2004-06-22
Collections, Tree Wave, and Minigames
I've been slowly but surely listing all the computer and video games I own into an Excel spreadsheet. My main motivation is to have a handy list that I can keep in my PDA for reference when I'm out thrifting. My collection is large enough that I can't remember everything I have. I've got almost 700 entries so far, and I've still got quite a bit more to enter. But I've reached a milestone - I now have all my cartridge and CD based software entered. Next thing to tackle is all the disk based stuff, like 3.5" Amiga and PC, and 5.25" C64, and other miscellaneous bits. Anyway, you can check it out here, if you feel inclined.
I've gotta put in a plug for a band I like a lot. Tree Wave is a duo, boyfriend and girlfriend, I believe. She sings, and he programs and plays a bunch of old computer and video game gear, like an Atari 2600, Commodore 64 and a dot-matrix printer. Their sound isn't nearly as electronic as you might think, and it certainly doesn't fit in the hip-hop or electronica categories as they might be traditionally defined. Sleep is my favourite track - I totally dig that rhythmic riff played by the printer. Their CD is finally available for sale - I just ordered mine today at Atari Age.
I've had a bit of time to code lately, so I've been working on some sprite rotate code for an entry into this year's Minigame Compo. The game (in part) will be an overhead car racer, so I need 32 (possibly just 16) images of a car rotating around in a circle. Each frame will take 64 bytes, and I want two sprites overlaid, so that's actually 128 bytes per frame. 128*32 positions is 4096 bytes, and that's how big the entire game is supposed to be! Admittedly, compression can help a lot, but still, a rotation routine that takes, say, 512 bytes would be a lot better, and more versatile too. I've been warned that it'll probably look like garbage, but I'll just have to see for myself.
I've gotta put in a plug for a band I like a lot. Tree Wave is a duo, boyfriend and girlfriend, I believe. She sings, and he programs and plays a bunch of old computer and video game gear, like an Atari 2600, Commodore 64 and a dot-matrix printer. Their sound isn't nearly as electronic as you might think, and it certainly doesn't fit in the hip-hop or electronica categories as they might be traditionally defined. Sleep is my favourite track - I totally dig that rhythmic riff played by the printer. Their CD is finally available for sale - I just ordered mine today at Atari Age.
I've had a bit of time to code lately, so I've been working on some sprite rotate code for an entry into this year's Minigame Compo. The game (in part) will be an overhead car racer, so I need 32 (possibly just 16) images of a car rotating around in a circle. Each frame will take 64 bytes, and I want two sprites overlaid, so that's actually 128 bytes per frame. 128*32 positions is 4096 bytes, and that's how big the entire game is supposed to be! Admittedly, compression can help a lot, but still, a rotation routine that takes, say, 512 bytes would be a lot better, and more versatile too. I've been warned that it'll probably look like garbage, but I'll just have to see for myself.
