SKIRRAX 4

[vdc300]

Just looking through some old 5 1/4 in disks, found this one (attached), various stuff - interestingly has some sound samples from Wayne Smithson. Also the start of a game called Skirrax 4, by Wayne Smithson. Can't find it in archiive or on the interweb. It works but nothing much happens, check it out for yourself, was this a demo to show off Wayne's clever sound programming?

Paul

[sixxie]

Neat

I loved his Soundhouse tool when it was published in Dragon User - though I think it appeared during the wilderness years where DU stopped unannounced. When I did get a load of back-issues, I spent ages sampling amiga tunes recorded on tape...

Here's one of them! celtic1.dsk from http://www.6809.org.uk/tmp/da/disks/ - RUN"MUSIC" (requires 64K).

Coincidentally, also in that directory is a cluttered disk where I'd taken the hi-res tool also published in DU - that I think is the one you uploaded in a separate post - and hacked it to move the screen into high RAM on a 64K machine (and patch BASIC while at it - the only thing I can remember is PRINT@x,y).

[vdc300]

Hello

Can you remember the DU issue?, I can only find Phil Brooks program in 5/85, which uses the WRITE command for text placement. Hi-TEXT is a 64 by 21 display, the Hi-res program on the hires-stuff disk is 64 by 32, although they both use the print@x,y command. Is hires program written by Mathew Lodge as well?

Cheers

[sixxie]

Ah maybe not the same - I think it's something odd like 64x27 actually.

Can't quote the issue off top of head I'm afraid...

Edit: if you found one, maybe that's it. All quite a while ago. I remember <somebody very helpful> Sutcliffe was involved with the hires thing I linked, but can't remember quite how - it's possible he'd done the hooks into BASIC and I optimised & moved it to high RAM.

Be interesting to tackle the same thing now - could definitely speed it up a lot using techniques learnt since (tho whether it would then still all fit in high RAM with DOS still present is another question entirely)

[pser1]

Hello,
couldn't resist and downloaded the VDK to test SKIRRAX4.
Nice graphics, smooth movement and good sound.
But is there any chance to play? I saw no enemies!
Is this a work in progress game?

cheers
pere

[vdc300]

Pere

Would be nice to know what happened to Skirrax 4, I'm assuming it was a work in progress. I made the vdk from a physical disk, but not sure if I created that from a vdk years back or its an original.

I thought it might be a coco game as it is setup for "attributes" - detuned NTSC TV. I tried to dissemble, but got lost after the first section of jumps.

Sure someone knows.

Paul

[sorchard]

That's a nice demo and I really like the star field effect. Wayne Smithson had a great eye for presentation.

The Soundhouse software certainly was fun and allowed you to explore audio sampling for free at a time when it would otherwise have been pretty expensive.

That's an epically long sample you have there, sixxie

[bluearcus]

Coincidentally, also in that directory is a cluttered disk where I'd taken the hi-res tool also published in DU - that I think is the one you uploaded in a separate post - and hacked it to move the screen into high RAM on a 64K machine (and patch BASIC while at it - the only thing I can remember is PRINT@x,y).

That's a coincidence. I did exactly the same thing and was looking at disk with it on only last week. I also remember improving a couple of commercial basic hi-res games which used slow old draw command-based rendering of text using the routine - plus the string heap compact delays got really annoying after a while on those sorts of character draw routines!

The thing that bugged me most was that when running in 32k hires-64 mode the superdos e6 paged directory command didn't page for some reason. Never got around to solving that though...

[sixxie]

That's an epically long sample you have there, sixxie

Heh. Well we did have 64K to play with - loads!