Time-Bandit

Ok. From MESS. 914796[/snapback] YUK! The borders in MESS don't appear properly...

I've been hard at work for the past 10-14 days, disassembling the SG-1000 game called Gulkave. All I can tell is that it was a big job! It's a 32K highly optimized assembly language game. Fortunately for me, the people who wrote this game knew how to program, so it was more organized than a lot of the other source code I've seen. In case you don't know what Gulkave is, it's a side-scrolling space shooter. It was released in 1986, so it's fairly recent, and you can tell by the graphics and gameplay, it's absolutely fantastic! I've been trying to find a small bug in the gameplay for the past 2 days, and today I finally found it, and the game is 99% playable. There's still a few bugs, and I'm hoping to iron them out by the end of the day/week. I've done a few modifications in the SG-1000 source code, and I would need some volunteers to test the game. So if you're interested, send me a PM here and I will be giving you all the details. Once the ironing out of the minor bugs will be finished, I will send out a copy of the game in (still) SG-1000 format. This will be the exact version that will be ported on the CV. WARNING: It's a very fast paced arcade game... I've finished the first level, but that's it! I'm wondering if I should design some sort of cheat mode in the cartridge that will be released because honestly, I don't see how anyone could ever finish this game, it's much too fast-paced. Here are a few screenshots to whet your appetite:

Yes, the sticky fire is just like in GORF, I find it more interesting to have this type of fire than simply having a fire that shoots out whenever the fire button is pressed (also takes more code to design a sticky fire ). I guess playing GORF on my VIC-20 for all those years has some sort of impact on the way I write my games. :-) I agree with the spaceship dying. The game still has rough edges, and some of the sprite definitions need to be changed. I would also like to add some more ennemies. Meka is the ultimate emulator for me! Runs all the SEGA 8-bit games and the Colecovision games. Has a great debugger too!!!

I recently went on a crazy programming spree, and wrote my first arcade game for the Colecovision. It is nothing too ambitious, as this is the first game that I write on such a platform. I must admit though, that it was a great learning experience, and I am ready to tackle bigger and badder projects! Space Hunter homebrew game Take care, and let me know what you think. Game was written in 100% assembly language. Time-Bandit

A great site too is: Colecovision Revival! Another great site. Has everything you need to get started with Colecovision programming! Took me several months of sifting through information on the web pertaining to the Colecovision.

There are some very good Colecovision emulators. The one that I use when developping my CV programs is MESS. I used to use Virtual Colecovision, and while it is good, it is flawed in certain areas.

Here's another typo: reproducing the sites, sounds, and gameplay of the original. Reproducing the sites? Which sites? Web sites? I think sights would be more appropriate here...

Oh... Well, I was just curious why you chose the route you went. I thought when the arcade was already based on Z80 code, it would've probably been easier to base your version on that, instead of completely rewriting it. If it it was based on a totally different processor on the other hand, rewriting it from scratch might be the better way to do it. Greetings, Manuel 869075[/snapback] If you're looking for the ultimate results, taking the Z80 assembly language code, and modifying it to work on the ported console (in our case, the Colecovision) would probably give you the best results, since you're not really porting any of the gameplay, you're copying the code. Where's the real homebrewing in there? You're not creating anything, you're just manually converting a game to work from one platform to the next. There are many platforms that are similar to the Colecovision, so in that spirit of things, why not just take games from those platforms, convert them, put our names on them, and call it a classic game creation? I think it's unethically wrong to sell something where the majority of the code is not yours. It might not bother some people, but personally, as a programmer, it would bother the hell out of me. What you're looking at here, is a complete original port of a classic game. Congratulations Scott in succeeding such an awesome port! I'm definitely buying a copy of this arcade game classic!

