Could ‘Hobgoblin’ for the Atari 8-bit family be ported to the 5200?

[Giles N]

Anyone here with the technical insight to know if ‘Hobgoblin’ for the Atari 8 bit family could be ported or put on 5200 cartridges without all too much fuzz?

 

 

 

http://www.atarimania.com/pgedump.awp?id=21453

 

- - -

 

This would be really cool to play on the 5200! ?

 

But I don’t have the technical knowledge to know if its possible to port it.

If its a question of RAM; perhaps the huge ‘hobgoblin’ fonts could be removed entirely, and black background added in stead?

(I mean to remember huge pictures takes lots of memory).

 

Anyway; it’s labeled abandonware.

 

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Giles N

[Giles N]

Another way to reduce RAM use, would be to strip the game of the intro-music.

 

So, it could be interesting to know if ‘Hobgoblin’ stripped of the massive fonts and music could be fitted into the 5200 16K RAM.

[Giles N]

@Wrathchild

Do you know if Hobgoblin could be ported to the 5200, or ‘stripped of some elements’ to have it work with 16K RAM?

[Wrathchild]

Most of what you mention, font & music data is read only so would reside in rom and not take up ram.

 

Maybe @xxl can give a better idea of ram use?

[Giles N]

@xxl

Do you know if ‘Hobgoblin’ can be ported to the 5200 (particulary as the 5200 only uses 16K RAM)?

[Giles N]

Would really like to see Hobgoblin on the 5200 if possible...

[BIGHMW]

4 hours ago, Giles N said:

Would really like to see Hobgoblin on the 5200 if possible...

 

Well I guess I'm FINALLY not the only one who thinks there should be more 5200 ports.  Here is the 8-bit file so you can lobby to get this great game (in which I also would love to see on Big Sexy as I do have it for the 8-bit XEGS I also own) to be put out, there are a TON of great 8-bit games that somehow should be ported to her.

Hobgoblin.xex

[newtmonkey]

It's not so much that you are the only two guys in the world that think it would be great for Atari 8-bit games to be ported to the 5200, it's that very few people are willing to do hours upon hours of specialized work on a project just because a guy asked for it on AtariAge.  Simply posting "why not port a game?" doesn't help anything.

 

Instead of asking someone to do all the work in porting whatever game catches your fancy this week, why not do some legwork first?  Gather relevant information and set up a project somewhere.  Or you could even start learning to program yourself—a perfect "stay at home" activity if ever there was one.

 

Who knows?  Spend the next few months learning to program, and maybe a year from now you will be the one being asked to port whatever game strikes some guy's fancy!

Edited March 19, 2021 by newtmonkey

[BIGHMW]

17 minutes ago, newtmonkey said:

It's not so much that you are the only two guys in the world that think it would be great for Atari 8-bit games to be ported to the 5200, it's that very few people are willing to do hours upon hours of specialized work on a project just because a guy asked for it on AtariAge.  Simply posting "why not port a game?" doesn't help anything.

 

Instead of asking someone to do all the work in porting whatever game catches your fancy this week, why not do some legwork first?  Gather relevant information and set up a project somewhere.  Or you could even start learning to program yourself—a perfect "stay at home" activity if ever there was one.

 

Who knows?  Spend the next few months learning to program, and maybe a year from now you will be the one being asked to port whatever game strikes some guy's fancy!

You may have a good point, and while I'm at it, I also need to learn the ropes of using my new BIGHMW TikTok site and doing editing of videos for it through the app on my iPhone as well as on Windows Movie Maker, but, also I need to also learn how to use my newly-purchased Zoom R8 multi-track recorder, so I might want to look into adding 5200-to-8-bit and 8-bit-to-5200 conversions to that list as well.

[Giles N]

8 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

It's not so much that you are the only two guys in the world that think it would be great for Atari 8-bit games to be ported to the 5200, it's that very few people are willing to do hours upon hours of specialized work on a project just because a guy asked for it on AtariAge.  Simply posting "why not port a game?" doesn't help anything.

 

Instead of asking someone to do all the work in porting whatever game catches your fancy this week, why not do some legwork first?  Gather relevant information and set up a project somewhere.  Or you could even start learning to program yourself—a perfect "stay at home" activity if ever there was one.

 

Who knows?  Spend the next few months learning to program, and maybe a year from now you will be the one being asked to port whatever game strikes some guy's fancy!

At least I’m trying to refresh my skills in 8-bit grfx.

 

And I try to pick up a bit of info here and there on the RAM issues

which seems to be a common problem

for ports from 8-bit family to 5200.

 

But it’s a good idea to read up

more on these issues.

[Lynxpro]

On 3/16/2021 at 4:45 PM, Giles N said:

Anyone here with the technical insight to know if ‘Hobgoblin’ for the Atari 8 bit family could be ported or put on 5200 cartridges without all too much fuzz?

 

 

 

http://www.atarimania.com/pgedump.awp?id=21453

 

- - -

 

This would be really cool to play on the 5200! ?

 

But I don’t have the technical knowledge to know if its possible to port it.

If its a question of RAM; perhaps the huge ‘hobgoblin’ fonts could be removed entirely, and black background added in stead?

(I mean to remember huge pictures takes lots of memory).

 

Anyway; it’s labeled abandonware.

 

 

 

I think you need to provide the specs if you're going to advocate for certain titles to be ported to the 5200. Such as:

 

*How much RAM does it claim to require?

