The Inner Workings Of A Coders Brain
Computers
NOW! Amstrad CPC Music Disk Released At Main Party 2010
114 years
NOW! is a music disk I have been working on in collaboration with Ultrasyd and Fenyx Kell for the Amstrad CPC 128K system. The music disk features 12 awesome music tracks, and was coded in a little over two weeks before I get settled into working on Zine again. This is my first production on the Amstrad (and also the first CPC project for Brainstorm) that was any good (as I did a bit of BASIC many moons ago), I have played with a friends system many years ago as a kid, but this is the first piece of code I have written on the system that hasn’t been utter shite. I am very pleased with the outcome of this project, and the music is amazing 🙂
I started working on this project on Sept. 13 with Ultrasyd, as the people who were supposed to write him a music disk had bailed out of the project. I took it on as a challenge, realizing the path would not be straight and easy, plus I have been looking for an excuse to get back into 8-bit development for quite some time 🙂
The project is written using Z88DK (available HERE) and uses C and Z80 Assembly language. I used CPCRSlib for some of the graphics code, mixed with a bit of my own dodgy code. The music replayer is by Targhan and available HERE.
There were many technical challenges on this project. The biggest was the small amount of RAM available to the system at any one time, certainly not enough to hold all the music let alone the program and the data it needed to run. At one point, I spent 2 solid days working on getting 5 tunes in and working without crashing the computer, when I realized a mistake I had made in some code earlier that would allow me to hold many more. So at around 4pm yesterday I was able to fit all 12 songs into the production without a problem. Nothing quite like a last second fix for a production thats due to be released the very next morning 🙂 Many thanks to Ultrasyd for staying up late on the CVGM OneLiner to get this thing finished in time for Main (and showing it off to the Amstrad community there). There is also a hidden, 13th tune 🙂
Download the DSK file Here. To run, insert the disk and type RUN “NOW!” to start the music disk. Up & Down arrow keys to change between music. Escape to quit. If you wish to run this in an emulator, I recommend using JavaCPC or WinAPE. This disk has been fully tested on real 6128 Hardware (Thanks again, Ultrasyd!).
Full Production Credits
Music: Ultrasyd/BRS and Fenyx Kell
Graphics: Yes/BRS (Loading Screen), Ultrasyd/BRS (Main Picture)
Code: FishGuy876/BRS
See the TXT file on the DSK/Zip for a full list of everyones greetings and thanks 🙂
EDIT: The music disk was entered into the Wild compo at Main and ranked in 3rd place!!! Fantastic! \o/ Congratulations to everyone again! It can also be found on Pouet now, where you can comment and rate it! Thanks!
Main Party 2010 – Working On A Project With Ultrasyd
014 years
While I won’t be at Main Party this year, Ultrasyd will be, and to mark the occasion I am working on a project with him for some Amstrad CPC music he has written along with Fenyx Kell. We are putting together a music disk that will be released at the party, featuring my code and Ultrasyd’s music and gfx. This will be the first Amstrad CPC project I have work on in almost 16 years (and that was using BASIC code!).
The new disk will be written using the z88dk compiler, which turns raw C code mixed with assembler into Z80 code that can be used on the Amstrad, ZX Spectrum, and many other Z80/Z88 based computers. Its a very exciting project for me, as I have been itching to get into 8-bit development again for quite some time! I will post more on this project as it is released!
Evoke 2010 Signup Page Now Active! – You Should Sign Up!
015 years
The Evoke 2010 party page is now active and accepting registrations. You should scoot your ass over there and sign up for one of the best demoparty’s in Germany!!
We will be there and unveiling something great. I can’t wait to meet you all!
Using MorphOS Again For the First Time In Years!
015 years
Finally getting somewhere 🙂
In the last week or so, I have been convinced to un-box my Pegasos II motherboard and boot it up to have a play around with it. It has been at least 3 or 4 years since I last even looked at the board, let alone turned it on. I got the board when I was employed with Epic Interactive, as I ported several games to MorphOS/Mac/Linux at the same time. At that time, I was using MorphOS 1.4 which was very buggy and not very intuitive. While it was nice to be able to run all of my old Amiga apps again, the instability of the OS made it a very troubling task. I still remember the nightmares I had trying to get various ports to build correctly without crashing the system, or editing code changes. Good old days 🙂
After playing around with the Open Firmware (which I am quite sure is horribly out of date) I was able to figure out how to boot the Peg from the CD, and install the OS to the hard drive. It took me a little while to get used to where the different settings were, then I couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t see the HD, until I realiszed it wasn’t in RDB mode. After that, slapped on a few Amiga partitions and bingo, off it went.
My experience in the short time I have played with the OS is that it is much nicer and cleaner than it used to be. It has come a long way with the new Ambient and other tools. I will take a full play with it and even get it online in the next few days to see just what is out there and available for it. I was very happy to see that they finally included a TCP stack as standard that didn’t have to be registered by itself to use fully. As much as I loved Miami (and did pay for it back in the days of the Amiga), I don’t have my keys anymore and wasn’t able to get Nordic to re-issue them to me.
As much as I would like to start making games for MorphOS again, im not sure if I want to pay the $111 euros to get a license key for something I won’t use all that often, and still not even sure if it’s something thats worth developing for. Based on the price alone, which is a little bit less than buying the new Windows 7 operating system upgrade, i’m sure that there are many people who are still only using the 30 minute restricted version. I have a few games that could be ported, but they will have to wait for a while.
If any MorphOS developers have any free keys they want to give away, feel free to throw one this way 🙂
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