Itchy Scratchy

Running Win 10x64H1 with all the bells and whistles just forced updated yesterday. lol Followed the link at top and installed the manifest under 1.1.049 Now that I look at the page where it has the giant link to 1.1.046 there is a tiny obscure link above it "The installation link is here:" with the MSI I must of missed it somehow. Thanks.

Issues solved...

Issue Solved....

I built a cabinet once and over engineered it that you could park a car on top and it would be fine but at the end of the day it was just a cabinet to store books. Point being, and I know this is your baby, you only use 5 files totaling around 900k with less than 250k rar'ed All other files are created at first start. You can rar all 5 files then drag and drop it in a post. Could you at least think about giving people a choice to have a portable version especially when this great program changes a lot. 😀

Thank you for that response. I wanted to make sure it was the link at the beginning that gives you the MSX_Sprite_Editor_Installer.msi. When I tried it it looked just like the previous version. I'll try again.

Maybe a dumb question but is this going to be the same link on the first page. I am only used to getting it from your website. Personally I like this much better because you don't have to setup firewall connections and the like. Better if were just a portable version with no install whatsoever but that's just me. I drag and drop everything especially when I am on the road and switch over to my laptop.

I will say that MOTU was one of my favorite all time games on the Intellivion next to Cloudy Mountain and Microsurgeon. BTW, Microsurgeon was ported to the TI 994/A, what's up with that people. Must I do everything? Same chip set for the most part. Anyway, for my couple of dimes I would say take what you know and port it yourselves. As long as you don't sell it and make a dime but then again I do not know that side of da law. My big beef about the game would be the music because the tune on Intellivision was so cool that I would put the cartridge in at times just to listen to it same as Snafu. Some things just do not port. As far as the Blue Sky Rangers, deep respect, but this is bogus in my eyes and they probably do not give it much thought outside that it may not be 100% complete and it is also a one of a kind. But who knows, it's not mine so I can't release it. So again, what do you do you. Make your own. In the real world you call it something different and just do not have any copy write graphics like Castle Gray Sull. Back then you had to use a bit of imagination with the games anyway. Have a guy that fly's around in a car dropping bombs, go through a forest then sword fight with a dude. Sorry, that's all I remember about the game. Expand on it, make it your own. Until this game is eventually released, probably when all the BSR members are deceased, then you have to improvise. Colecovision is your canvas people. A 256 by 192 canvas with 15 bland colors but look how many games have been created and not just for the Colecovision but for all it's sister systems as well. I have watched a youtube video where a guy made a Zelda clone for his kids on the TI994A. Are you going to tell me you ran out of ideas and steam?

https://atariage.com/forums/profile/73874-itchy-scratchy/?status=86004&type=status

Can I ask what changes you made? If I had a wish list it would be an expandable window where the onscreen data expanded with it. I love your work but this gets a bit tedious when trying to get down to the finer details. or how about some other kind of zoom feature for the screen layout. Another would be freehand drawing on the screen layout and/or import an 8 bit picture then it would divide up the tiles with the ability to save the new pattern set with identifying the repeat data. I know, sounds crazy but this would go really far to aid development. At present you have to build your characters then create the background picture. Last would be a sound and music editor that saves the data then export directly to your game data. Maybe even be able to import other systems that use the SN76489A like TI994/A music and sound. I second the tile set limitation. I can always work within what is already there but at present if I have more than 256 tiles I have to break them up into several files. In game I load my extended tiles on the fly from rom if my game is that graphical intensive. Yes, it is a wish list. Always remember, people like you make all the difference. Without those like you it would be just a chore to were hobbyist may just throw their hands up in the air. If I had to do all this by hand like in the 80's I probably would not bother.

Hey...From Scratch. That's my company Logo, thanks for the free advert lol

Dude, I am new here and I even find that in poor taste. We are a community of like minded enthusiasts trying to enjoy what little we have so positive support or just don't say anything please. What good does it do to bum someone out. BTW, people do have lives. Me personally I would rather play with my kids than to program my Coleco games 24/7 and I have yet to see deadlines or promises made on a single video Tony has made. So again, please, positive reinforcement for our developers.

That's freakin awesome work. My first response would be are those sprite asteroids being more than 4 and then I am thinking Space Fury was able to get away with it and create a really fun game. Then again with modern techniques they could be fully animated pattern tables which would be a nightmare and slow. Congrats. Looking forward to my copy when it's released.

