Re: [stella] Poll: Developer Wishlist

Subject: Re: [stella] Poll: Developer Wishlist
From: Eckhard Stolberg <Eckhard_Stolberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 16:24:03 +0100
At 06:49 10.02.99 GMT, you wrote:
>An IDE.  Integrated code editing, syntax checking, menu-driven
>compiling/assembling and running, with a built-in emulator and
>step-by-step debugging.  With that last one using a screen mode where it
>shows the TIA screen in the top half with some sort of indicator for the
>current scanline (highlight the scanline below the one that's currently
>being worked on) and the code/registers/ memory/etc in the bottom half.
>And include a menu option "Play to Supercharger" where it'd assemble,
>makewav, and play it in one step.
>
>Or pretty much anything more integrated than what I'm using now, which is
>DOS EDIT, DASM, PCAE, Makewav, and the Windows media player.  (Was there
>a tie-them-together program that I missed somewhere along the way?  I've
>a funny feeling there was...)

I second that and add an integrated graphics and sound editor to the whish
for the tool above, since I'm using pretty much the same setup as Erik. I
now prefer Stella except when I need the debugger and I use Wplaybin for
sound output (or testapp as it calls itself in the menu ;-) ).

>I'd like "once-and-for-all" documentation on the so-called multi-sprite
>trick - I haven't been paying a heck of a lot of attention, but I don't
>think I've seen a really comprehensive treatment come through here yet.
>I did one for the 6-digit score routine a while back.

But the information is all there, if you are willing to read all the
posts on that toppic. ;-)

The trick is pretty simple really. If you position a sprite or a
missile on the screen, you get a five pixel offset for sprites and
a four pixel offset for missiles after the access to RESXy. If you
set the output to two or three copies, the offset is there for every
copy in the set.

If you have a sprite or a set of sprites positioned in a scanline,
(no matter if it was positioned there in the same scanline, some
scanlines or even some frames ago) and hit RESPx while the last
four offset pixels are displayed (all my VCSs and John's VCS Jr.)
or while the first four pixel of the offset are displayed (John's
classic VCS) before any of the copies of a set of sprites, the
new set of sprites will be positioned and displayed normally.
If you hit RESPx at any other time, the new set of sprites will
be positioned normally, but the first copy in the new set will
not be displayed.

John has posted some nice diagrams to illustrate this effect
some time ago. Stella 1.1 emulates the effect this way and
all test programs I have used with it look exactely like on a real
VCS.

>A 4-player game to rival and surpass Warlords for party enjoyment.

I second that one too and use the chance for nagging Dan again to
convert the plans for his four-player joystick adapter into a postable
format. ;-)


Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg



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