RE: New Vector Games

The biggest issue is how fast can we move data from one machine to the
other.
If we can do a parallel link at 19.2K and we only move over 1 page of memory
(256 bytes), then we can do 75 updates a second. With a little overhead, it
probably brings it down into the 60 per second rate. Space Duel and Gravitar
run at a frame rate of 1/62.5 second. To do this both ways, we would need to
have 2 data buses (on for each direction) or up the transfer rate to around
40k.

I'm guessing not too many people would be hooking up 2 space duels, but I
think the chances are high that we would see a lot of space duel/gravitar
combinations. With this configuration, you could play a head to head game
without being able to see the other guys screen, or run a 3 player game.

-jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: Ozdemir, Steve [mailto:steve.ozdemir@plpt.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 1998 3:41 PM
To: 'vectorlist@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu'
Subject: RE: New Vector Games

G'day folks,

Linking Space Duel's to allow for more than 2 players on the screen (or
competitive play among players or pairs of players) would be neat. However,
I'd guess that this project would be too much of a challenge even with CPU
Get Well kits to help you along with the communication across cabinets.

                Steve Ozdemir
                sso@plpt.com

ps - Don't tell me that people owning more than one Atari XY comprise too
small a segment of the market. Think "If I build it, then they will
com...buy a second cabinet just to play my game!"

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jeff hendrix [SMTP:jhendrix@Quark.Com]
> Sent: Thursday, December 17, 1998 2:32 PM
> To: 'vectorlist@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu'
> Subject: RE: New Vector Games
>
> We were considering using Clay's 'Get Well' kits for a couple of reasons.
> 1) only one EPROM to burn.
> 2) if our programs became larger than 20k (space duel's limit) then we
> wouldn't be able to work without it.
> We could probably get by with the RAM on the machine, but it might be nice
> to have to option to use more.
>
> I've also thought a lot about linking 2 machines together. Both games
> would
> need a bank of memory that the other machine could write into. Once that's
> figured out, I think it would be real easy to write code to run a linked
> game.
>
> -jeff
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: aek@spies.com [mailto:aek@spies.com]
> Sent: Thursday, December 17, 1998 3:26 PM
> To: vectorlist@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
> Subject: Re: New Vector Games
>
>
> "I'm in the process of writing new games (with some help from Anders) for
> atari hardware."
>
> you REALLY want to get some of Clay's 6502 'Get Well' kits. I haven't seen
> the final design, but when I was up there working with him on it, we had
> the
> idea for another board with a UART on it to slave together two game
> cabinets
> (and be able to use it as a debugging board)
>
> If nothing else, it gives you a board with more RAM and banked ROM space
> that
> can plug into the game's 6502 socket.
>
> Did you end up providing the wiring to support flash roms, Clay?
>
Received on Thu Dec 17 16:58:43 1998