My RetroChallenge Blog

Throwing Rocks

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:14:37 -0800

I’ve finally caught up with my life for a brief moment, and thus had the opportunity to write one last little game for the RetroChallenge Winter Warm-up. It’s not exactly earth-shattering, nor is it the finish I hoped for, but at least I’m finishing up on my feet. The result is that you can now find a simple Rock, Paper, Scissors game in the listings section...

It’s been a fun month, and hopefully I’ll have the summer off and be able to participate more fully when RetroChallenge comes around again...

I'm Still Alive

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:23:59 -0800

I haven’t been around the BBS or making updates lately due to being overwhelmed by work and school the last two weeks, but I’m still kicking. I’ve got some work done on the research proposal I’m typing up in AppleWorks, and I hope to have at least one more simple BASIC game out in the final week...

Dungeons in Castles

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 05:09:27 -0800

My latest Applesoft game is a bit bigger than anything I planned to do this month. It has drained many, many hours of my life and probably has a million bugs left in it, but it was fun to do.

“Warlock’s Castle” is the name of the game. I don’t know anything about warlocks, or even if they have castles, but I needed something to work with. In it you wander around a castle with 200 uniquely described rooms trying to find the exit. Unfortunately there are a lot of nasties hanging about that will kill you if you’re not powerful enough to destroy them first. They can get pretty tough as you go along, so you want to find any objects hidden in the castle that might help you out. No text parser here -- just a handful of one letter commands. There aren’t even any mind-twisting puzzles. This is a real beginner’s game (suited to my level).

The listing is in the listings section. Since it comprises four different files of 12-15k each, you probably want to just get the disk image...

Hangman and Assembly Progress

Fri, 4 Jan 2008 07:43:09 -0800

I once had a hangman game for an old IBM PC that used the Extended ASCII block characters for the graphics. Upon recalling this, I decided that lo-res graphics ought to be perfectly sufficient for hangman. It may not be the prettiest thing ever, but it works...

As far as my progress on 6502 Assembly language, I now know my way around the monitor. I can read data from and write data to memory locations, use the disassembler, etc. I can tweak the speaker by reading memory location $C030 with LDA $C030 (and I could probably use this knowledge to add sound to the breakout game I made the other day if I felt so inclined). I’ve learned some of the common mnemonics, including JSR, RTS, JMP, LDA, CLC, SEC, SED, CLD, ADC, SBC, STA, BNE, BCS, LDX, LDY. TSX, TXA, TAX, TAY, CMP, INC, INX, INY, DEC, and so on. I’ve also learned to use the ORCA/M Macro assembler (unfortunately still on Virtual ][ until I can get it onto floppy disks) to assemble the simple programs I can write.

The Two Hour Masterpiece

Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:45:54 -0800

I decided to start off by reacquainting myself with graphics on the Apple II. I started out by having a paddle bounce a ball around the screen. Originally, it was terribly flickery. I fixed that by drawing the paddle and ball in their new positions before erasing them from their old positions. Now it’s merely painfully slow. However, it was good practice. I started over, this time making it into a breakout clone, trying to streamline it from the start. The result is somewhat playable.

The listings for both are available under the “listings” section of this website, and I also put up a disk image which contains both programs and will be updated with additional ones I write throughout the month.

Assembly Language Book

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:07:40 -0800

The book that will assist me in learning 6502 Assembly language has arrived! It’s not “Assembly Lines,” but as much praise as I’ve heard for that book from various sources, as a starving college student I stuck with one I could afford. Especially since I still have to purchase the ORCA/M Macro assembler.

I also ran into some new problems -- the power supply for my Apple IIe burned out. Fortunately I was able to “borrow” one from my non-functioning IIe. I am now fully prepared for January’s challenge...

The Cable Has Arrived!

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:20:26 -0800

‘Tis an exciting day in my world -- the DuoDisk cable I ordered has arrived! I was too excited to remember to take a picture before I opened it up, so instead you get to see a file transfer screen image from ADTPro. I can receive disk images from my Mac on the IIe, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to want to send images to the Mac. This delays my anticipated use of the Mac as a method of backing up my data. Anyway, that’s the status update. I'll mention when the assembly language book arrives...

Background and Preparation

Sat, 8 Dec 2007 16:53:41 -0800

I will be working on the RetroChallenge 2008 on an Apple IIc (with an ImageWriter II) and an Apple IIe. I purchased both systems recently, and this is the first time in about 5 years that I’m regularly using Apple II systems (Coincidentally, 5 years is about how long ago my other IIe stopped working -- the computer itself is fine, but the disk II cable became damaged).

However, in some sense the race is on already. Will I get the supplies I need for this challenge on time? What do I need, you ask? Well, I don’t have an I/O cable for my new IIe yet... I had to order that separately and it hasn’t arrived. Same with the Assembly language book. Though I really like the IIc, and though it is fully functional, I think the IIe keyboard is much better suited to the heavy typing required for completion of my RetroChallenge 2008 goals. Plus, my joystick is the type that plugs in inside the computer, so it won’t work on the IIc, ergo I’m really anxious to get the IIe up and running!