A little BASIC demo from Finland Fit has ported their "Beisikki demo", the winner of the Zoo'13 BASIC demo competition from C64 to Plus/4. Available here: http://ftp.kameli.net/pub/fit/zoo2013/beisikki__demo-plus4.zip
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland I'll add to the archive once out from workplace. Great job Marq! And congrats for the double victory!
Apropos, I really REALLY hope you're going to convert that fantastic coup de coeur coded by you and Dr. TerrorZ! The source would go quite the same as for the C64, and if you're searching for some good solutions to the SID sound, you may use the same SID file with a wave converter (e.g.: TLCs Digi V2.0 Converter Relocator V1.0, roughly emulates some SID waves by mixing digi sounds while the SID tune's going, quite time consuming) or FRQ converter (e.g.: MConv V1.6, which plays the SID file straight as multiplexed TED sound, rester-cheaper of course). Otherwise, you can ask for a proper TEDsound conversion of the Yzi's tune, even here in this forum ;) which would have the same timing to perfectly fit the demo flow, and of course this would be the clever solution, though it would need more time and work (everything cool need'em any case, no? ;) ).
For the readers, if you don't get what's the object of the discussion, this is the über-lovely The First Ball demo! ;
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland Juicy news Just to say: the Yzi's tune TERRIBLY fits into that demo, the tune increased the overall result by 50%! Heh, of course I've missed to cite the SIDcard solution. If I should set my range of quality choices, it has would been as follow:
Edit: here are some examples of how Yzi's SID tune would play in all cases.
Run this PRG to listen to the SIDcard version. TED clock and no octave fixing have been performed (techs: you know, a different frequency between systems would mean a shifted octave, if no one fix it). Run this PRG to listen to the Wave Converter version. No rastertime usage is displayed but believe me when I say this is the most expensive choice in terms of speed and memory. Run this PRG to listen to the FRQ Converter version. I set the best multpiplexor choice: voice 1 plays the lead voice, voice 2 plays bass+drums and arpeggios.
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland The Goattracker replayer doesn't seem to play that high tones, dunno why. I get that there's something genuine with using TED for sound, but in this case it would pretty effectively ruin the tune that wasn't composed for it
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland Didn't really get what with the Goattracker. As you'd listened from the SIDcard example I posted above, a SIDcard plays that as a normal SID file, with a different clock, hence a certain shifting in the octave, but all in all truly acceptable. I'd written a 30'' coding player for it, simply moving the SID registers from $D400 into $FD40, and don't hear lacking of tones at all (of course) :/
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland I tested with a different Goattracker tune that didn't suffer much from the higher pitches, but this one does. Let's see if Yzi can fix it sometime soon I got some of the animations onscreen with wrong colors but otherwise ok and will start next fixing the scrollers.
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland Well, at this point we only have to wait for the results, even if I didn't understand the high pitch's trouble (there's a SID file, you play it via SIDcard, it's the same as on C64 with a little shifting into the original octaves)
Of course, wrong colours are not a problem, probably used that way for testing only cause PETSCII features screen color converting C64->+4 For any hint or help, the forum is here, feel free to ask for anything and someone will answer back for sure.
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland The graphics and effects work almost perfectly already, the only remaining problem is the sound that we still want to fix. There seems to be a big difference in pitch between the VICE sidcart emulation and a real NST audio expansion. Any idea as to why this could be?
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland Ahem, there seems to be an option to set the clock on VICE to either Plus/4 (the default) or Commodore 64. NST seems to default to the slower C64 clock. Any tips would be welcome...
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland Oh jeez, I heard my SID example program on VICE and NOW I got what you mean, that's terrible Terrible but...false! Well, xplus4 VICE is far to be a good Plus/4 emulator. You should use YAPE (most used) or plus4emu (most precise) instead.
If and when you need it, you can ask to us for real iron checking ;)
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland Ok, I'm starting to understand the essence of the problem
- Normal PAL C64 SID frequency is 985 KHz - On a Plus/4 sidcart the freq is 886 kHz, about 11% slower - VICE sidcart emulation only works properly with the C64 clock
At least NST's audio expansion lets you toggle the frequency, but I guess older, more primitive ones won't. So either need to accept the slight slowdown or try to fiddle with Goattracker some more. And then there's the need to support two different base addresses for the cart. Sheesh... turned out to be a bit more complicated than I expexted...
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland ...and just to add some pepper (though useless then offtopic a bit): SIDwinder V01.23, released both on C64 and Plus/4, has a music packer on Plus/4 which fixes the tune's pitch 'bug' according to the chosen machine, very smart!
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland Okee dokee, I think we've sorted it out more or less. Before we release the final version here's something that'd love some testing: http://www.kameli.net/~marq/thefirstball4-prev.zip The sound side is a bit of an ugly hack - there are two different .prgs on the disk image for different sidcart base addresses. The Goattracker replayer doesn't allow for changing it dynamically and I couldn't include the same blob twice in the same file. The default one ($fd40) works fine on my NST's Audio Extension and VICE/Plus4emu.
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland Meanwhile (transferring...): I noticed you've written 'sidcart' several times. That's ok to me, but we used to call'it 'sidcarD' since 1992
EDIT: tested both, everything runs absolutely good and cool ;) Both files work good on NST Audio Device and any other older sidcard (my original ynergy SIDcard dated 1993, for example...). WIth NST's, I also checked the Legacy option in order to play the Yzi's tune at its right clock rate and it works! <3 Of course, the file to prefer is the standard $FD40. A bit of history: the most known and used Synergy SIDcard by Solder included the double addressing $FD40/$FE80 in order to be compatible with the less and less known Csory's SIDcard, that used to lie in $FE80.
You did it Marq, congrats! ;) With these two demos, you, Yzi and the Fit crew deserved to be included in the Plus/4 World's scene database (Dr. TerrorZ will be cited but has to wait ;) ).
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland Are you going to release it as single PRG into a D64? In that case, if there's no particular directory art or other addons, could we release it as PRG, or do you really wanna release it in that standard form to be the same on any site?
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland (my nick is in some limbo after trying to register)
You can store the files here as you see fit. Here's the release Package: http://ftp.kameli.net/pub/fit/zoo2013/thefirstball4.zip The tune in the demo is reworked for 885 kHz, so it should play in tune and comparably to the C64 version.
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland So you're going to release both the version, even though regular SIDcard play'em unregarding? Ok, I'm gonna deal with it Probably, you did that because of VICE's lack of emulation, but as I said before ppl who's interest in emulate the Plus/4 don't use Xplus4 from VICE... That would be the official release stuff
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland I'm kinda lost here. If you're talking about just the separately released tune "Zoo- ja zorkkatauti", that won't be modified. But the demo here contains a modified version that works fine with 886 kHz.
Re: A little BASIC demo from Finland The frequency bug should be fixed in the upcoming VICE version. It was a very simple one, but somehow it had managed to be there for years.
A little BASIC demo from Finland
Terrible but...false! 
