Search found 936 matches
- Mon Mar 01, 2021 3:32 pm
- Forum: acorn & bbc micro user group (abug) events
- Topic: NOW FULL! All-day 'Virtual' Acorn session #12, Saturday 6th March 2021, 9am - midnight
- Replies: 63
- Views: 1073
Re: All-day 'Virtual' Acorn session #12, Saturday 6th March 2021, 9am - midnight
Wow, what a line up! Please put me down for afternoon & evening.
- Thu Feb 25, 2021 6:49 pm
- Forum: programming
- Topic: 50fps?
- Replies: 18
- Views: 564
- Wed Feb 24, 2021 3:58 pm
- Forum: programming
- Topic: 50fps?
- Replies: 18
- Views: 564
Re: 50fps?
I was thinking about how to get a consistent 25fps if going for that. I thought maybe to have an IRQ on the vsync event that increments a counter. And then have the main loop of the game, once it's finished doing it stuff, polling that counter looking for the right value before waiting for the next...
- Wed Feb 03, 2021 10:36 pm
- Forum: modern implementations of classic programming languages
- Topic: MODE 7 emulation (was SAA5050 Reverse Engineering)
- Replies: 43
- Views: 1249
- Fri Jan 29, 2021 6:04 pm
- Forum: past all-day virtual ABugs
- Topic: All-day 'Virtual' Acorn session #11, Saturday 6th February 2021, 9am - 11pm
- Replies: 54
- Views: 1854
Re: All-day 'Virtual' Acorn session #11, Saturday 6th February 2021, 9am - 11pm
Hi Arcadian. Please put me down for the afternoon & evening. Thanks!
- Wed Jan 20, 2021 8:20 pm
- Forum: new ideas wishlist & general chat
- Topic: what should i write next?
- Replies: 366
- Views: 38620
Re: what should i write next?
Well, I think the beeb could do with more than one new shmup, and since you are going to write one anyway, you might as well start now ;) You know how much better it could be on the Master and that I will be targeting the beeb with one or two sideways RAM/ROM banks. Factor in my zero creative talen...
- Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:47 pm
- Forum: new ideas wishlist & general chat
- Topic: what should i write next?
- Replies: 366
- Views: 38620
Re: what should i write next?
As you’ve clearly run out of arcade ROMs to port
I think the time has finally come for you to start developing that R-Type inspired sideways scrolling shmup.
Mostly so that I don’t have to write one later. 



- Mon Jan 18, 2021 7:51 pm
- Forum: development tools
- Topic: NEW! Owlet: a simple, modern BBC BASIC editor
- Replies: 7
- Views: 1061
Re: NEW! Owlet: a simple, modern BBC BASIC editor
Just a note that the emulator in the Owlet editor is now interactive - just click in the window! This is the ONLY way I ever want to write BASIC from now on.
Check it out at https://bbcmic.ro.

- Mon Jan 18, 2021 7:45 pm
- Forum: past weeknight 'developer' sessions
- Topic: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #9, Thursday 14th January 2021, 7pm - 10pm (GMT)
- Replies: 49
- Views: 1682
Re: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #9, Thursday 14th January 2021, 7pm - 10pm (GMT)
Hi all, I hope the CRTC Register Masterclass session was helpful for people and apologies again for the interruption halfway through! I've sent Arcadian the PDF version of the slides to upload alongside the video when it eventually arrives. In the meantime, these are the two demo programs in BASIC: ...
- Wed Jan 13, 2021 5:05 pm
- Forum: past weeknight 'developer' sessions
- Topic: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #9, Thursday 14th January 2021, 7pm - 10pm (GMT)
- Replies: 49
- Views: 1682
Re: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #9, Thursday 14th January 2021, 7pm - 10pm (GMT)
I’m hoping my session will be closer to 30 minutes than an hour but I’ve yet to run through it all. There are some slides but want to make sure there’s more time spent on practical examples. This may or may not generate questions depending on whether I’m lecturing to the already knowledgeable! EDIT:...
- Sun Jan 10, 2021 8:26 pm
- Forum: past weeknight 'developer' sessions
- Topic: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #9, Thursday 14th January 2021, 7pm - 10pm (GMT)
- Replies: 49
- Views: 1682
Re: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #9, Thursday 14th January 2021, 7pm - 10pm (GMT)
After a few months away from the (retro) keyboard, my new year's resolution is to start on some new projects and do some more Masterclasses. To that end, I've prepared An Intro to CRTC Registers (part 1) for Thursday evening. In this session we can cover: A high-level overview of what the CRTC actua...
- Sat Dec 19, 2020 2:54 pm
- Forum: new projects and releases: demoscene
- Topic: b-tracker
- Replies: 15
- Views: 931
Re: b-tracker
This is great!
It's also been on my very long backlog, for a very long time, to write a Tracker on the Beeb - shame there wasn't one available BITD.

