[Coco] Phoenix IDE gaining sprite/tiles/map editor

[John W. Linville]

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 03:45:46PM -0700, Steve Bjork wrote:
> I took a look at the book and very little translates to the CoCo.
> Besides the CPU, Both the Sound and Graphics system are nowhere
> close to the CoCo.

Well, YMMV...obviously, you won't be typing-in the examples for use
on a CoCo.  Hopefully the "Atari" in the title would indicate that
for anyone qualified to breathe... :-)

> The only Chapters I would recommend would be 9 and 10 about game
> design.  Everything else is about hardware that does not apply to
> the CoCo.  Any would be CoCo programmer will get lost trying to use
> what they learned in the other chapters.

I disagree.  It's true that the details of the Atari hardware
differ signifcantly from the CoCo, and if you can't rise above the
details then the book will be of no use to you.  Still, I think that
concrete examples of implementing 8-bit friendly game logic, hardware
friendly data structures, and player-friendly animation and controls
are quite useful for getting one's mind prepared for working in the
general medium.

The author did a similar book for the Apple II, which I've also read.
As if the 6502 wasn't brain-dead enough, the Apple II graphics
hardware should have been prosecuted for war crimes!  It is a shame
he didn't do a CoCo version of the book -- I'm sure it would have
been most enjoyable.  Come to think of it, Steve, it is a shame that
you didn't do such a book "back in the day"! :-)
 
> I'll be out at the CoCofest and would be happy to talk coding, game
> design or anything else CoCo to anyone that wants to.
> 
> See you at the Fest!

Sounds great!

John
-- 
John W. Linville                Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville at tuxdriver.com                  might be all we have.  Be ready.