How did Freeway draw 2p scores?

[quohog]

How do you think Freeway drew it's 2p score on the same row?

 

I've got the classic 6-digit scoreboard up and running but I wanted to add a second player and have their scores be next to each other. But TWO 6-digit displays sound impossible. I've seen @SpiceWare's post on his 12-digit Space Rocks scoreboard, which is incredible, but I'm assuming it's more advanced than what I need (or more advanced than I can handle yet :D). I was just looking at freeway, which looks like it somehow splitting a 6-digit scoreboard in half. Am I seeing that right? Here is a screenshot in Stella with debug colors. How is P1 on the left drawing that nine, but then zips over on the same row to draw that one? It seems to far away to be a nusiz1 trick. Can you reposition players mid-scanline somehow?

 

I'm just a confused chicken, trying to cross the road to a better score. Thanks for any ideas.

 

[+FujiSkunk]

Freeway's scores are created using the same tricks used to create the usual 6-digit score, only in this case the players are drawn with widely-spaced duplicates rather than narrowly-spaced triplicates.

[quohog]

Ohhhhhh wow. So it's just more streched out, and they're just blanking out the middle, "ghost" digit or something just a double copy?

 

So that would probably only work for two digit scores then.

 

Hm. Interesting. Thanks!!

[+SpiceWare]

1 hour ago, quohog said:

How do you think Freeway drew it's 2p score on the same row?

 

Use Stella's debugger to figure it out. Start up Freeway and get a 10+ score for each player, then:

• hit ` to enter the debugger
• right-click the middle of the score in the TIA Display
• select Fill to scanline from the popup menu

 

 

Then switch over to the TIA tab where you'll see both players are set to 2 copies wide

 

 

It's the same way I did show four 1 digit scores in Medieval Mayhem, I just moved player 1 away from player 0.

 

 

1 hour ago, quohog said:

I've seen @SpiceWare's post on his 12-digit Space Rocks scoreboard, which is incredible, but I'm assuming it's more advanced than what I need (or more advanced than I can handle yet :D).

 

@Omegamatrix came up with that 14 digit display in his topic 7 Digit Full Sized Score Display.  I implemented it using DPC+.  A few years later he followed up with a Twelve Digit Display that can be dropped into other programs - @Just Jeff used it in his Battle Pong.  Omegamatrix was working on getting a 14 digit version that could be dropped in, but it doesn't look like he released it yet.

 

 

 

 

[+SpiceWare]

Forgot to mention you can click the Step button to single-step the program. You'll see Freeway uses this loop to draw the score:

 

 

All it does is LDA and STA the graphic data, no use of the RESPn Trick to reposition the players mid-scanline - that link is found on MiniDig's Tricks page.

[quohog]

Thanks again @SpiceWare! All that info is great, but holy cow MINI DIGS TRICKS PAGE WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE??? This like finding the Rosetta stone. I'm digging in!