Messages

Tough choice. I'd like to see Wizard just to hear the speech. But an Infinite Runner game would be good for the 3D.

So I vote for an Infinite Runner game with speech! (What part of "write something small" do I not understand? :-) )

- Bob

maybe we need a way to write to the flash and save an options file

Already available. Check out FOpen() in the Vectrex32 manual (not the GS BASIC manual). You can read and write config files (and Top Score files).

- Bob

Stunning! Absolutely stunning! And the "vocalized" countdown is brilliant!

I die really fast in this game. I'm going to need to work at it.

- Bob

There's a new version of the Vectrex32 firmware available, version 1.24. You can download the firmware here.

There are new features and bug fixes. See the release notes here.

- Bob

If you look up "Parkinson's Law of Data", there's a picture of you. ;-)

My initial thought around realtime was to using the usb-serial connection from the pc to the vectrex (I've used https://projectgus.github.io/hairless-midiserial/ to do this before), though I'm not sure there is a way from gsbasic to do that right now - Bob should be able to answer that one.

A BASIC program can read from the USB serial port using file I/O and Stdin. See the section in the Vectrex32 manual titled "File I/O" (section 7.12 in the version 1.23 manual).

- Bob

I haven't heard of anyone working on this. I know nothing about max MSP but I would think the first step is to export AY-3-8910 commands from it. Is it able to do that?

If so, you would need some JMOS ("just a matter of software") to convert that into BASIC.

- Bob

This is awesome! I'd love to see a video.

- Bob

There's a new version of the Vectrex32 firmware available, version 1.23. If you already own Vectrex 1.10 or newer, you can download the firmware here. If you still have version 1.00, please read this.

There are a few new features and bug fixes but the most important change is that the Vectrex32 can now support much larger drawing lists. It does this by reusing the 2K dual-port RAM multiple times per frame.

- Bob

But you still should return at some point, otherwise you keep creating scopes (even if they're empty) and adding to the call stack.

If you're turning jumps into function calls, how do you know when to return from the functions?

Variable names are tokenized out (except for a lookup table).
Integers, whether written in decimal or hex, are compiled to 32 bits.
Comments are discarded.
Every function has some overhead, so I guess one big function would take less memory than many small ones.

Are you compiling every assembly instruction to one line of code? The biggest win would be if your recompiler could understand the intent of the assembly code and optimize the generated BASIC. But of course, that's really hard to do.

How do you handle jumps? GSBASIC doesn't have a GOTO and even if the 6502 code isn't spaghetti code, it's hard to figure out the structure.

- Bob

This is great work, but I think it needs some more sound effects to match the original game. It needs a visual explosion effect when the Klingons are destroyed. At the beginning of the game, the original shows you the Enterprise, starbase, and Klingons as it places them on the screen. And in each new sector, it shows the Enterprise flying in on the upper right. I suggest using this video as a reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bh35Dqum4Y

The one bug I noticed is that when the Klingons shoot at you, the map sometimes shows the shots actually passing through the Enterprise before they hit the ship a short distance off the bow. Is that because they're hitting the front deflectors? If the shot is from behind, it should hit the rear deflectors.

Very impressive work so far!

- Bob

Looks exciting! I'll give it a try over the next couple of days.

- Bob

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm curious: why is Wrap() better than just the MOD operator?

- Bob