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| Author | Your voice is needed: Bring Attack of the PETSCII Robots to the Mac (Read 35412 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Bolkonskij
Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023 
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on: August 31, 2021, 17:17
Some of you may be familiar with David Murray aka The 8-Bit Guy on YouTube. Some may remember he actually started out on YouTube as "The iBook Guy", helping with iBook repairs and selling some. I actually bought a Clamshell from him ten years back or so :-) Anyway, he's also a talented coder. The latest game he wrote is called Attack of the PETSCII Robots. It's an action-adventure with an isometric view where you solve puzzle but also battle in real-time, freeing a planet from a robot infestation. Classic 80's stuff!  Screenshot Apple II version: http://images.macintosh.garden/2021/08/31/petscii-robots.jpg The game was released for C64, Apple II and Commodore PET. I mean, Commodore PET! I wonder, why not a Mac version? David is a long-time Mac user and I know from our conversation, he used the classic Mac OS for a long time himself! So here is my plan (and I need your support!). Let's contact David about bringing his game to System 7! Tell him outright why a Mac OS version for SE/30s and Performas is needed! Or just ask him about a Mac version. Whatever, just signify there's some interest in new Mac software for old Macs. EDIT: Anyone got his e-mail adress? The old one I had bounced. More info on Attack of the PETSCII Robots: https://www.the8bitguy.com/product/petscii-robots-for-apple/ (modern browser needed) |
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Last Edit: August 31, 2021, 18:01 by Bolkonskij
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wove
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1024 MB  Posts: 1363
Reply #1 on: September 01, 2021, 02:13
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I am sure PETSCII Robots would run on the Mac. All of the machines it has been ported to are 8 bit machines and no Mac is has an 8 bit processor. Also this is developed by modifying the character sets and of course Macs do not really have character sets, or character memory. With a Mac however you might have enough speed, where you could create a font set, and use something like HyperCard to essentially print the game. Might be interesting to see if one create an Attack of the PetSCII Robots in HyperCard.
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #2 on: September 01, 2021, 09:52
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Would it run on a 68000 Mac if coded in C / Pascal / Assembler? Sure. Macs dont use charsets in the way a Commodore PET does (PETSCII) but why bother with charsets if you have the Mac Toolbox at your hands. You could replicate the look - or go full on wonderful 1-bit graphics. Combined with the high resolution (compared to a PET, C64 or Apple II) that would make the game look wonderful, wouldn't it? Found a new contact e-mail. It's dfwgreencars@gmail.com as taken from here (modern browser needed).
Last Edit: September 01, 2021, 17:01 by Bolkonskij
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #3 on: September 01, 2021, 16:56
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Alright, no need for more emails. David answered me: "Actually, I have somebody working on that believe it or not." Hurrah, hurrah. Looking forward to it, really :-)
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #4 on: September 02, 2021, 02:19
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That is great news. There is no question it could be done on a System 7 Mac, but all the other ports have been 6502 based machines with relatively similar architectures. The only game I have ever played on the Mac is Gliders, which I think was for System 6.
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scouter
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64 MB Posts: 81 Retired IT Administraor
Reply #5 on: September 06, 2021, 09:29
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You could also run it in the IIe emulator for system 7 if you can't wait for the native Mac version. http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/iie
Last Edit: September 06, 2021, 10:45 by scouter
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lilliputian
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64 MB Posts: 68 A Good Apple!
Reply #6 on: October 17, 2021, 08:01
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There is no reason it couldn't be done as a sprite-based game, similar to Glider, using 1-bit graphics for black & white machines, and separate graphics for color machines. Both could easily be System 6 compatible. But I guess we'll have to wait on whomever is porting it for David to see how they accomplish it!
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #7 on: October 17, 2021, 08:42
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I'm secretly hoping for the same thing. I think this would be the perfect solution but I have my doubts. - Developer docs on System 6 stuff is rare. - Supporting both System 6 & 7 means having to write more code - Even Mac Plus owners usually have a System 7 partition these days. Don't know anyone exclusively using System 6 Unless he found someone who coded Mac OS stuff back in the 80's and wants to give it another go I assume we won't see support for anything prior to System 7. Interestingly, when David referred to the programmer, he used a "she". I wonder how many female Mac OS programmers are out there? Glenda Adams coming back to Mac OS coding? :-)
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lilliputian
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64 MB Posts: 68 A Good Apple!
Reply #8 on: October 17, 2021, 09:10
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Exciting!
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lauland
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512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #9 on: December 18, 2023, 23:46
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FYI Over at https://macintoshgarden.org/ an attempt was started, but didn't get too far, using the Sprite Animation Toolkit. So I got a wild hair, and decided to try a proof-of-concept sort of hack, putting together the SDL version of PETSCII with a fake SDL shim of sorts that I have, which runs on a cross platform library I'd written...a REAL inefficient mess of code...but it could get a native classic MacOS version running. The idea would be MacOS X Carbon first and then downsizing, eventually getting all the way to System 6 on a Mac Plus. Obviously this is NOT the right way to do a port, but more "just because it'll probably work", I had the parts lying around, and a way for me to improve my SDL shim on the side. But I'm hoping once people see it running (if it gets finished) on classic MacOS as a proof of concept, it'll spur others to "do it right". Follow along... https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/the-petscii-robot-challenge
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #10 on: December 20, 2023, 14:28
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@lauland - good to have you here! And great to read you're not giving up on the port. I'm a noob when it comes to C++, but with some C knowledge and itching to get into it. But here comes life and crosses out all my plans one after another. Ugh. I very much hope you'll continue with your endeavor and in "making it a learning experience", as originally intended. Because it's really hard to find any info on how to tackle projects this size. Please continue!
Last Edit: December 20, 2023, 14:29 by Bolkonskij
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lauland
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512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #11 on: December 31, 2023, 18:49
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I've pivoted to a different approach, as it turned out my SDL "shim" was VERY limited and my cross platform library couldn't handle some obscure pixel format issues, as SDL normally hides all that. Instead of reinventing the wheel, and needing to handle everything SDL can, I'm going for a "wafer thin" approach with all new code. "#define SDL_Surface GWorldPtr" for one! Working on Carbon version first... https://github.com/laulandn/PETSCIIRobotsMac
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lauland
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512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #12 on: January 07, 2024, 20:52
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Huge progress. Game now starts, but not playable (keypresses not fully handled), colors not right (256 color palette needs coding). See https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/the-petscii-robot-challenge?page=2#comment-101409 Screenshots and lots of info. Source is at https://github.com/laulandn/PETSCIIRobotsMac I'm not really interested in finishing this solo, but would like to use this to teach a little, and think it'd be a great opportunity for anyone wanting to learn classic Mac game programming. Wanna help? Any level welcome. There's no such thing as a stupid question, so ask away...
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #13 on: January 08, 2024, 07:04
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Hi, I'd love to help out, but I am aiming to start a new daytime project, soon. Hopefully my last one, because I can't stand that job anymore. But I need the money - the good damn money. And once I'm on project, I barely get enough time to go visit the loo. 
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lauland
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512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #14 on: January 08, 2024, 16:45
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I feel for ya, hope things get better or at least tolerable! Even though you (and others) may not have time to contribute, it'd be great just having more eyeballs seeing the code. Just spotting something, that either looks wrong, or you're curious about, and asking helps! - Classic M68k, PPC and Carbon, CodeWarrior 6 and 7, and XCode 2.x on Tiger. It's highly likely to build on older and newer PPC MacOS X. Intel Carbon needs one line fixed (can you see it?). Can easily create projects for older versions of CodeWarrior if wanted.
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