Nojeee

Multiboot genuinely began life as a way to group my personal games onto a single disk. When I first started with my 800 back in 1981 most games were unprotected and were a single load from disk or cassette. I had already been delving into the operating system to create A.C.E. (Atari Cassette Enhancer) so knew how a game booted and took control of the hardware. I wrote a small menu program that would allow me to copy multiples games onto a single disk and this evolved into Multiboot. I had a few friends locally who were into the A8 scene and handed out copies to them and that's almost all there is to it ... honest guv! The code did have an update to Multiboot XL to fix a problem that came with the updated O.S. - I also added the ability to update an original Multiboot disk to an XL version. It was many years later that I found out that Multiboot had traveled far and wide. I'm sure I remember being in that place you mentioned in Slough when somebody asked if I had anything to do with Multiboot ... they thought it had come from the U.S.

I've no objection to uploading the source code, just rather embarrassed by some of the code . I've just taken another look and there are still large areas devoid of comments so I'd like to spend some time trying to work out what on earth I was doing before uploading. I had to convert all of my source from tokenised Synassembler format to normal .asm files so the screen formatting isn't too good. That said, I will upload them when I've had a chance to make another pass. It's actually quite interesting to see how my programming evolved after Jet Boot Jack.

How true ... I'm currently converting one of my C16 games to the A8 and the character restriction was a real problem (which I got around by writing an immense routine to use player graphics - sorry emkay, couldn't resist )

OK, my turn to bite this time . I started writing machine code for the A8 in 1982 when there was no Internet or forums and everything had to be learned by reading magazines or purchasing specialist books like De Re Atari ... and delving into the operating system to work out what was happening. I moved onto the C64 a few years later (only because of the UK market) and getting up and running was an identical experience. The C64 was no harder or easier to write for, just different. Your idea that PMG routines on the Atari are immense is wrong. The amount of code is dwarfed by the rest of the program. Now, one area I do agree with you is in the wonderful programs now available to speed up development. However, that's as true for the A8 as it is for the C64. I appreciate that there is more available for the C64 due to it's user base but the Atari has sufficient tools to help. I can currently use WUDSN to assemble my old A8, C64 and Plus 4 code. The source level debugging in Altirra is excellent and saves so much time debugging. You recently said that the C64 scene has libraries that enable you to get up and running quickly but that's just a fraction of the time it takes to write a decent program. Most programmers would have their own common routines anyway and could get a shell together very quickly, it's then the lengthy task of getting the main game together - which I'd argue is the same for C64 or A8. It looks like there are numerous experienced programmers on this thread and it's strange that you ignore their comments. It reminds me of a certain Monty Python sketch of the past

I've been following this thread with interest ... and frequent smiles . I thought I'd chip in after the mention of First Samurai as I wrote the C64 version while the Amiga lead was being developed. It was clear that the C64 would have to be somewhat down scaled from the 16-bit versions but it still retained the majority of the Amiga's game play elements. I would hope that the end result couldn't be considered as boring - and the earlier suggestion from emkay that C64 scrollers are simple to code does undervalue the work involved. I loved developing 6502 games for A8, C64 and C16/Plus 4 as you really needed to have an understanding of how the hardware worked. When I moved onto C and C++ for console work there was a loss of that 'hands on' feel.

I'm glad you liked it ... I hope to convert the other C16 Berks games to the A8 sometime soon. You're right about it being old skool ... it's all from 1985 (except for a few improvements when I did the conversion).

Many thanks for the links, I'll take a look later.

Thanks, I appreciate the bootloader. I'll be fine creating the bootable menu disk, I'll use a subset of my Multiboot XL code from many moons ago. That used a couple of sectors to store the game names and pointers to starting sector etc. I do intend to save and load simple game progress and high scores which is really what prompted my post. I have no problem getting the games to boot and load from a floppy (once I've refreshed my memory a bit) I'm just aware that things are very different now and I wondered how this approach would work with devices other than floppies and their ATR equivalent. I'll take all of the advice on board and hope to come up with something that's as compatible as possible.

Thanks for the information, I did have a look into the ATR format but didn't spot that it supports ED 130K as well as double density. I've just created one so that will work fine and allow better compatibility.

It was my first released game back in 1983 - I'm glad you enjoyed it. I've always wanted to revisit it at some stage.

