New To The Group, With An Odd Question

You'd think that one of the oldest systems (the 2600) would be the
easiest to program. But the VCS is a demanding mistress; requiring
you to count every cycle and byte.

There are benefits to programming the Vectrex including the 6809
processor, a decent amount of RAM and BIOS routines to get you
started.

And anything is possible if you have the time and desire.
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

Hi Pete,

www.vectrexnews.com has a whole section with technical documents and
sourcecode.

martijn


"Pete Holland Jr." <peterg.TakeThisOut@uti.com> wrote in message
news:fiilcj$88t$1@new7.xnet.com...
>I recently acquired a Vectrex (like most people here, I wanted one as a
>kid.
> Unlike most, though, I didn't get one until this week).
>
> As I sat playing...I mean, testing to make sure it worked correctly, a
> thought struck me. A long time ago, I had considered making games for the
> Atari 2600. I tossed that one aside when I realized I couldn't get the
> hang of the graphics engine.
>
> Playing Hyperchase got me wondering about the machine and how it executed
> code. I did a quick check for programming the Vectrex, and ran across
> unrelated pages and dead links. Can anyone point me to a site that gives
> a
> sort of overview of what such an endeavor entails? What language does it
> use, what kind of tools are there, and so on? (One guy said on his page
> that he wrote his Vectrex game in a week. He's either really good or the
> Vectrex is mercifully straightforward. If you've ever looked at code for
> the 2600, you know what I mean.)
>
> My background is hobbyist programming, textmode C++ (haven't gotten beyond
> the standard libraries and text screens) and a little bit of 6502 assembly
> a long time ago. Would this be out of my reach? Or would I be better off
> finding someone to team up with?
>
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

ultimotion.TakeThisOut@gmail.com wrote:

> You'd think that one of the oldest systems (the 2600) would be the
> easiest to program. But the VCS is a demanding mistress; requiring
> you to count every cycle and byte.
>
> There are benefits to programming the Vectrex including the 6809
> processor, a decent amount of RAM and BIOS routines to get you
> started.
>
> And anything is possible if you have the time and desire.

First of all, thanks for the link. I looked over the Beginner's Guide. Ah,
that brings back some memories.

I know better than to think it's a piece of cake, especially since my own
programming skills are less than professional level (for making actual
graphics in games, I use a game engine. Although no one has said anything
yet, I suspect they are thinking the same thing a NASCAR driver would think
if you told him you couldn't drive a stick). It's just one of those things
I like to think about.

The experience with the 2600 was like a cold water wake-up. I discovered I
had to drastically reconsider my concept of a game. Something tells me,
had I been a coder at the time, I would have bolted for a C64 or Atari 800
or something with 64K and an accessible floppy drive. 4K standard doesn't
let you do much.

When I was learning 6502, I had absolutely no trouble with the actual game
logic. I got the commands and started designing a simple puzzle game.
Playing with the registers and 128 bytes of RAM was well within my
capabilities. Where I crashed and burned was the actual graphics engine.
For those that don't know, you weren't exactly creating graphics so much as
actually controlling the TV set. You fed the data of what was to be drawn
scanline by scanline. Calculations during the overscan, time writing to
the playfield registers to create the background, start the sprites the
scanline before they appear, include writing to the sprite registers as
well as the playfield...I can't believe people actually programmed this
thing! Forget about Pac-Man being a lousy translation, I'm amazed they
pulled it off at all!

Needless to say, a lot of the actual commands for the Vectrex as far as data
manipulation go are familiar. But I haven't gotten to the part where it
draws the graphics yet, and that is going to be the tricky part. Before I
start daydreaming about what kind of game I would like to make, it would
help to know what my limits are. I don't want my reach to exceed my grasp.
Anyone who's followed the Homestar Runner game for the 2600 knows of which
I speak....
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

He's right..

i program multiple classic system (coleco, vectrex, videopac and 2600
amongst others) and i must say the 2600 is the hardest to program / i can
get the least of what i want in my head onto the screen.
besides huge restrictions like 2 player sprites + 3 blocks and horrible
sound hardware with linear frequencies (clock / 1-32) it is also very hard
to get the timing right.

With vectrex you can decide how much you'd like to exploit the hardware. You
can write simple games that rely on the bios a lot and you won't run into
too much trouble, or you can dig deeper wherever you need something extra
(be it sound or graphics wise).

