Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Show us what you're working on, (preferably with screenshots).
Nomad
Manic Miner
Posts: 600
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:38 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Nomad »

:lol: *found the documentation for the Ryzen*

I am curious about the thermal performance of the AMD - I am somewhat out of touch with the hardware side of life, years ago AMD was notorious for thermal issues with the chip but now according to the inter-webs they have resolved this. If I can fry eggs off the case will know the internet deceived me :lol:

I was going to go for a mini-form factor case but I was worried about the thing overheating during heavy continuous use.
User avatar
Ast A. Moore
Rick Dangerous
Posts: 2640
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 3:16 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Ast A. Moore »

No idea, man. I’m on a Mac, and I fry my eggs the conventional way on a skillet with bacon fat. Mmm, eggs.
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.

Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
Nomad
Manic Miner
Posts: 600
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:38 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Nomad »

Today's project time was spent looking at custom fonts. Here is an open major project for an interested person - a great retirement project actually.
Spoiler
Go through the archive, and rip every instance of a custom font.
Found an unintentional great source for inspiration on the youtubes - I was just watching some early silent films (hey it's a hobby right?) anyway. I realized its a good source for inspiration for graphics/cut scene ideas.

With the +3 you have a lot of latitude, I don't think that the full potential of the +3 was really ever completely explored. Once you accept the limitations of the spectrum graphics you can do a lot with the system. Multi-loaders become a lot more feasible with the disk system compared to say a Tape.
User avatar
Kweepa
Manic Miner
Posts: 311
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2018 6:14 pm
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Kweepa »

The font ripping project sounds pretty cool.
It could be done automatically for all the Quill/Paw adventures.
Einar(?) ripped 65 from a bunch of major games for ZX-ALFA.
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... id=0025283
(Then there are all the other 8 bit computer platforms...)
Nomad
Manic Miner
Posts: 600
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:38 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Nomad »

Looking at the archive I was curious

a.) how often custom fonts were used
b.) did the same group of fonts get used across many different games or was it a case of many individual fonts getting designed?

Because its a continuous block of memory, of a known length. I think it could be extracted automatically from an image. In the case of frameworks where you know the memory location of the font (like the Quill) it would be pretty straight forward to batch process this.

Data mining of the archive has the potential to answer a bunch of open questions. Not sure how useful it would be but the nerd hoarder in me would be super-satisfied I had every font used in the archive :lol:
User avatar
R-Tape
Site Admin
Posts: 6353
Joined: Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:46 am

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by R-Tape »

Nomad wrote: Wed May 02, 2018 4:09 pm Looking at the archive I was curious

a.) how often custom fonts were used
b.) did the same group of fonts get used across many different games or was it a case of many individual fonts getting designed?
I'd love to know this too, and have them ALL stored somewhere for perusal. I doubt we'll get any volunteers for this one!

1982 makes a slow start with custom fonts, a few go for bold Sinclair font, some double height Sinclair, and these titles use their own font:

Bomber
Cosmos
Cyber Rats
Editor Assembler
Kingdom
Meteroids
Planetoids
Space Raiders
Star Fighter
Star Trek
Star Trek 2
Star Fire

Mostly that square 'spacey futuristic' font, looks a bit ropey to some but I love it.

I wish we had a stats guy, a speccy version of Andrew Samson*, who could query ZXDB for anything we could think of. It wouldn't help with custom fonts but a lot of questions could be answered.

*We kind of have this already with Einar, but we can't expect him to do everything.
Nomad
Manic Miner
Posts: 600
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:38 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Nomad »

That is the thing, while the end result of having a huge collection of fonts would be fabulous, the work required to get to that point would be a brutal slog. I figure it would take someone with a lot of patients and time on their hands (that is why I figured a retiree would be in the best position to do it.)

