23 replies to this topic

[AtariHacker]

It could be very easy. Can anyone convert it for me?

Either that or Provide a doc on how to convert atari 8-bit to 5200 games.

-Atarihacker

[Mitch]

Tower Toppler is too big to work on the 5200 unless you used bankswitching. Which would probably require someone to design a custom cartridge to play it.

Mitch

[Bryan]

Mitch, on Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:57 PM, said:

Tower Toppler is too big to work on the 5200 unless you used bankswitching. Which would probably require someone to design a custom cartridge to play it.

Mitch

I made a 512K cart board that I used for MULE (which ended up using a 64K EPROM). The problem is the amount of time it can take to mangle a large game into something that works with the memory map of the 5200.

[DracIsBack]

AtariHacker, on Sat Aug 11, 2007 8:54 PM, said:

It could be very easy. Can anyone convert it for me?

Either that or Provide a doc on how to convert atari 8-bit to 5200 games.

-Atarihacker

8bit would be easier, though as others have noted, the 5200 has a unique memory map and limited RAM. Some work would need to be done.

The 7800 has a totally different graphics chip - would be easier to go from the 8-bit.

[AB Positive]

Uh... Tower Toppler is on the 7800 folks. It's called "Nebulus" but it's on there. I played it on the 7800 first.

edit - wow, this thread's almost a year old. Sorry folks!

Edited by AB Positive, Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:49 AM.

[Curt Vendel]

Here is the source code to XE Tower Toppler if that will help...



 XETOPP.zip   117K   115 downloads

Its an ARC file zipped up, so you'll need to unarc it...

Curt

[Allan]

Curt Vendel, on Thu May 21, 2009 1:32 AM, said:

Here is the source code to XE Tower Toppler if that will help...



XETOPP.zip

Its an ARC file zipped up, so you'll need to unarc it...

Curt

Thanks, Curt!

This looks like it has a lot of 7800 code in here as well.

NLIST
;**********************************************
;**
;**   
;**
;**	 	MAIN MEMORY EQUATES	  
;**	 	 FOR 7800 NEBULUS		
;**
;**   
;**
;**********************************************
LIST
;-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
				.SUBTTL "EQUATES"
;-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
;	   BANK	EQUATES
BANK_ID		 =	   $9FFF  ;ADDRESS IN BANK WHERE BANK NUMBER IS HELD
alien_bank	  =	   $08	;ALSO $09 THRU $0B
sub_bank		=	   $09
sfx_bank		=	   $0A
music_bank	  =	   $0A
font_bank	   =	   $0B
swirl_bank	  =	   $0B
pogo_bank	   =	   $0C
tower_bank	  =	   $0C
code_bank	   =	   $0E
panel_bank	  =	   $0E

Here is the un-ARCed version.

Allan

Attached Files

•  XETOPP_2.zip   81.57K   85 downloads

[Mitch]

It appears that the 7800 source was modified to compile as the XE version.
I tried compiling it for the XE and I was able to compile all of the banks but not the nebulus.s. It won't compile due to four undefined expressions in tower.s. I checked the four lines in question and they all include #VIS_BRICKS. I'm not sure why the compiler doesn't like it, can someone who knows what they are doing take a look at it and tell me what I'm missing? Judging by the 48K that I have managed to compile it appears to be a different version than the proto that's out there.

Mitch

[Mitch]

I was looking at it some more and it seems older versions of MadMac throw out more errors than the newer ones. Makes me wonder if it was written to work with a specific version of MadMac. I tried five different versions that I had but was never able to get Nebulus.s to compile.

Mitch

[AtariHacker]

Mitch, on Thu May 21, 2009 7:49 PM, said:

I was looking at it some more and it seems older versions of MadMac throw out more errors than the newer ones. Makes me wonder if it was written to work with a specific version of MadMac. I tried five different versions that I had but was never able to get Nebulus.s to compile.

Mitch

Why is there people reviving/bumping these topics of mine?

BTW: I think MADMAC only handles 68000, not 6502.

[hhwolfman]

AtariHacker, on Fri May 22, 2009 11:58 PM, said:

Mitch, on Thu May 21, 2009 7:49 PM, said:

I was looking at it some more and it seems older versions of MadMac throw out more errors than the newer ones. Makes me wonder if it was written to work with a specific version of MadMac. I tried five different versions that I had but was never able to get Nebulus.s to compile.

Mitch

Why is there people reviving/bumping these topics of mine?

BTW: I think MADMAC only handles 68000, not 6502.

Because you only post 5 times a year, we miss ya.

[Allan]

AtariHacker, on Sat May 23, 2009 12:58 AM, said:

Mitch, on Thu May 21, 2009 7:49 PM, said:

I was looking at it some more and it seems older versions of MadMac throw out more errors than the newer ones. Makes me wonder if it was written to work with a specific version of MadMac. I tried five different versions that I had but was never able to get Nebulus.s to compile.

Mitch

Why is there people reviving/bumping these topics of mine?

BTW: I think MADMAC only handles 68000, not 6502.

Look at post #6 for your answer.

Allan

[Mitch]

Mitch, on Thu May 21, 2009 6:49 PM, said:

I was looking at it some more and it seems older versions of MadMac throw out more errors than the newer ones. Makes me wonder if it was written to work with a specific version of MadMac. I tried five different versions that I had but was never able to get Nebulus.s to compile.

