[Coco] SSC & MIDI

[jmlaw at iprimus.com.au]

Hey Nick,

Sorry if I don't quote as some ppl prefer, this reply ended up longer than 
expected.

Before you take a look at it, just a couple of things:

1. I’ve been working on the scrolling for 5 years on and off, starting in 
2009, nothing copied or borrowed from you.

2. The fixed scoreboard I figured out myself before I even knew you were 
working on a new game. Last I heard you were working on a Zaxxon clone. 
Simon pointed me to your new site after a post I did on the facebook group 
detailing how the split screen stuff works. After the Games Workshop site 
was gone I figured you moved on to other non-coco things. I wasn't on the 
list then so I didn't know about any of your recent stuff. I only signed up 
again to the daily digest thing after I thought I should follow what's going 
so I don't look like an idiot next time explaining something that someone 
else already has :)

The way I worked the split-screen out was thinking if I’m going to have to 
block copy a section of the score area, I can switch between a 4-color mode 
(fewer bytes to copy) and the 16 -color mode for the rest of the screen. So 
I was counting the scan lines for the mode switch and had that working, then 
sitting back watching it scrolling it just kinda jumps out at ya, like HEY! 
I wonder... Neat trick hey :)

I'd posted the scrolling info on your website back when it was around too. A 
post a while back showed a link to a 'backup' copy of the forums part is 
still online. I was reading through it a few weeks back to see if there was 
anything new. Remz had totally explained the split-screen stuff back then, 
somehow I'd completely missed it. So we've all worked it out ourselves :) 
And of course Sockmaster would have done something with it for sure, there's 
Sock's then there's the rest of us :) When I worked it out, it clicked how 
Remz was probably doing his racing game prototype now knowing the 
split-screen was now possible.

So yeah please just don't think I'm using your ideas and not crediting you 
for it. I just wouldn't do that in a pink fit. Just wanted to be clear so no 
suspicions or whatever, as we're both working on a similar concepts 
developed independently. Anytime I mention the border color change at the 
start and end of an interrupt trick as a way to get an idea of cycles, I 
refer to it as 'Nick's trick'. You showed me that that day I visited, my way 
of expressing my gratitude is to simply acknowledge it as coming from you. I 
can totally appreciate the work that goes into developing these ideas, so 
yeah, I just wouldn't, I'm not lame like that :)

https://rapidshare.com/share/C530B18D7FB74B28EFE75BFF29594C96

It's a 60fps video, scrolling left and right at 1 & 2 pixel with the tiles 
updating off-screen as it scrolls. If the video skips, it's your PC doing 
it, not the vid, but it should be ok if you don't have 30+ windows open like 
I usually do :) SMB only has to scroll right but I coded the scrolling 
engine part for both left and right as eventually I would like to create 
something with both. It has to scroll at 1 & 2 pixel rates as it speeds up 
when Mario runs, slows down and stops as he does etc.

I don't have a multi-pak, I'm not a fan either. Not knocking those who love 
them, each to their own. The development for the SSC is done with cloadm-ing 
bins using cocotape, been a step back from disk but so long as I keep the 
sections I'm testing short, it's not so bad :) If I have to cloadm drivewire 
hdbdos to be able to play it with the SSC in the end, oh well, so be it :)

For me, the 6-bit DAC sound is maybe at the end. It may be doable, perhaps 
I'm just being over cautious in my inexperience, this is my first attempt 
towards putting all I've learned and worked out together into a game demo. 
The idea being to learn all the game dev stuff and get a much clearer idea 
of cycles times etc for various game aspects. My tile updating routines are 
as quick I can make them. Even using tricks, I'm hesitant to go with DAC 
sound at the moment. But I don't have your years upon years of experience 
and multiple game titles to my name so there may yet be a way to do it I'm 
not seeing or haven't thought of. I totally concede that :) I've done the 
PCM DAC stuff before, that was pretty easy and have an idea of playback 
rates etc. and done a fair bit with interrupt handlers and the timer etc to 
have a fair idea of cycles etc, but yeah I'm worried if I do DAC sound I'll 
run out of cycles before it's complete. So at the end, if there's enough 
time then for sure but I won't know until the rest of the game is coded and 
running.

Another reason for MIDI/SSC with SMB is the background music is so iconic 
and a big part of the game's charisma. It's why I've worked out how to do 
all that before even doing the foreground sprites. It's something I want to 
ensure is included. Anyway, we'll see how I go...

Ah and no doubt you have a million tips you could share, but I like working 
it out myself, I guess I'm weird like that, but for me it's half the fun :) 
So yeah, not looking for hints or tips or anything, just explaining my 
approach. If I get totally stuck, that's a different story :)

Look forward to seeing your game progress, and great to read you've come 
back to the amateur side, as in doing it simply for the love of it . Best of 
luck with yours too :)

Ah almost forgot the tile level editor:

http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx18/JasonsCoCo3/sprite_Level_editor_zpsa6516bd8.png

This is done in javascript just for designing the levels (can use any tiles) 
then compressing the data to fcbs to copy and paste into my code. Works 
pretty good :)

Jason