potatohead
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Posts posted by potatohead
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Great demo.
I noticed Game Of Life not seeming to run while the video did. Any detail behind that for us Podatron?
Great demo video. I'm impressed by all the taskers updating nicely.
Thanks Al, for finding an option. This thread just needs to carry on. There are a lot of us watching this project with great interest. It's a technically excellent effort, and there is all kinds of coolness about it.
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I'm running a //e enhanced (my favorite one), with disk drive, joystick, super serial, CFFA. Two displays connected at the same time, one high resolution composite amber, the other an 80's era color TV that I've tweaked nicely.
I keep flirting with a GS. One of these days.
One day, I'll get a sound and mouse card.
If I'm coding or learning small things, testing, etc... I do it on the real machine. It's just fun. If it's something more significant, I use emulation. Been doing some assembly lately, and I really like the Apple native machine environment.
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I wouldn't do that. The raycast engine is a lot of unrolled code. That, plus the game, etc... isn't going to leave a lot of room for very complex displays. Besides, the art is 6 color, and it's generated. Better to get the 6 colors. There are a lot of assets in this project so far. Those will take storage and will need to be dynamically paged in / out.
Of course, more RAM could be tossed at the problem, but then the cost / time of the port goes up too.
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I'm not sure that's entirely true. The color attributes are per byte. P/M graphics set to quadruple wide would basically cover bytes at a time. Since only one color shift is needed to obtain 2 additional colors, using these in tandem with GPRIOR should boil down to a table, and setting bits, all of which can be done per frame, and not on the fly.
Getting a 6 color display that way, using the 4 color modes, or the 2 color mode ($F) doesn't require complex display manipulation on the fly, only per frame.
While it is true the 4 color modes have lower pixel resolution, ANTIC $F has the same pixel resolution, needing only the color shift, which the PM's should provide. There is the question of background color, but maybe that would come off OK.
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Seconded. I ran the demo image, and it's very impressive!
The GitHub site has a very good rundown on how the raycaster and some other elements are created. Code is there too.
I'm not sure on how to improve it, but the raycaster 6502 code is created by a PYTHON (I believe, and should check) program that outputs the necessary code. Translating to Atari would involve modifying that to take advantage of the linear addressing, or maybe just have the Atari duplicate the Apple screen addressing...
From there, it's about figuring out new art, as the Apple has 7 pixels per byte, and uses artifacting at the same time. Odd bytes and bits display different colors than even bytes and bits do. Atari has 8 pixels, which means even and odd bits display the same colors regardless of byte, but there are less colors. 4 as opposed to 6 on the Apple. In each Apple graphics byte, the high bit shifts the pixels a little, offering one of two color sets. Blue, orange, black, white -or- cyan, green, black, white.
If new art is made, who knows? Ataris can do lots of stuff.
I've not seen much from the C64 effort, but maybe there is some art to work with.
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It is impressive. It's excellent to follow this each week. You should feel really good Jon. Lots of people out here watching with great interest, egging you on!
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I agree. Was just musing about things really. No matter how input was done, M.U.L.E. seems like a great title for the Apple.
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The Apple video system worked on one phase of the clock, and was transparent to the CPU. Tandy color computer did the same thing with the 6809. (all models, even the 3, which can run at the higher clock no problem) That, doubling as refresh, made the 1 Mhz Apple fairly quick for it's clock. Normally, there would be waits for refresh cycles and additional waits for video system access. The only oddity in the Apple is a stretched 64th clock, to make the video timing match up. Maybe it's every 63rd clock. Can't recall, but it's documented in the "Inside The Apple ][" series of books clearly.
Apple got accelerator chips due to this simplicity. 4Mhz 6502 operation was done with the Zip Chip and some other devices. I've never got to own one, but I did run one for a time. (IIc+) Wicked fast. IMHO, that also made doing the other CPU add on cards fairly easy. A default system simply doesn't use interrupts or DMA.
