> Yes, once you know something can be done, its quite easy to do it. Thanks
> for the timings, and to others who helped out.
>
> I am curious, though, if anyone can cite 4 colour playfields in other games.
> Truth be known, the ONLY Atari 2600 game I ever saw in the flesh was Pacman.
> To date I've not seen a 4 colour playfield in use, though I am sure that,
> given this machine is 20 years old now, others have trodden this path long
> before me. It has been fun viewing other games on the emulators - but this
> brings me to the next comment...
Most people don't flash to get more colors. They flash to get more objects.
the closest thing I've seen is Amidar. It doesn't use alternating
frames. It uses alternating scanlines. Now that's a smurfy kernel.
A really smurfy one would combine that technique with flashing and
create something that looks as (relatively) seamless as the text in
Stellar Track or Dark Mage.
I've considered that flashing might be used in another Pac-Man
port. One frame would render the maze, and one would render the
dots. The maze would be blue on black background (like it's SUPPOSED
to be) while the dots would be greyish or yellow. This way we
could create a more arcade-accurate maze and a less strenuous kernel
per-frame. An additional advantage of this is that any other
objects that are flashing on alternate frames will appear solid,
in comparison. Other details, though, are unresolved... including
who will code this thing, and if me, when will I have the time?
I spent a good amount of time writing this letter when I should
have been writing something that is due Friday.
Another thing to consider when flashing, especially on a large
scale, is that there are elements that will determine whether
your flashing is annoying, ineffective, or tolerable.
Flashing can be a disaster if used improperly. For example, the
ghosts in Pac-Man. The colors are dim against the blue background,
which is good, but the frequency is so low that you can barely see
them. Also look at the asteroids on that one game whose name
escapes me. That's even worse because the frequency is low, but
the colors are bright. This makes everything annoying if you're
lucky; if you're unlucky it'll give you a seizure.
But then again, look at Joust. The frequency is a little better,
and it's consistent among all the jousters. This means that
eventually your mind doesn't see the flashing, unlike in Defender
where things get worse as more objects appear. The jousters
have mild colors which don't strobe at you incessantly, and
the objects are small, which subdues the effect.
And, look at Suicide Mission. The flashing covers the entire
screen! But the frequency is just 1/2. That's not bad. And
though the foreground is white, there is a background color
to cushion the blow. And, as with Joust, it's consistent.
> What do you guys and gals think... if the emulators can't cope with this,
> then that is the emulators' problem, right? Its all to do with a few
> things.... the persistance of phosphour on a TV vs. a monitor, the screen
> not being synched to the frame rate of the display device on the emulator
> (go on, set your emulator frame rate to the same as your monitor and see the
> improvement!), and the large intensity variations between colours used on
> interleaved frames. I plan to use similar intensities, which will reduce
> that markedly. If the emulator can't behave like a true blue 2600, then the
> emulator needs to be improved :)
A flashing routine with a frequency of 1/2, which I imagine your concept
to be, would show up completely solid if an emulator used a blinds-effect
to combine adjacent frames. Does z26 still do this?
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