Hi, John... and all the others...
On Mon Jun 21 18:54:47 1999, John K. Harvey wrote:
>This was not a long-term project. Pressure Gauge was and still is my main
>cart (so far). After all, I'm still learning (I've only just started in
>October). The idea was to have a screen in Pressure Gauge that scrolled
>across "Programmed by John K. Harvey". Another friend of mine was
>hard-wiring up a game server and asked if I would make him a "Select Game"
>cart that used the same scrolling routine. I figured that the easiest way
>to fit a lot of text into a line would be to have it scroll across the
>screen using actual blocks of the code instead of rotate commands. Once
>these were finished, I sent the "Select Game" cart to Randy and asked what
>he thought. I was informed that a cart where one could type in their own
>text would be appreciated.
>As far as the version on Randy's page, it is my first version (with just
>GRP0 and GRP1 instead of the 4-digit scheme which has not been posted.
>After all, I only figured out how to write a 6-digit scheme a week and a
>half ago.
So, you already did a better version, which you just didn't post yet, or
don't want to post yet?
>A more efficient scheme could be written, but I don't see any need. 96
>letters of text is quite enough for me to get my point across. Something
>like "Will you marry me?" or "John rocks the house" barely take up 20
>characters.
That's basically right, but you said you want it to be in "Pressure Gauge"
along with the game. Even if it may not be necessary to display longer
messages, it may be a good idea to try to compress the scrolling screen
memory in order to have more room left for the actual game. If you use up
all the memory in the cart for the scrolling message, there won't be much
left for a game.
If the only purpose of a cart is to display the message, and it doesn't do
anything else, there may not be a need for improvement, though I think a
6-digit-display is clearly something that looks better than a 2-digit
display. And according to your scheme, this would need even more 00's left
and right from the text, while with an improved scheme (with ROLling), you
could maybe do without that too.
>I also understand that someone may write a better version of the scrolling
>demo, and that's fine; after all, a little competition is a healthy thing.
>But I myself have bigger projects to work on. :)
OK, a question: Do you want others to improve on this maybe, or should they
start from the beginning? Or do you want to make further improvements
yourself, before you give it into others' hands?
With love (and curiosity)
Kurt Woloch
"Where has all the memory gone?"
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