Messages

Yup. If you draw a long line at a small scale, the V32 breaks it into multiple lines.

- Bob

Am I correct that the situation appears to be deteriorating? I.e. things that worked before are no longer working?

I suggested early on that there might be a problem with the way the Vectrex edge connector is soldered to its board. If things are deteriorating, that would be be consistent with bad solder joints that are cracking.

I'm not sure what you mean by "upload from the terminal directly to memory". The editor and the terminal are two different programs, both running on the PC.

On my system, when I save a file to the V32, the Vectrex buzz stutters. That's how I know when the save is complete. Do you see (or hear) the same thing?

Jumping into Mine Storm is a really hard crash. Try it with the PC connected and a terminal window up. Does the PC lose the USB connection?

- Bob

You could try shaving off some of the board around the edge connector. If you do it with the covers still on, any important traces should be safe. If you break it, you can return it to me for a free replacement.

Can you post the Rotate call that caused the parameter error?

The flash is rated for a minimum of 10,000 writes. That's a lot, and it doesn't mean it will fail at 10,001; it just means it's guaranteed to work until at least 10,000. Estimate how often you save (e.g. you work on it 2 hours a day and save every 10 minutes, for a total of 12 saves a day) and you can figure out how long it's guaranteed for (833 days in this example - over two years of working on the V32 two hours a day!).

You're using the same workflow I do, but as you've found, you can't load a file while it's still saving! Sorry about the lost program. :-(

What trouble is the 3D demo giving? You mention it crashed after creating 10 ships. If you have a terminal window open, it'll probably show you an error message, and I bet it'll be that there are too many vectors to draw in the allotted time.

- Bob

I've played around with this a bit.

The V32's edge card is 2 mm shorter than an original Vectrex game cartridge's edge card. If I plug the V32 in it works fine, but if I deliberately wiggle it, it will crash.

I can also deliberately wiggle an original game cart and cause it to crash.

With a band saw, I shaved off 1.5 or 2 mm of the V32's board to make the edge card longer. If you do this with the covers on, you won't cut any trace. However, I was still able to wiggle the board and make it crash. The board did not seem to be any more secure than it was before.

I use a retractable USB cable, which has a thin and lightweight wire. As such, it does not pull down the V32 when it's plugged in. Perhaps this is why this problem doesn't happen to me.

- Bob

jaymz just gave me an idea.

If you look closely at the V32's bottom cover, you'll see that it is not symmetrical. The screws are closer to one edge than they are to the other. The cover is supposed to be put on so that the edge the screws are closer to, is near the edge connector. If I messed up and put the bottom cover on the wrong way, it will butt up against the shell of the Vectrex before the edge card has gone in all the way.

Let me know if this is the problem.

- Bob

When the V32 first came out, someone else reported wobbling and thought the problem was that the edge connector was too short. I lengthened it in the next rev of the board and since then, no one has mentioned a problem to me.

jaymzjulian, who started this thread, had the theory that the V32's board is on the thin side. It's supposed to be 1.6mm, which should be fine. I haven't measured it though - I just assumed it was manufactured to the spec I ordered.

I've never seen problems like this in my own Vectrex. Every V32 I send out gets plugged into my own Vectrex first.

I'm a bit hesitant to suggest this but ... you could try putting a thin layer of solder on the V32's connectors to add some thickness. Just the far left and far right connector might be enough. You want it to be thin though, because you don't want to damage the Vectrex's connector.

- Bob

I'm thinking more like whether the solder connections between the connector and the PCB are cracking.

- Bob

The calculations might be high precision, but the Vectrex DAC is still just 8 bit resolution.

- Bob

It should not be wobbling and should not require support for the weight. Is it possible the connector in the Vectrex is loose.

- Bob

I made significant improvements to memory efficiency in version 1.17, but it was mostly in the compactness of compiled code.

- Bob

Did have to pay for customs, but it is worth it. Now to be patient until this work day is over.

Sorry about the Customs. How much did they dun you for?

- Bob

If you don't call Randomize() in your program, you will get the same sequence of numbers from Rand() every time you run. You could build your levels before you call Randomize() and when you're done with that, call Randomize() so that the game play will be random.

If you want to create a level after you've had random game play, there's no way to "undo" the effect of Randomize(). You would need to write your own pseudo-random number generator. Sorry.

But since you have so much memory available to you, is it feasible for you to generate all your levels at the beginning of the game and just keep them around?

- Bob

Welcome Milan! Glad to see you here.

- Bob

Any news on Vecalabeth? Have you continued to develop it?

- Bob