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Confetti2 - created by accident

Posted: Tue May 07, 2024 7:00 am
by Xiphod
Well, this wasn't intended as a "demo" - but it morphed into one after messing around with the Confetti example in the Appendix A of the X16 guide.
<https://github.com/voidstar78/X16_MANUA ... T_REV9.pdf>

Might it be the only PETSCII-demo, at least so far on the X16? (actually it uses ISO mode) I didn't even use BASLOAD for this one, just evolved freestyle. Bet ChatGPT can't match this :)

Press ESC to end the madness!

Try It Now!

Re: Confetti2 - created by accident

Posted: Tue May 07, 2024 4:28 pm
by DragWx
There's something about printing random characters in random colors all over the screen that really brings me back to being a kid messing around in qbasic. :D

Re: Confetti2 - created by accident

Posted: Tue May 07, 2024 5:37 pm
by Xiphod
For sure! And the X16 lets us toy around with the 20x15 resolution :)


But I just had a thought - on a "software RNG" (that doesn't use RTC or any clock), the random-seed and random-sequence is very predictable. Has anyone ever used that sequence to be the basis for any data to drive a demo? I'd have to think about that - if you could end up with a sequence that can get bit-masked over into some interesting pattern, so your program only ends up like 10 lines long because all the data is in the seeded "random" sequence. I'm not sure if the RNG in the X16 System ROM can work like that (unless maybe we override the clock and just reset it back to 0 constantly, or some fixed value?)

I do know the original 8KB Dungeon of Daggorath somewhat did a similar thing - all the dungeon levels were always the same, but not because they stored the data that way, they just picked some particular random seeds that ended up in playable dungeons.

Re: Confetti2 - created by accident

Posted: Tue May 07, 2024 6:37 pm
by ahenry3068
voidstar wrote: Tue May 07, 2024 5:37 pm For sure! And the X16 lets us toy around with the 20x15 resolution :)


But I just had a thought - on a "software RNG" (that doesn't use RTC or any clock), the random-seed and random-sequence is very predictable. Has anyone ever used that sequence to be the basis for any data to drive a demo? I'd have to think about that - if you could end up with a sequence that can get bit-masked over into some interesting pattern, so your program only ends up like 10 lines long because all the data is in the seeded "random" sequence. I'm not sure if the RNG in the X16 System ROM can work like that (unless maybe we override the clock and just reset it back to 0 constantly, or some fixed value?)

I do know the original 8KB Dungeon of Daggorath somewhat did a similar thing - all the dungeon levels were always the same, but not because they stored the data that way, they just picked some particular random seeds that ended up in playable dungeons.
I'm not sure about outside of Basic but X=RND(-SEED) makes RND(1) a repeatable sequence as long as SEED is the same. RND(0) is hardware based.
Screenshot from 2024-05-07 17-51-21.png
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