djmips

Yes on the ROM size. The project was done under a very tight deadline and I didn't want to concern myself with optimizing for size and I specified 32K plus 256 bytes of memory from the start. One of the reasons was that I had more ambition than the final product shows, so some features had to be cut. It did turn out that the final ROM is using a bit over 16K however (actually 14K + 2K for SARA) so I did need the 32K (the next size). Note that the SARA chip memory maps eats away 256 bytes per 4K. One of the biggest costs in the ROM is for the frames of animation for Mega Man and Elec Man which eats away memory at a terrific rate (compared to code). The bBasic code adds a bit to code bloat. I do overlap variables from game to the Boss fight to save RAM. You also might be surprised at the amount of variables that are needed for Mega Man for instance for the extra touches like his eye blinks, the timer for how long he stays invincible after being hit etc. Even so, it may be possible that it could have been crammed even into the normal 128 bytes, especially if I wasn't using bBasic but it just would have been much more time consuming to make.

Do you plan to make the button fire and moving the joystick up jump? No, because I think that jumping is important enough that the timing/control just wouldn't work with that scheme. It does make shooting awkward but shooting doesn't have quite the timing issues. I would consider releasing a version for the Genesis controller because it 'just works' as a two button controller for the 2600.

Try right clicking the link and selecting 'Save Target As'. -Trebor It worked! But now I've got another question: how do you shoot? ah... yes it's a bit weird. You pull down on the joystick to shoot.

Well... it is a Mega Man game. It is already finished. There was never plans for a full game in this case.

Here's the binary mega man demo from the iam8bit 2007 show. It was done on a tight deadline and uses modified batari basic, there's quite a bit of straight assembly code and it runs on a Super Chip because I needed the extra ram. And it's a 32K bankswitched cart because of all of the art. enjoy. It's been awhile but here's the credits as far as I remember. Jon M. Gibson (inspiration / producer) David Galloway (code and art - me!) Tommy Montgomery (sound) Fred Quimby (tech assistance and bBasic of course) Chris Walton (awesome title screen code) Bob Montgomery ( music player ) Atariage programmers! The art took me longer than the code on this production. Instructions : Button is Jump. Pull down on the joystick to shoot. You can stun the enemies by shooting them. You have to ascend through four screens to reach the boss. (edited to add basic instructions) MegaManDemo.bin

2600: Empire Strikes Back (nostalgic favourite) NES: Mega Man Genesis: NHL '94 PS1: Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage N64: Ocarina of Time Gamecube: Beyond Good and Evil PS2: ICO Wii: Super Smash Bros. Brawl XBOX360: Rock Band

Stephen Judd's method? Only a few millennium off... Babylonians had used this technique since perhaps 4000 years ago. Astonishing isn't it? What technique for bitmapped graphics are you using? Is it for the 2600? The Ballblazer is coming along really well. Are there really any hurdles now other than just finishing the gameplay?

Bumping this old thread because I just came upon a nice web page describing the problem in much more detail. http://cowboyprogramming.com/2008/05/27/pr...responsiveness/

Hey this is off topic, this is the divide by 7 thread! But seriously, you are living inside the code. Quite a weird feeling eh? You're probably having 6502 daydreams by this point!

Clearly you are intelligent. Not in dispute. Thanks for the PONG flyers. Interesting read.

So I guess a lot of arcade games are not video games either because the arcade machines, although raster displays could not possibly display broadcast video. No tuner, no composite decoding, just RGB. So I guess they are not video games either. Come on now, smarten up. The term "Video game" was coined by society, the masses. They didn't intend such a narrow view.

Because EPROM homebrew boards are expensive.

I might sell them if they were worth a lot of money (ie hundreds of dollars) but at that price, I might as well keep them and use them to make games or just keep them around.

$25-30 and $40-50 Well, if that's true I probably just as well recycle them.

I know this is a vague and hard to quantify question but roughly how much would the following prototypes be worth? Sega Genesis - First year of EA FIFA soccer (not final version) - this was the origin of the series. Gameboy - Capcom DuckTales. thanks

Superb. Nice packaging. (I'm just curious, and pardon my ignorance, but would Germans be able to legally purchase this? I don't know anything about German law but I do recall issues with games with regard to Nazi emblems.)

Quick! we need someone to make Bombe 2600! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe

Nifty! If you added the mines and player ship would it necessarily flicker? I guess it would have to but, it wouldn't look too bad I don't think. The original kind of flickered anyway. I really think you should consider more collaboration, you make the awesome display kernels and collaborators can do the gameplay / art!

> not a lot of time for programming lately, too many good games to play. Darn that brother in law!

I thought Wall-e reminded me of a 'high drive' Caterpillar tractor. But that's also the similarity with Johnny-5 and those Terminator 2 destructo tanks.

I'm glad you did this; I had been working on and off over the years on a multi voice synth for the 2600 and always knew it was technically possible. As I was working on it I was inspired by Bruce Tomlin's very cool Red Box (DTMF dialer + phone hacking) and his remarks that you couldn't do a general player (although I'm sure he would probably qualify them with the fact that you are hampered in what you can display whilst doing this music routine and specifically he was talking about using the techniques in Red Box). I also liked Andy Muchos driver that used PWM. Which brings me to the question. Generalizing, what kinds of display kernels can you have while playing your four voice music? I never really put the effort in to finish a working model but I also appreciate that your genius in solving this!

Yep, that's what i first thought. But i'm just wondering if Paul Slocum made this demo himself then why is the scrolltext in spanish and not in english?? Probably because Spanish is more exotic? I don't know. Paul lives in Texas AFAIK and there is plenty of Spanish spoken there. I think the whole thing was made to look like it was a classic demo from 'back in the day' and where most of them would have been coming out of Europe. They have a name for this now, viral advertising.

Space Wars on the PDP-1. The Tengen stuff on the NES was pro but reverse engineered. Accolades games for the Sega Genesis were the same. Back in the day Sega's games on the 2600 were in the same boat. My fave, is Stella Sketch.

I guess you have your answer but to be sure, the programmer is Paul Slocum of Treewave? FYI - The binary has the some text embedded in Spanish which translated (automatically) to English is Another demo for you by the hand of tree wave, better than all others. this marvel has been accomplished in an unmodified atari 2600. follow this scroller - you can not see this amazing material anywhere else! winks: Tape., Ambulatore, D Romero, S Reich, MBV, B Eno, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti 2, C Arcangel, Beige, Palfloat, Atariage, micromusic ... visit the BBS tree wave

I'd like to see Star Wars Arcade on the II+ or GS