DMA gets seen on some storage and data capture devices, and there was a circuit documented in BYTE that allowed for "transparent" DMA due to how the 6502 typically used memory. Essentially, a specific pattern fits into the times when the 6502 isn't requiring the RAM. Neat.
Interrupts are seen on a variety of add-ons, like the Mockingboard, and I think the mouse. (need to read up on that one)
Re: 6809 Man, I'm sort of just drooling over what could have been in Atari land had they picked that CPU. What an opportunity sort of wasted. I was tempted to mod a machine to run the hardware Boisy made, but just don't have the time. Still... I would love to see a title like "DEFENDER" slinging way more stuff around with the arcade collisions, not the short cut, "one bullet takes everything out on it's line" that we did get. Not that the game isn't loads of fun. It totally is, but it's not what the arcade level of fun and difficulty is. Hell, I'm rambling. Maybe the 6502 could do it, and they just chose not to.
In any case, having that chip would have ruled IMHO. But what I don't know is about fast responses to things. That's one area the 6502 really does well. One can get in and out of an interrupt very quickly, if done carefully. Not sure the other two, Z80, 6809 can do it that fast.
Re: Z80 I need to spend some time on one. I see a lot of nifty things I would like to try...
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Comments in French can be found here:
http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/Mule/downloads.php5
(at least I think it's French. I may stuff a bunch of this through translate.google.com later to understand more)
Frankly, I like the idea of an add on card for more joystick inputs. Maybe it's time to put a PIA, along with some other thing, onto a card and get it out there. Honestly, I want to put one of those Parallax Prop Chips into an Apple. Been chipping away at it. The idea of taking other controller data seems like a good fit for that project.
Or... Maybe it's possible to do with the Super Serial? A lot of people have that one. SGI had a nice controller setup for their 3D visualization / fly through rooms. Typically, those ran on an Onyx machine. Expensive as hell! But, the joystick and buttons was serial, 9600 baud, and it was just fine. Could work for something like this, but would require somebody make a box.
Failing that, the paddles idea is a workable one.
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"Required Mockingboard" seems like a reasonable solution to good music. Some basic tones and such can happen with the speaker.
Because there isn't a ton of demanding on screen action, double high res delivers plenty of colors. Of course, that makes it //e or better...
High res does do 6 colors, though the artifacting is strong. Patterns and some basic pixel art work pretty well as additional colors. Having 6 to work with helps this out considerably. Clash would have to be managed.
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Just checking in here.
AWESOME!!
Very well done RevEng. When the original Batari Basic came out, I sat down for a quick jam session and made something work in like an hour. Fred really knocked it out of the park, with just enough function to make it possible to get things done, but not so much that people would get bogged down in the details.
This looks like a very similar balance for the 7800, and I can't wait to see all the great creations people make with it.
Cool beans man.
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Subject says it all. I got a few extra bucks coming my way near the end of the month, so...
Anyone want to part with these? PM me.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Odyssey
KABOOM! (because I always play a little KABOOM every month)
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Yeah, first thing we did was hit the books. Apple computers shipped with good enough books to understand the computer reasonably. One could get a few more, and have a very, very good grasp of the machine, for just some reading.
(My favorite reading time was Geography class.)
Anyway, there are two basic schools of thought going on here.
The people who believe having to read something means the software isn't good enough, are interested in software as an enabler. They get prompted and taken through doing something, whatever it is, and it's process for them. Make it lean, keep choices few and sane, and just blast through and get it done, whatever it is.
Often, there is an assumption of not keeping a lot of stuff in our heads too. Things change, software to do them changes, and it's all just gotta work for people of various skill levels.
Others, see software as a tool, and they may very frequently be content creators of some sort, or they may be working on task complexity that transcends not having to read. We still do hear them grumble about this and that, "why read", but progress is slow, because task complexity is high. Additionally, there is some expectation of building skill and or building on the software itself.
