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BBC Demo
http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=197		 Page 2 of 2
Author:  TMR [ Fri Jan 23, 2009 8:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: BBC Demo
DaveM wrote:
Don't know if you are aware, but there's actually a 90% finished BBC port of Reaxion in existence (though it's not available publicly). I think it was done about 3 years ago, and the guy who converted it is a member of these forums. I believe he began writing it after chatting with Simon (Cronosoft) at a Retro Event, though I'm not sure if you were also in the 'loop'?!


Yeah, i was aware; to be honest i wasn't massively keen on the graphics and felt they could've been done better - Reaxion is sort of my "flagship" since i produced the graphics for every version and coded over half of them (including the three unreleased versions). i have been considering a BBC port of Blok Copy along with attempts to push it in about six or seven other directions, but the other versions are all character-based so the BBC version will need a bit of reworking and a few tests to make sure it's actually viable.

DaveM wrote:
But just to clarify, I'm not aware of any Acorn versions of Co-Axis! ;)


Well, at the moment Co-Axis 2189 runs in at just shy of 50K without compression so getting it into 32K isn't really an option... the original Co-Axis was far more primitive but took about the same amount of memory because it was... erm, rather badly written. =-)

DaveM wrote:
Going back to the subject of ARM Co-Pro demos, I received the following comments (+file) from Sprow himself ...


Hmm, that does limit what it can do to a considerable degree; presumably the bottleneck would adversely affect the co-pro rendering frames and then barrelling them down the tube too...?
Author:  DaveF [ Mon Jan 26, 2009 10:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: BBC Demo
TMR wrote:
That's what i'm doing, as a kid i focused on the C64 and it's still my first love as far as 8-bits go but there's a huge list of machines i've used at some point and want to actually write some code for; the BBC is very squarely on that list, the Atari 8-bit, Plus/4 and VIC 20 are another three i have more ideas for

I'd probably enjoy tinkering with other platforms too (seeing Thrust on the 2600 was an inspiration) although I don't have a lot of time at the moment so I'm trying to give the BBC priority. When I get the time I find working on the BBC very enjoyable :)
Author:  DaveM [ Mon Jan 26, 2009 6:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: BBC Demo
TMR wrote:
Well, at the moment Co-Axis 2189 runs in at just shy of 50K without compression so getting it into 32K isn't really an option...

Heheh ... I wasn't really suggesting that Co-Axis should be your first attempt at a Beeb game! ;)

I'll definitely check out Blok Copy though ... currently only available for the Vic, right?

Btw, bear in mind that should you have a concept or existing game that you don't think would be feasible to fit into 32k, you could always do a port for the BBC Master 128 (which would definitely be better than no Beeb version at all!). :)
Author:  TMR [ Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: BBC Demo
DaveM wrote:
I'll definitely check out Blok Copy though ... currently only available for the Vic, right?


No, it's only on the Commodore PET right now (linky here) but there's already an unreleased but functioning "PETSCII Edition" for the C64 which will be the base for assorted other versions.

DaveM wrote:
Btw, bear in mind that should you have a concept or existing game that you don't think would be feasible to fit into 32k, you could always do a port for the BBC Master 128 (which would definitely be better than no Beeb version at all!). :)


In the case of Ax 2189 it's difficult for a number of reasons, it uses half pixel scrolling which would translate to one pixel every other frame and i'm not sure how the hardware would handle it... i've shied away from trying it on any other 8-bit so far because although it's not pushing the C64 particularly hard there is quite a bit going on there.
Author:  AndrewW [ Sun Feb 01, 2009 1:06 am ]
Post subject:  Re: BBC Demo
I think the Master 128 and SRAM came too late in the day for the BBC games scene. Even when they had arrived most games producers assumed that the most common expansion would be 16KSRAM. Even a few good achievements were made with it e.g. Exile. Very few games demanded more e.g. Level 9's re-releases and later releases which used SRAM and shadow RAM. With modern emulators surely it's not unreasonable to use the full 64K memory map?

With some emulators you can access the native computer's hard disk but I can see how that is "cheating".

Isn't the BBC Micro technicaly capable of accessing up to 16x16K RAMs? Or at least 15 and 1 ROM?
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