=-=-=-= 8-BIT NOSTALGIA =-=-=-=

SinisterSoft

@gorkem I didn't work for Psygnosis - they had a licence agreement to sell SuperHero on Amiga. It was around that time though.

@OZApps: I don't own the rights to Cabal. But it would be good using the accelerometer.

I'm working on something thats a cross between StarRaiders (8-bit version) and Elite right now. There is a screenshot on the VirtualPad discussion...

techdojo

@SinisterSoft - I remember spending an AGE playing Merc's on the ST. Top show old boy

SinisterSoft

@techdojo The ST version was actually an unfinished release, I was off work (from Tiertex) and they took the wrong set of disks to be mastered! lol. I only had a couple of weeks for the conversion, I had almost created a horizontal scroll if you had >512MB of memory, flip scroll if you had < 512MB memory (like what was released), smooth + scroll on STE.

The Amiga version was far better. What did you think of the flamethrower? Did you every find the clown secret weapon or the secret garden of powerups?

Scouser

@SinisterSoft: You didn't work for Tiertex did you? They had a terrible reputation in the industry for poor quality rushed (and usually buggy) conversions.
Doh! Ninja'd again (

talis

@gorkem it was RadioShock (or RadioShack). It is still laying somewhere in the basement i guess. If i dig so deep i can find it:D

SinisterSoft

@Scouser Virtually everyone in the UK (and those that left the UK) worked for Tiertex at one time or another. They had such a fast turnaround for staff. lol.

That's why we all know each other.

Sure the games were rushed - but you can't spend more than a few months on an arcade conversion, the money just isn't there. Rent, rates, staff costs, etc - it's expensive creating a game as a business.

I think I did an ok job with Mercs considering the time I had and the capabilities of the 8Mhz 512MB Amiga + 880K floppy. Don't forget the phone you're developing for most likely has 1GB ram, 1Ghz processor (with possibly 2 or more cores) and Gigabytes of storage. ;p

Scouser

I was lucky enough not to work for them .
I also agree about timescales, I did the Amstrad CPC conversion of Tusker for system 3 in 5 days and wrote Spectrum & CPC versions of Snoopy the cool computer game for The Edge in 2 weeks. Other notable titles include Return of the Jedi coin-op conversion to CPC.

SinisterSoft

Ahh z80 ehh? I'll pm you about something...

WauloK

What languages did you guys use for these conversions?

SinisterSoft

@WauloK Assembly = almost a 6502 on NES, 68k on Amiga/Atari ST.

Scouser

@Waulok: Assembly was the language of choice for almost every home computer / console in the 80s / early 90s
Z80 : Spectrum / Amstrad CPC
Cut down Z80 / 8080 hybrid : Gameboy
6502 : BBC Model B
6510 : C64
68000 (68k) : Atari ST / Amiga / Sega Mega Drive (Genesis)

SinisterSoft

@Waulok In the old days as well as having to use the defines opcodes on some computers you also used the undefined opcodes (eg I used the undefined codes for the rockwell version of the 6502C in the Atari 8-bit) just to get an extra few machine cycles - yes, you even counted the cycles!!! As well as this you sometimes had to resort to self modifying code and other tricks else you would run out of frame time. Games used to run the game loop every video frame back then. On some machines the video frame time was used up by the graphics subsystem (2600, etc) so you had to use the v and h blank periods for your game - not much time at all compare to today.

OZApps

@SinisterSoft, there were also IRQ's to help slice up CPU time and these could be changed in some by simply rewriting the memory address that handled the IRQ or setting a function (like a callback) even using registers and Index Registers and alternative registers were fun to get that extra bit (no pun intended) A simple splash screen is larger than some of the amazing games with animation and sound for those machines

SinisterSoft

Yep, loads of good tricks like also point the stack to the screen and pushing to it.

Shame Nintendo always chopped something off their cpu's... always something missing.

WauloK

Yeah I did a bit of Assembler programming on Z80 and 6502 back in the day. Never made anything more than demos for the demoscene and wasn't well known

Cyberience

Do you know the difference between a peek and a Poke

hgy29

Ahh, raw memory/register access in Basic. My first program was on MSX computer (Sony Hitbit 501 or something like that, I was 7yo or so). I assume my career in digital electronics and computer programming really started from that computer experience. Z80 cpu, AY38912PSG sound chip, VDPxxx video chip... souvenirs
Later on, I owned a CPC6128, an ATARI 520STE (remember doing full screen display by reconfiguring the video chip while it was generating VSYNC and HSYNC, fooling him into drawing pixels in the borders) and switched to 386 after that.