- Thu Dec 17, 2020 10:04 pm
- Forum: programming
- Topic: Reclaiming sound, serial, speech etc workspace
- Replies: 14
- Views: 637
Re: Reclaiming sound, serial, speech etc workspace
Edit to add: On a Master, this variable lives at &2CD! So this just demonstrates the pitfalls of trying to do hacky things with the OS. I would be inclined to implement your own IRQ handler and only restore the OS one when you access the disk (this may not even be necessary, but is probably rec...
- Thu Dec 17, 2020 11:28 am
- Forum: programming
- Topic: Reclaiming sound, serial, speech etc workspace
- Replies: 14
- Views: 637
Re: Reclaiming sound, serial, speech etc workspace
All the info you need about memory usage (and what you can feasibly steal) is here: http://mdfs.net/Docs/Comp/BBC/AllMem
- Sat Nov 14, 2020 12:51 pm
- Forum: miscellaneous new bbc and electron games
- Topic: BBC AGD Games
- Replies: 23
- Views: 2931
Re: BBC AGD Games
I figure I should just share this here, rather than leave it languishing on my PC. Although I'm no longer actively helping with the development of BBC AGD, I did have some success a while back converting Foggy's Quest by Dethmunk into MODE 1 to give it a bit of colour (the Spectrum version looks gor...
- Sat Oct 24, 2020 11:00 pm
- Forum: past all-day virtual ABugs
- Topic: All-day 'Virtual' Acorn session #9, Saturday 7th November 2020, 9am - 11pm
- Replies: 63
- Views: 8683
Re: All-day 'Virtual' Acorn session #9, Saturday 7th November 2020, 9am - 11pm
Thanks again for organising! Please put me down for the afternoon and evening. 

- Sun Oct 18, 2020 10:56 pm
- Forum: new projects in development: games
- Topic: BBC Pooyan
- Replies: 107
- Views: 7837
Re: BBC Pooyan
If you found some suitable VGM files for music then you should have come talk to us Bitshifters! Try taking a look at https://github.com/simondotm/vgm-converter and https://github.com/simondotm/vgm-player-bbc from simonm. Drop me or Simon a PM if you need any help getting it going. Keep up the good ...
- Fri Oct 09, 2020 4:06 pm
- Forum: past weeknight 'developer' sessions
- Topic: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #5, Thursday 22nd October 2020, 7pm - 10pm
- Replies: 37
- Views: 1819
Re: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #5, Thursday 22nd October 2020, 7pm - 10pm
Unfortunately (well, fortunate for me) I'm away on holiday on that Thursday. I will endeavour to attend the following session in November and maybe even see if I can get the CRTC Registers masterclass together by then.
- Thu Oct 08, 2020 8:45 am
- Forum: past weeknight 'developer' sessions
- Topic: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #4, Thursday 8th October 2020, 7pm - 10pm
- Replies: 15
- Views: 969
Re: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #4, Thursday 8th October 2020, 7pm - 10pm
Not sure I will be able to make it tonight but will pop in if I can.
- Wed Sep 30, 2020 7:53 pm
- Forum: general
- Topic: Can MODE 3 or MODE 6 display graphics?
- Replies: 4
- Views: 582
Re: Can MODE 3 or MODE 6 display graphics?
I understand it wouldn't look pretty with the two blank scanlines creating a dashed line effect unless I also changed the value in CTRC register 9 to 7 to remove the blank scanlines, but I wonder if anyone else has tried such a thing? If you want an equivalent of MODE 0 or 4 but with just 25 charac...
- Wed Sep 30, 2020 5:18 pm
- Forum: new projects in development: games
- Topic: Elementum - new Elk/Beeb platformer
- Replies: 135
- Views: 8087
Re: New Elk/Beeb platformer - playable demo
Great work, as ever! It is super-smooth and responsive. The coyote time jumping is absolutely essential and become a gameplay feature I see. If I was going to be critical then I would say that the collision detection is a bit too coarse at the moment. Would it be possible to make this pixel-perfect?...
- Fri Sep 25, 2020 10:28 pm
- Forum: 8-bit acorn software: classic games
- Topic: Acorn - A World in Pixels - new book
- Replies: 53
- Views: 4572
Re: Acorn - A World in Pixels - new book
What a list of contributors! And the book looks like a really high quality edition. Really looking forward to reading this. 

