fultonbot

Right before The Atari VCS, Star Wars toys, and Lego hit big in the 70’s there was the 1977 Sears Wish Book. It’s like an archive of everything “cool” before things got real. Every year in September or October, the Sears Wish Book would arrive in the mail, and our job was to circle the things we wanted for Christmas. In this episode we dive into the top-50 weird and wonderful products from the 1977 Sears Wish Book (plus some extras) https://intotheverticalblank.com/2020/10/19/s3e21-news-update-plus-the-top-50-toys-and-products-from-the-1977-sears-wish-book/

OS ready, or a OTA on first start-up?

Agree with this. I'm pretty sure they plan to either flash the things when they arrive on their slowwwwwww-boat over the Pacific, or they plan for users to do a full OTA on start-up, or both. I hope they still have some firmware devs on staff to fix bugs, and I hope they have a secure TLS/signed-firmware pipeline, or there might be some interesting MITM attacks when the whole thing goes live.

I mean, it's cute I guess.

This is a nice little series. I have to admit, in 1984 my measurement for console WAS "can't it play Xexious?", but not by 1986.

Yeah, I'm really enjoying it. Getting comfortable with bank-switching, data, 12-color sprites, helps a lot too. I'm feel like I'm getting close to where the technology fades away and it becomes canvas I can use to my heart's content. So many game ideas brewing, but I need to finish one first before I move on.

It's all about "levers". Back in the 2000's I hired Rob Fulop (Demon Attack) to come to Mattel and hold a class on game design for our web-game team. (I also hired both Chris Crawford and Bill Kunkel for other classes) He was full of good advice, but the best piece was about "levers" for levels. Basically creating enough variables that you can set for various possibilities. Each "level" is simply a set of "lever" data that is loaded by engine and to operate on. It might seem "obvious" now, but back then it was quite an eye opening idea for me. I think this advice works well for the type of golden-age, single screen games I like to make, but I think an expanded version could be used for anything. -Steve

107 height? I thought they height had to be in 8/16 pixel increments?

Okay. I Kinda need those comments or I will never remember what each property represents! If you look above, it worked with soft carriage return [shift]+[enter], but not a hard-carriage-return [enter] Not sure if that helps or not.

Flashback: GCC/Atari Related Interviews We've done a couple GCC related interviews for the podcast that may be of interest: S2:E1: The Disappearance Of Charlie Chuck : Atari Food Fight Why hasn’t Atari’s magnificent 1983 game “Food Fight” appeared any of their retro game collections? Where has it is gone? Episode features an in-depth interview with the fabulous Jonathan Hurd, creator on the Food Fight arcade game for GCC and Atari. https://intotheverticalblank.com/2019/03/10/s2e1-the-disappearance-of-charlie-chuck-atari-food-fight/ S3:E15: How A Few MIT Dropouts Became Atari’s Secret Weapon In this episode we talk to Steve Golson, hacker/engineer for GCC and creator of the hardware that converted Pac-Man into Ms. Pac Man. In part one of two part conversation, we chat about the era of coin-op “speed-up kits” and how GCC’s revolutionary ideas for converting “Missile Command ” into “Super Missile Attack” led to the upstart company becoming Atari’s Secret Weapon. https://intotheverticalblank.com/2020/07/03/s3e15-how-a-few-mit-dropouts-became-ataris-secret-weapon/ S3:E16: GCC Part 2: Ms. Pac-Man and the Sad Fate of the The Atari 7800 In part 2 of our discussion with Steve Golson, we cover the glory of the Ms. Pac-Man, arcade game, and fate the lay ahead for GCC as Atari’s silent but productive game and hardware producing secret weapon. https://intotheverticalblank.com/2020/07/10/s3e16-gcc-part-2-ms-pac-man-and-the-sad-fate-of-the-the-atari-7800/

Of course! Great, yeah, thanks so much!

oh no I didn't...wait... #*&! Yes, you are right, it totally works without any commas at all. data gZone1 $01 ; 1-gZoneGraphic $01 ; 2-gZoneGraphicSplit $FF ; 3-gZoneSize1 $04 ; 4-gZoneSize2 $01 ; 5-gZoneEnemy1 $00 ; 6-gZoneEnemy2 $00 ; 7-gZoneEnemy3

It was not the comma...it was the hard CRLF. I used a soft CR+[Shift] at the end of each line, and it works. I think I'm going to go with packed on a single line, else I will forget and then spend hours debugging it before I realize the issue is the the data itself.

