Date   : Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:52:20 +0100
From   : samwise@... (samwise)
Subject: Retro Software - Repton game discovered & JBeeb

> Hmm, I'll think about it! (I'm old-school and kinda anti-forum, too - I much
> prefer a mailing list... ;)

Not that I want to rake that flame-war up again, but I always find
this a strange notion.  Being old skool is not synonymous with not
liking newer/different ways of doing things ... I've always been
pretty comfortable with both, and they both have pros and cons.  At
the end of the day, it's the rest of the people in the community who
make using either of them a good or a bad experience.  Similarly,
wikis are a fantastic collaboration tool ...

> Well the list has been a bit quiet of late, so we can use more stuff to talk
> about...

Fair enough - I'll try to remember to drop occasional notes in here,
then, like when we launch new demos etc.

> Y'know, a follow-on to Citadel might be interesting, too. Or a port of the
> Speccy's Monty Mole series to the beeb (I don't think it was ever done...)

Citadel 2 was released on Play It Again Sam (PIAS) 18.  It was
originally just going to be a tribute, similar-style - but Richard
Hanson thought it was so good, they launched it under the Citadel
brand.

We have some great arcade adventures under development - Mountain
Panic would be the closest to Citadel.  Check out the site for a new
YouTube video.  Rich contributed a write-up on a really good scrolling
routine, which is finding it's way into many of the other games, so
many of them are starting to look jaw-droppingly good ... !

> I'm always in awe of emulator writers, but they're so often a mix of C and
> assembler (understandably) - making following someone else's code that much
> harder. I might actually stand a chance of making sense of how JBeeb works :-)

Agreed.  I recently took my first step into the wider world of C++
programming and took a peek at the source for BeebEm for UNIX.  I
don't think I'm going to be a major contributor anytime soon.  A Java
applet emulator is really useful tho.  drobe.co.uk also hosts a load
of the STH archive with it.

> Plus of course if the separate machine functions are reasonably modularised,
> there might be scope to make an Acorn System or Acorn Atom or CUBE emulator
> one day, too...

Wow.  That would be awesome - an Atom emulator sounds really cool. :)

> So who's doing the levels?
>
> regards,
>
> Andrew

Good question!  DaveM is working through all this sort of stuff with
the author, Paras, so feel free to register an interest with them -
however, I've heard rumours there may even be a competition related to
this ... !

Peter.