Showing/Playing Things while Loading

[José Pereira]

The first Game at this video is C64 HyperSports.

 

Will this be possible in A8, moving that 2Man (using just PMs. on them), PMs. on the Letters (no DLIs, so that we can have the Picture while Loading) and also have the Music playing?

 

 

Only on Cassette (if possible) or also on a Disk version?

 

 

Thanks.

José Pereira.

[Rybags]

Possible, of course. Just look to Alternate Reality, Seven Cities of Gold (loads during gameplay) and animations + sound during load for games like Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus.

[sack-c0s]

how much control do you have over the tape loading routines on the Atari?

 

I know on the c64 you can fire an interrupt on edges, so the machine is only tied up whilst streaming in an individual bit and can be 'free running' the rest of the time, on the zx spectrum you can fudge things a bit by cleverly interleaving things with the tape loading code (like in the 'ahh the tape loading era' demo) but I thought on the A8 you were pretty much constrained to the ROM loader?

[Rybags]

Disk and tape load is generally byte oriented and "semi automated" since Pokey shifts in the bits and IRQs the system.

 

Really, for tape loads you could get away with a lot, although the header bytes used for speed measurement in each block require precision measurement which ties the CPU up a reasonable amount. But in theory you could just use massive blocks to minimise any slowdowns.

 

Then again, nobody cares for tapes other than those wanting to relive the torture of the past, so it's unlikely any software would be released for that media in the future.

 

Disk is a different matter. These days with turbo-loading, the amount you can get away with is somewhat reduced.

Most people would prefer a fast loading game that will load quickly with their custom hardware setups, rather than a constrained load at default speed with some pretty animation.

 

But look at the Yoomp! loader - fairly sure it works with turbo-loaders, although it's only a simple bouncing animation.

[José Pereira]

Disk and tape load is generally byte oriented and "semi automated" since Pokey shifts in the bits and IRQs the system.

 

Really, for tape loads you could get away with a lot, although the header bytes used for speed measurement in each block require precision measurement which ties the CPU up a reasonable amount. But in theory you could just use massive blocks to minimise any slowdowns.

 

Then again, nobody cares for tapes other than those wanting to relive the torture of the past, so it's unlikely any software would be released for that media in the future.

 

Disk is a different matter. These days with turbo-loading, the amount you can get away with is somewhat reduced.

Most people would prefer a fast loading game that will load quickly with their custom hardware setups, rather than a constrained load at default speed with some pretty animation.

 

But look at the Yoomp! loader - fairly sure it works with turbo-loaders, although it's only a simple bouncing animation.

 

 

Yeah, was just thinking on today. If it will be any worth have something like this...

 

Is there any way of a Coder do a kind of a Master Loading for K7&Diskette?

Something that other coders can just add their Game into it...

 

I was seeing the C64 K7 version of the Uwol game released this Year.

It uses a simple Scrolling Hi-Resol. message like A8 Arkanoid, but with Music.

And thinked: "why they still do a K7 version?"

 

Then I was talking with the Guy that is working on the Loading/Title Screens into A8 about the thought thing of taking a decision about A8 turns: Having a good IMHO with lots of colours but the Image shows then disappear or having just a Bitmap 4colours and just 4PMs. to enhance colours (no DLIss.) and it shows the Image during Game Loading.

 

When I saw this today I start thinking if something with Music/movement would not get higher standards, even today... perhaps have something a little bit C64, but to prove that A8 can also do this.

Only sixze of the Market and interests didn't done this on Back Days.

 

O.k., it probably not be in UWOL, probably someone good at coding could think in some kind of a Master for him or for any others interested.

 

José Pereira.

[emkay]

Look for Hard-Software demo "Joyride" . They use to do "full" demos during Disk I/O.

 

The restriction is to have two 8 bit or one 16 Bit pokey channel available for playing sounds.... and, well, GTIA channel is available for playing digi sounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PeteD]

I've written an interrupt driven disk loader. Like emkay says because the baud rate is controlled by the POKEY you're only left with 2 channels (and the ability to play, even stream samples if you wish). Whatever CPU time is left is available to do whatever you want with, you can have DLIs as long as they don't take too much CPU (it can interfere with catching the incoming byte from the drive).

