Category: Programming
If you are an old school ASCII art fan like we are, then you will like the website Adelfaure.net. The website, created by one Adel Faure, features a slew of ASCII art , tools and games from over the past several years and even goes so far as to use ASCII Art for their menu selectors. The site itself allows users to view the art in JGS5, 7 and 9 font modes, single, double or triple size modes as well…
Brutal Deluxe Software has announced the release of the source code and the graphics data for the Apple IIgs version of the arcade game Dragon’s Lair. After releasing the game earlier this month, this most recent release is for the developer crowd. Both releases are provided on 3.5 inch floppy disk image and can be downloaded from the Brutal Deluxe website at:http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/sourcecode/dragonslair.html
The BASIC 10-Liner Programming contest began today. For this year’s contest, the following are the rules laid out for the contest: Legal systems: All 8-bit computer systems Authorized BASIC dialects: All line orientated BASIC dialects are allowed with a restriction in the category “PUR-80” Since the jurors can not have the original hardware of all approved systems available, the system must be emulatable. The authors provide a recommendation for an emulator and briefly describe how to start the game. Additionally,…
Marc Golembeck has announced the latest version of the DOLORES programming library for AppleSoft. DOLORES is a library of Applesoft based double low resolution graphics mode ampersand routines. Version 12.2 of the DOLORES library includes a host of new features including: &STORE NUM,WIDTH,HEIGHT,MASKCOLOR: push sprite NUM (1..16) to language card buffer. Sprite DATA has to be stored (POKEd) in the area $9500-$95FF (256 pixels maximum) line per line in a row. &VAL NUM: set Pixel mask to color NUM (0..15). If NUM = 16 then pixel masking is…
The latest version of the PinyInform Library has been released. Punyform 3.3 includes host of changes and bug fixes including the following items: Changes in functionality: Implemented ChooseObjects entry point routine. Added a ‘score’ verb for games with no score, which just prints a message saying there is no score in this game. Added an example of how to add random comments to a game (howto/comments.inf). Changed so that NPCs can’t use wildcards, such as “take all” (This was deemed…
Release 0.5 of the 8bit-Unity SDK is ALMOST ready!!! This version includes support for the NES/Famicom and Atari 400/800 (48K of RAM). As always, the API and Asset packager are compatible with all systems, making multi-platform 8bit game development a breeze!For now, I have uploaded the Tech-Demo disc which show the various features available in 8bit-Unity. You can download them from: http://8bit-unity.com/?page_id=617
Be sure and check out the ASCII 10 Liner 8-Bit Programming Contest, being sponsored this month by Roy Templeman AKA The Loud Scots Bloke (@loudscotsbloke). Thus far, 23 people have signed up for the contest, and 5 entries have been received.
We are proud to announce the 2021 Apple II Software Enthusiasts Pinball Construction Set contest. Show off your creativity, and at KansasFest 2021, we will announce the winners. You can win a few cool prizes along the way! Updated contest announcement! We’re now big time! Let’s get cracking people! Thanks Bill Martens for helping to bring this together! Entries must be posted in the A2SE Group on Facebook by 15 July 2021. For those users who have never used Budgeco’s…
Anthony Beaucamp has just released his latest rendition of 8-Bit Unity game SDK. His Beta of the 8-Bit Unity SDK, version 0.4.0 includes a host of updates and changes. Anthony has posted the following in regard to the new graphics engine for 8-Bit Computers: After 6 months of hard work, I finally pulled the plug on new features and got down to fixing bugs. The result is here: 8bit-Unity 0.4.0! Hope you will enjoy this short overview of what’s new….
Many kids in the 1980’s began programming computers using the USBORNE computer books, which were very colorful, step by step books that were appropriate for any age in reality. These books took you through the stages of creating programs from the idea creation, the design, the programming, modifications, and quite literally, all the way to the finished product. These books were quite good at teaching fundamental concepts to users, giving a good groundwork upon which to build. From initial forays…
A few days ago, I read a post from a fellow programmer, Eric Clippert, and his blog post mentioned a weird little project that piqued my interest. Jeff Atwood and Eric Clippert have run through the entire book of the David H. Ahl produced BASIC Computer Games and is in the process of translating every single game in the book to nearly every modern programming language used in the mainstream, including Microsoft Visual Basic, Python, C#, Java Javascript and Ruby….
