Pooyan -- .CAR Version

[glurk]

So, I read that Datasoft intended to release a cartridge version of this one (it's in the game instructions) but they never did.  And I think I know why.  The actual game code is just a bit OVER 16K and it won't really fit.  So I did it, and it was challenging.  This was for fun, and a learning experience for me, which is why I did it.

 

I had to compress (with deflate) the bulk of the game data, and use fox's inflate 6502 code to uncompress it into memory.  It got the 16K+ data down to around 10K leaving plenty of room for the rest of the loading stuff.  So now it's on a 16K cart that runs with 32K RAM and seems to work just fine.

 

This was an experiment for me, but I think it works A-OK.  I tested it pretty well.  So, a new cart that never existed before ?

pooyan.car

[Rybags]

With 6K spare you could add a title pic or something... maybe even RastaConverter.

[Wrathchild]

Deja vu?

[glurk]

6 minutes ago, Rybags said:

With 6K spare you could add a title pic or something... maybe even RastaConverter.

I thought that too, LOL.  But I'm no artist.  If someone wants to create one, I could probably put it in.  There IS a bit of a delay the first time it loads, as it uncompresses.

 

EDIT TO ADD: Wrathchild, I saw that thread.  But my cart is 16K with no bankswitching.

Edited May 12, 2021 by glurk

[Rybags]

The thought I had was take an existing image and manipulate it.

 

I don't think I've played the game so know little about it, but here's an example pic.

 

 

[Wrathchild]

7 hours ago, glurk said:

Wrathchild, I saw that thread.  But my cart is 16K with no bankswitching.

Fair enough, as you say, a learning exercise.

 

The next challenge would be to leave code in the ROM and have it execute from there and maybe that could run in just 16K or RAM?

Edited May 12, 2021 by Wrathchild
their->there

[sanny]

8 hours ago, Rybags said:

I don't think I've played the game so know little about it, but here's an example pic.

I'm remember playing it quite excessively. The C64 version, though. In '85 or '86.

[Irgendwer]

9 hours ago, Rybags said:

With 6K spare you could add a title pic or something...

[glurk]

I had in mind something more like this:

 

[glurk]

Well, I put in a title screen using graph2font.  Quite a bit of work, and then I discover it only works on XE/XL ????  And it's not so great anyways.  I tried rasta converter, and it's output is just too big no matter what I did.   I'll probably just give up on that idea.

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by glurk
spelling

[+MrFish]

38 minutes ago, glurk said:

Well, I put in a title screen using graph2font.  Quite a bit of work, and then I discover it only works on XE/XL ???? 

 

You can change that. You have to output the ASM and change the code that's loading it in RAM under ROM.

Honestly, they should have some facilities for doing that within Graph2Font itself, via some "output file settings".

 

[Rybags]

Yep, RC will tend to generate 75 bytes or more for every scanline in the picture you put into it.

About 41 bytes for the bitmap+Display List entry then more again for the programatic register changes.

Compression could help out but of course that's of little use if there's not enough Ram to depack into.

[glurk]

Well, I've concluded that I just don't like these code-generator things.  You end up with a whole bunch of include files, code that does who-knows-what and goes who-knows-where, you can't seem to set a target code size, and there's too little control over the whole process.

 

I guess it's fine if you JUST want to display an image, and let it take up the whole computer to do it, nut that's not what I'm looking for.  Oh well.