Anyways, good luck with your efforts and let us know as soon as you have
something nice for us to see

Martijn


<ultimotion.RemoveThis@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:6e497e3c-3c1c-488c-af6c-3a6c22452a0c@e1g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> You'd think that one of the oldest systems (the 2600) would be the
> easiest to program. But the VCS is a demanding mistress; requiring
> you to count every cycle and byte.
>
> There are benefits to programming the Vectrex including the 6809
> processor, a decent amount of RAM and BIOS routines to get you
> started.
>
> And anything is possible if you have the time and desire.
>
>
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

Martijn Wenting wrote:

> With vectrex you can decide how much you'd like to exploit the hardware.
> You can write simple games that rely on the bios a lot and you won't run
> into too much trouble, or you can dig deeper wherever you need something
> extra (be it sound or graphics wise).
>
> Anyways, good luck with your efforts and let us know as soon as you have
> something nice for us to see


Oh, trust me, I have zilch at the moment. I learned a long time ago that
anytime I look at something and think, "How tough can it possibly be?",
that should be my first hint that it's a lot hard than it looks.

I'll think everything over and read up, seeing what I have to work with.
I'm thinking a good first project to test my abilities would be a blackjack
of baccarat game (no moving characters, game logic pretty much takes care
of itself, etc.). I imagine an interesting little Vectrex project would be
something like the arcade Gunfight/Atari 2600 Outlaw game. If, after a
while, I still can't get the hang of it, maybe I should team up with an
experienced coder. My background training for the Vectrex would be
crucial, since that would keep me from making a project that is simply
impossible on the hardware (i.e. Burgertime on the Atari 2600. Keith
Robinson had told Mattel that it couldn't be done, and they forced him to
do the project anyway).

So thank you for the welcome, but I'm afraid it's going to be a while (if
ever?) that you see any results coming from me.
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

Coding for the 2600 is a very different fun from doing something for
the Vectrex..

Actually coding for the Vectrex is not that difficult, the builtin
Bios functions do almost everything for you..
With the existing documents myde by Chris Tumber and Chris Salomon you
can learn how to do it very fast...

And for the rest, just ask here...


keep on,
Mike
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

I wrote a couple of games for the Vec with very little programming
experience. It wasn't so bad.
The little bit of 6502 programming in my (distant) past came in handy but
you may want to get a book on programming the 6809.



"Steril707" <Steril707.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e3a2babb-2fa7-47ce-a33d-2ad0ca7c82f0@a39g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
> Coding for the 2600 is a very different fun from doing something for
> the Vectrex..
>
> Actually coding for the Vectrex is not that difficult, the builtin
> Bios functions do almost everything for you..
> With the existing documents myde by Chris Tumber and Chris Salomon you
> can learn how to do it very fast...
>
> And for the rest, just ask here...
>
>
> keep on,
> Mike
>
>
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

> I'll think everything over and read up, seeing what I have to work with.
> I'm thinking a good first project to test my abilities would be a blackjack
> of baccarat game (no moving characters, game logic pretty much takes care
> of itself, etc.). I imagine an interesting little Vectrex project would be
> something like the arcade Gunfight/Atari 2600 Outlaw game. If, after a

Hi Pete,

Blackjack's a nice idea. I wrote one a while back myself, I
particularly enjoyed the card shuffling algorithms and drawing the red
and black suits on screen. George released 21 so I thought I might
change it to poker (eventually) although if you do have a go try to
handle drawing the 10 clubs, it's a busy card!

I think you might be a little modest on your boot hill clone ideas,
even as a start project. IMHO the Vectrex is all about capturing the
magic of Vectors and trying to do stuff that you just can't do on
other machines. On Vectrex you get animation pretty much for free,
(since you need to redraw everything each frame anyway,) big
movement, scaling and rotation are also thrown in. I'm still looking
for the killer game that combines them all and is still a fun game!
Check out Pinball (or Spinball) so see scaling used to impressive
effect, and hopefully you'll dream something awesome up!

Welcome to Vectrexing, I think you'll enjoy it!

I'd recommend this to get you coding immediately:
http://www.playvectrex.com/designit/chrissalo/toc.htm

Cheers Alex
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

> Blackjack's a nice idea. I wrote one a while back myself, I
> particularly enjoyed the card shuffling algorithms and drawing the red
> and black suits on screen. George released 21 so I thought I might
> change it to poker (eventually) although if you do have a go try to
> handle drawing the 10 clubs, it's a busy card!

