jwierer

Haven't tried it on real hardware yet, but in ProSystem emulation it hangs after I lose my last life? -Jeff

I walked through the Atari 5200 Field Service Manual and ended up diagnosing that I had a bad memory chip and a dead ANTIC. Replaced both and it now works great. I think it was $10 for the two chips to fix it. -Jeff

Here's a small update with a few bug fixes based on feedback. New build posted to first post [bug] If you tried to do a search and replace, in some cases vbB would hang [bug] Tab order for replace form was wrong - this was annoying me [bug] on Build 530 The color palette was brokken affecting Choose color is broken, Set Player Color, and Set Background Color [bug] Right click on sprite or playfield should sets to. Bascially you don't have to left click on a cell first [New] The color palette form will be set to the current row color of the sprite/playfield [New] Playfield, Background, and Player colors are persisted so you don't have to set them everytime you launch vbB [New] Right click on playfields allows you to chose either the standard or multisprite kernel Maybe a few other things I forgot. -Jeff

Here's a few changes and bug fixes based on feedback. New build posted to first post [New] Preview in multi-sprite Kernel [New] You can now copy entire sprites/playfields (colors, pixels, heights) [New] When working with a mirrored playfield it assumes you're working with a multi-sprite kernel and only copies half the screen [New] You can remove items from the recent items list [New] Added various keywords (step, bank, pop, etc..) [New] Last browsed folder is persisted so you don't have to always start from the desktop when browsing for projects, items, etc... [bug] Checks for pre-requsite compiler/assembler files and fails gracefully if any files are missing [bug] Resizing mirrored playfields was not working. Now fixed [bug] Playfields can now be set to a height up to 88 pixels high [bug] Commenting last line of code caused an EOF crash A few other small things. -Jeff

I did notice you have to add "set legacy 0.99" to get it to compile correctly. -Jeff

No you are right. It definitely looks for the required components, but the logic for gracefully exiting is never called. That's a bug Thanks, Jeff

You're compiler should point to 2600basic.exe and sed.exe should be in the same folder as 2600basic.exe. The problem really is that batariBasic should already be configured correctly in order for vbB to work (see bB release notes). If you can't compile outside of vbB, it probably won't work in the IDE. One thing it does do is see if the environment variable is pointing to a location where batariBasic is installed. If you already had the environment variable pointing to a different directory bB is probably not going to work and hence you won't be able to compile in vbB either. -Jeff

Thank you very much. I did promise to release the source code though, so I'll do that. I was making a text document with notes on the routines and what they do, in case any of them are confusing, but I'm scratching that. If anybody has any questions just ask me and I'll explain. Thanks for sharing the code. On the title screen the © was off by one color. I think this is what you want for your pfcolors TitleColors pfcolors: 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 200 200 200 200 200 200 200 200 174 174 174 174 174 174 94 94 94 94 14 14 14 14 14 14 end

Here is a list of free compilers. http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/cpp.shtml -Jeff

I recreated your directory structure just to make sure and items compile fine. I'm not sure what's going on in your case. I may try it on my XP machine and see if it works differently. Sorry, Jeff

If there was a bin you would see a sub folder "bin". I wonder if you don't have write permissions to create the sub folder? I am not sure it checks for that. -Jeff

If you just call the .bat file you can't grab all the error messages. VbB effectively does what the bat file does but checks the outputs for errors after each step. This was the best way I could figure out where the error occured. The only thing I can think of is you have some permissions issue preventing it from calling the executable. I can't see the output from your so I can't see what it's returning to you. From the Window it looks like XP? If it were Vista I would have suggested trying running as administrator. In your folder where you have 2600basic.exe do you have all the other files? 2600basic.exe won't be enough alone. This is the contents of my bb folder Directory of F:\Emulation\VisualbB\bB 04/27/2008 12:39 PM <DIR> . 04/27/2008 12:39 PM <DIR> .. 03/27/2008 11:01 PM <DIR> includes 04/27/2008 07:57 AM <DIR> manual 03/09/2008 10:11 PM <DIR> samples 03/09/2008 02:58 PM <DIR> sed 03/09/2008 02:58 PM <DIR> source 02/09/2007 01:32 AM 1,448 2600bas.bat 05/26/2007 10:01 PM 152,251 2600basic.exe 02/14/2007 04:16 AM 148,927 2600basic1.0.exe 07/16/2003 12:03 AM 114,688 dasm.exe 02/14/2007 04:03 AM 1,594 license.txt 02/14/2007 04:16 AM 91,396 optimize.exe 02/14/2007 04:16 AM 93,933 postprocess.exe 02/14/2007 04:16 AM 94,719 preprocess.exe 02/14/2007 04:03 AM 16,218 README.txt 04/20/2008 02:50 AM 2,118 scoreformats.zip 04/14/2003 01:00 AM 49,152 sed.exe 03/27/2008 11:00 PM 80,097 updated_2600basic.zip 13 File(s) 846,541 bytes 7 Dir(s) 26,970,464,256 bytes free