Thanks for the reply, I've ripped all of my old Atari floppies into ATR format, some were in poor condition but I managed to salvage most with a KryoFlux board. The original source now assembles to .xex and works fine. I guess I'm really looking at creating a personal compilation disk which contains original and updated versions of my earlier games. It wouldn't be with a view to selling it but it feels that it would benefit from having the titles together and loaded from a single menu. Would an ATR be restricted to single density or can devices handle enhanced density? I'm only asking as I doubt if I could squeeze it into 90K ... and I've a couple of 1050 drives that I can use for testing on real hardware. The saving of game state just comes about as it's something that always frustrated me years ago ... I hated losing progress and high scores when powering the machine off. I realise it's easy now to save the state in an emulator but I was just interested in trying out something I would like to have done at the time. It wasn't really considered when the majority of games were cassette based but writing and reloading data from a disk sector is easy. The idea of printing up a code that gets loaded back in next time is interesting though. We did a similar thing to allow players to skip levels on consoles but it's interesting if it could be expanded to high scores too. The data would be very small. Maybe one solution would be to just build it as an ATR that works in the way I'd be happy with and have each separate program available as an .xex. Thanks again for the information.

Things have changed so much since my last A8 game was released in 1986 that I thought it wise to ask the knowledgeable people on the forum for some advice. I’m starting do some more 8-bit programming and aim to create a single disk that contains a number of games … both original, enhanced and (maybe) new. I’m quite familiar with creating bootable disk menu code but wondered how this would work with SIO2SD devices and multigame cartridges. Ideally, I wanted to be able to save the player’s progress and high scores to a couple of sectors on the disk … I realise this would be a problem with cartridges but don’t really know how an SD device would cope. To be clear, this wouldn’t involve DOS of any flavour, just low-level disk access. The games would run perfectly well even if they weren’t able to update their save state. Back in 1981 (in the UK) the norm for 400/800 users was cassette storage before floppies became available at reasonable prices. Now, it seems, there’s a wide range of ways to load and run games - SIO2PC, SIO2USB, SIO2SD, assorted cartridges, emulators and good old-fashioned cassette and disk. Is there any way that’s regarded as the norm nowadays? Do more people play using an emulator than real hardware? At this stage, I’m only tinkering around with my old source code so each will run in 48K (maybe 64K tops). What’s the accepted minimum memory nowadays? I appreciate there are lots of memory upgrades available but have they been fitted by the majority of users? I’ve seen a few threads which discuss the pros and cons of different upgrades so don’t want to open up a can of worms. I’m just genuinely interested to see how the market has changed and where to aim any future games. NB: There are some very clever people on the Atari scene now .

If I thought I knew enough about the Lynx I would have been pleased to. Unfortunately, I only spent 6 or 7 months (on and off) programming the Lynx and that was over 25 year ago. My knowledge of the Lynx is much less than the experienced people on this forum. I'm amazed at how people have reverse engineered the system so it can be programmed without all of the bulky development system I used. I have a feeling that if I returned to doing any Lynx programming I'd be asking them for help. I do appreciate the request though.

It's all been very interesting to me too I've actually just found an old folder that contained my working notebook and a few documents relating to Road Riot. The notebook reminded me how much of a 'fudge' the whole course system was. I'd like to claim it was very complex and mathematical but it was really a very simple system that ended up looking reasonable on screen. NB: I had to laugh when I saw I'd written 'Bloody Images!' at the top of one page ... ah, the memories come flooding back In case anybody is interested, I've attached my final demo update memo to Images Software before handing back the system

I have a feeling that refers to RSA encryption on the cartridge? I never got as far as creating physical ROMs as all my work was done on the Howard development system.

I had seen these when searching for Road Riot stuff. The fax from Images Software is interesting as it's dated almost a year after I handed back the system. I guess it took some time to setup a new deal with Atari? They couldn't have been working on it all that time as it's far longer than it took me to write the game The internal Atari memo dated January 1992 ties in with a demo I had to do for a visit by Bob Katz to Images studio. The other documents seem to refer to a 7800 version of Road Riot (and other programs) by Imagitec as opposed to Images Software. I've no idea about these.

I'd actually seen that web site when I was looking around for information on the Road Riot ROM ... very interesting. I'm thinking of doing something on the 800XL next (is it generally referred to as the A8?) .. maybe an update of Jet Boot Jack just to get myself back into things. The Lynx is definitely interesting though as it feels like unfinished business.