 

It's not 100% ready for "mastering" other peoples stuff but I've done a commandline app that will build a disk image in my format from files you give it. You can choose to have the loader "install" itself into RAM somewhere for later use (so you can reserve a bit of memory for it and not have to include it in all your files, good for multi part demos etc).

 

 

Pete

[José Pereira]

Look for Hard-Software demo "Joyride" . They use to do "full" demos during Disk I/O.

 

The restriction is to have two 8 bit or one 16 Bit pokey channel available for playing sounds.... and, well, GTIA channel is available for playing digi sounds.

 

That GTIA stuff was already talked here many Months ago...

CROWNLAND, for example, look fantastic, but no Loading Screen, Intro(s), more Musics, Enemys,...

SUPER MARIO and CONTRA look so good and could be fantastic, even have a smart way of Multiplexing Sprites, but the author(s) just want to show that it is possible, but not end the Projects (and probably no one(s) nget in touch with them to use this Multiplexing for their Projects.

RIPPER even with flickering could be a real cool Game, stay/rest in peace, just as an YouTube video.

FLIMBO's Parallax will it be something like these ones, or Alexander will ever do somethingt?

And I can continue on and on.

For promises and un-released Games we will go back to the 20th Century, now we are ate 21th century and with Internet and all sharing thoughts/things/colaboration why there aren't more really good and smart/new things on A8?

Or continue with just another one more simply Platformer?

This may seems a critic, and in some way it is, we talk so many things possible, but then no one gets them really working.

That's always a sad true on A8 and A8 coders.

I know this is just for fun and on a free-time basis, but also C64 and other Machine Guys...

 

Anyone can say why I don't learn code, but even if I started to learn when will I learn difficult/tricky things?

I am good at trying to get possible running/looking Games for A8, others coding, others Music, and others just beeing part of the Community (and that's also for them that the Games/Progrrams exist).

 

 

Greetings.

José Pereira.

[Rybags]

C64 has the advantage with disk in that a custom loader can just have the drive send bytes down the line as the computer dictates. So you could have a massive burst of data during offscreen and slow to a crawl or just stop during the visible part of the frame.

 

I don't have a Happy drive but in theory maybe it could do something similar... but then again it'd be a case of doing so to prove you can - the user-base that have them makes it not worth doing such a system.

 

The other thing "against" doing stuff during loads is the deficiencies built into the OS SIO to begin with.

The 400/800 OS by default would disable DLIs during loading.

And regardless of OS, the default IRQ handlers are somewhat generic and not efficient. The philosophy of the time was that during loading the computer wouldn't do anything else other than the bare essential housekeeping, so they didn't really worry about making the routines sparing on their CPU use.

[Rybags]

Another thing - you have to weight cost vs benefit.

 

For cassette, it's kinda pointless having e.g. a 4K intro + loadscreen with animation/whatever because it's just going to add about 90 seconds to the load time.

 

With disk, an 8K intro etc etc. adds 8 seconds loadtime assuming non-turbo. If you're dealing with program that's only 30K long and takes only 30 seconds to load, then what's the point anyway?

[José Pereira]

I don't have a Machine working anymore, but as I remember from the "old days" I only have Lone Rider from AtariSoft running with Music.

 

I don't remember what I listen oon T.V., but I remember that in a Deck I get Loading beeps on a speaker and Music&Fxs. on the other.

What type Lone Rider uses to get this?

It isn't Program doing Sounds as it is saved on the K7 (it's A8 Music but recorded on another track)...

 

And this make me think, is it simple to turn off Loading beeps of Disk/K7?

Of course you will not want to ear them.

 

Thanks.

José Pereira.

[Rybags]

What is K7 in relation to Atari? K7 is what AMD called the Athlon CPUs.

 

Cassettes have audio track too, so don't forget that.

 

Yes you can turn off the I/O noise (mostly). With tapes that use audio backing track while loading you have to do so.

[spookt]

I don't have a Machine working anymore, but as I remember from the "old days" I only have Lone Rider from AtariSoft running with Music.

