Wolfenstein 3D IS technically possible on stock A500 shocker!

[nicholas]

Yes, there's even a Doom port for the Spectrum, I haven't tryed it yet. The Atari port of Wolfestein is just a proof of concept (for now), but it really looks good.

That's what I love most about the 8-bit scene, people are trying to get the most out of  the available hardware. There are also some very cool demo's for the zx81 (my first computer), like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpsvgWsTX1I&feature=related.

That's something you don't see very often for a stock Amiga 500 nowadays.

In the 8bit scenes people accept that the past has passed and just enjoy the hardware for what it is.

Unlike some of the loonies we get in the Amiga scene.

[nicholas]

Excactly.

I love my 64 and Plus/4 like they are my own children.

I'm tempted to buy an Atari 800 one of these days though.

[nicholas]

The Atari 8bit is a very cool computer, it was my second computer and I always regret selling it to get a c64.

If got one now expanded with 256K, Super Video upgrade and a SIO2SD which I put in a 1064 memory expansion case.

Very nice!

When I asked my parents for an A500 as my Christmas present in 1989 they told me they couldn't afford it and I should choose something else.

I went through my Mum's shopping catalogue and saw an Atari 8-bit (Dunno which model) and thought it looked cool and asked for that or a SAM-Coupe.

I was ecstatic on xmas morning to find an A500 Batpack!

I've always wondered what they Atari 8-bits were like though as other than my Lynx I never owned one.

[nicholas]

That's all this is, vindication that something deemed impossible is not.Wolf needs a 16mhz ST to run modified PC source code about 12FPS. This could be genius 68k that could be adapted.

Roll on my Retirement @40 :roflmao:

Oh I was referring to the loonies that think "Amiga will take over the world blah blah blah", not you.

[nicholas]

Was it running on that hardware or an OCS machine with a faster CPU?

They'd be the laughing stock of the demoscene if it didn't run on a stock A500 with 1MB after claiming it does, so I would imagine it's on the hardware they claim it to be.

[nicholas]

I have two games for the genesis that are the same basic thing: Zero Tolerance, and Beyond Zero Tolerance. Both run quite well and have no extra chips in them for processing or anything. They aren't full screen but are quite playable.

here is a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Tolerance_(video_game)

IO have the actual cart for Zero Tolerance, just the rom for BZT. Both were released by the developer for free.

Wow!

I just cvhecked it out on youtube, it's very nice indeed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2OsH4ZuAlI

[nicholas]

I saved my paperboy money for a year to buy an Atari 600xl. It was fun to program, and great for games. The NES had it beat for games though.

Was the 800XL the top model?

[nicholas]

Yeah in the early 80's the 800xl was the top. The 600xl I bought off a friend ended up having a problem with the keyboard so he gave me his 800xl instead. Both were pretty good computers though, and the floppy drive was much faster than the c64 and 1541; which I got a bit later.

Mid to late 80's the xe ataris came out with more memory but really were more like the 64c being different than the c64. Not much better or worse, just a slicker case and a different number.

I think it must have been an XE that I saw, as I thought it looked like an ST a bit.

[nicholas]

Ooh that brings back some fond memories of the 90's for me.

I never tire of reading this book:

http://www.drdobbs.com/high-performance-computing/184404919;jsessionid=14VZ5MDXC5NHRQE1GHPSKH4ATMY32JVN

The mode most used in Vga that is called planar is mode x, and it works a bit differently (better) than the amigas planar mode. here is a quick description of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_X

notice two lines in that article:

Planar memory arrangement splits the pixels horizontally into groups of four. For any given byte in the PC video memory aperture, you can access four pixels on screen, by selecting the plane(s) you require.

Planar mode allows up to 4 adjoining pixels to be modified in one byte write operation, which is ideal for solid filling of objects such as polygons, rectangles, lines, etc.


Mode x was tricky to handle but could actually be faster than chunky graphics. On the Amiga Planar graphics are always slower for this type of operation. The way the Amigas graphics hardware was setup made mode x impossible or not any faster

here is a really in depth programming article on mode x:
http://www.gameprogrammer.com/3-tweak.html