Re: making a game based on established material: it's aaaaaaaaall in the
technique. When I started learning C++, the book's goal was, by the time
you finish the book, you will have made an actual text-mode blackjack game.
Now, we're talking line printing, so no cursor repositioning on the screen
or anything like that. I approached it the way I approach most computer
related projects -- I dive in head first like Adam Savage, trying to meet
the parameters of the exercise on my own before turning to what they did.
The result? My little blackjack game was bigger and took more debugging,
but compared to what the book had, it was to be expected. The book example
didn't even keep track of when you ran out of cards, it just sort of
flipped out and acted weird. I had included running out of cards and
reshuffling the deck when it reached a certain point. Not trying to brag,
but I like to think I went an extra step.

> I think you might be a little modest on your boot hill clone ideas,
> even as a start project. IMHO the Vectrex is all about capturing the
> magic of Vectors and trying to do stuff that you just can't do on
> other machines. On Vectrex you get animation pretty much for free,
> (since you need to redraw everything each frame anyway,) big
> movement, scaling and rotation are also thrown in. I'm still looking
> for the killer game that combines them all and is still a fun game!
> Check out Pinball (or Spinball) so see scaling used to impressive
> effect, and hopefully you'll dream something awesome up!

Well, I don't want to come up with something so ambitious that I get
frustrated and quit. I am very familiar with vaporware and don't want to
fall in that trap. I mean, I have ideas that I think would work, but I
need to take baby steps. I don't want to create the Vectrex version of
"The last game you will ever desire!!!", if you know what I mean.

I do know what you mean about The Vectrex Experience. One of the games I
got was Hyperchase. Usually, racing games bore me. But this? I still
can't get over the sense of speed you get from the game. The first racing
game I truly loved was Daytona USA. Subsequent racers get the speed right,
but seem so busy trying to dazzle you with flashy visuals (GT4, for
example) that it's amazing, but not quite the same. Hyperchase truly is a
marvel of game design, IMHO.

Quick question -- the primary computer I do my work on is a Linux box. I
have a Win machine because not everything runs on Linux, but I'd still
rather support Linux if I can. Do you know of any assemblers for the
Vectrex that run on Linux?
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

> I wrote a couple of games for the Vec with very little programming
> experience. It wasn't so bad.
> The little bit of 6502 programming in my (distant) past came in handy but
> you may want to get a book on programming the 6809.

Can you recommend any to me? The book I have on 6502 was created for the
Apple IIe, which also used a 6502. I recognize similar commands, but I'm
sure there has to be some difference at some point (the 16 bit D register
comes to mind).
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

The book I used was "6809 Assembly Language Programming" by Lance Leventhal.
The main difference between the 6502 and the 6809 is that the latter is a 16
bit micro.
The index registers on the 6809 are 16 bits wide and the accumulators (A &
B) are 8 bits wide. However you can load and read the two 8 bit accumulators
as a single 16 bit accumulator (double accumulator D).
There is also the issue of the direct page register (DP) which saves machine
cycles if you use it correctly but can get you in a bit of trouble if your
routine spreads across two pages.





"Pete Holland Jr." <peterg.TakeThisOut@uti.com> wrote in message
news:fiqook$opb$2@new7.xnet.com...
>> I wrote a couple of games for the Vec with very little programming
>> experience. It wasn't so bad.
>> The little bit of 6502 programming in my (distant) past came in handy but
>> you may want to get a book on programming the 6809.
>
> Can you recommend any to me? The book I have on 6502 was created for the
> Apple IIe, which also used a 6502. I recognize similar commands, but I'm
> sure there has to be some difference at some point (the 16 bit D register
> comes to mind).
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

Hi,

> The main difference between the 6502 and the 6809 is that the
>latter is a 16 bit micro.

It most certainly is NOT!!!!

The 6809 is very much an 8-bit processor, though, like the Z80, it has a
couple of internal 16-bit registers. All of it's internal data paths are
8-bit however.

Don't confuse the guy.


TTFN - Pete.
 >> Stay informed about: New To The Group, With An Odd Question 

On Nov 30, 11:39 pm, "Pete Holland Jr." <pet....DeleteThis@uti.com> wrote:

> Quick question -- the primary computer I do my work on is a Linux box. I
> have a Win machine because not everything runs on Linux, but I'd still
> rather support Linux if I can. Do you know of any assemblers for the
> Vectrex that run on Linux?

here's an older page with some info on linux tools on it
http://users.tmok.com/~gauze/vectrex/wip/
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