Re: [stella] Program..

Subject: Re: [stella] Program..
From: "John K. Harvey" <jkharvey@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2001 12:59:47 -0500
One reason such a device would be near-impossible to develop is because of
the limit of sprites... there is no frame-buffer here like any newer
systems (does the C64 use a frame buffer?).  There are also huge sprite
limitations.  You're drawing sprites on a per-scanline basis while that
scanline is actually being drawn.  This makes for some interesting
programming.

Plus, there is a sprite limitation.  A "simple" kernal could have 2 player
graphics, 2 missile graphics, and a ball graphic on a single scanline, but
there would be far too many limitations to what a high-level programming
language could do.  There would have to be hundreds of checks to make sure
that you weren't updating a sprite's graphics too soon or too late in a
scanline, with the limited number of clock cycles you have during that
scanline for the updates.

Bottom line:
My guess is it could be done for a demo using both player graphics only,
but how fun would that sort of game be?  You'd probably end up with Combat
or Space War without any playfield objects.

-John K. Harvey

At 03:13 AM 7/14/01 -0400, you wrote:
>How come anyone has never decided to build an Atari 2600 Game Design
>Program?!
>
>I see a lot for my old Commodore 64 and for PC as well as a few other
>platforms.
>
>If you do not know what I am talking about, here's an example:
>
>You load the program on your PC.. you design your sprites with the built in
>sprite editor, you can make sounds too, intro screens, etc. Then you define
>each action: what happens when players turns in all directions, what the new
>sprite picture would be, you also define enemies and how they move: do they
>follow a path you define, or move randomly? Do they behave differently each
>level? How does your character move -- paddle, joystick, indy controller?
>Set scores, what happens when two things collide or collide with edge of
>screen, etc.
>
>After all that you press the output button and it will create the ROM for
>you which you can then burn to a cartridge and play on a real 2600 machine.
>
>I had programs like this in the past and designed a Shoot Em' Up game for my
>Commodore 64 this way, without any programming knowledge. I also designed a
>simple Role Playing Game on PC.
>
>-
>Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/
>Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/
>
>

-
Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/
Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/

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