Early on, we didn't actually have the first type mentioned above, mostly because a lot of this stuff was really new to most people. Good docs made sense. Great docs weaved in some education, or put code and other hard technical info out there, so people could find their way and get some education at the same time.
Today, far less education is needed, so it's not getting done. IMHO, that's what people like us bitch about.
We know better. The education still needs to get done, and if we don't, we won't develop our next future software people and we lose out to those who do. IMHO, this is changing slowly, but not slowly enough.
Now, some software started down that road even on the Apple ][. I was playing Robot Odyssey last night, running through the absolutely brilliant in-game tutorials. If you've not seen this title, play it. The tutorials are a lot of fun, and far more open ended than you think. To me, that's getting some education in, while helping the user through a task, and being a useful, effective UI all in one.
There will always be documentation needs. But, the greater information availability today means the bare minimum is some technical information where people can fill those gaps however they want to / need to.
That Apple ROM listing was how I got started writing my very first 6502 Assembly Language programs. Actually, it was machine language as I would hand assemble it, then type the bytes in before I knew about the Mini Assembler.
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Just a word here:
CoCo 3?
That machine would rule for this game. Seriously. And Plasma would sing on a 6809. The 6502 stuff done to optimize Plasma works out great. The graphics are straight up bitmap, and....
If you want to, you can write for 256 colors 1 byte / pixel, 160x200. Just saying.... http://atariage.com/forums/blog/105/entry-6693-color-computer-3-artifact-art/
That's available on NTSC machines, otherwise it's 16, 4 or 2 color graphics / scanline.
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Cool!
I'm into that machine right now and made a request a while back. Wasn't quite enough takers then. Awesome! Thanks Al.
My //e is right next to my 800XL.
CoCo 3 is currently in the closet. Poor guy. He's lonely, but has the 400 to keep him company, I guess.BTW: If the thread moving is a PITA, gift me the option, I'll gladly put some time on it, and then let you know when I'm done, at which point take it back. I am a happy user, who likes just being a user, but one who also thinks an Apple forum is a good enough idea to help out.
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Very cool!
Honestly, I'm not up for buying a cart. Just not in the mood, and I'm having to get some bad times paid down. No worries on any of that. It's me, not your game, which looks very appealing1
One other nice thing about putting up a demo is people like me can check it out, give you feedback, and generally participate. That's all good for everyone, and it's perfectly OK to want to keep it on cart, limited, etc... No worries on any of that either. We are a small club, and if we treat each other right, this all works.
So I posted up to highlight how a demo works out just fine, and to say "thanks" for putting one here. Besides the beta test to insure people who do buy one get a good experience, it's just nice to be able to appreciate your work and tell you all about it. In my experience, that counts for a lot, and many people want the opportunity to do just that, and aren't so worried about the details, or owning the game, whatever.
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One of the best parts, if you ask me. Takes a while, but it's clear when somebody really thinks through the details, layer by layer, the reward is something lean and mean.
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Do Flappy Bird with it.
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So nice to see tough words modeled perfectly not a day after having to write them Jon. Very well done. I'm a fan of both your work, and just your candor.
I think it's time for "the snakes" to return to action, just FYI. (you know who you are)
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This game is going to be famous.
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@PopMilo:
The Apple does use artifacting, and it works like you think it does on an Atari, but for two core differences:
Each byte only contains 7 pixels, and the high bit of each byte determines the "color shift" of all pixels in the byte.
This shift means one can get orange / blue artifacts, or magenta / green artifacts within a given byte. It also means there is a color clash too. It's not possible to have green and blue pixels together in the same byte, for example.
An Apple ][ high res screen will deliver these colors (and more, depending on how clever a person is with patterns): orange, blue, green, magenta, white, black. It's a 6 color display, essentially.
7 pixels per byte means maintaining two sets of shifted images, for even and odd bytes... Or dealing with that at run-time.
