LASooner

Am I crazy or would this idea be perfect for Rasmus' platform 3 engine?

I find it way better to use it locally on my machine using batch scripts Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Less time actually. I have my workstation from Treyarch and I'm full go on our next game. So when I finish my day, I want to get away from my home office as soon as possible. Having no commute is nice. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Well they became AOL who is now owned by Verizon, you could send them a follow up email asking the status of your local dial up connection

Me too, I don't think my programming skills are up to the task

Recreating Bruce Lee on the TI native mode, I have most of the levels complete, only the Boss Treasure room and the level before it are unfinished, these are a couple screens, with the exception of the title screen the other levels use the same character set with palette changes

I was just messing around with a 4th & Inches style of football game, the above is the full field set, below is what would be visible on a TI screen

How does CALL FONT work when it's compiled? Or can it compile?

Yeah, if it helps you to know how many people would be interested, count me in at that price or if you can get it lower, great. Will be very cool to have a new/old machine.

Since we're just in full "Pie in the Sky" mode, I'd like some functions for flipping and rotating sprites. Better sprite to sprite and sprite to background collision.

I've worked for Activision for over 17 years making game art. Interplay and Electronic Arts before that. I've been in the industry so long I've made games on Amigas all the way to XBox One/PS4 pro and all the stuff you haven't seen yet. I make stuff on the TI 99/4a BECAUSE of it's limitations. The challenge of trying to accomplish something with the chips in the box. I mainly got the F18a so I could use it with an LCD, but I use it in scanline mode to get a close approximation of what things will look like on a CRT. And I also have a second one with no modern expansions. It's fine if people want additional functionality but if you want your work seen by many people in this community, you need to keep things within the limits of the base machine with maybe 32k expansion being the exception that most people have. As has been said many times, the current F18a can do a lot more than anyone's taken advantage of. If the new one has much more functionality all you've done is create more fragmentation, and why spend time on making something that maybe only 10% of people in a very small community will be able to see/use. That's my 2 cents.

When I was being recruited to the Army in 1989, they had a recruit information program that was run off a TI connected to a laser disc player and text from the computer was overlaid on top of the LD video footage, kind of a multimedia thing. I believe it had the video controller attached to it, and the software was a cartridge. That would probably be a rare find. I know it's not a TI, but when I was in Basic Training, they had a rifle range simulator that ran off of a Commodore 64 that had an M-16 peripheral with a DB-9 Joystick cable. When you pulled the trigger a solenoid moved to simulate bolt action and kick. Apparently they switched them out with a Super Nintendo a couple years later. A-5. MULTIPURPOSE ARCADE COMBAT SIMULATOR (MACS) The U.S. Army developed the MACS as an inexpensive marksmanship trainer (Figure A-10). a. The system consists of a Commodore 64 microcomputer, 13-inch color monitor, specially designed long-distance light pen, and mount that attaches to the M16A2 rifle. (Some versions use a permanent mount on a demilitarized rifle.) The system is activated by a program cartridge, which contains several training exercises. Figure A-10. Multipurpose arcade combat simulator. b. The MACS was designed to enhance other training techniques and existing training aids and devices used to train and sustain marksmanship skills. It is not designed to replace live-fire training or to eliminate the need for knowledgeable instructors. The MACS provides additional practice for those units without access to adequate range facilities, or that have other resource constraints.

I use TIdBit for everything. Use it on your computer locally. With a batch file it's super fast to test in classic 99 emulator. This is what I used when I was making Night Stalker, I saved the file nightstalker.xb that was written in TIdBit code, I then run this batch file it converts the TIdBit code to standard Extended Basic code and saves it to a file called nightstalker-compiled.xb, it then copies that file into clipboard, with classic 99 already open, it brings it into focus and all you have to do is paste extended basic (which I wish had a hot key command), but the whole process takes seconds from save to paste, so iteration is really fast. Once you're happy with it, compiling and running it goes pretty fast too. C:\TI_DEV\php\php C:\TI_DEV\tidbit\tidbit_cmd.php X:\TI994a\Development\NightStalker\nightstalker.xb 100 10 X:\TI994a\Development\NightStalker\nightstalker-compiled.xb clip < "X:\TI994a\Development\NightStalker\nightstalker-compiled.xb" call sendkeys.bat "Classic99" "" WshShell.Sendkeys "%e" WshShell.Sendkeys “p” WshShell.Sendkeys "{Enter}" I typically have all my development files on 1 server and I map the same drive letter on my laptop and desktop so I can run the scripts on either, hence the X drive listed in the script.

As it relates to TI items on EBay, I've been very lucky, only 1 item did not work, a TI Disk controller and the guy refunded me the money and said to not bother sending it back. I've had issues with other things, but nothing related to TI stuff

I agree, you need a Final Grom to get the most out of the TI

yeah, I've done that,not ideal

I'd like a sprite editor that supports flipbook animation, so you can better author sprites to animate. Ideally I'd like to see it in Magellan but I'd take anything at this point

Cool

Oh, I can think of 1 or 2 people....err... reasons to not want to.

I do it with photoshop, make sure you're in bitmap,greyscale or indexed color, 8bits/channel. Don't use a brush, use a pencil. And use pencil or block mode for the eraser. You can turn on grid and snapping to help control it.

If you want to quickly merge two character sets, you could export them individually as character images, bring them into a paint package that can handle layers, layer one on top of another, erase the characters you don't need from the top layer, flatten the image, save, then import the new combined character image back into Magellan.

I assume you want to redefine the same characters for each movement? So the characters don't have to be redrawn just redefined? I would set up the first set of characters in Magellan, Export for XB256, then add CALL COMPRESS(1) Just before the call key statement, then merge the COMPRESS program from the XBGD package and run it select 6 - SCREEN2 CHAR PATTERNS Select only the range of characters you want to save, they should be sequential. Save the merge file and remember the line # for that character set Repeat for all the other movements, giving each one a different line# that won't overwrite the previous ones. For example let's assume each "sprite" is separated by a hundred, so the first data statement is at 1000, then 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400. The last line of each "sprite" data set is a "" So in game you would, merge all the data statements into your base program, then draw the characters on screen, Then in your game to redefine a character set you would set your restore point to whichever data represents what you want to do This is the subroutine I would use in TIdBit _STAND: RESTORE 1000 :: GOTO _READDATA _BLOCKHIGH: RESTORE 1100 :: GOTO _READDATA _BLOCKLOW: RESTORE 1200 :: GOTO _READDATA _PUNCH: RESTORE 1300 :: GOTO _READDATA _KICK: RESTORE 1400 :: GOTO _READDATA _READDATA: READ A$ :: IF A$="" THEN _READDATADONE :: CALL LINK("CWRITE",A$) :: GOTO _READDATA _READDATADONE: RETURN CALL LINK("CWRITE",A$) Is what puts the character definitions into VDP There are obviously some optimizations you could make because your head never changes, and for 3 moves the legs are the same, and the 2 others are similar. I hope this is clear, I've done it so much it sounds clear in my head.

Stereo Wumpus hunting.

I used it in Night Stalker for the thump sound and the shots and explosions were on the other player

Ok Rich, I didn't know trying to help was frowned upon around here.