• Commodore Free Magazine, Issue 78 - Part 7

    From Stephen Walsh@39:901/280 to All on Sun Mar 23 17:59:19 2014
    ont
    end, scrolling raster
    bars reversed, 2
    players linked to
    1 control

    SYNOPSIS

    Your world is at war. But as the chaos rages around you, your mind seems
    to drift... your memories grow contradictory. You fear that you are going mad. Are you living in two places at once? Are you experiencing an
    alternate life in a parallel reality?

    Are you one man in one world... or two identical copies sharing one mind
    and two realities?

    You must survive the war to find the truth. You must stake everything on finding yourself. It's double or nothing.

    With one joystick you control two alternate versions of the protagonist.
    One version (left-hand screen) fights an alien invasion of Earth, the other (right-hand screen) fights an army of robots. Occasionally both versions
    may enter the same reality. Eventually both men will enter a shared space outside normal space-time, where they can confront the source of the
    invasions.

    GAME REVIEW

    I had no idea SEUCK was capable of something like this, it does have some bizarre bugs, like when you die sometimes you appear twice in one world and
    not in the other than seem to flip back over to the other world, I guess
    this is limitations in the SEUCK engine more than anything that the game programmer can prevent or fix.

    Graphically the game is sound again, and with Alf showing yet again he is
    the SEUCK master, I like the idea of 2 players under one controller and it works well, you find you have to look at both screens or your players will
    get stuck behind or next to objects, until you realise you need to move
    left for the right hand player and right for the left hand player etc. Sometimes I seemed to get one player stuck and no matter how I tried to
    move him I couldn't get out of or around the obstacle, even though the
    other altered ego was totally free. Not sure if this is by design or again some bug, it maybe you need to look out for these situations beforehand

    It feel like you are watching one of these Andy Warhol movies, where he
    shot two separate movies and pays them spit screen, the idea is that one
    side of your face takes in one file and the other side takes the other side
    of the file, you get to watch two files in the time it takes to watch 1
    film.

    Sonically the game is sound, again Richard manages to produce a superb
    theme tune, totally matching the bizarre game play, it's a little
    trancelike with pulsating rhythms and interesting warbles of filtered
    effects.

    NONE SCORES ARE

    It's unfair to score a competition entry as this will defeat the object of
    the competition

    Reviewer Nigel Parker
    www.commodorefree.com



    *************************************
    REVIEW: THE FROG [C16]
    By Nigel Parker
    *************************************

    Size: 32K
    Machine: PAL Only
    Code Type: Machine code
    Distribution: Freeware
    Ending Type: No end (highscore)
    Coded by: E., Jens (angelsoft)

    plus4world.powweb.com/software/The_Frog

    From the title I am sure you can work out what the game is, but for those
    who don't know or who missed out this type of game the first time around :

    The idea is, you are a frog and have to travel over a busy road avoiding
    cars and so not getting squished then you need to make your way over the
    water by jumping on the floating logs, you die if you are run over or you
    jump on a scrolling log and it hits the side of the screen, also you are up against a timer as each frog has to make it safely across to "the other
    side"

    The Frog is a version of this game idea for the Commodore C16 and was
    written by Jens Engel in 2012. The game is written in machine code, with a stripped down version that can run on the C16 (16 KB version) or the full version for the Plus / 4 (32 KB version). In the C16 version on the disk
    image is a level editor to create your own levels in the game, the plus4 version has the editor built into the main game, saving the haste of having
    to load a spate program to edit the levels and has music on the title
    screen where the c16 version doesn't.

    The game is all there, other variations add more hazards to the game, but nothing is really needed, its bright has sound and a musical piece plays on
    the title screen, the plus 4 version has a nicer title screen then the c16 version but hey you don't play the title screen! Controls are via a
    joystick and everything works as expected, some amusing things happen when you're squished but you can find this out for yourself. The game
    difficulty seemed quite high, but I guess you need to persevere and watch
    the timer closely, too many mistakes will see you running out of time.

    SCORES

    Graphics: 6/10
    bright colourful
    Sounds: 5/10
    spot effects and title music
    Gameplay: 6/10
    decent version of the game and it
    plays well
    Overall: 5.5/10

    SUMMARY

    It may not be original but it's a decent version and with the level editor
    it adds lastability to the game, and a version that plays on a bare C16
    covers all bases.

    Review Nigel Parker
    www.commdorefree.com



    *************************************
    THE ASSEMBLY LINE
    $01: 65x Processor Architecture -
    The Registers
    *************************************

    Last time out we looked at the recommended tools you need to produce
    assembly language programs, along with sources to secure those tools.
    Today we will introduce and provide an overview of the architecture of the machine(s) you will write your programs for - the 65x series of processors, specifically the 8-bit 6502 and its more advanced descendant, the 16-bit
    65816. Our examination will focus on the key members of every computer processor - its registers.

    A BRIEF HISTORY

    When we talk of the 8-bit 65x processor family we are referring to much
    more than just the 6502 (or the 65816 for that matter). To trace the
    family tree you really have to go back to around 1974 and a company named Motorola. Motorola produced a processor called the MC6800, but it was very expensive to buy; alone it cost more than the rest of the components needed
    to build a mainstream home computing device. The price of just one of
    these new processors was a whopping $360 USD, matching the cost of the
    Intel 8080 at the time. When Motorola decided to move its IC group from
    Mesa, Arizona to Austin, Texas, two of its engineers, Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch, knew they could do the same thing themselves at a much lower retail cost - $20 USD. One of the ways they were able to accomplish this was by greatly simplifying the design, essentially cutting the number of
    transistors which made up the processor by more than half - from 11000 to
    about 5000. Enter MOS Technologies and the 6501.

    Naturally Motorola sued, especially since the 6501 became such an instant success, but it turned out they did not actually hold the patent to the technology. In fact, one of the MC6800's original inventors was listed as
    Bill Mensch, the man who later created the 65816, so the lawsuit was
    eventually settled, and as part of the settlement the 6501 was modified and became the processor we know today - the 6502. At just $20, the 6502 soon found its way into the Apple II and Commodore Pet line of computers. In
    the following years several variations of the 6502 appeared, including the 65C02, 6508, 6509, the familiar 6510 and 8502, 65CE02, and of course the
    65802 and 65816, which were 16-bit counterparts to the earlier models. Actually, many more models were produced (with different uses) than what is listed here, and it is interesting to note that soon after the 6502 hit the streets Motorola dropped the price of the 6800 to $69. Imagine that.

    MICROPROCESSOR ARCHITECTURE

    Processor architecture is defined by the number, kinds, and sizes of
    registers, and the types of operations available to them. Architecture determines the way in which programming problems will be solved, and an approach which is simple and straightforward on one processor may become
    clumsy and inefficient on another if th

    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.01 (GNU/Linux-i386)
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair ---:- bbs.vk3heg.net -:--- (39:901/280)