The other difference, which shows up in a lot of art, including this project, is there being no direct mapping to a 4 color, non-artifacting display on Atari. Antic "E" delivers 4 color pixels, but they are large compared to the artifact pixels an Apple ][ will display. Even though the Apple display is 6 color, individual pixels take on the artifact colors, and in practice those look a whole lot like C64 high-res color pixels, in that one can get a small, color pixel. On Atari, Graphics 8 artifacting works the same way, and one can get a small, color pixel, but there is no color shift, so it's a 4 color, (and more depending on how clever one gets with patterns) display.
I've not seen any C64 art yet, so I don't know if they are gonna use the high-resolution mode and some display tricks, or if they will just go 4 color, maybe incorporate the sprites to make the art work, or just make new art!
Seems to me, whatever the C64 team does could be the basis for the Atari as well. The simplest thing, seen in Prince of Persia, was to just move to 4 color art so that the 2 bit per pixel displays work out nicely.
@All: This is a really freaking cool project!!
I just ran the playable image, and I look forward to following this one. Very nicely done.
And Plasma. Very cool! This makes me want to go and tinker with it some. Very nice HLL for 6502. Looks very optimized, and it sure seems to me like great projects could be done using it, and some in-line native 6502, for things like drawing.
I've one question, and maybe I'll ask it somewhere else: Why not double high-res?
The answer I assume is, "so it runs on Apple ][" and if that is the answer, I'm good with that. Probably the right choice, but man... Sure seems to me like this spiffy ray cast / adventure engine could benefit from the better color / no clash display potential double high res has. And, it would map over to older PC's, say those running CGA Composite doing 16 color artifacting, as well as some other machines with 16 color displays...
Maybe once this project is done, that can happen. Honestly, I'm envisioning people picking up the pieces and doing some great adventure / RPG games with it, sort of like we see happening with the Interactive Fiction Compo every year. Sometimes I will go grab those and play through to catch up, and it's sometimes a very good experience.
In any case, don't take that as a negative. This project kicks ass, and it's really highlighting the Apple ][ in a few ways. Nicely done.
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An RCA patch cable works just fine.
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I'm enjoying this show. Good comments so far.
One thing AMC is doing is adding features to the website. Like when they all got sucked into the text adventure game. AMC hosted it, with some hints on how to play and I think they should get some credit for trying to share the culture. Music playlists for the characters are good too. Nicely done so far.
I like the characters a lot. They are vibrant and believable. Of course, it's fiction, but it's good fiction in an under-appreciated setting.
AMC has them streaming online too. Just watch 'em there, if you want to.
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New GUI for the Atari 8-bit
in Atari 8-Bit Computers
Posted
Re: schedule, CPU lacking juice, and usability...
While it is true there isn't enough to execute all tasks at speed, having them execute at all brings the user the ability to manage what is possible and be productive.
It is a huge deal just to be able to have things running, whatever context and state being maintained, etc...
Watching a video is a high demand activity for both the computer and user. Seeing GoL update slowly isn't a big deal as the user attention isn't really there either, but the overall context is. Compare that to a freeze, or having to run one app, then the other, and so forth. It is a huge gain.
@Podatron: Cool beans, thanks.
Re: Faster CPU
I love how it isn't being done. That decision has impacted this project in a few ways, all good. It is lean, mean, and more capable, give what we see now, than I know I expected. It pays off to maximize the stock CPU and RAM, as much as is possible for the latter.
Expanded / upgraded systems will be that much better for it all in the end, which just adds to the sweetness of it all.
I don't know about you guys, but I have learned som interesting things following this project. In particular, I see how assembly can work and the mapping of higher level tasks can be really simple when things are thought through. IMHO, that is one of the more impressive goings on here.
By simple, I really mean lean in terms of number of instructions and data required.
Re: Democracy
Al, I have been consistently impressed over the years. This crowd has a lot of texture, just in where people come from, culture, socio-economic status, education, interests. Frankly, it is amazing to me it all runs as well as it does.