[Coco] OS-9 is not for me

[Nick Marentes]

On 9/11/2014 7:36 PM, Jason Law wrote:
>
> The technique you and I use is completely different to this is it not???
>

Yes, slightly different because he was going for parallax scrolling and 
low memory but the same basic deal.

He had explained this to me way back then, including the technique we 
have used.

>
> I doubt Socks could get a 1-pixel scroll with that technique, but then 
> he's Socks so who knows, but the one I worked out allows you to do it 
> (though a bit more complex than for just 2-pixel/1-byte), using 4 
> copies of the background 1-pixel/1-nibble shifted from each other.
>
No, he wasn't going for that with moon patrol, he was going for 
parallax... multiple bands of scrolling each at different speeds.
He also had the difficulty to create a sprite over all the moving 
planes. This is what ultimately  forced him to abort the project. The 
CoCo really needed hardware sprites to make this work properly.

>
> Neither do I Nick and maybe you forgot who told you how to do it or 
> where you heard it. I don't really care :) I'll take your word for it 
> that you worked it out all by yourself.
>

Again, the concept is not mine, I got it from John. I just created my code.

> Hypothetically, and I only say this because of the initial 'ego/swell 
> head' comments from the misinterpretation, if it was from me, the only 
> thing I'd request would be that you mention it in your blog or should 
> anyone ask, that's it. Wouldn't be asking too much I don't think. It's 
> definitely not about 'ego' or 'ownership', just good karma :)
>

Well, I can't exactly say it was from you because it was from John. I 
can make mention that you too created the algorithym.
John has mentioned several other techniques in the past that I (or even 
he) haven't exploited.

> I didn't even mention any of this to query that, like I said, I don't 
> care. I think "do the right thing 'cos it's the right thing to do" and 
> credit people by name if you use their stuff, but a lot of people have 
> the attitude if it's out there on the net it's free game. That's not 
> my view and it took me a long time to even remotely understand why 
> people do that, but some do :) You can bring it to their attention and 
> if they agree that yes you should be credited then great, but if they 
> don't, what can you do?!?!?! Just have to think 'well it says far more 
> about who they aren't as a person' and have to learn from it and leave 
> it at that. But it doesn't encourage openness to share more ideas 
> either. I've been accused of being secretive or whatever where I was 
> once very open. Past experience has shown not to expect that everyone 
> shares the same view so only to share it once I've done something with 
> it myself. Ok, going a bit off-track now... ^-- that's just general 
> stuff, not directed at you.
>

I don't do it to become "famous" or to get credit. I'd just love to see 
everyone programming games that uses this technique.  Yes, there are 
some people out there that want the fame, but what do they think they'll 
really achieve?

It can be a very grey area as to who invents what first. No point in 
getting too roped up about it. We just need to realize that the CoCo 
market is insignificant beyond our tiny community.

Don't get hung up about the politics, just write your game or tech demo 
to showcase the find. People will appreciate the end product more than 
who announced the initial find.

> The only reason I mentioned it at all initially was if you were in 
> anyway thinking my work was a copy of yours, I could show you whatever 
> you needed to show I've been at this a long time, and before you 
> started on it (who cares), so not to be annoyed (if that were the 
> case) if I'm using my own stuff. That was all :) But that wasn't the 
> case so all is well :)
>
I didn't even remotely think that. We're both capable programmers, it's 
no surprise we've been thinking the same things. I mean, we're not 
inventing anti-matter or something revolutionary. Just a hardware scroll 
like many of the other computers did long before.

Nick