RetroCoder

The project can be found here https://github.com/CycoPH/Mad-Assembler-CPP As for the translation, I used google (obviously the results are not that great). Step 1 in the process was to translate the Delphi comments from Polish into English. Then it was trying to figure out Delphi and translate the code. Delphi and C++ code are very similar. I intend to port any new changes over to the CPP version.

I wrote the Atasm Altirra Bridge because I did not know about Wudsn and I like working in VS Code. Lots of people use Mads with the Altirra Bridge. I'm busy with a port of mads from Pascal/Delphi into C++ so that I can add some export functionality.

Added a much needed feature to the Atari FontMaker. When in MegaCopy mode there is a clear indicator in the bottom right of the screen showing that you are in this mode. No more guessing and destroying your screens.

I'm busy investigating this. The idea is to write a 3D game that will run on the PICO but display on the Atari. The biggest limitation will be the low color count.

The logic parts are written in C. All drawing is done in asm

RetroMaze code and bin - https://github.com/CycoPH/Atari8bit-RetroMaze Numeru code and bin - https://github.com/CycoPH/Atari8Bit-Numeru retromaz.xex numeru.xex

Retro Maze by Peter Hinz 2023 aka RetroCoder Source and binary available here: https://github.com/CycoPH/Atari8bit-RetroMaze Game idea The basic idea for this game was a coding challenge: to draw a 3D looking maze using just ASCII characters. With some extensive font modifications the result is RetroMaze. Play through 15 ever more complex mazes and find enough items to unlock the exit. You can find chests with useful items, ghosts that can be traded with or simply attacked for their loot, and vortex jumps that take you to new locations. Each level is unique never to be repeated. Interaction On the start screen use the joystick up/down to select your starting level, or left/right to select the difficulty. Press FIRE BUTTON to start the game. In the maze you use the joystick to move. Forward/Backward will move you in that direction. Left/Right will turn your view into the selected direction. Hit and hold the FIRE BUTTON to show the map and action menu. Release the FIRE BUTTON to activate the selected action. Map interactions Press and hold FIRE BUTTON, the view will change to show a top-down map of the walked maze in the middle of the screen, and a menu with actions at the bottom. The map shows your current location and facing direction. It also shows all the exposed parts of the maze. The game employs a fog of war technique, so you looking down a long corridor will expose a small number of maze positions. If you have not looked at it, it will not show on the map. The action menu at the bottom of the map screen will list the actions available to you. The list of actions depends on where you are in the map. At a minimum you will have the BACK and POUCH actions available to you. Note that you enter the map/action view by pressing AND holding the fire button. The first highlighted action is always BACK. When you release the fire button the selected action is performed. In the default case releasing the fire button on the BACK action will return you to the 3D maze view. So hit fire to show the map, release to return the the 3D view. Select a new action by pressing UP or DOWN on the joystick. The selection will change with each joystick push/pull. Release the FIRE BUTTON to activate the action. Pouch actions Select the pouch action and release the fire button to open the pouch. The pouch will show you how many BOMBS, MAPS and VORTEX actions you have available. Use the joystick left-right to select an action. Press fire to activate the action. Use joystick up-down to get out of the pouch menu and select something else. Vortex jump When you activate the VORTEX from the pouch you jump directly to the exit location. Unless you are at the exit location already, then you would jump to the middle of the maze. This is very useful to check what you need to collect to finish the level. Map reveal Selecting the MAP from the pouch will reveal the whole map. Every power pill, all chests and ghosts are revealed. Don't waste them, they become very useful in the larger levels. Place a Bomb Selecting the BOMB will switch back into the 3D maze view and a bomb will explode. The effect of the bomb will break a random number (1-4) of walls in the direction you are facing, so make sure that you select the correct direction before you place the bomb. Great for making shortcuts in the maze. The explosion will also affect any locked ghost, chests, exit. Try it and find out for yourself. Chest actions Walk up to a chest and hit the fire button. If the chest is locked you will first have to unlock it before you can open it. Hit the fire button to unlock, note you need enough energy, orbs, keys, etc to unlock the chest. Once unlocked you can take the three types of items inside. Vortex actions You can find vortex jumps in the maze. These will randomly place you at another location. Hit fire and select WARP to jump to a new location. Exit actions The level exit door is locked with two kinds of items. You need enough of each type to unlock the exit. Ghosts actions No maze game would be complete without ghosts. These are friendly but they do try to trick you when trading with them. Each ghost has specific trading options, and not all options are always to your advantage. The idea is that you use the ghosts to trade for items that you will need to open all the chests and unlock the exit door. You can use the TRADE action to interact with a ghost. Each type of ghost has special trade options that depend on what you have in your inventory. Once the TRADE action is activated, the GIVE/TAKE menu is shown. Joystick left/right cycles through the available trade options. Press FIRE to action a trade. Joystick UP/DOWN will exit the trade menu. ATTACKING a ghost is a quick and dirty technique to get hold of loot. It will cost you some of your inventory items to attack them, or try a bomb, but it will have consequences. Once attacked and looted the ghost will disappear and will not be available for trading. Switch actions The maze designers left behind some switches. Activating it will transform some of the maze. You may find that using them will make your travels much faster. Have fun and don't get lost retromaz.xex

