Let's Make EdVenture #6: Now with More Graphics! -- Coding a Roguelike in Atari 8-bit Assembly

[@brandonphilander661]

Thank you for continuing this series.

[@mala_raman]

Great episode! Refactoring into different files and procedures sure helps!

[@MissionEdPossible]

Thanks!

[@Pec3t]

Are you sure this code: loop mva gfx,x charset,x mva gfx+8,x charset+8,x mva gfx+16,x charset+16,x mva gfx+32,x charset+32,x inx cpx #128 bne loop will load all 128 characters? There is 128 characters, each character is 8 bytes. It gives us 128*8 bytes =1024 bytes. The biggest number in loop is 32+128 = 160

[@MissionEdPossible]

Good catch - check out the next video where I remove this function and just load it in directly :)

[@takingbytes1265]

I'm not a programmer by trade. I came to it through digital electronics, which is also a hobby of mine. The most impressive assembly code I wrote for the Atari was a port of 8-Bit Show And Tell's Dataram challenge ("VIC-20 Super Expander: Programming Challenge" episode). I'm excited to watch your videos because they help me understand program structure. Thanks again!!

[@MissionEdPossible]

And I've been a programmer my whole life and I'm working on learning more about digital electronics.... :) Glad you like the series!

[@fatmanslim6591]

Stuck with antic4 and been having a blast doing UDGs. Another week or two and I might be brave enough to share my test screen but for now it's on to episode 7

[@MissionEdPossible]

Would love to see what you've come up with! I gotta ask -- UDG's? :)

[@fatmanslim6591]

@@MissionEdPossible User Defined Graphics, that's what we used to call custom character sets back in the day. Not sure if it was a platform or region specific term but they were always my favourite part of programming my 800XL. Someone mentioned graph-paper and all those happy memories came flooding back 😀

[@fatmanslim6591]

@@MissionEdPossible got a couple of screen shots of my test graphics, what's the best way to share them?

[@edwinjacobellis4852]

This is so good

[@MissionEdPossible]

Thanks so much!

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

ED! More awesomeness!

[@philtoa334]

🤩Beautiful ! Thanks

[@MissionEdPossible]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@takingbytes1265]

I sat down with my Atari XL and worked on getting this to run. Those include libraries on the Mac65 Toolkit disk are useful for streamlining things! Unfortunately, I did all the art with graph paper, colored markers and transcribing the data. Does anybody know a good editor too use? I have AtariArtist, with Touch Tablet, but no knowledge of how to convert the image.

[@MissionEdPossible]

This one just came out, but I haven't messed with it yet. swspred-atari.sourceforge.io/ - If you're trying to do it on the actual hardware, I remember using the Character Editor from Datasoft at one point.

[@fatmanslim6591]

Ah yes, graph paper, happy memories 😀 My tool of choice so far has been the modern day equivalent - Excel

[@TaBaR999]

wonderful channel. Been using the Atari since 1983(not all the time). no rush or anything but will you be finishing this series?

[@MissionEdPossible]

Thanks! Yes, I will be finishing the series -- it takes me a while to do each video though - I will be hopefully speeding things up soon!

[@brianwild4640]

hi Ed thanks for the great videos I have a problem with the python make_tile.py I get this error Traceback (most recent call last): File "tile_maker.py", line 1, in import png ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'png' do you have any idea please I am windows 7 python version 3.8.9 (last version to work on windows 7)

[@MissionEdPossible]

Yes, you need to install the "pypng" library -- run "pip install pypng" - that should get you working.

[@brianwild4640]

@@MissionEdPossible yes I did that Ed Lol I did it wrong I was hearing you say piping in the video not pypng 😂

[@redleader7988]

These tutorials work in Altirra, but I am unable to get them to run on my 800XL. Is there something that I am forgetting to do?

[@redleader7988]

I found out why. With MADS, you need something like run StartOfProgram somewhere in the assembly code. You need to add a run command pointing to a label at the start of the program, or it will not run on real hardware.

[@MissionEdPossible]

Interesting -- good to know for when I actually try it on real hardware. Surprised that it works in Altirra but not on the real hardware. Thanks for the update!

[@redleader7988]

@@MissionEdPossible I was surprised as well. Maybe it has something to do with my SIO2PC/APE setup that makes the run command necessary, but now the OBX files execute on my 800XL if in include the run command.

[@mmm43kir]

плохо что не на русском.

[@MissionEdPossible]

Извините, я не говорю по-русски!

[@lanemou]

Nice I noticed that we can perform 16-bit math on addresses and modified the loop into: *loop* *mva map,y screen,y* *mva map+$f0,y screen+$f0,y* *iny* *cpy #$f0* *bne loop* *rts* I think we could reduce the bytes used to make the map by half if we store tile IDs instead of chars, since each tile is 2 chars we just have to use the index of the first char / 2. Honestly, it was easier to think about how to do it than actually doing it; I'm not sure why my code works, but that's fine😆 *.proc display_map* *ldx #$00* *ldy #$00* *loop* *; copy the first 6 lines* *tya* *asl ; I found that this is called lshift and it basically multiply by 2* *tax* *lda map,y* *asl* *sta screen,x* *adc #$01* *sta screen+$01,x* *; copy the next 3 lines* *lda map+60,y* *asl* *sta screen+120,x* *adc #$01* *sta screen+121,x* *; copy the last 3 lines* *lda map+$78,y* *asl* *sta screen+$f0,x* *adc #$01* *sta screen+$f1,x* *iny* *cpy #$78* *bne loop* *rts*

[@MissionEdPossible]

Thanks for your comment! Post a link to your project!