For those who are into the whole Valentine’s Day bit, here is a program from a little while back that will fit right into the theme of the day. If you are per chance a fan of Roby Sherman’s Crow Cousins Micro Software, you will find that his Blitterang graphics package includes a demo program called HEARTS on the distribution disk. Blitterang is a program which allows the user to include high performance image drawing to their programs written in…
I am currently working on AMPER-SPRITE, an Ampersand utility to DRAW and XDRAW sprites created with BITMAP ANIMATOR (an evolution of the BITMAP CREATOR spreadsheet). No release date yet 6502 code was created using the 6502 Assembler-In-A-Spreadsheet which is an integral part of the BITMAP ANIMATOR.This video shows a first speed test.For now the syntax is the following: &DRAW N AT X,Y will direct-draw a sprite on the hires screen. &XDRAW N AT X,Y will XOR-draw a sprite on the…
Gunnar Kanold has officially announced the start of the 2021 rendition of the BASIC10Liners programming contest. BASIC10Liners is an annual 8-bit programming contest which allows authors to use any 8-bit platform and come up with their best 10 line program. This years event marks the 10th anniversary of the BASIC10Liners programming contest and stands to be one of the best ever. People have been clamoring to get the event started and now it is a full go. The categories for…
The BASIC10Liners organizer extraordinaire, Gunner Kanold, has announced that his organization is preparing for the 2021 rendition of the BASIC10Liners contest. We are preparing for the 10th edition of #Basic10liner . @Indie_RetroNEWS @VintageNewOld @ArnaudDeKlerk @callapple @CPCGAMINGDEMOS @CommodoreBlog @AtariPodcast @IEEESpectrum @digitaltalk64 @Logiker464 pic.twitter.com/q6UxpCVJWE — BASIC10Liners (@Basic10L) January 26, 2021 The BASIC10Liners contest is held each year and 2021 will be the 10th year of the contest, with some amazing work done in each contest. If you are an 8 bit BASIC…
Allen Greene made his ProDOS based Renumber.Pro source code available to the Apple II Community today. In the release, he says: By request, my source code for the basic renumber utility converted to run under ProDOS. The section with the labels starting with L were my initial disassembly of DOS 3.3 RENUMBER (the binary section of the Applesoft program). This can be assembled with the Toolkit assembler. From Facebook Posting in Apple II Enthusiasts Group You can download the source…
THE FIRST A2SE PROGRAMMING EXHIBITION OF 2021 is here and it’s all about doing more with less! As a kid I played a lot of text based games, notably Texttrain (by Beagle Bros), various Star Trek games, Nethack (on an old MicroVAX II running Ultrix), various BBS games, etc. These games pushed the limits of how plain old ASCII characters (normal, flashing, and inverse) combined with animation could be used to create some amazingly creative, fun, and memorable experiences that…
Modern Apple ][ software development involves using modern tools like emulators, modern IDE, 6502 assemblers, etc. One thing I haven’t found yet is a way to create sprites for the Apple ][ on a modern computer. I’d like to share a tool I wrote that allows you to create hires sprites/bitmaps for Apple ][ using Excel (it also works with OpenOffice and LibreOffice). This Excel spreadsheet features 4 different editors that let you virtually turn on/off bits of the hires…
The 8-Bit Unity team has announced that their latest version of their C based cross platform programming SDK for 8-Bit systems will include scrollable tile maps. According to the posting ont heir website: Thanks to a “quiet week”, I was able to make rapid progress on the next version of 8bit-Unity (0.4).The major new feature is Scrollable Tilemaps. I have implemented a super convenient asset pipeline: design your tile-set and maps in the excellent CharPad just ONCE, then 8bit-Unity takes…
Sellam Abraham has announced the official release of GReasy Graphics System 1.0, a complete low-resolution graphics sprite and background animation tool with integrated editing suite and programming library for the Apple ][ line of computers.Features: Up to 31 sprites of any dimension- Up to 32 background frames- Small memory footprint (<5K with fully initialized sprite system) Documented and easy to use Applesoft BASIC interface- Includes drawing program, sprite editor, and &-command extensions for quick & easy development Download GReasy Graphics…
