[stella] Supercharger RAM - why the reluctance??

Subject: [stella] Supercharger RAM - why the reluctance??
From: Glenn Saunders <krishna@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 20:07:19 -0700 (PDT)
On Tue, 17 Jun 1997, Matt Pritchard wrote:
> > Uhmm.. a 40 x 20 display takes up 100 of 128 available bytes (5 bytes
> > per line x 20 lines).  I seem to recall Video Life by Commavid, but
> > who actually has seen one?   Life traditionally requires a copy of the
> > screen to work correctly, but since we lack 72 extra bytes, I think a
> > "floating" update window of 3 or 5 lines will work.

Not to raise the cart vs. bin debate again, but I don't understand the
phenomenon of authors who are avoiding Supercharger RAM like the plague. 
I hope the only reason is that they just don't yet own a Supercharger. 

Other than making a cartridge I don't understand why you wouldn't want to
use the Supercharger's generous 6K RAM.  Is holding a physical cart in
your hands so important that you'd sacrifice resolution for a game that
seems to cry out for a decent res dynamic bitmap?  If so, I don't quite
understand those priorities.  Banging the playfield registers in realtime
ala "Surround" or the recent Space Invaders clone redux is just as
cumbersome if not more so to pull off than these sprite tricks are.

If you did use the Supercharger RAM you could use Bob Colbert's
StellaSketch or Steve Hales' Suicide Mission pseudobitmap routines for
much higher resolution than standard Atari 2600 playfield graphics allows
with plenty of room to spare.




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