The file is the 'Master' that handled the overall assembly. I used it to set certain flags that would determine what happened during the assembly process. I always tried to minimise the assembly time - it was quicker to just work on one track rather than build them all every time. The file also contains the main game initialisation at 'start' followed by the resident core loop (r_loop). Any required modules were then loaded to the end of the resident code (module_base) using 'load_and_go' and run from there. I think if you disassemble $600 there should be a jmp to the start address? Of course, this may have been altered after I handed back the system. I don't remember coding the actual game completion so they must have added that later ... maybe why it doesn't work properly?

Here you go .. I rescued this from an Amiga disk using a Kryoflux board. The formatting looks better in Notepad++ than Word .. although the editor in the WUDSN IDE is best for me.. I had to learn the Lynx development environment from scratch so there may be a few oddities. In fact, I've also uploaded a photo of the only assistance I received riot.zip

Luckily, I probably ended up getting paid for the work I'd done, it was just such a hassle. They were a nice bunch of people though. I'm amazed how things have moved on with 8 bit development, converting my old source code for the 800XL with MADS and WUDSN is a breeze. I'm looking to do some more retro stuff and may take another look at the Lynx. PS. I don't mind uploading the single source file I have if anybody is interested. It's of no real use without the other source files and includes.

I think my code was fairly complete but it never went through any testing apart from my own - I'm certainly not surprised there were some bugs. I guess Images Software added music and tried to fix any bugs that were reported by Atari. They never contacted me for help in deciphering my code (although it was fairly well commented). As far as I can tell from Google the ROM that got released is one from the Atari test department. I also found some scans of faxes between Images and Atari regarding testing, these were a year or so after I'd moved on and it would be interesting to know what happened.

Thanks for the kind words. I hadn't realised that Road Riot had surfaced as I'd effectively stopped work on the program in June/July 1992. I kept a work diary in the 80's and 90's and it does throw up some information. I was a freelance programmer and had worked on a few C64 games for Images software. They asked me in June 1991 if I'd be interested in doing an arcade conversion for the Lynx. I eventually got the development system late October of that year and started playing around with some test and demo code. I didn't really start until the end of the year as I was finishing off First Samurai on the C64. I have numerous diary entries about problems getting paid by Images; their office was about an hour's drive away and I would often have to wait around for somebody to sign the cheque. I remember one day arriving and walking up the stairs past somebody who had just cut off the power due to non payment of the bill . I guess that was par for the course in those days. By May of 1992 it was clear there were problems as I was being stalled on the supply of graphics and music. I decided to call it a day and took the kit back to Images in July 1992 .. I was already working on other projects and I don't think I ever heard from them again. I think Images folded and turned into Climax Software. I don't have all of the source code as it was on the Amiga workstation - all I have are a few floppies with some of the graphics and one main source file that was used to do the actual assembly. The main source does show that the game was pretty complete when I handed the system back. NB: I've seen a post on this forum with some Road Riot source attached .. this is the same as supplied to me at the start of the project and I was told it was the original arcade machine source (not that I ever used it). I've seen the long play video of the game and it did all come back to me. It's interesting to note that the copyright date on the ROM is 1994 so Images must have got Nick Snape to finish the game some time later ... I see that my nick name NOJ was left at the top of the high score table though. I've no idea why the game wasn't officially released - I seem to remember being told that the Lynx wasn't selling as well as they'd hoped at the time. It has been fun to delve back into this although it wasn't a good experience at the time. I enjoyed working on the Lynx but it was a struggle surviving at the time.

Following on from my earlier reply ... I've had a look at some of my old archives and have found some Road Riot related stuff ... and I've also found my old diaries from the time which throw a bit of light onto things. I've Googled a bit and have seen the long play video of the ROM that was released - it all came flooding back If you think anybody would be interested feel free to open a thread on the Lynx forum.

Thanks for letting me know it works on the 800XL ... that's a relief. I did try firing while moving but it threw up all sorts of problems due to the limitations of the C16 (mainly with diagonal movement). It was a bit of a compromise in the end.

Road Riot! I'd forgotten all about that ... I think a veil had come down in my subconscious to block it out I can honestly say its all a bit hazy, I know I was asked to convert the arcade game to Lynx and was given a development system but I can't for the life of me remember why it ended. I certainly didn't complete it to release standard. I'm just about to leave for a short break but I will have a delve into my old stuff when I get back to see if it jogs any memories. I know I don't have any source for it.