Is there any way to make the 'Border' a different color than the background

[PacManPlus]

Hi:

 

As many of you know, I'm working on the Space Duel for the 7800. I would really like to include the 'box' that is around the screen during the bonus rounds, but I can't really do it. I know Character mode is an option, but unfortunately I am out of space on additional graphics (it uses 16-high holey DMA, so I only have every other 4K available for graphics), and I really would like to keep this game at 32K. Also, the kernel assumes the sprite definitions are in one 4K block, and the text is in another. I don't want to 'break' anything by changing that.

 

So, I was trying to figure out how to get the border a different color than the background, which is black. It looks like I can have the border either black, or the same color as the background (black), so there isn't much of a choice here.

 

Or are there any coding tricks I can try and implement to get the border a different color?

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

Bob.

Edited September 7, 2007 by PacManPlus

[kenfused]

Hi:

 

As many of you know, I'm working on the Space Duel for the 7800. I would really like to include the 'box' that is around the screen during the bonus rounds, but I can't really do it. I know Character mode is an option, but unfortunately I am out of space on additional graphics (it uses 16-high holey DMA, so I only have every other 4K available for graphics), and I really would like to keep this game at 32K. Also, the kernel assumes the sprite definitions are in one 4K block, and the text is in another. I don't want to 'break' anything by changing that.

 

So, I was trying to figure out how to get the border a different color than the background, which is black. It looks like I can have the border either black, or the same color as the background (black), so there isn't much of a choice here.

 

Or are there any coding tricks I can try and implement to get the border a different color?

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

Bob.

Not that I know of. If you have a free color register (or can have a color on your screen be the same color you want the border to be), you could set the background to the desired border color, set the bit for the border to be the background color, then actually fill the background with a different color.

 

--Ken

[supercat]

Not that I know of. If you have a free color register (or can have a color on your screen be the same color you want the border to be), you could set the background to the desired border color, set the bit for the border to be the background color, then actually fill the background with a different color.

 

Unfortunately, filling the background with a different color will use a lot of DMA cycles. It would have been nice if MARIA featured a 'fill' command, but alas it does not.

[Robert M]

How about using a really dark shade of blue or grey for the background color? Space doesn't need to be black. Space War for the 2600 makes the background dark green.