mksmith

Any ROM size is supportable. For our new cart options it really comes down to whether they support the ROM format at this point. Music data can be located and played directly from shared banks (from ROM) or copied into RAM so it can be instigated from any bank as required. For example Millie & Molly is a 128kRom with 8 banks. Bank 1 stored all the music data for the 5 different in-game tunes and they are copied into RAM before a level is started - in my case playing of a level occurs in Bank 2 or 3 where they just wouldn't fit. Other music is stored in banks 6 and 8 and played from there as specific Title, Level Complete and Game Complete screens are located. I need to add an example showing how copying into RAM works.

Added the following changes (v1.03): re-implemented CHANNLSKCTLS lookup This feature allows the use of the SKCTL two tone mode on a per tune basis by adding a lookup table.

Hi @Gemintronic! That certainly could be a consideration but previously looking at other languages (compilers and emulators) to include the size of this extension becomes unwieldly big - way bigger than what really is intended. The ADS core code could definitely be used to start a separate extension if that's something the team is interested in.

Fun and games!! VS Code still is sometimes a bit flaky upgrading extensions - v0.6.7 did update the internal packages which seems to cause this (one of the reasons I only do it every 6 months or so). Anyway glad it's working for you!

Thanks Anthony! Mike does the hard work and we get to enjoy it! Very much hoping we will be released soon!!

A new release (v0.6.8) is now available with the following changes: Updated 7800basic to v0.17 (Windows, Linux, macOS) Added new 7800basic keywords: sizeof, hiscoreclear, player2joy1 (drawhiscores) Updated 7800basic hover, contexthelp and completions lists Thanks Mike for the update to 7800basic! Well a week is a long time in the Covid world 😞 After a great 3-4 months of life returning to normal here in Melbourne (after a 111 days of full lockdown last year) BAM! we are back in full lockdown again for 5 days. Amazingly the Aus Open is still progressing around us though - normally a great time to be in the city. Fingers crossed.

Very nice thanks Mike!

Yeah that's the one. Had it sitting there waiting for my birthday for 3 months which was frustrating but really enjoyed building it - worked first time which was a relief!

Thanks guys for testing! Updating the internals pretty much forces you to have the latest builds of VS Code. I don't update that stuff very often due to this but VS Code does a good job keeping itself updated thankfully.

A new release (v0.6.7) is now available with the following changes: Updated Stella to v6.5.1 (Windows, Linux, macOS). Note: Linux 32-bit is currently v6.2 #39 [Done] Added Command Palette option 'ads: Open the Sprite Editor' #33 [InProgress] Added F1 context help for batariBasic and 7800basic linking to RandomTerrain's support pages (set cursor at word and press F1 to display help content if found) #40 [Done] Added check for 7800basic *.CC2 files (produced for 144k ROMS) to copy file into bin folder Updated hover tooltips for 7800basic keywords (plotmap, plotchars) Added new 7800basic keywords: singlewide (plotchars) Updated internal packages to latest Apologies again for the delay in getting this update out. This release bring in the latest Stella build and adds a couple of nice support features including using the F1 key (cursor at word) to link into @Random Terrain's Batari and 7800basic's support sites which will be a great addition. Now Covid is under control here in Melbourne life is returning to crazy normal and all the kids activities and my basketball coaching has resumed 😁 Unfortunately haven't had much time recently to do much else 😞 Saying that I do have a lovely miniPet I've built to play with which was a fun project:

Very kind mate thank you ☺️

Very happy for you Bob 😁 I was thinking very much the same as you that you would win for sure! A very nice compliment that we made it close! Thanks Marco! We must finish Arkanoid one day so people can witness your excellent gfx contributions!

Just wanted to say on behalf of the team we are very thankful to everyone who voted for Millie & Molly 7800 in the Best Homebrew category! In a very tight race we came runners up to the very awesome Pac-Man 40th Anniversary Edition! Congrats @PacManPlus and @tep392 for creating the definitive collection of Pac-Man for any platform not just the 7800 👏👏👏

Hi Bob and Perry! Congrats on winning the best 7800 Homebrew Award for Pac-Man Collection! Very much deserved 👏👏👏

Awesome job team ZPH on a great show and congrats to all the award winners 👏👏👏

Well done James for organising and completing another successful voting period for the Annual Homebrew awards! Good luck to all nominees on Saturday 👋

Thanks for testing them out @x=usr(1536)! I'm waiting on a desoldering gun so I can take the pokey out of my Ballblazer cart + my Concerto is not playing well at all with either of my PAL consoles. Definitely once I get my pokey chip in and as Fred starts progressing with the firmware I'll be giving both a really good test. I'm going to get a another build with the newly updated pokey engine to Al (changes to the initialisation) and we can get some testing on the CPUwiz's AA versa carts as well for the final release.

Hi James, As you have seen @Trebor updated my Millie & Molly and Arkanoid ROMs to fix them for working on the Concerto. We have been doing some further testing of 7800basic builds on the Concerto today and made the following discoveries: 144k ROM is the best supported ROM size and should work without additional change (Popeye) 128K+RAM ROM will work but the ROM header will need to be manually changed to remove the pokey @ $450 flag (Millie & Molly, Arkanoid) 128K ROM does not produce any pokey sound @batari also advised that the 144k bins fail proper detection but are currently handled by the Concerto to work, 128K+RAM with pokey @ 450 flag fails detection and defaults to 128K.

Thanks some on-cart testing from Robert @Trebor and additional information from Fred @batari we have some known conditions around compiling 7800basic builds for the Concerto (currently v0.95) firmware: Enable the SKIPINITFORCONCERTO flag in pokeysound.asm 144k ROM is the best supported ROM size and should work without additional change 128K+RAM ROM will work but the ROM header will need to be manually changed to remove the pokey @ $450 flag 128K ROM does not produce any pokey sound

Thanks Robert! The old (2019) version was like that but Mike's awesome controller changes in 7800basic has allowed us to use the left port for all controllers now.

Thanks @DrVenkman 👍

Thanks guys 👍

Thanks guys - surprised there is no sound at all. Interesting...

Hi everyone, Apologies to all that I haven't been around much the past couple of weeks to contribute. Anyway, attached is the Millie & Molly 7800 demo and Arkanoid demo specifically containing the Concerto pokey initialisation fix that Darryl has made for Popeye. Any feedback in regards to the pokey playing would be appreciated. millieandmolly_demo_concerto.a78 arkanoid_concerto.a78

I'll add launching the Sprite Editor from the Command Palette. Once you have created and save sprite projects to file you can right-click the file (*.spe) in Explorer view and open it directly into the Sprite Editor via the pop-up (occasionally still doesn't load first time but still trying to sort that out - the Web View is tricky to communicate with). Still strange about the icons on the status bar as they are the ones provided by VS Code not anything custom.