As far as I can tell it's just a problem with your code. Technically it will compile, but it's not going to show anything for a multisprite kernel. This is what I think you want to accomplish. test.bas BTW if compilation succeeds it will tell you in the message area on the bottom. From your screenshot I can only see it's started. BTW no need to put quotes around path, I handle that internally. Also since you know Qbert compiles you can create new project and copy the code into a .bas file. If you right click on the .bas file from the explorer you can generate items and it will create all the sprites and playfields that are in the code so you don't have to recreate them from scratch. rem batari Basic Program rem Created 4/26/2008 4:09:39 PM by Visual bB Version 1.0.0.526 set kernel multisprite const screenheight=12 pfheight = 7 COLUBK = $0F : COLUPF = $00 El playfield: ...............X ................ ..............XX ................ .............XXX ................ ............XXXX ................ ...........XXXXX ................ ..........XXXXXX end drawscreen playfield: ................ ..............XX ................ .............XXX ................ ............XXXX ................ ...........XXXXX ................ ..........XXXXXX ................ end drawscreen goto El

Configuration looks fine, assuming the paths are correct. No errors or messages after compiling? I can't tell because you have it minimized across the bottom. You can post your .bas file and I can see if it compiles on mine. -Jeff

Post a screenshot of your settings. -Jeff

One thing I noticed is that the other elements of the game (red ball, green ball, green guy,etc...) come out to frequently. As soon as you kill them or they fall off the screen they reappear and follow the same pattern of going directly after qbert. If you are at the bottom there is no way to evade that red ball. Overall great effort. Are you going to publish the source? Jeff

I wasn't aware that the source was posted, are they here on Atariage? I tried a forum source but came up empty. Thanks Here is the thread with the 7800 source http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...p;#entry1354931 and here is the 5200 source http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...mp;#entry946713 -Jeff

That sounds more like a coincidence. My understanding is that .NET frameworks don't override. If an application was written for 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, etc... they continue to use those binaries. Regarding: ActiveSync. That frigging applicatin stops working for me unexpectedly all the time regardless if I make changes or not I just sync over the wire now - always works. -Jeff

Yes please do. I'm terrible with documentation and there are a lot of hidden features that are not intuitively obvious. -Jeff

Well I am actually a big fan of your work and I would like to see a successful side scroller released at some point. The thing that I find limiting about bB is really the playfields. I wish I could make more granular playfields and I wish there was an easier way to detect the direction of playfield collisions. Seems like a lot of logic has to written for graceful collision detection. Most everything else I can live with. -Jeff

Hmmm... wrong location for your batariBasic compiler? If bB isn't installed configured correctly, that's a likely response. -Jeff

Not stupid at all. Those features aren't that intuitive to use. The Dictionary is for custom terms you want to show up with color codes in the code editor. Click the dictionary button to see the current list of terms, edit as you choose and then save. It will create an XML file with your settings. Commands are useful if you want to extend the list of commands which you can access from the project explorer pane on the right side. Those commands can literally be anything such as snippets of code that you reuse. You can right click from the commands pane to generate the basic commands.xml file. From there all changes will be saved to that file and reapplied every time you load Visual bB. You can always leave them blank and use the defaults. They are only necessary if you want to make modifications. -Jeff

