Re: A82: Converting
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Re: A82: Converting
At 11:57 PM 9/1/97 +0200, you wrote:
>"Just" my 2 cent (they're actually worth a lot more):
>
>I've just played Spaze Invaders for the TI-82, and without doubt: it's
>currently THE game for TI-82 (which doesn't mean too much).
>Andrew Von Dollen has made an excellent job converting it from the TI-83
>format. I wonder if he or someone else could publish some methods and
>thoughts on how to port from different calculators to the TI-82? That would
>really be a breakthrough, and we could expect a flow of "new" games
>entering the TI-82, if more people knew how to convert them and thereby
>learning some advanced assembler.
>
>Erik
It isn't teribly hard to do actually. Search and Replace does much of the
work, after that, it is just filling in all the holes, ie. substituting rom
functions that aren't documented on both calculators with a compatible call
or a simple to write routine of your own, and converting the use of safe
memory (TEXT_MEM, APD_BUF etc.)
There are some problems with this though: 1) there are not that many games
for the 83 (and even less source code) 2) some calls supported by the 83
cannot be found on the 82 or are difficult to write yourself. As to other
calculators (namely the 85 and 86) there are a few problems, most notably
that the screen size and method of access are different, which can present
major problems (although not insurmountable as demonstrated by Columns 3.)
But probably the best (?) reason why all of the z80 assembly games have not
yet been ported to the 82 is that simple conversion isn't as entertaining
or satisfying as writing a whole game from the ground up, and you don't
learn as much as you could when writing your own game :)
If you (or anyone else) would like to take on the job of porting any of the
games out there, I would be more than willing to offer any assistance I could.
-Andrew
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