Looks great! I love the gentle screen curve and soft pixel edges of the Cub, especially in mode 7. Thanks for sharing, that was well worth the effort of the setup!
Mark
Looks great! I love the gentle screen curve and soft pixel edges of the Cub, especially in mode 7. Thanks for sharing, that was well worth the effort of the setup!
I never quite got this post out of my head.Diminished wrote: ↑Wed Dec 14, 2022 11:54 am I'm wondering if you've ever thought about looking at the NES version of Elite.
The reason I'm asking is because (AFAIK) the NES doesn't have anything like a bitmapped framebuffer -- instead, the display has to be built up by referencing a finite set of pre-defined tiles (perfect for 2D platformers -- less so for full 3D). Ian Bell remarked that the NES version of the game was actually his favourite, because of the shenanigans they'd had to negotiate in order to get the game to work on non-bitmapped hardware.
It strikes me that there might be some commonality between what B&B needed to do on the NES, and what you've needed to do here.
Ha, that's true! I'm also planning to document the Apple and C64 versions of Elite, time permitting, so the bbcelite.com domain name is going to be doing some heavy lifting!
You could take elite as its normal meaning of top level, so best dissassemblies of best bbc games (and their ports)....MarkMoxon wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 10:23 amHa, that's true! I'm also planning to document the Apple and C64 versions of Elite, time permitting, so the bbcelite.com domain name is going to be doing some heavy lifting!
Then again, it already houses Aviator and Revs, so the "elite" part is already a bit of a misnomer...
Mark
I like it! And that could include software for the Archimedes A305/A310/A3000 too, as they were all BBC machines. Very handy, as I’d love to pull Lander apart at some point…
I don't think I'll be able to answer that, I'm afraid - the MSX version is based on the Z80 version for the ZX Spectrum, and Z80 isn't my thing (I'm more 6502 and ARM). It's also a complete rewrite rather than a port of the original 6502 version, so it doesn't reuse any Bell/Braben code, which makes it an even bigger task to analyse (the NES is 6502-based, hence the large code-crossover with the BBC version). I suspect I'll be sticking with 6502 and ARM analysis - sorry!
Rather evil of me, perhaps.
It was done using a system called PDS (Programmers Development System) which was an editor, assembler and debugger running on a PC under DOS. The PDS PC was attached via a cable and special interface to the target system. This allowed the code to be assembled and sent straight to the target system to run and debug.
Strangely, although the MSX and Spectrum are both Z80 machines the ports were done independently and don't share any code. Rob Nicholson did the MSX port (then the Amiga and ST), Torus did the Spectrum and CPC.
Ah! I wondered how they did it. Thanks Christian, I figured they wouldn't be using BBCs any more, so that's really good to know.cjpinder wrote: ↑Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:15 pmIt was done using a system called PDS (Programmers Development System) which was an editor, assembler and debugger running on a PC under DOS. The PDS PC was attached via a cable and special interface to the target system. This allowed the code to be assembled and sent straight to the target system to run and debug.
Wow, I didn't realise they rebuilt Elite for the Z80 from scratch... twice! That's so different to the 6502 versions, where it's clear from the code that each version was built on top of the previous ones, from the BBC Micro/Electron versions through to the 6502SP, C64, Apple II, BBC Master and NES versions. I'm finding that the 1991 NES version contains lots of original BBC Micro code, with considerable chunks of it completely unchanged from the BBC versions (particularly in the maths routines).
Wasn't it said that the NES version was Ian Bell's favourite port? (Hope you didn't mention that in prior messages that I didn't bother reviewing!)
Yes, indeed. The full quote is this:
Note that the NES version is his "favourite published conversion" of Elite, which I like to think means that he still rates the original BBC Micro version as the best. Here's the full interview:My greatest published achievements technically would have to be fitting BBC Cassette "Elite" into 32K of RAM including the screen, and later the Nintendo Entertainment System conversion of "Elite" that used a character mapped display and a single NES controller. The NES is my favourite published conversion and was not thought technically feasible until we'd done it.
Great video Colin (though I may be biased) - you hit the nail on the head when talking about what makes Teletext Elite such fun! Thank you.colinhoad wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2024 5:10 pm With apologies for it being *so* late, I made a short video showcasing Mark's excellent Teletext Elite here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jswnryd_3tE
Thank you, Brian!
...and thank you, Mark, that's lovely feedback! I was just pleased to be able to share my enjoyment of Teletext Elite with a wider audience, it's such a great accomplishment. I did actually wonder about the speed of the page number spin, in my distant memories of 'surfing Ceefax' I do recall it being a tad erraticMarkMoxon wrote: ↑Tue May 07, 2024 10:21 am Great video Colin (though I may be biased) - you hit the nail on the head when talking about what makes Teletext Elite such fun! Thank you.
Good to see the easter eggs get some love, too. That Galfax header is a real favourite of mine. Even the page numbers spin at a semi-random slow/fast speed that's modelled on videos of the real thing. You can't be too realistic when modelling such pointless nostalgia...