Game idea Match the numbers, and colors, on the edges of the tiles by arranging the 9 tiles into the 3x3 grid. Once you have 12 matches the level is complete. Each level is unique never to be repeated. Interaction Use the joystick in port 1 to select your difficulty level. Up/Down selects the menu option; left/right changes the options. Press FIRE to play in the selected difficulty level. You can change the numbers on the tiles. 0 and 1 are the default (Easy). Try 0 to 9 for a little bit of a challenge. The color option switches between black or black and white tiles. The introduction of color makes the game a little easier until it gets more challenging quickly. Difficulty level adjusts the number of white sections, the higher the number the more white, the more difficult. Rotation is the kicker. If it is turned on the level generator will randomly rotate the tiles and you will have to rotate them to find the matches. The play field is divided into two areas. Left the 9 areas where you will place your tiles. Right the 9 tiles to be placed. Use the joystick to move the selection cursor onto a tile. Press FIRE to select the tile. It will show in the action box at the top. Move the cursor to the location you would like to place the tile and press fire to place it. If you want to rotate the numbers on the tile hold FIRE and press LEFT or RIGHT. Press the ESC key to give up on a level and return to the start screen. Enjoy the race against the clock Used technology Atasm RMT Atari FontMaker rmt2atasm CC65 The binaries and full source code can be found over on github: https://github.com/CycoPH/Atari8Bit-Numeru numeru.xex

There was a request that it would be good to show/use the inverse color COLPF3 in the character editor when editing inverse chars ( > $80). V1.6.9.0 (available on GitHub) now supports this. When using color PF2 and editing a character from the inverse part of the font then the editor will show the inverse color.

Numeru the Atari 8 bit version of Tetravex (or something similar) Select the difficulty, match up the sides and see how fat you can finish a level Numeru2023.mp4

Here is a short play of RetroMaze. It shows some of the monsters and actions. Have fun exploring the levels. RetroMaze2023.mp4

Not an actual maze. Just a different view of the normal slash maze

I saw a this YouTube video and thought about an assembler implementation. Took about 15 minutes with come cut and paste. Source can be found here: https://github.com/CycoPH/SlashMaze theapp.xex

For those who love numbers and matching things up.

Phaeron you are a star It turns out that the I did the RMT music player routine first and then only did the DLISTL/H update later during the VBI. With some instruments the processing was too much and the display list registers were written too late. As it turns out the jumping was in tune to the music