I would have to do some serious code clean up and commenting before I felt comfortable sharing the source -Jeff

I always wanted to learn bB, but couldn't find an editor that would make it easy enough to do it quickly. The more I thought about it, the more I became obsessed with making a great bB editor. I've made some test projects, but nothing really worth sharing, mostly stuff to make sure I could get this working. I'm hoping you more creative types can use it to create better games for me to play. Thanks, Jeff

Here is a project that I have been working on for some time and it's finally in a shareable state. VisualbB is an integrated development environment for writing Atari 2600 programs in batariBasic. For anybody that is familiar with Microsoft Visual Studio, it has a similar look and feel. Hope somebody find this useful ALTERNATIVES: Please Pardon the Interruption While Visual bB helped many folks get started with batari BASIC, it has not had an update for many years. A more well-maintained alternative is Atari Dev Studio for the popular (and free!) editor Visual Code. (Besides being easy to setup it is also an alternative for Mac and Linux users!) A kickstart for working with it can be found here. Atari Dev Studio does not have the assortment of asset managers and editors for graphics and sound. Some replacements (all generating ready-to-run batari Basic code) can be found at https://alienbill.com/2600/ And as always, see https://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html for the most complete list of batari Basic resources. NOW BACK TO THE PROGRAM! Build 568 - Update by CPUWIZ Please click the link below for the last version of VbB that jwierer gave to Random Terrain in 2014: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/123849-visual-bb-10-a-new-ide-for-batari-basic/?do=findComment&comment=3537039 *New* Build 554 Update Notes (Because AA limits 2MB uploads you'll need to download both files and unzip it to the same folder) VisualbB_1.0_Build_554.zip VisualbB.SoundLib1.0.0.1.zip Work in Progress You can grab the latest from my blog. Along with changes that work with the bB1.1 beta builds there are other enhancements like a title screen wizard, integration with bblint, and a new bookmarking feature. These builds are specific to the beta versions of bB1.1 so use at your own risk. It should work fine (even better?) with the latest 1.0 release of bB. Previous Releases Build 550 Update NotesVisualbB_1.0_Build_550.zip VisualbB.SoundLib1.0.zip Build 548 Update NotesVisualbB_1.0_Build_548.zip Build 544 Update NotesVisualbB_1.0_Build_544.zip Build 536 Update NotesVisualbB_1.0_Build_536.zip Build 535 Update Notes VisualbB_1.0_Build_535.zip Build 532 Update Notes VisualbB_1.0_Build_532.zip Build 530 Update Notes VisualbB_1.0_Build_530.zip VisualbB_1.0_Build_526_.zip Feature list: Project Management and Grouping Color Sprite Editor Image Importer & Converter (works with the bitmap kernel and titlescreen kernel) Sprite Animator Color, Height Playfield Editor Project Wizard for creating new projects Code editor with Syntax Highlighting and color coding Music composing and Sound Editing Built in integration with bB compiler Built in integration with multiple Windows Atari 2600 emulators Built it in TIA Palette Built in Score Table Editor Quick bB Commands for rapid application development Quick launch Online Guide available here Troubleshooting guide is here Daniel Davis has started a set of video tutorial here Prerequisites If you are not running Vista or Windows 7 then you'll need to make sure the .NET Framework 3.0 is installed If you are running Vista you may need to RunAs Administrator. If you are logged in with admin privileges or have turned off UAC then it should just work If you are having trouble with the music and sound editor, it's likely you don't have the .NET 1.1 runtimes installed. Older machines don't include it and I believe newer ones won't allow the install.You can just copy msvcr71.dll to your visualbB folder. msvcr71.zip Optional If you are having trouble you may want to try a different 2600bas.bat 2600bas.zip If you're using Windows 7 64-bit, you'll need to update your bB files. Here is a copy of my working bB folder bBWin7_64bit-2-26-2013.zip You can learn more by reading this thread. Updated on 2/13/2013 with RevEng's jitter fix If you're having trouble using the sprite/playfield editor go here for a registry fix. Special thanks to Random Terrain for beta testing and submitting bug reports for many, many years! Screen Shots -Jeff bBWin7_64bit.zip