 

*PAL or NTSC? If PAL, are there any specific PAL tricks to the graphics?

 

Yes, the 5200 only has 16K RAM standard but the original cartridges supported 32K ROMs [thus A8 games requiring 48K RAM were doable]. And others since then have made ROMs as large as about 700K.

 

In a better world, there'd be an easy 64K or 128K RAM upgrade - along with an SIO Port - available for the 5200 that would reduce the complexity of porting A8 games over to it since aggressive bankswitching mods in the code wouldn't be a necessity.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Lynxpro
Yo Mama

[Giles N]

On 3/19/2021 at 6:34 AM, newtmonkey said:

It's not so much that you are the only two guys in the world that think it would be great for Atari 8-bit games to be ported to the 5200, it's that very few people are willing to do hours upon hours of specialized work on a project just because a guy asked for it on AtariAge.  Simply posting "why not port a game?" doesn't help anything.

 

Instead of asking someone to do all the work in porting whatever game catches your fancy this week, why not do some legwork first?  Gather relevant information and set up a project somewhere.  Or you could even start learning to program yourself—a perfect "stay at home" activity if ever there was one.

 

Who knows?  Spend the next few months learning to program, and maybe a year from now you will be the one being asked to port whatever game strikes some guy's fancy!

It may only be me, but its like what you call basic leg-work feels like learning moonwalking.

 

I found this; am I unto something here?

 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Giles N

[Giles N]

Seriously, I’ll give it a go to read up on some basic stuff, but I feel my chances of ever inserting one single meaningful line of program is approximately 0.0000037 %.
 

But, heck, why not give it a try?

Edited May 18, 2021 by Giles N

[newtmonkey]

Wikipedia is a good place I guess to get a general overview of the characteristics of how hardware works, but you won't learn to program from a Wikipedia article.  I would also not suggest jumping straight into 6502 machine code if you have zero experience programming.

 

If you are serious about learning to program I'd suggest reading an intro to Python (either a book or online, there are plenty of resources) as it's a pretty simple language that will give you the foundational knowledge required to understand coding.  Then I'd suggest learning C# (which is not difficult to learn if you are familiar with Python).  C# is integrated into Unity, and a basic knowledge of C# together with the tools provided by Unity makes it comparatively easy to make simple 2D games without worrying about how to draw the screen, code physics and collisions, etc.

 

From there you can start exploring things like 7800 Basic which makes it "easy" to get some moving sprites up on the screen with even a very basic knowledge of game programming.

 

If you don't want to get into programming, you could work on other skills that could support homebrew development, such as learning about hardware limitations and redrawing sprites/tiles for the target platform, or setting up pages to gather resources.

[Giles N]

50 minutes ago, newtmonkey said:

 

 

If you don't want to get into programming, you could work on other skills that could support homebrew development, such as learning about hardware limitations and redrawing sprites/tiles for the target platform, or setting up pages to gather resources.

I did the initial drawings for the ‘Scraps The Dog’-sprites (nothing else) of the Scrapyard Dog Hack (found on the 7800 hack thread).

 

Back in the early nineties I only worked on Amiga graphics and gameplay-design.

 

I never tried to meddle with the - for me - incomprehensible world of programming.

 

I asked my brother about almost every possible and impossible limit for the Amiga500 hardware; I just wanted someone who had natural skills in this area, to explain it to me, then I could use skills of inventivness and unorthodox approaches through dialogue and planning.

 

- - -

When it comes to ‘Hobgoblin’ converted to the Atari 800 computers, I’ve tried to find out info about what uses the precious RAM - grfx, sound or program, but its, - at least for me - darned hard to get at the points of actual difficulty, actual incompatibility...

 

Is it grfx that uses up the little 5200 RAM, or sound?, or music?, or the program?

 

The info at the pages which contains conversions of this for the A800 says nothing about the particulars of which parts which makes further conversion difficult...

 

- - -

If nothing else, I’ve downloaded this book:

 

 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Giles N

[Lynxpro]

On 5/18/2021 at 12:05 AM, newtmonkey said:

Wikipedia is a good place I guess to get a general overview of the characteristics of how hardware works, but you won't learn to program from a Wikipedia article.  I would also not suggest jumping straight into 6502 machine code if you have zero experience programming.

 

If you are serious about learning to program I'd suggest reading an intro to Python (either a book or online, there are plenty of resources) as it's a pretty simple language that will give you the foundational knowledge required to understand coding.  Then I'd suggest learning C# (which is not difficult to learn if you are familiar with Python).  C# is integrated into Unity, and a basic knowledge of C# together with the tools provided by Unity makes it comparatively easy to make simple 2D games without worrying about how to draw the screen, code physics and collisions, etc.

 

From there you can start exploring things like 7800 Basic which makes it "easy" to get some moving sprites up on the screen with even a very basic knowledge of game programming.

 

If you don't want to get into programming, you could work on other skills that could support homebrew development, such as learning about hardware limitations and redrawing sprites/tiles for the target platform, or setting up pages to gather resources.

 

It's too bad there wasn't a program or something that could take assembly code written for A8 and automatically change the mapping so that it would run on the 5200. Too bad the various A8/5200 emulators couldn't offer such a feature. Logically thinking, it would seem like an emulator would be the perfect program for that...

Edited June 4, 2021 by Lynxpro

[Wrathchild]

Well its just not that simple as I can attest to