Actually the 8-bit Atari computers had the chroma/luma outputs long before Commodore did. 866542[/snapback] Nice mod, after having finished my A/V modification on my Coleovision today, it felt kind of cheap compared to the one you did. But I do enjoy being able to use a commodore 1702 with my Colecovision. The vidoe quality is perfect for me, I don't need any better than AUDIO and VIDEO. My modded Colecovision can be seen here: Colecovision Revival! One thing I wanted to do, and probably will do it tomorrow, is add an LED to indicate whether or not the Colecovision is ON or OFF. Maybe that's something you can add to your CV to truly make it the best and meanest CV on the block. How about a set of leds in the back that connected to the address line of the Z80 that will give you a random (well, sort of random) light show? Anyways... Enough ramblings.

As a Colecovision programmer and collector second, when I first heard of this idea, I was like: Wow!. But then the idea slowly sinked in, and basically I would be buying another system that happens to be connecting to my Colecovision. Why even bother using a Colecovision? Why not just create your own gaming console? It sure would be less bulky than having a Colecovision and an expansion module... Don't get me wrong, but I'm just wondering about the usability of this system. If I want something more powerful to program and play games, I use my SNES with Super Wildcard II 3.5" disk drive. If you added features that would help Colecovision programmer in programming their Colecovision games (such as as single-step debugger / emulator), then I would definitely be interested. Such an emulator could connect via the serial port on the PC. But if I want to make games that are more advanced, I'll just program on the SNES. I like the Colecovision because of it's limitations, and the challenge that is required to program the beast. And to look at the current state of things in the Colecovision homebrew department, there aren't many programmers out there. I can count maybe 3 or 4 that are active. Do you think that people will decide to program on such a system without being first familiar with the Colecovision? And what kind of tools will be made available to programmers? A lot of Colecovision programmer's like to program in C, is there a C compiler for that microprocessor? How about a game development library (such as the one found on the CV written by Marcel De Kogel). How about freely available assembly tools, graphic tools, sound editing tools, etc... In any case, congratulations on being so innovative. It seems like an awesome personal project, and I wish you the best of luck in bringing this project to completion. I would only buy such a system if a few hundred people bought it. I'd want my programs to have a sizeable target audience.

Indeed, there is no hardware scrolling, but it doesn't mean that Colecovision programmers cannot implement scrolling, it just means that it's a little bit harder to do via software. MSX computers use the same graphics chip as the Colecovision by the way, and they are very popular in the homebrew programming department. The way I see it, is that no hardware scrolling is simply an additional challenge to overcome. VRAM access is slow because you have to access it via the VDP port. Those are the 2 main downfalls of the VDP chip. But it also has a lot of advantages such as the amount of sprites on screen, number of colors. (ok, it doesn't have 65K colors, but we're talking early 80s technology here!). It also has a decent amount of VRAM (16K). Anyways, thanks to a few homebrew programmers, there are many tools available that facilitate Colecovision programming available.

The 6502 was the first microprocessor that I learnt on. (I use to program for the Atari 8-bit). I picked up the Z-80 rather easily, and and quite fond of it, and realize the appeal that it had in the 80's when designing systems.

Certainly! Many awesome games are programmed in C for the Colecovision. 864432[/snapback] What I find more interesting is that they use a CP/M based compiler *. I don't know much about the free "modern" Z80 compilers...what's wrong with sdcc or z88dk ? *) At least that's what I see on http://www.geocities.com/newcoleco/framesen.html 864606[/snapback] That's because the CP/M version of the Hi-Tech C compiler is freely available, and Colecovision libraries which facilitate game development have been made for that compiler. In order to work with SDCC or Z88DK, one would have to re-write or port the library. I've been looking for several months now for an alternative to the CP/M C compiler, but haven't been able to find anything.

Are you part of that sub-culture?

Certainly! Many awesome games are programmed in C for the Colecovision.

Where is everyone? I just signed up, and am shocked to see that there isn't any activity here...

I have a website up, which is called "The Colecovision Revival Website". It is mainly aimed at programmers and I have a lot of tools, uttilities and source code to get you started. The website's address is: Colecovision Revival