Paku Paku -- 1.6 released 9 November 2011

[deathshadow60]

I'm seeing vertical brown stripes in most of the yellow stuff, and when the on-screen items 'flash' it looks like an extra pixel gets added to the left of things.

Uhm, can you define "flash"? The only 'on screen items" that should be "flashing" are the four energizers.. and at the end of the level the whole thing should blink to black and white and back a few times.

If the blue border around the edges and the "yellow" stuff is indeed 'blinking' (which it shouldn't) then it would appear that for some reason the CRTC reprogram isn't turning off the Jr's video "blink bits". In text mode (and this is just a glorified text mode) by default the high intensity bit of the background color doesn't do high intensity, it makes things automatically blink on and off. One of the things changed when I "outCGAPort(@CGA_Regs);" is that blink bit... and it seems from you folks reports the Jr is ignoring that. (that screencap says it all).

As Pac Man moves around the map, do the light and dark stripes remain 'fixed' as he moves, almost like he was passing under a 'mask'? If so, then this is the problem.

I'm going to add the call to the "blink/intensity toggle" BIOS command since apparently the Jr. includes that (CGA does not, TANDY does not). I should probably send that to MCGA users as well.
for reference, that's int 0x10, AX=0x1003, BL=0x00, which I thought was EGA/VGA only, but both Ralphs and my Microsoft Press pocket IBM ROM BIOS books say it's also MCGA/Jr.

Hopefully that will clear up the problem.

Version 1.3 is going to drop in a couple hours... I'm going to upload a beta of that for you guys to test Jr. support before I call it "final".

[deathshadow60]

Here's the link to 1.3 beta.

http://www.cutcodedown.com/retroGames/b ... ETA1_3.rar

Those of you who were having the flashing/striping issue, please test that to see if the problem is resolved.

Preliminary joystick code is included, you can attempt to activate it with the /joy command line switch (not as yet documented). I'm not sure if a 4.77mhz machine is fast enough to handle the joystick at the same time as the game though.

Here are some screens from 1.3. If Pac Man is striped and the bright blue area's are dotted, then the blink/intensity setting is being ignored. I've no clue how to fix that.

Joystick Calibration

Click for larger View (800x500)

New Main Menu

Click for larger View (800x500)

Gameplay

Click for larger View (800x500)

[deathshadow60]

1.3 Is now released to the public.

http://www.cutcodedown.com/retroGames/paku_1_3.rar

To sum up the changes:

1) Added Joystick Support
2) Tracking of five most recent high scores
3) Saving of high scores to disk
4) New font renderer uses less memory and sped up menu.
5) Fixed bug with MCGA detecting as VGA
6) Fixed audio 'buzz' on PS/2 speakers
7) Fixed PC Jr. blink/intensity not being set right (maybe)
8) Memory footprint down to 67k

System Requirements
4.77mhz or faster 8088
128k of RAM (67,584 bytes free in DOS)
CGA,Tandy/PcJr, EGA or VGA video

System Recommendations
Tandy/PcJr, C/MS Game Blaster
or Adlib sound

Enjoy.

I had thought I had the slowdowns with joystick enabled dealt with on 4.77mhz machines, but there can still be occasional lag at certain points in the game. It's not a gameplay breaker, but it's not as smooth as a 7.15mhz or faster machine will deliver. Leaving joystick disabled it runs just fine on the slower clock speed.

[Vorticon]

Well, I tried it tonight and there seems to be a problem with the joystick function because joystick down works only erratically on the Jr. Game speed seems about the same as version 2. All blinking objects have weird patterns superimposed on them like stripes or blocks. The Sound On prompt has only the O's blinking, alternating between a solid square and O for example. 2 of the power pads are just blinking solid blocks. Also there are blinking white dots over all the horizontal external borders of the maze which I don't see in your snapshots. Now that I'm thinking about it, all these issues were present in version 2, but I did not pay too much attention to them because they really don't distract from the gameplay. Nonetheless, there definitely seem to be differences with the Jr graphics as compared with a standard PC.