I've been working on a project and normally run everything in PAL mode. When switching into NTSC on Altirra I get a periodic non-deterministic flicker on the screen. It is as if the whole display jumps down one line. I've debugged this in Altirra and found that for some reason the first line of the display list is executed twice (the bold section in the display list history). Does anybody have an idea why this would happen? Here is my display list definition Altirra> .dlhistory Ycoord DLIP PFAD H V DMACTL MODE -------------------------------- 8: 24c4 ab90 0 0 22 70 16: 24c4 ab90 0 0 22 70 24: 24c5 ab90 0 0 22 70 32: 24c6 ab90 0 0 22 70 40: 24c7 25a1 0 0 22 44 48: 24ca 25c9 0 0 22 84 56: 24cb 25f1 0 0 22 04 64: 24cc a848 0 0 22 42 72: 24cf a870 0 0 22 02 80: 24d0 a898 0 0 22 02 88: 24d1 a8c0 0 0 22 02 96: 24d2 a8e8 0 0 22 02 104: 24d3 a910 0 0 22 02 112: 24d4 a938 0 0 22 02 120: 24d5 a960 0 0 22 02 128: 24d6 a988 0 0 22 02 136: 24d7 a9b0 0 0 22 02 144: 24d8 a9d8 0 0 22 02 152: 24d9 aa00 0 0 22 02 160: 24da aa28 0 0 22 02 168: 24db aa50 0 0 22 02 176: 24dc aa78 0 0 22 02 184: 24dd aaa0 0 0 22 02 192: 24de aac8 0 0 22 02 200: 24df aaf0 0 0 22 02 208: 24e0 ab18 0 0 22 02 216: 24e1 ab40 0 0 22 02 224: 24e2 ab68 0 0 22 02 232: 24e3 ab90 0 0 22 41 The asm source for the display list is: StartDisplayList: .byte $70,$70,$70 ; 24 blank lines .byte DL_LMS|DL_TEXT_4, <StartGui, >StartGui .byte DL_DLI|DL_TEXT_4 .byte DL_TEXT_4 ; GUI 3x mode 4 line + LMS + address ; Game screen section ; New memory address + DLI .byte DL_LMS|DL_TEXT_2 DemoScreenAddr: ; Write the game screen address into this location .byte <GameScreen0, >GameScreen0 ; 1x mode 2 line + LMS + address .byte DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2 ; 5 lines .byte DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2 ; 5 lines .byte DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2 ; 5 lines .byte DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2, DL_TEXT_2 ; 5 lines .byte $41,<StartDisplayList,>StartDisplayList ; JVB ends display list

Getting things ready for this year

I've published a new version of the FontMaker. Thank you MrFish for pointing out that you were having memory issues. Since you are using Windows 7 there might be other issues at play, but I did fix lots of Brush/Pen/Bitmap leaks. Newer versions of windows seem to handle these issues internally. I would appreciate a message once you've tested the this new version The NB change in this version is a Duplicate character detector. Check the box and the analysis window will show lines between duplicate characters. This is a slightly improved version of the existing duplicate indicator in that ALL duplicates in a font are marked. I hope it helps someone

Thank you for the note on the memory usage. I've never seen it that high and I've used one instance for over two weeks now. I went over the code a found quite a few placed where drawing object were not deleted correctly. The next release will fix those issues.

If you don't mind using a PC then you can try Atari Font Maker https://github.com/matosimi/atari-fontmaker

I like your suggestion about the invert button. Spent a couple of minutes and made it, hope you like it. As for the reported issues. Thank you. They should all be fixed now. I did add the GFX mode rotation you requested. If the copy area's width is 2x the height then the left and right rotation buttons can be used. V1.6.7.5 has been released to github and is attached here. AtariFontMakerV1.6.7.5.zip

V1.6.7.4 has been released. This includes multiple color sets. The "Project colors" are always taken from the loaded .atrview file (or are defaults). The other 5 sets are free to be defined for your usage. The values are all persisted to disk. Another useful new addition is the font usage analysis window: Click the [Analyse] button and you get a large view of all your characters usage. AtariFontMakerV1.6.7.4.zip

Here is a version that will allow you to have 6 color sets. The primary/project color set is ALWAYS loaded from an .atrview file. The other 5 sets are free for you to change. Once you exit the program the sets are saved to "FontMaker.json" in the folder where the FontMaker.exe is located. (If you don't have write permissions the data is lost) On the next load the color sets are restored. If you setup your system to open .fnt and .atrview files with FontMaker.exe then a simple double click will get you that font loaded. Oh, no need to click the color set drop down, just move the mouse over the box and use the mouse wheel to change the color set AtariFontMakerV1.6.7.3.zip

V1.6.7.2 - Added delete buttons to the font manipulation area. This will delete the current character and shift all characters from the left or right one spot over. - Fixed a long standing MegaCopy bug: When not ever having copied something in MegaCopy mode and pasting, from another Atari FontMaker instance, you could paste data past the end of the screen buffer. - When drawing in the view area you can now hold down the SHIFT key to invert the character you are drawing with.

Good idea with the delete functionality, I'll add it