RevEng Posted February 2, 2013 Share Posted February 2, 2013 I've been meaning to post an example of this for a while. It shows how to use your own custom assembly display kernel in bB. Care has been taken to use the bB overscan and vblank timings, so you should be able to flip back and forth between your custom kernel and a stock kernel without any screen roll. The program displays the custom rainbow kernel until the player holds down the joystick button, at which point the standard bB kernel is displayed. Enjoy! rainbowbasic.bas rainbowkernel.asm rainbowbasic.bas.bin 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bogax Posted February 2, 2013 Share Posted February 2, 2013 I've been meaning to post an example of this for a while. It shows how to use your own custom assembly display kernel in bB. Now make it roll the other way (horizontaly) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted February 2, 2013 Author Share Posted February 2, 2013 Now make it roll the other way (horizontaly) I leave that as an exercise for the reader! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybearg Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Maybe it's just me, but this won't compile in bB. I get errors, such as a syntax error on line 35, column 37, three warnings including one for "the," (line 52, column 74) "rainbowdrawscreen," (line 27, column 7) and "asm" (line 38, column 1) and it gets an error while compiling. I have version 1.0 (build 566) of bBasic and am using the most recent version of dasm.exe that I could find, which is from 4/10/2008 or so. Also, making it go horizontally is an "exercise" in the same way that winning the Olympics is a "warm-up." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Now make it roll the other way (horizontaly) This is just a rough first attempt. The timing's a bit off (the colors on the first visible line are lined up differently than on the rest of the lines), but other than that it works. Interesting effect is that there appear to be 15 or 16 shades of each color due to the way the colors overlap from one frame to the next. rainbowkernel2.asm rainbowbasic2.bas rainbowbasic2.bas.bin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bogax Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 only problem I had was line 25 of the .bas file doesn't like the condition expression changed it to temp1 = frame & 3 if temp1 = 0 then colorindex = colorindex+1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybearg Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 temp1 = frame & 3 if temp1 = 0 then colorindex = colorindex+1 Oh, yeah. That fixed it for me, too. Thanks! Also, holy crap, SeaGt! That's awesome! I've been having some issues with . It's all working pretty well except that I seriously need a way to have multiple colors in the same row on-screen at once. Do you think this would work for that? I don't know Assembly at all, so if so, how could/would it be implemented? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Oh, yeah. That fixed it for me, too. Thanks! Also, holy crap, SeaGt! That's awesome! I've been having some issues with . It's all working pretty well except that I seriously need a way to have multiple colors in the same row on-screen at once. Do you think this would work for that? I don't know Assembly at all, so if so, how could/would it be implemented? I doubt the changes I made to RevEng's kernel would be of much use to you-- these sorts of kernels are really just demos rather than useful general-purpose kernels, because they're too specific in what they do. But the same concept (changing one or more color registers mid-line) would be useful. I haven't read the thread about your game idea yet. After I do, I'll see if I can suggest anything that might be useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted February 3, 2013 Author Share Posted February 3, 2013 only problem I had was line 25 of the .bas file doesn't like the condition expression changed it to temp1 = frame & 3 if temp1 = 0 then colorindex = colorindex+1 I updated the attachment in the first post to include this change. I usually try to write for the lowest common denominator, but I guess I've gotten too used to complex math statements in later releases of bB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybearg Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 I usually try to write for the lowest common denominator Oh, ouch. Anyway, I thought that Visual bB was just an IDE that one could update bB as required for, but apparently they're tied together in ways that they can't be separated? Maybe I should invest in bB. I mean, what does Visual bB offer above just bB? The ability to work within an environment that organizes files for you? One could just have Visual bB running for the nice visual interfaces for setting up playfields, sprites, etc., then copy it on over to normal bB, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted February 3, 2013 Author Share Posted February 3, 2013 Oh, ouch. It wasn't meant as an insult. I meant lowest common denominator in the sense that the official website bB release is very old and doesn't have a bunch of features that showed up in later versions. batari has provided a bunch of updates, but hasn't yet rolled-up a new official version on the website. Anyway, I thought that Visual bB was just an IDE that one could update bB as required for, but apparently they're tied together in ways that they can't be separated? That's correct as I understand it, and they're mostly version independent. vbb wasn't responsible for the syntax error you ran into, the early website release of bB was. (along with my use of the updated syntax) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Oh, ouch. Anyway, I thought that Visual bB was just an IDE that one could update bB as required for, but apparently they're tied together in ways that they can't be separated? Maybe I should invest in bB. I mean, what does Visual bB offer above just bB? The ability to work within an environment that organizes files for you? One could just have Visual bB running for the nice visual interfaces for setting up playfields, sprites, etc., then copy it on over to normal bB, right? Yes, Visual bB is just an IDE, although Visual bB is specifically for use with bB and has a lot of nice built-in tools to help with designing bB games. As the bB language gets updated, Visual bB often has to be updated accordingly. I don't use Visual bB myself, because I've been using Crimson Editor for several years as my free IDE of choice for batari Basic, 6502 assembly, Free BASIC, etc. I keep telling myself that one of these days I'm going to switch to Visual bB, but today keeps becoming yesterday, and I still haven't made the switch yet-- too lazy, I guess! You should be able to use any decent IDE for your bB programming, as long as you set up a user-defined tool for calling the bB compiler batch to compile your program, and another tool for calling Stella or other emulator to run your program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwierer Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Anyway, I thought that Visual bB was just an IDE that one could update bB as required for, but apparently they're tied together in ways that they can't be separated? Is is just the IDE, it calls bB underneath the covers for compilation, so any compilation problems you see in vbB you would also see using bB by itself. Features will turn on and off based on the version of the compiler. What it can't protect is a user trying to compile newer code with an older compiler which is what happened to you. Hopefully there will be an official upgrade to bB in the near future which should eliminate all the version and patching confusion. -Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybearg Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 So, if the version of bB on the website is outdated, where can I find a link to the absolute latest and greatest version of bB? And what are the changes--added raw functionality or mostly improved compiling logic? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 I think Random Terrain's bB reference page *may* have a link to the newest versions of the compiler and include files, under the "Getting Started" section-- but I haven't checked the zip file it links to yet to see if it contains the latest versions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 I think Random Terrain's bB reference page *may* have a link to the newest versions of the compiler and include files, under the "Getting Started" section-- but I haven't checked the zip file it links to yet to see if it contains the latest versions. Here's a direct link to that section: www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#gettingstarted I just edited that section a little and added an image, so you'll probably need to refresh the page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybearg Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 I don't see why my version didn't work, then. Somewhere (not on that page that was linked), I found a bB 1.01 which was build 566 or something, while the VisualbB post only mentions a 1.0 up to build 554. What's up with that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 As it says in step 2 below, you can download the latest beta version of Visual batari Basic (the batari Basic IDE) in jwierer's blog: www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-vbb.html#install_vbb That's usually a later build than what is in the official thread. Later versions of batari Basic that include the magical DCP+ stuff are buggy and various things are broken. If you try to compile a non-DCP+ program with it, some things may no longer work properly. If you're not going to use the DCP+ stuff, it's best to use the older version of batari Basic found in the bBWin7_64bit.zip file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybearg Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 Ahh, right. I guess that those links I saw in red didn't register as being relevant, for whatever reason. I'll have to stick with the old since the new one gets some kind of complexity error when compiling. Ah, well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 Ahh, right. I guess that those links I saw in red didn't register as being relevant, for whatever reason. Yeah, links that jump to other places on the bB page are blue. Links that lead to other pages online are red. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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