On Sunday, January 12, 2003, at 10:48 am, Stuart Brady wrote:
On Sun, Jan 12, 2003 at 01:46:52AM +0100, Thomas Harte wrote:
I think they also hacked the load/save routines so that they used Sam disks instead of the tape. 7-12 minutes then.Did they use exactly the same file on the disk, just adding a BASIC program to switch into mode 1? If so, the SAM 'version' couldn't have taken longer than 5-10 minutes work, surely!
More than the Spectrum version ever did! (About 15 pounds, if I remember correctly).This begs the question; how much did each version cost?
As far as I know, they didn't bother. Although, because of RAM contention, the running speed of the Sam in Mode 1 is not all that faster than the Spectrum.- mode 1 display, with obvious effects on running speedPresumably a good deal of work would be needed to slow the game back down to its original speed, after the framerate had been increased?
A mode 3 or 4 screen always starts on an even numbered page. If you output 31 (and mode bits) to the VMPR than you'll get a screen starting at page 30.- software double buffering, even though in the SAM (and 128kb Spectrum, I believe)
this can be achieved in hardware
Yes, the SAM and Spectrum 128k do provide page flipping. If I remember correctly, you are limited to just two pages on the Spectrum 128k, but but on the SAM, any page in main memory may be used. I've not actually tried using page 31 in modes 3 and 4 yet, but I expect that this uses page 0 for the upper 8k of the video memory.
Yes, at least if you're drawing in Mode 4. Do you remember a demo called DWC (Dead Wild Cat) by Marc Broster on Fred 50? It drew rotating 3D wireframe objects and usually kept up to 50 fps. He used most of the Sam's memory to hold pre-calculated line drawing routines.I also wonder whether the extra memory would be of particular benefit.
Andrew
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