• Commodore Free Magazine, Issue 81 - Part 13

    From Stephen Walsh@39:901/280 to All on Sat Jul 5 17:34:59 2014
    Armiga aspects. However, from the very beginning we had three main design objectives: make it stylish, make it modern, and make it resemble the
    original Amiga.

    We tried different patterns, orientations, sizes. etc. It was a
    constantly evolving process as we were also designing the circuits and both
    had to fit together like a glove.

    From the very first hand sketches, we moved to the CAD systems, polished it there, and then did many 3D-printing tests - until everything was just
    perfect. It's quite amazing how every piece of the hardware fits so well
    in the design.

    - - - - - - - - - -

    Q. Will the ARMIGA come as just a board option - or will you have to buy
    as a completed project with the case?

    As we are planning the next steps, we are considering some alternatives.
    First of all is the BETA PROGRAM. We have cream and black as choices for
    the case colour.

    - - - - - - - - - -

    Q. Maybe one of the readers is looking at this and thinking, "I could
    help." Are you still open to offers of help, and if so, what would you most like help with - and how would our readers contact you?

    Anyone interested in our project can write us to info@armigaproject.com and keep up to date on developments here www.armigaproject.com

    - - - - - - - - - -

    Q. With the crowd finding ended www.indiegogo.com/projects/armiga-project
    - what are your plans now?

    Yes, sadly, this project has failed. Anyway, we want to go on with the
    project and we are looking for people who want to buy our beta program.

    - - - - - - - - - -

    Q. Can you give our readers an idea on the project's retail price?

    No retail price for the moment - sorry. We need to get private funding to start production.

    - - - - - - - - - -

    Q. Thanks for taking the time to talk to Commodore Free. Finally, is
    there a question you haven't been asked, or a comment you would like to
    leave the readers with?

    All I would like to say is, we have had two main collaborators: Keith
    Monahan, for the FDD controller and Chui for UAE.

    Chui..., he's just terrific. He really knows every nut and bolt of UAE and
    the Amiga "dirty tricks" and that helped us especially in the first steps. We've been very lucky he was interested in the project and jumped in from
    the first time we talked.

    You just have to take a look at his emulators page (chui.dcemu.co.uk/) to
    get an idea of how good his work is. It's not in his page, but he's also
    one of the fathers of FAME M68K core and MegaDrive emulator GENS. Now he's working in PierSolarHD.

    It's also very easy to work with him, and he always finds time to help. In addition, he's been the key for us being at RetroMadrid2014, where we first publicly showed the Armiga.



    *************************************
    GAMES THAT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN
    Airwolf Plus/4 and C64
    *************************************

    Airwolf was an American television series which ran from 1984 until 1987.
    The program centres on a high-tech military helicopter, with a code named Airwolf, The helicopter and its crew undertake various missions, many
    involving espionage, with a Cold War theme

    www.lemon64.com/?game_id=75

    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    C64 VERSION

    Published: 1985, Elite
    Musician: Mark Cooksey
    Graphician: Chris Harvey
    Programmer: Neil A. Bate

    PLUS/4 VERSION

    Published: 1985
    Size: 16K

    Download: plus4world.powweb.com/software/Airwolf_orig

    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    What can I say about this game? I was just so excited when I purchased it especially after watching the TV show for so long. My excitement soon left
    me mainly because The Commodore 64 version is just so bad, it's just
    another cash in with no idea of where to take the game! The sprites are
    just too big, and this makes the whole game totally unplayable, add in that
    the game is insanely difficult anyway, the whole thing looks nice but then
    the game starts, the main screen and music are fine. Of course later
    remixes of the theme tune produced some amazing sonically accurate
    renditions of the tune, but the music was fine for the time, (try holding
    some keys down on the main screen it makes the music play S...l...o...w...l...y...) the sound effects, were, well just that, sound effects in the game!

    The game sees you flying the hi-tech Airwolf helicopter. In the C64
    version you fly from right to left in a scrolling game; you can go back,
    and of course the screen will scroll with you, You must fire at traps to
    open walls or remove items from the screen that are firing at you. While
    the idea lacked imagination the games playability was completely broken.
    Even with cheat modes enabled the game was impossible to play. The almost barren screen seems to remove all realism from the game (true, we have some columns and bits of rock but just a black background).

    Rather sadly the plus 4 version doesn't seem to improve things, its
    scrolling the opposite way for some reason the graphics are smaller and
    totally different, it's another game where pixel perfect flight is
    required, but to be honest the gameplay isn't there on either version. The plus 4 version also lacks the music from the C64 version and seems juddery
    and more like a type in listing.

    Hey wait! You say wasn't there an Airwolf 2?

    Well, not content with squeezing money out of poor punters, Elite decided
    they could do it again, and eeked just a little more return on the name
    with Airwolf 2, this time they decided to go no frills; and just chuck out
    a shoot-em-up. And like its predecessor Airwolf 2 is best left forgotten

    All we can do is wish it was never released, Hide the cassette in a drawer, Draw a line in reality and move on quite quickly.



    *************************************
    THE ASSEMBLY LINE
    $04: The Stack-Part Two
    By Bert Novilla (satpro)
    *************************************

    *$0401: Springboard

    Hello again! Who wants to hear more about the Stack? We managed a good
    start last time out, yet barely scratched the surface. Today we're going
    to continue our discussion, but this time we will approach it from the perspective of a real-world problem and its solution. Larger programs generally keep their functions and data somewhat (to very) organized, much
    more so than smaller programs. The "largers" must organize in order to
    prevent chaos. As fellow programmers, you all know how hard it is to find
    your way out of a large program's source code once you're lost. It can be
    much worse if the large program needs better organization. In larger
    programs, if re-organization is needed, often one of the first tasks is the gathering of all the functions that drive the program, and organizing them
    into some compact, coherent block of memory, making sure each function has
    been altered to use data common with the other functions, and linked
    together - as much as is practicable. In simpler words - the code goes in
    one place, data in another place, and everyone shares. This
    re-organization is an early stage in the life cycle of the Function
    Library.

    WE'RE DOING WHAT?



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