TRS-80 games ported to Microbee
Namachari
games that were ported to the Microbee, an Australian computer from
the 80's. You can see some of the ported TRS-80 game videos towards
the bottom of the page here:
http://web.mac.com/lord_philip/other_computers/Microbee_games.html
Enjoy
Philip
George Phillips
Interesting stuff. I see the machines are fairly similar. It'd be
great if you
made the ports available. Or even just wrote up what was needed to
get them
working.
The Big 5 games (Galaxy Invasion, Cosmic Fighter) are OK to be made
publicly
available so no problem with them:
http://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/downloads/august-8-2010-more-downloads-big-five/
What's super cool is that the Microbee has screen interference just
like the Model I.
Talk about an accurate port.
Namachari
> On Nov 9, 1:27 am, Namachari <forums6...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> > Just thought you Tandy guys may be interested to see some TRS-80 1
> > games that were ported to the Microbee, an Australian computer from
> > the 80's. You can see some of the ported TRS-80 game videos towards
> > the bottom of the page here:
>
> >http://web.mac.com/lord_philip/other_computers/Microbee_games.html
>
> Interesting stuff. I see the machines are fairly similar. It'd be
> great if you
> made the ports available. Or even just wrote up what was needed to
> get them
> working.
>
> The Big 5 games (Galaxy Invasion, Cosmic Fighter) are OK to be made
> publicly
> available so no problem with them:
>
>
> What's super cool is that the Microbee has screen interference just
> like the Model I.
> Talk about an accurate port.
I'm not sure when or by whom these ports were made, but I'd imagine
that they were made back in the 80's.
Yes, the ports are very accurate indeed, maybe a tad faster than the
TRS-80 versions, but I can't be sure.
These games are available online, but the page where they can be found
seems to be temporally down:
http://www.microbee.co.cc/mspp/
Actually I believe this site is in the process of changing to a new
domain.
I think the screen interference was only on the earliest microbee
models and was fixed in latest models...I actually quite like it.
Phil
Mark McDougall
> Yes, the ports are very accurate indeed, maybe a tad faster than the
> TRS-80 versions, but I can't be sure.
A 'tad' faster is an understatement. These look close to twice the normal
speed of a TRS-80!
I too would be interested in knowing what was required, though if I wasn't
so lazy a quick perusal of the microbee specs and perhaps the microbee MESS
driver would be sufficient.
I've done a few cross-platform ports myself, mainly to the TRS-80 and the
Coco. The main requirement - without doing a lot of work - is a compatible
memory map (ideally the game runs unhindered in RAM). The screen layout and
features is the next biggie. IIRC the Microbee had a programmable character
set, so by programming the TRS-80 block characters you're halfway there. If
it has a 64x16(+) screen, you're laughing. Final details like CPU speed,
interrupt frequency, keyboard I/O & finally sound can generally be tweaked
with a bit of work.
Always been meaning to do an FPGA microbee... hmmm...
Regards,
--
| Mark McDougall | "Electrical Engineers do it
| <http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug> | with less resistance!"
turnkit
otherwise incredible port.
Would be interesting to know if these were sold back in the 80's or
only traded around, assuming they were ported back then.
Namachari
Unfortunately I don't know much about these ports, once the Microbee
site is back up and running I'll ask around.
The character set differences could also have something to do with the
fact that I'm using a Swedish Microbee with a character set that
differs from the standard Australian model. It has some very specific
accented characters included which replace some symbols/characters in
the standard character ROM.
Mark McDougall
> Unfortunately I don't know much about these ports, once the Microbee
> site is back up and running I'll ask around.
I'd love to pick up a Microbee myself - it's one major omission from my
collection. Even more embarrassing because I'm an Aussie... ;)
Namachari
ChickenMan
> The Microbee forum seems to be up again here:
>
> http://www.microbee-mspp.org.au
The Microbee in Lores mode copied the Tandy mode to a tee for both
character blocks and screen size. The purpose was to allow easy porting
of programs due to the large program/games base the TRS-80 already had.
For many of the conversions, all that was needed was a change of
screen address. For other a bit more. Well thats what I can remember
from back in the 80's. These games were never commercially available,
just converted by a few enthusiasts.
A couple are available from the MBUG collection on the Walnut Creek CD,
particularly MUG #147 for Apple Panic, Robot Attack, Tandy Robot and
Armoured Patrol. They run well under the ubee512 emulator if you dont
have access to a real 'bee.
Mark McDougall
> The Microbee in Lores mode copied the Tandy mode to a tee for both character
> blocks and screen size. The purpose was to allow easy porting of programs
> due to the large program/games base the TRS-80 already had. For many of the
> conversions, all that was needed was a change of screen address. For other a
> bit more. Well thats what I can remember from back in the 80's. These games
> were never commercially available, just converted by a few enthusiasts.
Very interesting - I had no idea!