I agree with you a 'House stats nerd' would be perfect. A lot of what is written in articles and books on the Spectrum is just speculation/theory. With analysis this could be replaced/supplemented with hard evidence. Just look at what happens when people started to data mine baseball stats - you got answers to all kinds of questions that had been open & bothered people for years. :lol:

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu2twZdrM-E[/media]

*puts on tin foil hat* this was only possible with baseball because the data was available, with the NFL they have flat out refused to provide the data required to do this kind of analysis of American football. You got to question why they would not want that information out in the open... It always bothered me why you couldn't get game data & access to the complete season games from previous years. NFL has all of this in the archive. They just choose to release highlights - that is useless for analysis.
Nomad
Manic Miner
Posts: 600
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:38 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Nomad »

Nomad wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 12:20 am a lot of patients and time on their hands
For the confused I am not talking about an under-employed doctor/dentist lol

patience... please forgive my spelling mistake. :lol: :lol:

In other news,

I wanted to model the effect of concealment of information within systems by interested actors. That is a crucial thing to be able to model within a simulation.

https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319242996

This all follows on from the books I was reading on thought contagion / memetic transmission.
User avatar
Kweepa
Manic Miner
Posts: 311
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2018 6:14 pm
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Kweepa »

To extract fonts from all(-ish) games:
  • Download TOSEC from archive.org.
  • Download source to Fuse and recompile it so that it dumps out the 96x8 bytes at (23606) after those bytes change.
  • Write a script to run Fuse for each TOSEC entry.
  • ...
  • Profit.
Nomad
Manic Miner
Posts: 600
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:38 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Nomad »

I was hoping that at some time in the future the 'phantom typist' of fuse would be made script able. This would be a great application for the Phantom typist.

look at the progress list,

open the file.

poke a bunch of memory locations, is it different than the stock memory map?

if so name a file according to some schema dump the contents to the file. update the progress list.

repeat till list is exhausted.
Nomad
Manic Miner
Posts: 600
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:38 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Nomad »

Guess an update is in order!

Been continuing my work on getting a 'trade secrets we deserve' ready. :lol: Can't say its the most thrill filled experience ever but there is some satisfaction to seeing things come together. I question the use of such a thing due to emulators being used and almost all of the techniques discussed being redundant. But meh. I thought it was cool :lol: Some of the questions that it raised are pretty interesting though.

So to stave off the boredom of capturing screen shots, testing pdf layouts I have been watching a bunch of TV series...

Unrelated tv series wibble..
Spoiler
Mindhunters - I was a bit skeptical of this at first as generally tv shows that get great reviews from plebs and main stream media outlets tend to suck. But in this case it was not the case. I thought it was a good first series. I just hope they don't screw it up like with Hannibal season 3 syndrome. I thought the writing was proficient, but the stand out performance is the actor playing Edmund Kemper. Rarely do you get a tv actor that does such a good job - when you compare his performance to the actual guys interviews its uncanny. The writing is good as you have a nice balance where the details are simplified enough for a general audience without it becoming annoying or unbelievable.

Narcos - Saw the second season, I think the character acting in this is good. Seems to be a continuation of good writing from the first series. One thing though this is not some deep thinking series on narco politics or the logistics of operating in a corrupt society with weak rule of law. Its more something you watch for its escapism. What I like is while its simplistic and escapist its not boring or formulaic, it also stays within the realms of belivability. Enjoyed the first series more though.

The Blacklist - A mystery/action series for windowlickers. This has to have some of the worst writing & acting for a series I have had the misfortune of watching. I don't understand how it gets such good reviews when the pilot has so many show stopping unbelievable plot holes. For me its important for a series to be believable, when a series breaks that I get annoyed and loose interest. I just can't get my head round how this obviously written by comity hack job of a script ever got commissioned. And the preachy, hokey SJW gender politics nonsense is so obvious its painful. "lets subvert every gender trope we can in the first episode... yay diversity." Its like a team of college students in a liberal arts program decided to write a TV series and it got put into production with no oversight.
What else am I working on - Well actually I have a productivity application I need to help plan my workouts. Figured I might as well do it on the spectrum as it doesn't need to be more than 8-bits to do a few simple calculations :lol:
Nomad
Manic Miner
Posts: 600
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:38 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Nomad »

Feasibility study:

I need an application to store my workout data, also it needs to track my progress and make predictions on future performance.

