kamakazi

Me Likey!!! This will definitely make learning assembly language for the A8/5200 much easier. The error highlights will be really helpful. Now I just need to learn how to setup display lists and target the 5200's structure.

I'd use it just to get a better understanding of how to develop the Display List routines. Those always trouble me to the point I lose interest in my projects. And I would like to develop game ideas for both the 5200 and A8s. Cheers! I'll be keeping up with this project.

Hmmm...never heard of Turbo BASIC. I stuck with Atari BASIC mainly because it is built in. And I can use Atari DOS to convert to binary when my project is finished. I had done this one years ago when I first obtained a used XEGS with 2 floppy drives and a modem. It also came with one of the books on Atari Archives I think was 101 Microcomputer Games (the yellow one). One of my favorite text games in the book was Bombardment. So I converted it using graphics instead of text. I also strictly used the joystick. If I remember correctly, I used Autoexec to load the binary file created once the project was finished. I couldn't believe the speed difference from a BASIC file and a BINARY file.

Sadly, I'm using a 810 Single Density drive now as all that other Atari stuff I had my ex kept and sold off. So, I'm having to start over but it's been years since I have programmed this way. I'm a little rusty But, I'm having fun doing it again.

My only issue is I'm using Graphics Mode 9 and am having to come up with a way to place the score on the screen along side the playfield. I've got the numbers already mapped out and they display OK. I'm not doing so well coming up with a way to keep the score display accurate. I'm trying to use an array for it.

DIM SC(6)

This would allow for all 6 numbers (possible score is 999,999). The thought was that once the ones place hits 10, subtract 10 from it and add one to the tens place and so forth and place the remainder back into the ones place. Good news is that I have managed to get some blocks placed in the playfield at random positions and of random colors (can only be one of 5 colors). Due to the speed of BASIC, however, the game is almost unplayable due to slow responses from the interpreter. I am hoping that this will be eliminated when converted to binary.

Thank you, rdea6! That's been buggin' me. I don't know why I couldn't remember it.

I can't seem to remember how, but I do remember there is a memory location using POKE that disables the screen saver on Atari 8-bits. Does anyone remember that location?