Okay, I think I figured it out. I have to define the data like this: data gZone1 $01,$01,$FF,$04,$01,$00,$00,$0D,$00,$00,$1A,$34,$68,$00,$00,$01,$03 end With no CRLF and then it doesn't add the extra byte.

It looks like each piece of data in that table is taking 2 bytes. Is that how it works? [edit] So it definitely looks like, even though I seem to have define the data as one byte each, when I use memcpy it uses up 2 bytes for each. For example, this data: data gZone1 $01, ; gZoneGraphic $01, ; gZoneGraphicSplit $FF, ; gZoneSize1 $04, ; gZoneSize2 Need to be addressed like this: dim gZoneStart = $23EC dim gZoneGraphic = $23EC dim gZoneGraphicSplit = $23EE ; this means the sides have different GFX dim gZoneSize1 = $23F0 dim gZoneSize2 = $23F2 With a byte between each variable. Is this the way it's supposed to work? Is there a way to define data as a single byte? -Steve

Good. I'll start here and refactor when the IFs become annoying.

Okay, so this is quick question but I want to ask it FIRST before I waste my time working a scheme that is not possible. If I define data like this: data level1 $01, ; gZoneID $01, ; gZoneGraphic $FF, ; gzoneSize1 $04, ; gzoneSize1 $01, ; gzoneNumberMin $03, ; gzoneNumberMax $01, ; gZoneEnemy1 = $00, ; gZoneEnemy2 = 0 $00, ; gZoneEnemy3 = 0 $0D, ; gZoneEnemyFreq1 = 0 $00, ; gZoneEnemyFreq2 = 0 $00, ; gZoneEnemyFreq3 = 0 $1A, ; gZonefuelFreq = 0 $34, ; gZoneShieldFreg = 0 $68, ; gZonemissileFreq = 0 $00, ; gZoneHasJet = 0 $00 ; gZoneBombFreq And define a set of variables like this: dim gZoneGraphic = var53 dim gZoneSize1 = var54 dim gZoneSize2 = var55 dim gZoneEnemy1 = var56 dim gZoneEnemy2 = var57 dim gZoneEnemy3 = var58 dim gZoneEnemyFreq1 =var59 dim gZoneEnemyFreq2 = var60 dim gZoneEnemyFreq3 = var61 dim gZonefuelFreq = var62 dim gZonemissileFreq = var63 dim gZoneShieldFreg = var64 dim gZoneHasJet = var65 dim gzoneNumberMin = var66 dim gzoneNumberMax = var67 Can I then do something like this: if level = 1 then memcpy gZoneID level1 17 And have my level data magically set-up for me in the proper variables? Is there a better way to do this? All of this level data is in its own bank (6) with a single subroutine to fill-up the vars based on level -Steve

I'm In!!! I need this to further my home brew development.

It really lends it self to making vertical scrolling games I think. At least, that is what I'm finding. I almost have all the objects I need on the screen, and the performance is still good I wonder how hard it will be when I return to "Into The Void" and go horizontal gain.

This is what he Jet looks-like in-game. It's three 48x16 sprites. Not done, but you get the idea. No real slow-down that I can perceive with such large sprites BTW. From what I'm learning, The Atari 7800 MARIA was about numbers of and heights of sprites, not widths.

Working on Jet Fighter because Street Racer had a a Jet Fighter variation. Not exactly sure how this will be incorporated yet, but I have a few ideas.

Season 3, episode 20 of the podcast my brother rand I do about "growing up Atari" is about the local arcade we frequented in the 80's and how it was used as filming location for an episode of CHiPs. We have a story about the arcade and then we recap the entire CHiPs episode. https://intotheverticalblank.com/2020/10/04/s3e20-the-ballad-of-castle-park-arcade/

This episode we take you back to an era when arcades in the shape of rockets and castles ruled the land, and TV shows like CHiPs ruled the airwaves. Most every kid who grew-up in the Golden Age of video games had a favorite place to play games. For us, it was Castle Park in Redondo Beach, CA. In this episode we have a story about Castle Park named “Ode To Castle Park”, and we do something brand new: We recap an entire episode of the TV show CHiPs. Season 6, episode 13 of the show CHiPs was filmed at Castle Park (and the surrounding area) and it lives as pop culture document to an era that now lives only in The Vertical Blank. https://intotheverticalblank.com/2020/10/04/s3e20-the-ballad-of-castle-park-arcade/

Found this one online Used it to make this: