My First 7800 Project

[vdub_bobby]

Been trying to get up to speed with 7800 development for a few weeks now; here's my first project. Not sure how far I'm going to go with this; I'm working on this mostly to get my feet wet. But who knows?

 

 

S1K20080409.zip

 

Switch songs with SELECT.

[ScottHuggins]

Very, very neat so far, Bob! Love the speed and the fluid movement of everything. This comes from someone that does not care much for the games on the 7800. I actually like the music a lot too. I hope you continue this!

 

What do you think of the complexity (or lack thereof) of coding for that machine vs the 2600?

[cosmosiss]

Noooooooooo!! Come back!

 

[vdub_bobby]

What do you think of the complexity (or lack thereof) of coding for that machine vs the 2600?

Well...hmm.

 

Overall, I'd say the details are much more straightforward. You don't have to mess with a lot of weird TIA registers, you don't have to mess with the timing in the kernel.

But the big picture seems more complicated, at least to me - you have to worry about DLIs and interrupts. None of that stuff in the 2600!

 

But the graphics are much more complicated, at least the 320 modes. The 160 modes are very straightforward.

[vdub_bobby]

Noooooooooo!! Come back!

 

 

I'm not abandoning the 2600, if that's what you mean.

 

And besides, I released 2 games last year, that should hold you for at least another year.

[gambler172]

Hi Bob

Nice;the 7800 community welcomes you.Do you have a bin file,so that i could try on my Cuttle cart2 ?

greetings Walter

[vdub_bobby]

Hi Bob

Nice;the 7800 community welcomes you.Do you have a bin file,so that i could try on my Cuttle cart2 ?

greetings Walter

How do I make one? I can compile without the header easily enough, but then I can't add the signature. Or...?

[+Allan]

Cool. I tried it on the CC2 and it plays a bit but crashes. The music plays good though.

 

Allan

S1K.bin.zip

[+Mitch]

Hi Bob

Nice;the 7800 community welcomes you.Do you have a bin file,so that i could try on my Cuttle cart2 ?

greetings Walter

How do I make one? I can compile without the header easily enough, but then I can't add the signature. Or...?

 

You just have to delete the header after you sign it. It looks like Allan already took care of it though.

 

Mitch

[gambler172]

Hi Guys

Thanks and what entries do i need for my CC2?

greetings Walter

[+Allan]

Hi Guys

Thanks and what entries do i need for my CC2?

greetings Walter

S1K -7800 S1K 7800_16K 78QUICK

 

I shortened the file name to S1K but the last two entries should be the same for any name you give it.

 

Allan

[vdub_bobby]

Cool. I tried it on the CC2 and it plays a bit but crashes. The music plays good though.

 

Allan

How did it crash? And do the sprites look like the picture I posted? I'm not sure I have a good handle on the 320 gfx modes.

 

Thanks.

 

The music should play fine, I'm glad for the confirmation - I just pasted the data and code almost straight across from a couple of my 2600 demo binaries.

 

EDIT: Right now there is no boundary checking and I have seen weird graphics glitches if you move the player ship off the bottom of the screen.

Edited April 10, 2008 by vdub_bobby

[+Allan]

Cool. I tried it on the CC2 and it plays a bit but crashes. The music plays good though.

 

Allan

How did it crash? And do the sprites look like the picture I posted? I'm not sure I have a good handle on the 320 gfx modes.

 

Thanks.

 

The music should play fine, I'm glad for the confirmation - I just pasted the data and code almost straight across from a couple of my 2600 demo binaries.

 

EDIT: Right now there is no boundary checking and I have seen weird graphics glitches if you move the player ship off the bottom of the screen.

 

When you start it the enemies move to the top of the screen and stop. You can move back and forth below the bottom of the screen and fire. You never see your ship but you see the laserbeams. If you keep firing you eventually crash the program. And yes the sprites look like the picture you posted.

 

Allan

[vdub_bobby]

When you start it the enemies move to the top of the screen and stop. You can move back and forth below the bottom of the screen and fire. You never see your ship but you see the laserbeams. If you keep firing you eventually crash the program. And yes the sprites look like the picture you posted.

 

Allan

Sounds awesome.

 

Have to figure that out...

Edited April 10, 2008 by vdub_bobby

[vdub_bobby]

Ok, new binary that maybe fixes the crashing problem:

S1K20080410.zip

[+Allan]

Ok, new binary that maybe fixes the crashing problem:

Nope. It does the same thing.

 

Allan

[vdub_bobby]

Ah, the joys of inaccurate emulation.

 

I'll keep banging on it. Thanks for testing.

Edited April 10, 2008 by vdub_bobby

[vdub_bobby]

Okay, let's go step by step here:

 

I've taken out all movement/music/collision/input routines, changed the initial random positioning to static positioning - all this should do is display 10 aliens, 10 bullets, and the player's ship on a black background.

 

Yes?

S1K20080410.zip

[LS_Dracon]

That's nice!

Good luck with your new project.

[+Mitch]

Okay, let's go step by step here:

 

I've taken out all movement/music/collision/input routines, changed the initial random positioning to static positioning - all this should do is display 10 aliens, 10 bullets, and the player's ship on a black background.

 

Yes?

 

Looks good on a real 7800.

One thing I noticed though is that the ship is slightly farther over to the right than in your screenshot.

 

Mitch

[gambler172]

Hi Bob

Great work.Could someone post the actual bin???

greetings Walter

[vdub_bobby]

That demo isn't really worth worrying about, I'll have something more in the next couple of days and I'll try to figure out how to strip off the header.

[gambler172]

Hi Bob

Nice to hear.Maybe you could add some score.....This might become a really nice shooter.

greetings Walter

[vdub_bobby]

Okay, completely revamped the DLL setup code, added joystick code back in and added boundary checking.

 

Also stripped off the header - hopefully correctly (I used Textpad )

 

Is now NTSC only, though I doubt it would have worked on a PAL system before anyway.

 

Otherwise the same: 10 static enemies, 10 static bullets, all starting positions hard-coded.

S1K20080411.zip

 

ROMs w/ and w/o headers in the zip.

 

Can some kind CC2-owner check for oddities?

Edited April 11, 2008 by vdub_bobby

[+Allan]

Okay, completely revamped the DLL setup code, added joystick code back in and added boundary checking.

 

Also stripped off the header - hopefully correctly (I used Textpad )

 

Is now NTSC only, though I doubt it would have worked on a PAL system before anyway.

 

Otherwise the same: 10 static enemies, 10 static bullets, all starting positions hard-coded.

S1K20080411.zip

 

ROMs w/ and w/o headers in the zip.

 

Can some kind CC2-owner check for oddities?

Yes, it works. The ship goes off the left or right and back to the other side. It goes up off the screen with a tiny bit showing and goes down completly off the screen.

 

Allan