BBC Micro Elite... with music! (BBC Micro, 6502SP, Master)

[MarkMoxon]

Hi.

I have just released a version of BBC Micro Elite that incorporates the music from the Commodore 64 (including the famous Blue Danube for the docking computer). It requires 16K of sideways RAM in an otherwise standard BBC Micro with disc drive.

Here are the links:

• Play in your browser: https://bbc.godbolt.org/?autoboot&disc= ... ic-sth.ssd

• More information (includes a video of the docking sequence): https://www.bbcelite.com/hacks/bbc_elit ... music.html

• Downloads and instructions: https://www.bbcelite.com/hacks/bbc_elit ... loads.html

• Technical info (includes a video of the title music): https://www.bbcelite.com/hacks/bbc_elit ... ation.html

The disc contains a maxed-out commander called MAX, so load that if you want to experiment with the docking computer.

Big thanks to the gurus at the Bitshifters collective for the music routines and for porting the music (in particular kieranhj, simonm and Negative Charge), and to tricky and jgharston for the SWRAM utilities. Full credits are in the above.

Enjoy!

Mark

[fuzzel]

Another day, another brilliant Elite enhancement from Mark and his little helpers! Whatever next - more missions ??
Very, very well done by the way

[oss003]

Nice ...... you can use the SID music for the BeebSID.
I added the C64 SID music for the Atom Elite version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF2J-YJ_YiI

Greetings
Kees

[MarkMoxon]

Nice ...... you can use the SID music for the BeebSID.
I added the C64 SID music for the Atom Elite version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF2J-YJ_YiI

That’s pretty amazing! I didn’t even know there was an AtomSID, but now I know better. Very cool!

The advantage of using natively encoded music for Elite is that I should be able to put together a version for the BBC Master that needs no extra hardware at all, as it already has sideways RAM as standard. It’s on the to-do list, for both the original BBC Micro version running on the Master, and for the enhanced four-colour version. Hopefully I can persuade the 6502 Second Processor version to join the club too…

Mark

[paulb]

The advantage of using natively encoded music for Elite is that I should be able to put together a version for the BBC Master that needs no extra hardware at all, as it already has sideways RAM as standard. It’s on the to-do list, for both the original BBC Micro version running on the Master, and for the enhanced four-colour version. Hopefully I can persuade the 6502 Second Processor version to join the club too…

Well, if you ever run out of things to do, you could always disassemble Star Clash...

[vanekp]

wow amazing how you managed to squeeze that into a game that already uses every byte of ram.

[MarkMoxon]

The advantage of using natively encoded music for Elite is that I should be able to put together a version for the BBC Master that needs no extra hardware at all, as it already has sideways RAM as standard. It’s on the to-do list, for both the original BBC Micro version running on the Master, and for the enhanced four-colour version. Hopefully I can persuade the 6502 Second Processor version to join the club too…

Well, if you ever run out of things to do, you could always disassemble Star Clash...

It’s a thought! It would be interesting to answer the question properly of whether there was any code plagiarism involved. I doubt it, but it would be good to know how similar the code is, if at all.

But it’ll be on the list after The Sentinel, which I’d love to analyse in detail, and that’s on the list after some more Elite improvements (specifically, stopping the flicker for planets).

It’s nice to have a hobby that keeps on throwing out exciting things to explore!

Mark

[tricky]

You'd have thought that the Blue Danube was a drinking song watching that docking compute

[strawberrytau]

Magnificent work!

[bob147]

It reminds me of 90s PC games where if you were lucky, the developer would release the source code and a level editor, followed by lots of fun mods to try. Except you've managed to achieve all of this in spite of the fact that the game is taking up almost all of the memory on the system, lovely stuff! Hopefully the Master version follows and I can hear the music on real hardware.

[MarkMoxon]

Hopefully the Master version follows and I can hear the music on real hardware.

Definitely! I just need to find the time… as always. Hopefully it’ll be an easy job, as there’s lots of memory and sideways RAM already present.

Watch this space, I guess.

Mark

[elk1984]

Very cool!

[md0u80c9]

Oooh - optimisations to The Sentinel????

[MarkMoxon]

Oooh - optimisations to The Sentinel????

Depends on the analysis. Revs took me six months and I couldn't find anything to mod, apart from backporting the Nurburgring track from the C64; Crammond's code is super-complex, and my hopes for a track designer have faltered. But you never know with The Sentinel. I'm sure there will be secrets to uncover, even though it's already been disassembled by others.

Just don't get your hopes up for a speedy turnaround... pulling Revs and Aviator apart nearly broke my brain!

Mark

[Yrrah2]

Very nice!!!
Have been playing lately with Elite Dangerous on my Mac. And was delight by the docking music. And now on my Beeb tooo!!!!!!
Is there a plan to get music on the Master version as-well?

Cheers

[MarkMoxon]

Is there a plan to get music on the Master version as-well?

Definitely! I’m hoping it will be pretty easy to add, as the Master has sideways RAM and plenty of free memory when Elite is loaded. I should be able to include the hack for flicker-free planets as well, so it not only sounds good, but looks good too.

I’m aiming to get the music and flicker-free planet hacks working with as many different versions of 6502 Elite as I can, with both hacks at the same time where possible.

Mark

[Yrrah2]

grrrreat!

