And I said...uglifruit wrote:The QL version of illuminati (and I’ve played ’em all) is the one to go for. At least until the Sam Coupe, or Next version come along.
It's time to reveal the fourth instalment of what I'm now calling The Illuminati Project...TMD2003 wrote:Erm... about that. There is a fourth version of Illuminati that is 98% done, and I just need to tidy up the title screen. I was waiting for this review to be published so that I could reveal it. As it turns out, the problems with the title screen are proving very tricky to solve, and it's nothing to do with the screen itself.
I'll reveal it soon enough. But I don't think you're going to like it!
...the VIC-20 version.
You may ask "why did you do that?" After all, it would have been a lot easier to convert the game for the Amstrad CPC, the MSX, or even the Enterprise that @Sparky might still want - they're all Z80-based computers and the machine code should work on those with only minimal changes to where the input and output addresses are. But do I ever make it easy for myself? Oh no.
But it's not about that. This might be taken as a terrible confession, but I've developed something of a strange fondness for the VIC-20, despite the 40th birthday celebrations of the computer I've owned a derivative of for 34 years. In a parallel universe, someone at RHM Computing in late 1983 said "Hey, Peter, I hear you were looking for a cheap computer for your son? Well, mine's just upgraded to a Commodore 64 and I've got a VIC-20 going spare, and I'll ask a reasonable price for it. It's even got a 16K expansion cartridge and a few games..." and, on Christmas Day, I found a sack full of a computer that wasn't a ZX81 and which I believed to have been delivered by a fat man in a red suit. (Well, what did you believe when you were four?)
Hence, I chose the VIC-20 to take the first project I'd work on for a computer that isn't either Sinclair-adjacent, or a Dragon 32. The original ZX81 Illuminati program formed the basis of this version, to which I've added a small amount of colour and rudimentary sound effects, and - gasp! - some user-defined graphics. And let me tell you, this is not the easy job that it is on the Spectrum - BASIC has to be manually moved from its default position, which isn't the same position on an 8K+ expanded model as it is on a 3K expanded or unexpanded model - and neither is the screen memory, or the colour memory that accompanies it. Idiosyncratic bits of Commodore BASIC I can handle, for the most part - the listing is full of weird inverse-video control characters, but at least I know what they do now.
And then there's the whole reason behind making this game in the first place, both for the original ZX81 version, the QL version, and now this one - it's as a showcase for what I can do with machine code after a minimal amount of training. Learning 6502 opcodes wasn't all that difficult, because I'd already put myself through the ringer with learning Z80 at the end of 2020, and all I needed to do here was translate from one set of instructions to another, discovering the mysteries of the Zero Page along the way. I have to say I have a lot more respect for Commodore programmers now - I thought it was hard enough making Manic Miner appear on a Spectrum screen by shuffling numbers around on registers, but the 6502 has only three 8-bit registers to work with - A, X, Y and that's your lot. You want to ADD HL,DE? Best of luck, mate. You want to LDIR - as I did, to copy the graphics from the ROM to the user-defined area? That had to be written from scratch, although for this purpose, there was a ready-made routine on 6502.org. As for the Illuminati's Top-Secret Calculation Formula, I had to do that myself. It was a success - the results will be the same, and you can check this version against any of the three Sinclair versions released so far.
Loading instructions have been included along with the Ludicrous Backstory, so there's no excuse not to get it working. Most people will opt for the disc, because the tape is so slow. I've calculated it at 400 baud...
So if you want to take the plunge into another world, as I have, you can do so... I've been running it with VICE 3.3, which is the last version that had a 32-bit option, and is what I'll stick to for the foreseeable future.
GET IT HERE
I'm already working on a version for the PET 2001, which will be cut down to remove sound, colour and UDGs (most of which it can't handle), but will be rehashed to make better use of the 40-column screen. And then, I'll combine the best bits of both versions for the C64, and present it in a glorious Sludge-o-Vision palette.
Then I'll see about the CPC and the MSX. And the Dragon 32, because I can't leave that out. And I suspect I'll try the BBC Micro, and the Acorn Atom, if I dare to touch its weird BASIC. Maybe the TI/99, the Atari 8-bits, the Apple IIe... there are loads of target machines.
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Standby alert 