Now that I am a month and some change away from releasing my work I would like to call on those of you that have already traveled this road. I can print my own boxes but would rather have someone who already does this and has the equipment to handle at least 100 units. I am in no way expecting my game to be popular but there may be some out there that would want a physical collectors version with a proper box and manual like the old days. Being as I also want my work to get out there and not charge a fortune which doing this myself would do. So please PM me with ideas and contacts. Also, this is related to my programing work but may not be directly programing so if anyone wants to transfer it to a proper place in the thread please do so.

Here is a bit flipping routine that you should be able to adapt to what you need. Just show me some love if you use it. MIRROR: LD L, A RLCA RLCA XOR L AND 0xAA XOR L LD L, A RLCA RLCA RLCA RRC L XOR L AND 0x66 XOR L RET

This brings me to an interesting point. Where are all the Colecovision and ADAM Demos? The Coleco formula is still going strong some 40 years later yet it is still a small community. Youtube is full of TI99/4A fans creating stuff that would knock your socks off yet Coleco has little to nothing. I want to just toy around a bit when Thrippin is completed.. I hope you join in. Working hard on it in between life's activities. That darn NMI is a harsh mistress.

I want to try your formula to see if it does actualy work on the real deal. I have physical hardware and a lot of eproms sitting around. Which brings me to an important point. The routine I have given the community I have used in many programs on both emulators for development and real hardware so it has been tested. My goal for teaching and developing is not just to do it but to also have good coding practices. I remember being really upset when I moved from Workbench 1.3 on my Amiga to 2.0 where as a ton of programs did not work because they were created at such a low level and directly used the hardware instead of going through the BIOS. Low level is great for DEMOS, lousy for practical software. Modular, functional and easy to read but at the same time if anyone can introduce better and more efficient code I will turn from teacher to student in a heartbeat, no pride or ego here.

I get what your attempting to achieve and simplify. I would like to see your entire routine listed and tested. I can always find room for improvement. The way I wrote this out is a universal plugin routine that will cover all bases.

I really love this emulator because it helps me speed up development along with TNIASM. Although I know that this is not being updated on a daily schedule I am hoping that you could take a suggestion or two whenever you find time. One would be to have it save it's size and position on screen for the next time it is run. Second would be the weirdest bug. Using Windows 10 x64 when I open the calculator it exits CoolCV. please do not ask me why what one has to do with the other but it happens. Either way, great work.

So the CPU on the expansion module originally gets the 3.58 from the Colecovision? All you had to do is supply a crystal and connect it to 5v and ground. Interesting that this is basically an Atari 2600 without an output for the audio/video. Power and CPU timing. No wonder Coleco was sued. Then again if it was all off the shelf parts and no stealing code then you have to wonder. Maybe it was cheaper to settle. This may also be why the Intellivision expansion never came out. In that case they would have to include some version of a GROM and EXEC. The adapters seem to stop when the next generation systems came out I think because of the BIOS's involved.

Thank you. I am sure I missed some important parts but how many times can you go back and edit something. Next time I will write the whole thing out then copy and paste instead of winging most of it from memory. Then again I may end up giving a basic Z80 Assembly language course after all. It seems that all the books on the market are geared toward engineering students.

Feel free to comment on how this routine could be better. I highly recommend that in your programing journey to start commenting your code. I am finding that going back to older work is like what the **** did I do here and why does it work. If you find yourself in a full 32k project with over 4000 lines of code then you will wish you commented at least the important stuff. Even in my previous post I have updated, refined, edited you name it at least 20 times to simplify it for you.