 

I don't remember what I listen oon T.V., but I remember that in a Deck I get Loading beeps on a speaker and Music&Fxs. on the other.

What type Lone Rider uses to get this?

It isn't Program doing Sounds as it is saved on the K7 (it's A8 Music but recorded on another track)...

 

And this make me think, is it simple to turn off Loading beeps of Disk/K7?

Of course you will not want to ear them.

 

Thanks.

José Pereira.

 

 

IIRC Lone Raider was one of the Atari Inc tapes which used the dual track capability of the Atari program recorders. The head in the recorders is stereo and you can have data on one track (Left?) and audio on the other which is passed through to the TV. Some other Atari released did this too, Kingdom springs to mind.

[sack-c0s]

What is K7 in relation to Atari? K7 is what AMD called the Athlon CPUs.

 

 

I wondered about that - but then read it again thinking in Spanish (so it might be the same in portugese too) and came to the conclusion it's probably 'casette' in txtspk

[Heaven/TQA]

I've written an interrupt driven disk loader. Like emkay says because the baud rate is controlled by the POKEY you're only left with 2 channels (and the ability to play, even stream samples if you wish). Whatever CPU time is left is available to do whatever you want with, you can have DLIs as long as they don't take too much CPU (it can interfere with catching the incoming byte from the drive).

 

It's not 100% ready for "mastering" other peoples stuff but I've done a commandline app that will build a disk image in my format from files you give it. You can choose to have the loader "install" itself into RAM somewhere for later use (so you can reserve a bit of memory for it and not have to include it in all your files, good for multi part demos etc).

 

 

Pete

 

Interesting... Is there a chance to get a "beta"?

[Heaven/TQA]

Another thing - you have to weight cost vs benefit.

 

For cassette, it's kinda pointless having e.g. a 4K intro + loadscreen with animation/whatever because it's just going to add about 90 seconds to the load time.

 

With disk, an 8K intro etc etc. adds 8 seconds loadtime assuming non-turbo. If you're dealing with program that's only 30K long and takes only 30 seconds to load, then what's the point anyway?

 

simply "to do it"... like Nike... Just do it!

[Heaven/TQA]

I don't have a Machine working anymore, but as I remember from the "old days" I only have Lone Rider from AtariSoft running with Music.

 

I don't remember what I listen oon T.V., but I remember that in a Deck I get Loading beeps on a speaker and Music&Fxs. on the other.

What type Lone Rider uses to get this?

It isn't Program doing Sounds as it is saved on the K7 (it's A8 Music but recorded on another track)...

 

And this make me think, is it simple to turn off Loading beeps of Disk/K7?

Of course you will not want to ear them.

 

Thanks.

José Pereira.

 

 

IIRC Lone Raider was one of the Atari Inc tapes which used the dual track capability of the Atari program recorders. The head in the recorders is stereo and you can have data on one track (Left?) and audio on the other which is passed through to the TV. Some other Atari released did this too, Kingdom springs to mind.

 

Dimension X & Blue Max

[José Pereira]

What is K7 in relation to Atari? K7 is what AMD called the Athlon CPUs.

 

 

I wondered about that - but then read it again thinking in Spanish (so it might be the same in portugese too) and came to the conclusion it's probably 'casette' in txtspk

 

 

 

Yeah, in portuguese "7" is sete.

 

Something like you "7Up" say Seven-Up, we say sete-up (Running: on your marks,set(-up), go!...)

 

 

José Pereira.

[José Pereira]

I don't have a Machine working anymore, but as I remember from the "old days" I only have Lone Rider from AtariSoft running with Music.

 

I don't remember what I listen oon T.V., but I remember that in a Deck I get Loading beeps on a speaker and Music&Fxs. on the other.

What type Lone Rider uses to get this?

It isn't Program doing Sounds as it is saved on the K7 (it's A8 Music but recorded on another track)...

 

And this make me think, is it simple to turn off Loading beeps of Disk/K7?

Of course you will not want to ear them.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

Now about

José Pereira.

