Subject: Re: [stella] Built-in screen saver From: emooney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Erik Mooney) Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1999 14:05:52 GMT |
>" An example of extensive color manipulation is a subroutine developed by >Mr. Decuir to avoid burning game patterns onto the TV screen if the VCS is >left unattended. The routine, which cycled through all possible >color-luminance combinations, used only a dozen bytes, a great advantage in >early game cartridges, which held only 2 kilobytes of ROM. "In 2K, you >barely have room to brush your teeth," Mr. Decuir said." > >Is this just a subroutine that is accessed in the "mainloop" (to use Nick >Bensema's playfield code)? Does anyone know what this code looks like, and >how it checks if a game is idle or not, and how long the game waits before >a screen saver mode hits? To clarify, it's not a built-in routine (there's no ROM in the console), it's just a standard routine included in a number of games. In most Atari-produced games (usually not for other companies), all the color accesses went through a lookup table, to accommodate the color/BW switch, and it probably made PAL conversion easier. It wouldn't be that hard to initialize a counter at powerup or game over, increment it every frame, and change the index into the lookup table every so many frames. -- Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/ Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/
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