[MarkMoxon]

For anyone who has played the musical version of Elite and finds it a bit full-on, I have added two new configuration options to the game (i.e. pause the game with COPY, press the key, wait for the beep and resume with DELETE):

• M - toggle music on and off (while leaving the sound effects alone)

• E - swap tunes, so the docking music is played on the title screen, and the title music is played when docking (or, if this is the second press, swap them back)

The music will also be disabled if you turn off the game's sound using the game's Q configuration option.

Details and download links here: https://www.bbcelite.com/hacks/bbc_elit ... loads.html

Next up (hopefully) will be a BBC Master musical version, and maybe even a 6502SP version.

Mark

[kieranhj]

For anyone who has played the musical version of Elite and finds it a bit full-on, I have added two new configuration options to the game (i.e. pause the game with COPY, press the key, wait for the beep and resume with DELETE):

• M - toggle music on and off (while leaving the sound effects alone)

• E - swap tunes, so the docking music is played on the title screen, and the title music is played when docking (or, if this is the second press, swap them back)

The music will also be disabled if you turn off the game's sound using the game's Q configuration option.

Good idea! All in-game music can get a bit tedious/repetitive after a while. If you're interested, I have some volume code in Prince of Persia you might be able to reuse...

EDIT: I say 'I' but actually the code was all written by simondotm.

[MarkMoxon]

All in-game music can get a bit tedious/repetitive after a while. If you're interested, I have some volume code in Prince of Persia you might be able to reuse...

EDIT: I say 'I' but actually the code was all written by simondotm.

That looks good! I will have to see whether the volume control setting in BBC Master Elite affects the music as well as the sound effects. I suspect it might, as it seems to change the volume at the sound chip level, but we'll see!

This code might be very handy for the Beeb and 6502SP versions, though. Thanks Kieran!

Mark

[MarkMoxon]

I will have to see whether the volume control setting in BBC Master Elite affects the music as well as the sound effects. I suspect it might, as it seems to change the volume at the sound chip level, but we'll see!

Looks like the Master's sound effects volume control doesn't affect the music volume - ah well! I'll add "music volume controls" to the to-do list, then...

Mark

[MarkMoxon]

I have now added music to the BBC Master version of Elite. Downloads and details here:

https://www.bbcelite.com/hacks/bbc_elit ... loads.html

Enjoy!

Mark

[DutchAcorn]

Cool thanks Mark!

BTW the notes on sideways ram for the model B version now needs updating

[MarkMoxon]

BTW the notes on sideways ram for the model B version now needs updating

Good point! I missed that paragraph - it should be fixed now. Thanks.

Mark

[MarkMoxon]

Here's the final entry in this musical saga (for now, anyway).

I have now added music to the 6502 Second Processor version of Elite.

* Play in browser: https://bbc.godbolt.org/?coProcessor=tr ... -sng45.ssd

* Download links and instructions: https://www.bbcelite.com/hacks/bbc_elit ... loads.html

Note that as with all the other musical versions, you will still need 16K of sideways RAM in your BBC Micro for this to work. Surprisingly there isn't enough spare memory to load the music into main memory, as Elite only leaves 3.2K free in the parasite and 3.7K free in the I/O Processor; the music takes up around 13K, so we still need to have 16K of sideways RAM to load it.

Enjoy!

Mark

[bob147]

Can report that the Master version worked nicely on real hardware, at least with my limited test of enjoying the title screen music, starting a game, doing the music swap then crashing into the space station in order to return to the title screen nice work!

[MarkMoxon]

Can report that the Master version worked nicely on real hardware, at least with my limited test of enjoying the title screen music, starting a game, doing the music swap then crashing into the space station in order to return to the title screen nice work!

Excellent! That's great to hear. Thanks for letting me know, it's always a bit nervy releasing stuff for hardware that you don't own. I can test things on my Beeb, but sadly don't have room for a Master.

One day, maybe.

Mark

[bob147]

Curiously if you hit pause on an emulated master whilst in flight, the game crashes badly. I tried this on a local copy of BeebEm and the browser based JSBeeb. I'll check if it's just the music version that's doing that. If it's just emulators and not hardware, then I would assume an emulation bug rather than an Elite bug.

[MarkMoxon]

Curiously if you hit pause on an emulated master whilst in flight, the game crashes badly. I tried this on a local copy of BeebEm and the browser based JSBeeb. I'll check if it's just the music version that's doing that. If it's just emulators and not hardware, then I would assume an emulation bug rather than an Elite bug.

Woah! You're right. I must have introduced that problem, as that's normally how I test the tune-changing feature.

I'll look into it. It is very unlikely to be a bug in the emulators - it's going to be me getting something wrong!

Mark

[MarkMoxon]

Curiously if you hit pause on an emulated master whilst in flight, the game crashes badly. I tried this on a local copy of BeebEm and the browser based JSBeeb. I'll check if it's just the music version that's doing that. If it's just emulators and not hardware, then I would assume an emulation bug rather than an Elite bug.

Woah! You're right. I must have introduced that problem, as that's normally how I test the tune-changing feature.

I'll look into it. It is very unlikely to be a bug in the emulators - it's going to be me getting something wrong!

Yes, I got something obvious wrong (I included the wrong version of the music ROM in the latest build - whoops!). All fixed, you can download the updated verison from my site here:

https://www.bbcelite.com/versions/music ... -sng47.ssd

Sorry about that, and thanks for letting me know!

Mark