Pitfall!Posted by retroclouds Sat, February 27, 2010 10:17:20 Has been a while since I updated my blog. A lot of things have happened in the meantime. First of all I was able to ship most of the cartridges of the first batch. So that is good news.
In the meantime I have also released both the binaries AND the source code. You can get both at Atariage right here and they are also available at hexbus.com
But the Pitfal!l story continues. There is a huge TI-99 fan in Italy (Ciro) that is working on an instruction manual and is considering creating a box. Now how cool is that ?
Pitfall!Posted by retroclouds Sat, January 02, 2010 17:53:33 I'm pleased to announce that the Pitfall cartridge is becoming reality !
I finished the development last week after having spent a lot of time on testing/debugging. The EPROMS and PCB's for the first batch are currently being prepared.
Check out the below youtube video my friend Jon made.
Next up are preparing the labels and getting the pre-orders of the first batch finalized.
Once the first batch is out I'm planning on releasing the fully commented assembly source code together with a tutorial on bank-switching and details on how to successfully assemble the source code.
On a sidenote: I got the honour of getting an interview that appeared in the "Retrogaming Times Monthly" online magazine.
The magazine is run by Bryan Roppolo and the interview was done by my friend Owen Brand. Special thanks goes to Owen for taking the time and effort doing the interview.
GamesPosted by retroclouds Wed, November 18, 2009 20:54:02 Starting today we have our own TI-99/4A game programming subforum at atariage.
For those that don't know atariage: It's the hotspot for all retro game stuff. * Screenshot courtesy of the atariage website
For celebrating this special occasion I have started a small TI-99/4A game programming competition. Check out the atariage TI-99/4A programming subgroup for details.
Pitfall!Posted by retroclouds Sat, November 14, 2009 20:34:59 It has been a while since I wrote about my progress on Pitfall!
But today is a good day, so I'll take the opportunity to talk about what's been happening so far.
Revision B Revision B, the basis for the cartridge version is making good progress. Actually the plan is to have a single fully-documented source code for both the disk version and cartridge version.
Shrink memory usage The first thing I did for revision B was to shrink memory usage from 1.3K to 256 bytes of RAM. That was an interesting challenge, but it seems to work ok. That was a first major requirement, cause the game should run on a bare console without any 32K memory expansion.
VDP RAM is your friend Swapping parts of scratch-pad memory to/from the VDP does the trick. So, I now have everything running in scratch-pad, but it comes at a cost (more on that later).
Bank-switching Next thing up is bank-switching. I originally considered doing a 16K bank-switch card. But I soon had to admit, that there's no way I can get the whole thing in 16K without obfuscating the code too much. That was out of the question, because I still intend to release the source code as example for my SPECTRA game library.
So, I'm now going for a 4 bank strategy (32K cartridge).
Bank 0: Title screen + custom version of spectra (1.6K) This bank is totally independent of the others
Bank 1: Draw scene (background, bushes), all required objects
(ladders, fire, ...) and vertical scrolling "Activision" logo during game over
+ custom version of spectra (1.6K)
Bank 2: Game engine and moving objects
+ custom version of spectra (1.6K)
Bank 3: Graphic data, sound data, 255 screens
+ copy to VDP routine
The game startup sequence will be:
bank 0 -> bank 3 -> bank 1 -> bank2
While the game is running I will only have to switch from bank 2 to
bank 1 when a new scene must be drawn.
Some more costs oh yes, I mentioned that the reduced RAM memory usage comes at a cost. Well ROM size increases, so that's another reason for the 32K cartridge. I for example also have less RAM available for the title screen Activision scroller. This caused some well eh, glitches.... It seems I'm pushing the console there. But in the end it worked out fine today. I'm happy with the result now, so it's time to move on with the rest of the game
Pitfall! discussion page My friend Owen has put together a real nice site about TI game development. You definitly want to check out: http://www.Opry99er.com
GamesPosted by retroclouds Sun, September 13, 2009 11:46:39 Both below games are from Kean Computing who are also known for other good Extended Basic Games. The games were considered to be lost but were recently rediscovered. Heist is a platform game where you have to pickup and place bombs to blast your way through the walls while being following by an enemy ball. Very well done considering it's an Extended Basic Game.
Void is another platform game featuring the hero from Heist. This time you are in some kind of space (void?) where you have to collect stuff and avoid flying obstacles. Makes sense? Again well done considering it's an Extended Basic Game.
Pitfall!Posted by retroclouds Tue, September 01, 2009 14:03:22 SPECTRA has been keeping me quite busy in the last few months. Now that the first BETA is out, I have some more time to work on some of my other TI-99/4A projects (Time Pilot and Pitfall!).
The disk version of Pitfall was released a while ago and I had the idea of making a 16K cartridge version from the beginning.
So finally this week I started to rewrite and further comment the assembly source.
I have to deal with 3 main issues (in order of complexity).
1. Reduce RAM memory usage from about 1.3 KB to 256 bytes. 2. Implement bank-switching 3. Code size must be limited to 16KB.
The plan is to have a cartridge version by the end of the year. Progress was real good this week, so I might finish it a lot earlier.
Depending on the feedback I'll do a batch of cartridges. More on that later
[UPDATE] A first batch of 28 Pitfall! cartridges is confirmed and the pre-order list for that one is closed. However, I'll be happy to add you to the waiting list for a second batch. Check out the picture gallery for some more mock-ups.
Note that I will also be releasing the fully commented source-code.
Pitfall!Posted by retroclouds Tue, September 01, 2009 13:45:49 Below is the link to my Pitfall map editor. It is a little program written in javascript and I used it to generate the required screen data statements for my assembly source.
What I did was, I grabbed screenshots of the 255 levels of the CV version and included them in the editor. Next step was to go through the levels and identify obstacles, background, etc. By setting the corresponding checkboxes the editor then generated the required assembly source data statements
It also allows data output to be imported back into the map editor for verification & correction purposes.
Just for fun, here are 3 screens you can import into the map editor: 0044#..1..... ..1111.. ........ ........
0111#1....... ........ .....1.. ...1..1.
0125#..1..... ........ .....1.. ....1.1.
ToolsPosted by retroclouds Wed, August 26, 2009 23:36:32 I've been using the open source notepad++ editor for quite some time and had the idea of making a syntax highlighting file for TMS9900 assembly language. Only recently I found out that TI friend Mark Wills did just that.
Based on his work I made some small tweaks for supporting SPECTRA while trying to stay compatible with the existing version.
Here are the changes I made:
- Comments are shown in green color - Recognize file extension A99 and a99 - Code folding -> Use ..: for subroutine start and :.. for subroutine end - Added SPECTRA subroutine labels as recognized keywords
Note: ofcourse the code folding should also still work with the existing ";[" and ";]" tags
When installing notepad++ make sure to set the "Don't use %APPDATA"-checkbox as seen in the last screenshot.
The Syntax Highlighting file userDefineLang.xml must be copied in the notepad++ installation directory (don't forget to backup your existing version )
Tip: Use key shortcuts ALT-0 to collaps and ALT-SHIFT-0 to expand subroutine bodies while editing. The next release of SPECTRA will have the appropriate tags for making code folding work (as seen in the screenshots below).
Big thanks to Mark for providing the original version.
* Screenshot courtesy of the atariage website