Mitch

I commented out the four lines MadMac didn't like and it compiled. I tried playing it and it's all messed up. I suspect those lines are needed for play. I wish I could figure it out.

Mitch

[Mitch]

AtariHacker, on Fri May 22, 2009 9:58 PM, said:

BTW: I think MADMAC only handles 68000, not 6502.

MadMac does both 68000 and 6502. MadMac was the official Atari assembler for the 2600, 7800 and XE in the late '80s and early '90s.

Mitch

[Tempest]

Although you can't get it to compile, is there anything interesting hidden in the code?

Tempest

[Mitch]

Tempest, on Wed May 27, 2009 11:04 AM, said:

Although you can't get it to compile, is there anything interesting hidden in the code?

Tempest

There is some mentions of cheats though it doesn't say how to activate them. A real coder could probably figure it out fairly easily I would guess.

Mitch

[_Fandal_]

Mitch, on Wed May 27, 2009 2:29 PM, said:

Tempest, on Wed May 27, 2009 11:04 AM, said:

Although you can't get it to compile, is there anything interesting hidden in the code?

Tempest

There is some mentions of cheats though it doesn't say how to activate them. A real coder could probably figure it out fairly easily I would guess.

Mitch

I found these cheats when I was working on (fixed) file version back in 2006.

And here we go:

* press CTRL+number for level teleport
* SELECT (pause) -> CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER -> SELECT for teleport to the top of tower (don't use on elevators!)

F.

[Mitch]

_Fandal_, on Fri May 29, 2009 6:35 AM, said:

Mitch, on Wed May 27, 2009 2:29 PM, said:

Tempest, on Wed May 27, 2009 11:04 AM, said:

Although you can't get it to compile, is there anything interesting hidden in the code?

Tempest

There is some mentions of cheats though it doesn't say how to activate them. A real coder could probably figure it out fairly easily I would guess.

Mitch

I found these cheats when I was working on (fixed) file version back in 2006.

And here we go:

* press CTRL+number for level teleport
* SELECT (pause) -> CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER -> SELECT for teleport to the top of tower (don't use on elevators!)

F.

Cool, that's good to know!
Have you happened to look at the sources yet? I'm still wondering why I can't get that last bit to compile.

Mitch

[Wrathchild]

I was going to have a try over the weekend, either with a MadMac I had on the ST or will port to CA65

[Mitch]

Wrathchild, on Fri May 29, 2009 12:37 PM, said:

I was going to have a try over the weekend, either with a MadMac I had on the ST or will port to CA65

MadMac would probably be easier since it nearly compiles as is, just that one stupid expression it doesn't like.

Mitch

[Wrathchild]

Mitch, on Sat May 23, 2009 9:52 PM, said:

I commented out the four lines MadMac didn't like and it compiled. I tried playing it and it's all messed up. I suspect those lines are needed for play. I wish I could figure it out.

There appears to be a missing define around line 805 in tower.s, so can be fixed with something like:

VIS_BRICKS	EQU	3
BRICK_PRINT1:
		LDX	 #VIS_BRICKS

This lets it compile OK, but I will compare the output with the existing ROM image to determine the correct value to use here. Also I'm not sure if the sources 'construct' the ROM image or this needs to be manually built, so I'm examining how the resulting object files built from these sources correspond to the ROM.

The MadMac I'm using states version 1.00 and I'm attaching the ST disk image I used to use myself on an STE back around the early '90s in case anyone finds it useful. This uses an RDE reset proof ramdisk which contained some support utilities, e.g. emacs and a make utility. When this boots up, the desktop has the ramdisk content at the opened at the top and the disk content at the bottom. From the A: disk, open the shell folder and run 'PC' and this launches a command shell. Tonight I ran this in Steem, so when prompted for the date/time just press enter. MadMac is then installed automatically and you can then use the shell prompt to navigate to a folder, edit things (use "e <file>") and then assemble through "make <source.s>".

For these Nebulus sources I mount Steem's C: drive to a folder on my PC harddisk with the sources in. The RDE disk is setup as drive D: and so doesn't conflict. Within the source folder, type "make nebulus.s" and this builds nebulus.o. There are other files "makbankX.s" where X is one of 8,9,A,B,C and D. These all build object files OK too. I'm guessing all objects get spliced together to make the ROM somehow. (I'll get LD65 to do this).

I hope to post an update later with progress, but I need to study (business studies) for a few hours first before getting back into this.

Regards,
Mark

Attached Files

•  rde_orig.zip   269.65K   63 downloads

[Mitch]

Hmm, OK using Mark's suggestion of adding the line I was able to get it to compile. Unfortunately, the in-game display is buggy so it's not playable. Here's the BIN if anyone wants to see it. And thanks to Mark for looking at it.

Mitch

[Wrathchild]

The value for VIS_BRICKS should be 15 ($F) and I've attached the ROM image built using that. It played for a while in the emulator but crashes when raising an elevator.

Mark

Attached Files

•  xegs_tt.zip   28.62K   46 downloads

[Mitch]

Wrathchild, on Sun May 31, 2009 3:34 AM, said:

The value for VIS_BRICKS should be 15 ($F) and I've attached the ROM image built using that. It played for a while in the emulator but crashes when raising an elevator.

Mark

Somethings wrong with one of the banks in your ROM. Try this one.

Mitch

Attached Files

•  TowerTopplerXE.zip   27.6K   97 downloads