Requirements:

It needs to:
  • store workout data on disk
    retrieve data from the disk
    use text to show information
    have sound prompts for input
    take input from keyboard in kg or lbs.
    make a prediction about future performance.
    plan future workouts.
Result of study:

I determine that Basic is fine for the application as it does not require graphics or fast response times to input. This has all the hallmarks of a classic Basic application. This will be for the +3.

Future enhancements: Assembly version, graphics screens, have a diet tracker/meal planner.
Last edited by Nomad on Wed May 09, 2018 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nomad
Manic Miner
Posts: 600
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:38 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Nomad »

Data:

So for Barbell squat the following data is used as like a benchmark for progress, once a person reaches a level the number will show up green instead of red.

Code: Select all

MALE SQUAT KG:

BW: UN: NO: IN: AD: EL: 

52	35.0	65.0	80.0	107.5	145.0
56	37.5	70.0	87.5	117.5	157.5
60	40.0	77.5	92.5	127.5	167.5
67	45.0	85.0	105.0	142.5	185.0
75	50.0	92.5	112.5	155.0	202.5
82	55.0	100.0	122.5	167.5	217.5
90	57.5	105.0	130.0	177.5	230.0
100	60.0	110.0	135.0	185.0	240.0
110	62.5	115.0	140.0	192.5	250.0
125	65.0	117.5	145.0	197.5	257.5
145	67.5	122.5	147.5	202.5	262.5
145+	70.0	125.0	150.0	207.5	270.0

FEMALE SQUAT KG:

BW: UN: NO: IN: AD: EL: 

44	20.0	37.5	45.0	60.0	75.0
48	22.5	40.0	47.5	65.0	80.0
52	25.0	45.0	52.5	67.5	87.5
56	25.0	47.5	55.0	72.5	90.0
60	27.5	50.0	60.0	77.5	95.0
67	30.0	55.0	62.5	85.0	105.0
75	32.5	57.5	67.5	90.0	115.0
82	35.0	62.5	75.0	97.5	122.5
90	37.5	67.5	80.0	105.0	132.5
90+	40.0	72.5	85.0	110.0	137.5

This data will get stored as an array, its then a matter of compairing each element of the array against the value given by the user in their workout.

A print function just loops through runs a comparison and if an If condition is met either GREEN or RED is selected for ink. Simple right. :lol:

UN = untrained
NO = Novice
IN = Intermediate
AD = Advanced
EL = Elite

For the moment the program will just handle Squats, later will add Overhead barbell, Deadlift and bench.

TR DOS is pretty slick with saving arrays, will make full use of this later.

Other than that its just a simple subroutine for input - this input then is used to populate an array, make a pretty screen with a bunch of conditional statements determining what advice is printed/not printed.

User is then prompted if they want to save the data.. if yes then its written to disk. if no then nothing is saved.
User avatar
R-Tape
Site Admin
Posts: 6353
Joined: Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:46 am

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by R-Tape »

I'm probably being a duffer but what exactly are these stats? Take the first example, Male squat, BW = Body weight(?), Untrained is 35.0 "what"?

Run around with a +3, powerpack and a car battery strapped to you like a fitbit you'll see those stats improve in no time.

We've come a long way from a chess game :-p
User avatar
Seven.FFF
Manic Miner
Posts: 735
Joined: Sat Nov 25, 2017 10:50 pm
Location: USA

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Seven.FFF »

I think you'll get a kick out of this. You won't be able to run it (although you could on ZEsarUX) but you can read the BASIC.

