Re: [stella] Re: Combat programming

Subject: Re: [stella] Re: Combat programming
From: Nick S Bensema <nickb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 13:06:24 -0700 (MST)
>> Well, nobody's arrested me yet anyway.  No problem, it'd just spoil all
>> the fun for me if someone else came up to me with a listing that was
>> already done.
>
>Sorry I'm so paranoid, but disrespecting copyright law, even a little,
>isn't OK for me considering that copyrights protect my own work.

If only there were some standard by which software copyrights lapsed,
because a home product just about never lasts more than five years.
Ten, maybe.  I think it's about time I wrote my Congressman.  In the
meantime, though, I smell a stupid argument that will never change
anyone's mind.

>> Then it will remain a mystery until we can track down the guy who put that
>> code in there.
>
>I'll wire an LED and try to figure out what function it seems tailored to.
>Illuminating the game reset switch is my first guess.

I think they might have been looking to install Combat in arcades, and
thought that the data line they set would be used to lock ALL console
controls, including reset and select, until a coin had been inserted.
This would have been unwise, though, because a player could easily press
Start every time the score started to blink.

>Combat's initialization code starts with an SEI instruction, which I find
>humorous considering there are no interrupt sources available.  Perhaps
>the prototyping environment generated them.

Maybe there are.  Defender has it too.  In fact, many games might.
Perhaps the timer is an interrupt.  Perhaps joystick port input
could cause them.  Who is to say.


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