Jetboot Jack

Nice interview - interesting chap, I don't know David directly, but a very good friend of mine worked with him (Glen Schofield)... Pastfinder is a great game, if you have the misfortune to play the various ports to other systems you can see how closely designed around the 800 hardware the game is. sTeVE

I think it looks absolutely lovely - the standard version is a delight to see! sTeVE

The TV's always come with an adapter pack when new (at least as far as the last 70 TV's we've bought at our studio) that includes SCART, Component and CYB - variations on this propriety slim line adapter have featured on all the recent (last few years) smaller TV's from SONY, LG, Panasonic, Acer, Samsung etc... sTeVE

No emitted light :-(

How the NES does it: Mr Glitch sTeVE

Whilst you cannot put spin on the plasmorb there are some techniques beyond the basic play - for me it was all about the angle shots, skooch the rotofoil one way, the ball lags on screen and then hit fire and the orb shoots away at an angle - I've bounced many a shot off the wall into the goal or past an opponent that way. sTeVE

I'll pick Ballblazer then because: The music - as others have said many times, a genuinely procedural jazz tune, that makes you tap your toe, unbeatable! The sprites - perfectly smooth scaling of two rotofoils, the ball and goal posts all within the EXTREMELY limited A8 sprite hardware. The grid - a full antialiased, CURVED, grid with borders and horizon that map to the curved play field (along with the sprites too) - silky smooth and superfast! The gameplay - just brilliant, a proper head to head action sport, a dazzling achievement for the time. A superb game, subtle yet very clever use of the hardware, a tour-de-force! sTeVE

Wow - a really good question, personally I find lots of technical/artistic inspiration in Atari 8bit games - especially since to even do classic platformers or scrolling shooter games that were so common on systems that had lots of HW sprites is a lot of effort on the little Atari (although I would have liked to have seen some serious Uridium, Delta and Aramlyte action - still waiting too ) But if I am honest there are a handful of truly inspirational 8bit games and the top of those would have to be the 4 Lucasarts games - Rescue on Fractals, Ballblazer, The Eidolon and Koronis Rift - not only are they each a tour-de-force of technical wonders, full of beautiful pixel art and delightful audio - they also show just how flexible, powerful and unique the A8 was compared to it's contemporaries. In a world full of 2D scrolling platform games these unique adventures really stood out as amazing ideas, and the A8 versions of these titles are head and shoulders above the ports to other 8bit systems. Sadly the next step of amazing (the point and click adventures) were best on those systems that supported the lot of sprites approach rather than the A8's strengths.. sTeVE

I have sent John an enquiry about Green Beret etc, no reply yet :-p sTeVE

I could always ask Philip if you really want to know... sTeVE

Lovely pokey tune! As far as C64 DD I always preferred the older C64 version music to the Ocean one though - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tquUSgETAto sTeVE

I think you pressed post a few too many times Try this query in the general 8bit forum.. sTeVE

I suggest you post this in the Atari 8bit general forum rather than the programming forum.. sTeVE

Try taking a look at Analog issue 75 - there was a thorough tutorial on using the light gun in your own software - starts on page 58... https://archive.org/details/analog-computing-magazine-75 sTeVE

I do understand that errors are likely in any large and complex undertaking - inevitable even. And some mistakes I am happy to overlook if they allow access to an overall well conceived and executed idea. The iBooks version is not covered in my opinion by those sentiments, I have a copy and feel it is very poor. I think that I would have been more satisfied with the PDF as a digital version - after all the visual polish of the teaser material is what drew me towards this project. If the printed version comes out at a reasonable UK price £25/£30 I will likely buy a copy. sTeVE

Hi, I am running 64bit windows 8.1 pro (as a VM on my mac) and 64bit windows 8.1 on a standard (32GB Ram, 8 core xenon) PC. On both, whatever compatibility mode I select (XP SP3 for instance), I cannot g2f or ags to run. I have downloaded the latest ags and g2f from the site and all that happens is windows pops up a message: This app can't run on your PC Any ideas what I need to do? sTeVE

http://www.funstock.co.uk/commodore-64-a-visual-commpendium-c64-book Tap the trailer button to see a video of the book - the digital version (£3.99 on iBooks) - has identical layout plus multimedia... sTeVE

I appreciate the iBooks version is not likely to be identical to the print version, but the material sold under the guise of this book is just poorly done, sorry. Take a look at the myriad interactive iBooks and magazines built with the apple tools that do retain the style of the printed work and incorporate the multimedia features - check out the Gamesworkshop publications or Commodore 64 A Visual Commpendium. The latter visually the same as the printed tome, but with added multimedia. To charge £9.99 for something so poorly produced is to be honest quite a rip off. I will be seeking a refund from Apple... Amateur implementation with a professional price is not a fair approach to take IMHO. sTeVE

To be fair, no I did it but it for the information since that is readily available elsewhere for free. I bought it expecting a beautifully laid out experience, a celebration of the 2600 - as you advertise. And the iBooks version is not that - it is poor quality IMHO - poorly edited and laid out - I am disappointed! sTeVE

I also found a fair few typos in the iBook version - such as the end of the California games text has the last three lines of the Cakewalk text mushed into it... sTeVE

Bought the iBooks version - rather disappointed to be honest, none of the layout or graphic design shown in the print version preview images is present - very vanilla, looks like an early 90's website :-( Is the PDF at all like the book visually? sTeVE

The XE list gun will not work with LCD/Flatscreen TV's only CRT devices. Modern light guns that work with LCD TV's are combination motion sensor controllers (like a Wii Remote) - which operate in a very different way from the lightpen style XE light gun. Having built many games that work with these type of devices there are two approaches: Accurate pointing controllers - either work with a fixed camera (PS Move) that seems the controller or contain a camera (Wii Remote) that see fixed external points (the sensor bar or just two lights) to triangulate the controller's position with accuracy. If you just use gyro and magnetometer data motion controls are fine for gestural but little use for accuracy (aiming) in my experience. I think would require far too much processing power to process the data and use with an A8 system - even if one could interface the little Atari to one somehow... sTeVE

Thanks - I think that worked - onwards an upwards! sTeVE

I have a valid usr/bin, and MAKE is in there - but if I issue the command line that cc65 suggests: make -f make/gcc.mak install I just get: make: make/gcc.mak: No such file or directory make: *** No rule to make target `make/gcc.mak'. Stop. Now I interpret that as I have not got the right executable tool or paths somehow?? sTeVE - new to CC65!

I have downloaded the latest repository and complied them, but cannot install the cc65 programs in the /usr/local tree of my system using the command: sudo make -f make/gcc.mak install Now I did not compile with make -f make/gcc.mak, just issued the make command in the cc65 directory I downloaded - and it all seemed to unpack just fine - although I admit I cannot test that correctness What am I doing wrong? sTeVE P.S. I have the latest XCODE and command line tools installed..