Matt Davies did a game jam last weekend, and wrote a decent game with sprites and 256 colour graphics, entirely in NextBASIC at 14Mhz.

https://cthutu.itch.io/orb-run

The orb.bas file in the download is tokenized, so here is a plain text version too.
Last edited by Seven.FFF on Wed May 09, 2018 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Robin Verhagen-Guest
SevenFFF / Threetwosevensixseven / colonel32
NXtel NXTP ESP Update ESP Reset CSpect Plugins
Nomad
Manic Miner
Posts: 600
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:38 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Nomad »

R-Tape wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 4:11 pm I'm probably being a duffer but what exactly are these stats? Take the first example, Male squat, BW = Body weight(?), Untrained is 35.0 "what"?

Run around with a +3, powerpack and a car battery strapped to you like a fitbit you'll see those stats improve in no time.

We've come a long way from a chess game :-p
The data is taken from a data set of males and females that were tested for strength in an exercise. In this case it was barbell squat. It is in Kilos.

For example, an untrained individual should be able to walk up to any barbell and perform the squat with the numbers in the UNtrained column for one repetition. From this point till the Novice stage you have the very bottom of the sample to the 20% mark samples, the NOvice category is the 20%-49% of the samples taken. So you can say if you can lift the amount in the Novice column you are going to be better than 20% of the sample set. But still not good enough for an Intermediate rating - this would indicate you are stronger than 50% of the samples taken. But not more than 75% that would put you in the advanced section. Stronger than 95% puts you at the elite level.

Depending on where you stand, it determines what programs should be recommended to the user. It's crude but its is what it is.

The prediction part is simple, its just a random function, you look at the amount already lifted in the previous session and <10 negative progress, <50 no change >50 < 90 positive progress.

Chess project is on the back burner till i get my new machine. :lol: Next few weeks I should be getting that sorted then I can get back to crapchess. I just didn't want to sit on my arse doing nothing :lol:
Nomad
Manic Miner
Posts: 600
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:38 pm

Re: Crap 0.1 first assembly project

Post by Nomad »

The previous few days have been mostly this...

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... bUtZzi6hag[/media]

instead of an American/Brit voice though imagine lots of the bad guys from Team America 'EEE DIRKA DIRKA Text to Speech.. DIRKA DIRKA Ubuntu NIII DIRKA DIRKA Subscrible! My Goat needs subs!'

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK0Vo-rK1dM[/media]

:lol: What is the deal with Youtube tutorials and people that can barely speak English? Why not just do the tutorial in your own language and then someone might understand what is being said? :lol: It's like they think the Drones are going to avoid their compound if they speak what they think is English on the net...

I just don't get the thought process - It would be like me deciding to do a whole youtube series in Arabic. :lol:

I then find a tutorial .. no sounds of drones in the background or a camel being abused, I get my hopes up.. Oh no its a squeaker using notepad. :x

This would be somewhat easier if when I go to RTFM I find the libraries are basically unmaintained, have a dev team operating a forum that requires a social media page to join and submit a question... I read some of the posts its a damn Hugbox. People begging for help and these soy-boys acting like they did the world a favor by uploading a broken, largely undocumented library to the world. :lol:

Image

open source software is really only free if you consider your own time to be worthless. :lol:

As another confusing point - what happened to tech guys? It seems to be a sea of soy boys developing these applications and tools? Where did all the hetrosexual guys go?

Image

Lol what is the deal with the whole glasses, open mouth, low testosterone thing come in? I am so out of touch with what is going on. Is this normal now?

This was the tutorial I found...

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf8w1BJb9Xc[/media]

Its like a guy with no idea what he was doing, decided to record a series after doing way to many uppers. :lol:

I must be missing something, because this guy has just taken information that was on the library page... and made a youtube video adding no value.

:lol:

Thing is all of the tutorials are like this.

I then find out that a security update to chrome essentially breaks the functionality of the whole library anyway. So this was all a huge time sink. :lol:

For me this sums up open source. :lol: Because Linux desktop is totally ready for prime time. :lol:

So now ya'll know why development on the actual fun stuff (the spectrum project) has been slow.
Post Reply