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The game rotator idea revived [message #369270] Fri, 22 June 2018 01:32 Go to next message
Steve Nickolas is currently offline  Steve Nickolas
Messages: 2036
Registered: October 2012
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Senior Member
Some time ago I remember coming up with an idea - I think I mentioned it
here but I might be wrong. It would have loaded a bunch of games into
memory at once, then had each game switch to the next before the beginning
of its attract cycle.

I wrote the first part of the code, an untested chunk of just less than
256 bytes that does the actual rotation - you would call the function, it
would swap the current conventional memory, CPU state and video state into
a defined bank on a RAM Works, then rotate in the next bank and copy the
state back.

I guess the next things I'll need to do are come up with the tools to
create and load game images.

-uso.
Re: The game rotator idea revived [message #369624 is a reply to message #369270] Tue, 26 June 2018 12:35 Go to previous message
dagz is currently offline  dagz
Messages: 108
Registered: December 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
I have recently been thinking of building something that would be a perfect use case for this.

I'll share my idea since it's not that novel.

You can build a museum display with one or more Apple II computers while a modern computer could be playing a video for patrons about the history of, for example, Apple II gaming. Then using a HyperDuino you can send input to the Apple II at specific times during the video to change the game being displayed using a program like yours.

Of course you can do much more. You can make interactive touch displays to let the users guide their path through the videos. You can add lighting effects to "shine" on the computer currently being talked about, etc. I just think the ability to change games/applications would really help people understand all the different ways we were experiencing these machines back then, much better than a single game running in attract, or screenshots, or worse, powered off.

For the proof-of-concept to control an Apple II via HyperDuino, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxfwlKlMBPM

Please let me know if you make any progress. I am fairly busy until after KansasFest, but I'd like to play around with anything you might get going.

Thanks!
-D
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