[deathshadow60]

Well, I tried it tonight and there seems to be a problem with the joystick function because joystick down works only erratically on the Jr.

Are you sure you're stick is calibrated right? The number displayed with the stick centered should be roughly half that when the stick is at the bottom. If left/right is working properly and up/down isn't, the trim pots (or in the case of the Kraft stick Tandy and IBM used trim sliders that move the whole assembly) not being properly adjusted are the most likely culprit.

All blinking objects have weird patterns superimposed on them like stripes or blocks.

Well, the "blinking" you are reporting shouldn't be blinking in the first place! The ONLY thing that should be blinking on and off during gameplay are the four energizer pellets!

Ok, one last wild stab at it. To enable/disable display while reprogramming the CRTC I output to port $3D8 value $01 for off and $09 for on -- I set bit 5 to off which is blink off (a handful of CGA documentation like the infamous cga.txt has bit 5 backwards)... I'm wondering if that's incorrectly setting the Jr's value back to blink.

I've moved the call to the Jr. BIOS to after the video reset, it shouldn't make a difference, but it's the Jr... so who knows.
Give this .exe a try -- if this doesn't fix it then I'm going to have to accept that the Jr. just isn't compatible as I'm out of ideas.

http://www.cutcodedown.com/retroGames/a ... P13JR1.RAR

[jmetal88]

I just tried out the new version. No change.

Everything still blinks, and the 'stripes' are still there. If I knew anything about programming, I'd try to help you out, but I don't.

[jmetal88]

There's a program for download on this site that's supposed to fix issues with blinking text. Here's the documentation that comes with the file:

Documentation for PCjr
BLINKOFF and BLINKON

Have you every run a program on your PCjr and found some of the text
blinking in strange places? This may be because the program sets the
video gate array mode control 2 register to disable blinking on a
regular PC. This causes the high order bit of the attribute byte to
be interpreted as the high intensity version of the background color
instead of whether the character should blink or not.

Unfortunately, the port address for the video gate array is different
on the PCjr, hence the continued blinking. A popular public domain
version of Monopoly is one program that runs on the PCjr with blinking
text in strange places.

If your using the ANSI.SYS device driver to set screen colors you can
now have 16 background color choices instead of the normal 8.

BLINKOFF.EXE sets the blinking off, and BLINKON.EXE sets the BLINKING
back on.


WARNING!!!! These programs write directly to port hex 3DA. Their use
on any PC that's not a PCjr can cause unexpected ( and perhaps
unpleasant) results.

So it looks like the PCjr blink bit is on $3DA.

Hope that helps!

[deathshadow60]

It will indeed help -- do you have more information on what exactly is set at $3DA since I have ZERO documentation that even mentions that port?

Though it's funny - I just finished porting it to the 160x200 native tandy/jr mode (though I'm drawing it as 160x100 still), though it's a hair slower due to the double-write and interlace calculations (60 clocks per sprite), I was able to make up for that slowdown by removing the code for sound cards other than Tandy/Jr.

I do find it interesting that the 160x200 mode is dual interlaced, 320x200 is quad interlaced, and tandy TL 640x200 16 color is oct interlaced.

I'll be posting the tandy/jr graphics mode version later tonight once I test it on a real tandy. (I'm on a laptop using DosBox at the moment).

[jmetal88]

I don't have any personal knowledge on the programs I mentioned, I just stumbled across them today.
I'd say disassembling them would probably give you the answer you need, but I'm not sure I'd know what to look for, personally.

Since you're releasing a Jr/Tandy specific version anyway, though, I suppose it doesn't matter as much, unless you just really want to see your original idea working in all scenarios.

[deathshadow60]

Well, I would just prefer it because it's faster, and faster means more possibilities in later games as I am working on other ones using this method.

I found some documentation on it -- a PDF that appears to be the "IBM Pc Jr. Technical Reference" -- pages 63-64 outline how to access $3da and the WIDE array of options it provides.