In order to contribute and help budding Coleco/ADAM programmers I intend to share various code snippets that will help you along. I have found over the years that specific details are hard to come by so I will help where I can but I am not going to teach you Z80 assembly language. It is not as hard as you think and can look intimidating at times but don't give up. If you use assembly language you will gain speed and space over any higher level language. (my opinion you may feel different) That said. Have you ever wanted to know what pattern your sprite is over or just wanted to know what pattern (or color) is at what position on the screen. Maybe you want to build a wall that you do not want to pass through so your wall is pattern 45. Well, you can say if a = 45 then do not pass. In assembly that looks like this LD A, ???? (magic number) CP 45 ; (Compare) or if A = 45 JP Z DO_NOT_PASS ; If yes then jump to Do not pass routine if no then continue on. ; Continue Journey code.... RET ;(Return from where you called from) DO_NOT_PASS: ; Do not continue moving through pattern. RET ;(Return from where you called from) But how do you get that important magic 45 or other value into A Well, in another post I will show you how to set up graphics but for now we will just say it is there. For now it is sitting in GRAM, VRAM....The Ram connected to the TI9928 Graphics Chip. The way Colecovision works is that the Z80 uses Ram and the Graphic Chip uses Ram so in order to get to the 16k Graphics Ram you have to go through a port which kind of sucks because it creates a bottle neck. However the Z80 is mighty fast so we can get away with a few things and scrolling is not one of them. That does not mean you can't have scrolling games, it just means they won't look as smooth as modern systems. Because Coleco Sprite Y and X values range from 0 to 192 Y and 0 to 256 X we have to divide them by 8 to get the proper Rows and Columns In the Coleco world we have 32x24 screen patterns (768) Mathematically it all adds up and divides equally as you would expect in the computer world. The routine is actually 4 parts. 1st is to divide by 8 and get the Rows 2nd is to divide by 8 and get the Columns 3rd is to send (OUT) to PORT 0BFh. 4th is put that returned value (IN) 0BEh into A Port BE VRAM Data (Read/Write) Port BF VDP Status Registers (Read Only) I do not want to get into the AND's and PORTS right now because that is information overload and a distraction so for now I am sticking with minimum code. Copy and paste or use the asm attachment. ; Tile Identify Routine (c) 2020 "From Scratch" Enterprises ; Free to use but please use love for me in the credits. ; To find Pattern under Sprite. (upper left hand corner) ; Sprite Definition (Y, X, Pattern, Color) ; LD Y into (OFFSET_Y) and LD X into (OFFSET_X) then call SPRITE_TO_TILE ; Pattern value will come back in A ; To find the pattern on screen (no sprite) LD HL with tile position 0-767 + VRAM_NAME ($1800) ; To find the pattern color (no sprite) LD HL with tile position 0-767 + VRAM_COLOR ($2000) ; Call QUICK_TILE. Pattern value will return in A VRAM_NAME: EQU $1800 SPRITE_TO_TILE: LD HL, VRAM_NAME LD A, (OFFSET_Y) ; offset Y (ROW) CP 0 ; can't divide by zero skip to find Columns JP Z, FIND_COLUMN SRL A ; divide by 8 (192/8) 24 Rows (actually divide 3 times by 2) SRL A SRL A LD B, A LD DE, 32 XOR A ZERO: ADC HL, DE DJNZ ZERO FIND_COLUMN: LD A, (OFFSET_X) ; offset X (Column) CP 0 ; can't divide by zero skip to QUICK_TILE which calls port to get value JP Z, QUICK_TILE SRL A ; divide by 8 (256/8) 32 Columns (actually divide 3 times by 2) SRL A SRL A LD E, A LD D, 0 XOR A ADC HL, DE QUICK_TILE: DI LD A, L OUT (0BFh), A ; (OUT) Lower Bits LD A, H AND 3Fh OUT (0BFh), A ; (OUT) Higher Bits EI IN A, (0BEh) ; (IN) Return value into A RET If you find errors or inconsistencies please let me know in the comments. Identify Tile.asm

Well then I will take a look at it. Will have to be after the 1st of the year so I will have to get in contact with Retroillucid and see if he has some ideas.

Actually I thought about making Dracula but I was reading in one of these pages that someone else was working on it so I did not want to step on any toes. Also, the only thing I know about the Dracula game is one that came out on Intellivision. Were they supposed to be the same? It is hard to come up with the intent without original documentation. Just think how much effort went into making that Mr. Turtle game and that was the most obscure vaporware title I have ever seen. Based off a Coleco kids pool shaped like a turtle. Then again I am up to the challenge after my other projects are completed. The great thing I have learned is once you create a base game shell you can pretty much plug anything in so my next project should come along a lot quicker now that I have ironed out a lot of things and built up a personal library of routines. Trippin was started at the end of August and should be done and polished by the end of the year.

https://atariage.com/forums/profile/73874-itchy-scratchy/