- Thu Sep 24, 2020 10:20 am
- Forum: new projects in development: games
- Topic: Elementum - new Elk/Beeb platformer
- Replies: 135
- Views: 8087
Re: New Elk platformer - playable demo
A modified MODE 1 (256x256) on the Beeb would save 4K and you only have to inc/dec the hi byte of the screen address to switch char rows. A square MODE 1 (256x256) on the Beeb takes 16K but you still need to increment two pages to get to the next character row as there are 64 columns * 8 bytes per ...
- Wed Sep 23, 2020 4:43 pm
- Forum: new projects in development: games
- Topic: Elementum - new Elk/Beeb platformer
- Replies: 135
- Views: 8087
- Wed Sep 23, 2020 12:20 pm
- Forum: past weeknight 'developer' sessions
- Topic: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #3, Thursday 24th September 2020, 7pm - 10pm
- Replies: 35
- Views: 2015
Re: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #3, Thursday 24th September 2020, 7pm - 10pm
Ooops, yes, I'll be there tomorrow. No Masterclass from me this time though! (I have CRTC register programming and maybe Video ULA 101 on the backlog though.)
- Mon Sep 14, 2020 6:55 pm
- Forum: trickysoft (new bbc micro games)
- Topic: Canyon Bomber emulator/source code port without the source
- Replies: 5
- Views: 474
Re: Canyon Bomber emulator/source code port without the source
And again, good job with this port. It's a funny little game, that I'd also never heard of, but quite addictive once you get into it, as you say. I love the NULA version in dreary grey, very authentic!
I think I like your MODE 1 colour choices better. Enjoyed the video again too.

- Mon Sep 14, 2020 6:49 pm
- Forum: trickysoft (new bbc micro games)
- Topic: Super Breakout emulator/source code port without the source
- Replies: 3
- Views: 574
Re: Super Breakout emulator/source code port without the source
So many games! You have been busy Tricky.
Great work once again, and also enjoyed the video a lot hearing about your history with the game and the details of how it works. Good stuff. 


- Mon Sep 14, 2020 6:45 pm
- Forum: trickysoft (new bbc micro games)
- Topic: Asteroids emulator/source code port without the source
- Replies: 15
- Views: 1064
Re: Asteroids emulator/source code port without the source
Excellent work Tricky, as ever! And a fantastic video, really interesting to hear about the details of making the game. 
Now, about that 6502 copro version with line drawing in MODE 0.


Now, about that 6502 copro version with line drawing in MODE 0.


- Mon Sep 14, 2020 6:18 pm
- Forum: past weeknight 'developer' sessions
- Topic: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #2, Thursday 10th September 2020, 7pm - 10pm
- Replies: 55
- Views: 3565
Re: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #2, Thursday 10th September 2020, 7pm - 10pm
I'm looking forward to catching up with some of the presentations I missed. The ones I saw were very inspiring and it's great to see people still developing for the Atom, Beeb, Electron and Archimedes. Kieran, your 'introduction to timer interrupts' was superb! I remember trying to work out this st...
- Fri Sep 11, 2020 10:53 am
- Forum: past weeknight 'developer' sessions
- Topic: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #2, Thursday 10th September 2020, 7pm - 10pm
- Replies: 55
- Views: 3565
Re: Weeknight 'Virtual' Dev session #2, Thursday 10th September 2020, 7pm - 10pm
Nice to see everyone last night and thanks again to Arcadian for organising. I hope the Intro to Interrupts session was practical and useful. All the text and asm code can be found on GitHub: https://github.com/kieranhj/intro-to-interrupts. In the spirit of improvement, please feel free to PM me wit...