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if ^link^ doesnt work

http:// frogstar.com/ aybabtu/ ayb89.asp

[remove spaes]

Currently i am working on a scrolling space shooter for Ti-89. It will be more sophisticated than your average: "shoot the enemies at the top of the screen, then more will come down." it will include path guided enemies, bosses, sub bosses, actual levels, several weapons and ship upgrades, and you can also combine weapons. imagine pheonix with every weapon at once! anyway, its my very first TIGCC program and i need some help. three things.

first) every time i exit the game (either game over or with exit key) it goes to home screen but the busy indicator is on and it never ends.. i have to pull both back up and reqular batt's to fix. it uses a virtual screen, but i DO call PortRestore(); before it ends

second) i need to be able to get input from the entire keyboard. ever since i started using _RowRead to get second key, and the arrows, GKeyDown(); no logner returns anything, so i cant get 'esc' to exit he game.. i have to use _rowread to find the '9' key to exit

third) how do you used _rowread??? i mentioned that i used it above, but i just found a 2nd key and arroy key example.. thats y i know how to do 2nd and arrows

PLEASE if you have any help, tell me, it would be greatly appriciated. i tried looking for help, but could not find any. if this has already been posted somewhere, im sorry. thx

My main response is, you should be able to get all the help you need at the official TIGCC Programming board,
http:// pub26.ezboard.com/ btichessteamhq
(without spaces)
I frequent that board often, and many other people do, and lots of people are willing to help.

1. I'm not sure... you might need to post more source code (at the board) for people to help. Make sure that you're freeing the virtual screen, and that you redirect the AUTO_INTs back to what they should be at the end of the program.

2. You need to redirect AUTO_INTs 1 and 5 to use _rowread and _keytest. Since you probably are doing that, GKey[anything], kbhit, ngetchx, etc will *not* work with AUTO_INT_1 redirected. You need to use only _rowread and _keytest. I'm not sure what you're saying about _rowread... something like if(_keytest(RR_ESC)) should work just fine for seeing if ESC is pressed.

3. The easiest way to use low-level keyboard reading (_rowread) is to use _keytest and the RR_ constants.
Here's an example of a simple program using low-level kbd stuff...

//Must back up the int handlers before you redirect them
INT_HANDLER save_1 = GetIntVec(AUTO_INT_1);
INT_HANDLER save_5 = GetIntVec(AUTO_INT_5);
SetIntVec(AUTO_INT_1, DUMMY_HANDLER);
SetIntVec(AUTO_INT_5, DUMMY_HANDLER);
//Call GrayOn() if you use grayscale... etc
while(!_keytest(RR_ESC)) //loop while ESC is not pressed
{
//do whatever... check other keys, etc.
}
//Call GrayOff() if you're using grayscale
SetIntVec(AUTO_INT_1, save_1);
SetIntVec(AUTO_INT_5, save_5);
//Free whatever mem you allocated... etc


I hope that helps, and I hope the ticalc messaging system doesn't ruin the code. If you need more help, like I said, the TIGCC Programming message board is a great help. Lots of people there check it more than once daily, even.

--Malcolm

thanks alot, this is what i need, but in my tigcc documentation, _keytest is not mentioned.. so i did not know of it. ill check out
http:// pub26.ezboard.com/ btichessteamhq
but when i use _keytest, in a program it says its not declared, same with the RR_x's. what do i need to include to get this to work?

the _keytest wasnt working.. turns out my TIGCC was out of date. so i got the newest release. thanks so much for the help.

js

Update: game is no loger upcomming.. it's finished! I just uploaded it so it should be up in a few days. Thats it -
js

is C a better language to program in on the TI-89 or is 68k assembly better? what's the main difference?

C is much easier.

how do i make games compatible for the 89 titanium?

There's this tigcc instruction... or you can use GhostBuster (see url field) to patch your programs so they work on the titanium.

i just got my ti-89 titanium calc,how do you do this stuff and for what programs do you need it for