in DOS games. It seemed to me Windows games were the ones which were more likely to utilize General Midi for playing music (Chip's Challenge comes to mind).

I haven't really made much progress... as I've been busy with other things. I've fiddled around a bit and have a single burger piece dropping. I'd like to get them all dropping and bumping into each other first before I post another downloadable demo update.

Yes, I understand that... I was only "seconding" the suggestion mainly to get around your issue of not having the room for a full desktop. For games of the early to mid 90s, a 486/Pentium desktop with Soundblaster would probably be ideal (most supported configuration), and I don't really know of any laptops from that era that had Soundblaster support. The Pentium 2/3 era ones might work out alright, but you still might run into either sound configuration issues (off brand sound cards which need to "emulate" soundblaster support thru windows drivers) or speed issues.

I second this suggestion. If you don't have room for another computer, using DOS Box is probably your best option.

For Atari 2600 projects, I personally like to keep all my code in a single file and save a backup copy (with date in filename) every time I do any substantial work. I don't really see a need for a robust version control system... unless you're doing team work like BoulderDash. Similar to Spiceware... my blog entries also work as a repository.

I'm looking for an Atari 7800 shell (just the case) as one I purchased recently was damaged in shipping due to pour packaging by the seller. The damage is on the bottom side so it doesn't bother me too much, but it would be nice to replace the case. Anyone have a dead 7800 (or extra shell) that I could have?

Please don't think I'm trying to drive your opinion on the matter... I actually agree with you're approach here of a lean-mean compiler machine. Yes we never stop learning, either thru more education, experiments, or just by general experiences. I don't think you are an idiot. Maybe a little arrogant, but not an outright idiot. And that I say from my general experience of you thru-out the forums here. I wish you were a better arguer, as I wish I was too. Please don't think that I am trying to "school" your here. You have valid points that I agree with. Education is can be both a blessing and a curse, but it's ultimately the individual who determines where they land. I would suggest Steve Wozniak as a better example of someone who basically discover/invented his own way of doing things. He wrote Integer BASIC from scratch without any formal education in compiler/interpreter design. He designed the parser/interpreter how he thought it should work. He only used a BASIC users manual as his guide. Interestingly enough, Woz's parser/interpreter was much faster and more efficient than Microsoft's even if you account for the difference in floating point support.

@Mr SQL I feel like you are being very arrogant and greatly discounting the opinions of others. Please look at your argument from the other side of the fence. I wrote an expression parser both pre- and post- computer science education. The post-education was way more functional than the original and was quicker to develop because I had other ideas to work from. The resulting code was clearly a mix between the two. Could I have made it better without knowledge gained from my education (compiler-design college course)? Probably, but it would have taken me a lot longer to discover things on my own. It's possible that education can be detrimental BUT ONLY if you refuse to think outside the box. I would ask that YOU think outside the box of arguments you continue to make. Please try to see things from both sides.

I agree with what @Lendorien said. Rather than arguing about what has happened and who didn't do what... I wish people would focus their energy on supporting the people involved with this project or even potentially help with completing this project. @tep392: Thank you for stepping up and helping out with this project. Please continue to keep us updated as the project progresses... I wish you well.

Just a quick status update: I got the visual portion of the burgers being swiped away as the chef walks over them working... Now I need to handle all the intricacies of them dropping. BUT before I do that, I might work on either fixing up the joystick control of the chef OR spliting up the display kernel to try and eliminate some of the flicker (it's bugging me

Probably going to go with ChaoticGrill... unless there are any complaints. Oh... finally have an update: http://atariage.com/forums/blog/614/entry-12857-burgertime-remake-and-then-there-were-more-enemies/

I'm long overdue for an update... so here it is: There are now 4 enemies (including a Mr.Egg, and Mr. Pickle) running around on the screen utilizing a 20/30 Hz Flicker routine. I'm planning on improving it by attempting to fit in some mid-screen sprite changes into the display kernel. For the most part, the enemies run around the level properly. But every once in a while it seems one or more of them get lost following their own path. Code has been moved around and spread out across a couple of banks. I've done this to give elbow room and hopefully keep the code better organized. Code and ROM attached.

I'm sorry for slacking with the updates... It's been a rough couple of months but things seem to be settling down. And I've now got my Atari located next to my computer again which should provide a bit more motivation (or slacking off to actually play the Atari 2600). That's one of the goals... more detailed sprites of Mr. HotDog (pretty much accomplished), Mr. Pickle and Mr.Egg Currently, I've got the enemy AI working better than it was. Both the Chef and the Enemy movement still need to be improved to prevent getting stuck AND being stopped from being able to move across the level where there is no platform. Big things that still need to be worked on include making the burger pieces actually function, adding more sprites, reworking the engine a bit to minimize flickering. I'll try to get another update out soon. Thanks for bumping the thread. It inspires me to do more work

Before, the hotdog only chased you around on the bottom platform. There was a flaw in the code that handled the vertical movement of the hot dog. He use to get stuck after moving up just a little bit. The fix for that came along with the fix needed to get the chef to actually obey the ladder locations. So now they truely obey the ladder locations. I still need to work on getting them both to obey the level platforms.

Adding just a RAM chip would do as the 6507 already can easily share RAM since it only uses half of a clock cycle (the Apple ][s RAM was shared between the CPU and the video display circuitry) It really depends on how the ARM chip utilizes the address and data bus.

Those links definitely help, but ultimately, it would be nice to have all that information in the same document. Granted it's understandable why it's not, being as this is the hobbyist arena, and most of us are using what little free time we have available to actually build things for the Atari. But it would be nice Thank you SpiceWare.

Lol, I see what you mean... and it was just my luck that when I took the screenshot, he was looking straight at me, making the accidental reference even more obvious. But he is a hot dog, so what do you expect?

New update - still mainly just a graphics demo. http://atariage.com/forums/blog/614/entry-12640-burgertime-remake-the-road-to-dpc/

After recovering from the holidays, I finally got a chance to sit down and work some more on this. What's new in this update: The display kernel has been updated to take advantage of the DPC+ capabilities. Mainly this affects the burger pieces on the level which now actually look like the finished burgers... both in shape and color. This is done by utilizing DPC+'s fast fetch and the ability to write to Display Data to create a frame buffer for storing the burgers. Also using Fast Fetch allows color and bitmap of both sprites to be updated every line... as opposed to the previous version which could only update one of the sprite fully. Updates to the enemy AI now allow Mr. Hot Dog to chase the chef around. It still needs work though. Still thinking about how to implement a round-the-corner algorithm for the joystick control to help ease the movement of the player thru the level. I'm still planning to use the 20/30 Hz flicker routine (seen in the Pac-Man 4k remakes) to display upto 6 detailed sprites.

Is that a challenge? Should I make it awesome in bBasic too? In all seriousness, the basic language has always been a double-edge sword due to the relatively low barrier to entry. But to cut right to the chase... it really shows how good a programmer really is. There are people here who have done awesome things with it. I myself prefer assembly language... it's part of the fun of programming for the Atari 2600. Back on topic... I should have a graphics demo update soon for BurgerTime.

For those who mentioned BurgerTime, I'm currently working on it: (General announcement/thread for tracking progress) http://atariage.com/forums/topic/246769-burgertime-remake-in-progress/ (First blog entry with screenshot) http://atariage.com/forums/blog/614/entry-12174-burgertime-remake-the-start/ Definitely encouraging to see so many people asking for it.