 

 

IIRC Lone Raider was one of the Atari Inc tapes which used the dual track capability of the Atari program recorders. The head in the recorders is stereo and you can have data on one track (Left?) and audio on the other which is passed through to the TV. Some other Atari released did this too, Kingdom springs to mind.

 

Interesting, never know about Atari were in stereo, but all models?

I had the crazy idea of Loading Musics in the Atari Deck, my 600XL gaves "Error", Motor continues and I could listen it into the T.V. speaker.

If I only listen one track at the T.V. (the Sound/Music fxs. one), was it possible, back on those Days, to ear the other Track in another T.V./real Stereo speakers system.

Some electronic needed, but if possible, somehow, than I could had my Atari as Stereo Playing Machine (sound crazy, but... )

And on C64 or Spectrum what will happen if have a cassette saved on the same way as lone Rider? What would you ear on the T.V./or Deck speaker?

 

 

 

Now about more serious things.

I am on the Streets using some Public free, but only acess Places, and cannot run an Emulator. What will I get if I Load, for example, Lone Rider into Atari800WinPlus Emulator?

 

Have Emulators possibility to get this Musics during Cassette Loading ("K7" )?

1.-Lone Rider type?

2.-Same as normal C64 loadings?

 

 

 

 

Thanks.

Greetings.

José Pereira.

[emkay]

For promises and un-released Games we will go back to the 20th Century, now we are ate 21th century and with Internet and all sharing thoughts/things/colaboration why there aren't more really good and smart/new things on A8?José Pereira.

 

 

One cause is the limited count of people who take care of it.

[Heaven/TQA]

do we have more than 20 people doing software projects?

 

- TMR

- Pete

- Rybags

- Tezz

- Raster

- XXL

- Me

- Sheddy

- Jac!

- Tebe

- ...

 

not to mention guys who doing Music (Miker and MK and Sal...)

 

and gfx? PG? OOz.... Jose?

 

now add maybe 5 on top of that... not many to call that "scene"?

 

it seems we have more hardware-guys than software...

[Rybags]

The cassette recorder is "stereo" in that it reads 2 tracks.

 

The audio mixed in the computer isn't.

 

AFAIK, no emulator yet supports playing "audio" as if it was part of a cassette. No great demand for it really, about all you'd want it for is the old language learning systems and the odd bit of other educational software that used it.

[José Pereira]

The Guy that is Coding my UWOL A8 Gfxs. into a real playing Game

(I don't know if I can say his Name).

 

Probably more like him that working in the "Secret Caves of A8"

 

 

José Pereira.

[PeteD]

I've written an interrupt driven disk loader. Like emkay says because the baud rate is controlled by the POKEY you're only left with 2 channels (and the ability to play, even stream samples if you wish). Whatever CPU time is left is available to do whatever you want with, you can have DLIs as long as they don't take too much CPU (it can interfere with catching the incoming byte from the drive).

 

It's not 100% ready for "mastering" other peoples stuff but I've done a commandline app that will build a disk image in my format from files you give it. You can choose to have the loader "install" itself into RAM somewhere for later use (so you can reserve a bit of memory for it and not have to include it in all your files, good for multi part demos etc).

 

 

Pete

 

Interesting... Is there a chance to get a "beta"?

 

Yeah, let me get finished with my current 2 C64 projects that HAVE to be finished soon, then I'm switching back to finish the A8 ones and I can get something to you

 

 

Pete

[Tezz]

do we have more than 20 people doing software projects?

 

- TMR

- Pete

- Rybags

- Tezz

- Raster

- XXL

- Me

- Sheddy

- Jac!

- Tebe

- ...

 

not to mention guys who doing Music (Miker and MK and Sal...)

 

and gfx? PG? OOz.... Jose?

 

now add maybe 5 on top of that... not many to call that "scene"?

 

it seems we have more hardware-guys than software...

not forgetting also:

Vega

Jon (Flashjazcat)

Pr0be

MaPa

Fandal

 

although not currently active... maybe F0x and Eru will do another project one day.

 

I wonder what the ratio is of users involved with hardware and software?

Edited October 18, 2010 by Tezz