iesposta Posted June 28, 2014 Share Posted June 28, 2014 Csonicgo asked if a 2600 Tempest could be done with the tools we have now. If we have enough ram and a 96+ x 192 bitmap, it could be quite nice. I have this quick mock-up for the "severe compromises" version. It is showing a blue Playfield segmented shape with different color green spikes, and a yellow player shooter. All the virtual sprites are left for the enemies. Tempestfault.bas.bin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Iacovelli Posted June 28, 2014 Share Posted June 28, 2014 I'll have try it. laserman 88 is simlar to tempest in a way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted June 28, 2014 Author Share Posted June 28, 2014 It does not play, the yellow shooter just wiggles. Just trying an idea I had for green spikes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 28, 2014 Share Posted June 28, 2014 A Tempest 7800 that utilizes the 2600 driving controller would be doable I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted June 28, 2014 Share Posted June 28, 2014 (edited) With some ARM, DPC, and Magic, I think a Tempest game that's even better than what you're thinking can be done. Edited June 28, 2014 by Keatah 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted June 28, 2014 Share Posted June 28, 2014 A Tempest 7800 that utilizes the 2600 driving controller would be doable I think. Tempest Xtreem has been recently programmed for A8, so it would be not a problem to do it on the more powerful 7800: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbpN4cMnQrw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted June 28, 2014 Author Share Posted June 28, 2014 Of course the 7800 could make a more faithful version, the wow factor for me is something fun and playable on the 2600 (more than that disappointing prototype) maybe with an unusual display technique like a bitmap display. I'm not done with the 2600 yet. We've barely done DPC-style music (Chetiry, Stay Frosty 2), and I'm dying to see how much more can be done using the bus stuffing technique (a lot more according to Spiceware's chart). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 28, 2014 Share Posted June 28, 2014 (edited) Sorry didn't mean to rain on anybody's parade. I love the 2600 but I recently invested in a 7800 system that I'm becoming obsessed with as of late. It will be awesome to see what the "bus stuffing" technique can really do. The main problem I see with porting Tempest to the 2600 is all the tiny lines which the TIA doesn't have enough balls, missles, and sprites to draw, and cannot be accurately reproduced with chunky playfield graphics. If the cartridge port could somehow use bus stuffing to write directly to the TIA registers updating it multiple times per scanline, we could get around the sprite limitation, but every write instruction to update the TIA costs valuable clock cycles. You can't just say change the background color on every "clock" to create a full motion video effect. Even if such effect were possible, it would cease to be a 2600 game and instead your just playing games on the ARM CPU using the Atari as a front end. Maybe the ARM could run a 7800 emulator, like some sort of hybrid Frankensteined expansion module. It would make for an awesome tech demo!!! Edited June 28, 2014 by stardust4ever 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Csonicgo Posted June 30, 2014 Share Posted June 30, 2014 A Tempest 7800 that utilizes the 2600 driving controller would be doable I think. This with a superzapper wired to the select button on play would be pretty rad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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