Anyone interested in converting AGD to the Dragon/CoCo?

A place to discuss everything Dragon related that doesn't fall into the other categories.
pser1
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Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: Anyone interested in converting AGD to the Dragon/CoCo?

Post by pser1 »

oss003 wrote:Hi pere,
if you have any questions about the Acorn Atom, please post them here so that I can see them.
You can find a disassembly of the #Fxxx rom here: http://www.acornatom.nl/atom_handleidin ... m/f000.txt
$FE71 reads a key from the keyboard matrix from bottom left upwards and then the next column upwards, if nothing is pressed then 255 is returned.
So SPACE returns 0, RETURN returns 13, etc.
Greetings
Kees
hello,
thanks a bunch!
I have downloaded the whole unasembled ROM for the Atom Acorn and have seen these subroutines, great!

I saw that the comments here seemed to point to the new (and better) version for Windows (v0.7), but as a Dragon user, I would
prefer to convert the 150 games already created with the old version. Once done, we will see how easy it would be to 'add' the new
functionality ...

By now, I an converting the whole FOGGY.ASM that way I will end up with a 'new' game for CoCo-Dragon and as a side effect we will have
the engine almost converted (the functions used in FOGGY), so the more games we can convert, the more finished will be the engine ...
With the friends of Retrowiki, we have a thread opened there to comment about it
http://www.retrowiki.es/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=200034092

Anyway, I am attaching here three images that show the FOGGY menu on the Speccy4.8 emulator and then the images in PMODE4 on XRoar for
the Dragon and the CoCo too.
One of the Retrowiki colleagues is going to work to convert text and sprites to PMODE3 ...
cheers
pere
Foggy-Spectrum.jpg
Foggy-Spectrum.jpg (49.08 KiB) Viewed 9259 times
Foggy6809.jpg
Foggy6809.jpg (46.65 KiB) Viewed 9259 times
FoggyCoCo.jpg
FoggyCoCo.jpg (53.03 KiB) Viewed 9259 times
oss003
Posts: 25
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 12:01 pm

Re: Anyone interested in converting AGD to the Dragon/CoCo?

Post by oss003 »

In fact WinAGD is a shell for executing tasks but needs seperate programs to do this.

- Convert.exe extracts an AGD file from a 48KB ZX SPectrum snapshot,
- CompilerXXX.exe compiles the AGD file and merges it with the engine for system XXX,
- EngineXXX.asm is the game assembler code for system XXX.

V0.7 now has an .ini file in which you can execute a compiler program if the option 'Create sourcefile' is choosen for a certain system.

So WinAGD is a tool for extracting and compiling an AGD file from a snapshot or newly created.
The editors in WinAGD are for creating and editing graphics, map and screen data.
The colours and resolution of blocks, sprites and objects are depending on the system where they are designed for, WinAGD does that.
You still have to write an engine file for a certain system.

Greetings
Kees
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: Anyone interested in converting AGD to the Dragon/CoCo?

Post by pser1 »

oss003 wrote:In fact WinAGD is a shell for executing tasks but needs seperate programs to do this.
- Convert.exe extracts an AGD file from a 48KB ZX SPectrum snapshot,
- CompilerXXX.exe compiles the AGD file and merges it with the engine for system XXX,
- EngineXXX.asm is the game assembler code for system XXX.
V0.7 now has an .ini file in which you can execute a compiler program if the option 'Create sourcefile' is choosen for a certain system.
So WinAGD is a tool for extracting and compiling an AGD file from a snapshot or newly created.
The editors in WinAGD are for creating and editing graphics, map and screen data.
The colours and resolution of blocks, sprites and objects are depending on the system where they are designed for, WinAGD does that.
You still have to write an engine file for a certain system.
Greetings
Kees
Alright,
thanks for this clear explanation! I will comment that on the Retrowiki forum, too.
I will be posting here any question that could arise while converting the game FOGGY to CoCo-Dragon
I know that just converting one game will not imply the full engine conversion, but most of the functions will get converted.
And as long as we keep converting games, this engine will be more and more complete, hopefully!

cheers
pere
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: Anyone interested in converting AGD to the Dragon/CoCo?

Post by pser1 »

Hello Kees,
the most important point is that the ZX-engine has not changed a bit.
The one I am using/converting is exactly the same to the one in WinAGD v0.7
regards
pere
oss003
Posts: 25
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 12:01 pm

Re: Anyone interested in converting AGD to the Dragon/CoCo?

Post by oss003 »

pser1 wrote:Hello Kees,
the most important point is that the ZX-engine has not changed a bit.
The one I am using/converting is exactly the same to the one in WinAGD v0.7
regards
pere
Hi Pere,

The engine in V0.7 is the latest but that doesn't matter. If you are going to use that engine for the Dragon version, it's no problem because it will be called EngineDragon.asm.
You also have to change the compiler and compiler and engine belong together.
The Atom version doesn't support all new commands (yet) but can always be expanded.

Do you want to join the AGD development team? There are some guys there who know everything about AGD and the Spectrum so if you have some AGD specific questions .... that's the place to ask.
If so, please PM me your e-mail address then I'll ask Alan Turvey to add you to the group.

PS If you're using the ZX engine, please be aware that the X and Y coordinates are switched, charx and dispx correspondent with the y-coordinates and chary and dispy correspondent with the x-coordinates on the screen.
This also applies for the sprite coordinates. This is very confusing sometimes and that's why I changed it in the Atom version .......

Greetings
Kees
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: Anyone interested in converting AGD to the Dragon/CoCo?

Post by pser1 »

oss003 wrote:[Hi Pere,
Do you want to join the AGD development team? There are some guys there who know everything about AGD and the Spectrum so if you have some AGD specific questions .... that's the place to ask.
If so, please PM me your e-mail address then I'll ask Alan Turvey to add you to the group.
will do this afternoon!
PS If you're using the ZX engine, please be aware that the X and Y coordinates are switched, charx and dispx correspondent with the y-coordinates and chary and dispy correspondent with the x-coordinates on the screen.
This also applies for the sprite coordinates. This is very confusing sometimes and that's why I changed it in the Atom version .......
Greetings
Kees
Right, I suffered it the first time I set the parameters calling the function that writes the menu screen.
No problem at all ... by now
cheers
pere
oss003
Posts: 25
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 12:01 pm

Re: Anyone interested in converting AGD to the Dragon/CoCo?

Post by oss003 »

Hi guys,

for those who are interested in AGD, here's a link to the AGD Facebook page where you can ask questions, check for games and keep informed of the latest AGD developments.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/785775881484393/

Greetings
Kees
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: Anyone interested in converting AGD to the Dragon/CoCo?

Post by pser1 »

oss003 wrote:Hi guys,
for those who are interested in AGD, here's a link to the AGD Facebook page where you can ask questions, check for games and keep informed of the latest AGD developments.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/785775881484393/
Greetings
Kees
Thanks a lot, Kees
I requested membership to that group's admins
cheers
pere
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luis46coco
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Re: Anyone interested in converting AGD to the Dragon/CoCo?

Post by luis46coco »

Very interesting work, maybe I could contribute something, first I want to know the AGD well and what are its possibilities, then I will study a bit the Atom code and we'll see
oss003
Posts: 25
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 12:01 pm

Re: Anyone interested in converting AGD to the Dragon/CoCo?

Post by oss003 »

luis46coco wrote:Very interesting work, maybe I could contribute something, first I want to know the AGD well and what are its possibilities, then I will study a bit the Atom code and we'll see
If you have any questions about AGD or the Atom code, please let me know.

Greetings
Kees
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