Sprite Attack‪!‬ Dan’s MEGA65 Digest Podcast

Spaceships. Aliens. Marios. Goombas. Bullets. Fireballs. Mouse pointers, text cursors. Any of these could be a sprite, a feature of a computer graphics system dedicated to things that move. The sprite capabilities of the Commodore 64’s VIC-II chip super-charged video games and user interfaces beyond a single screenful of character text or a bitmap image. The MEGA65 includes support for VIC-II hardware sprites, and has sprite-related BASIC commands that make them easy to use in your programs.
In this Digest, we’ll review the VIC-II sprite system’s capabilities, try out the sprite features added to Commodore BASIC for the C128, C65, and MEGA65, and step through a development workflow for using sprites in BASIC games. And we’ll try putting these pieces together to make a simple arcade game.
But first…
The User’s Guide, 2nd edition, now available
You can now buy a spiral-bound printed copy of the MEGA65 User’s Guide, 2nd edition!
This new edition has been updated substantially from the 1st edition printing from two years ago. It covers the upcoming v0.96 release, with instructions for new features like Ethernet file transfer, and revised information on important topics like upgrading the firmware and using disks. The BASIC reference has been updated with corrections, polish, and material on new features. And there are handy new appendices on screen codes and system colors.
Whether you have the 1st edition and want to upgrade, or don’t yet have a MEGA65 and just want a useful book to go with Xemu, getting the 2nd edition in print is a great way to enhance your MEGA65 experience.
I wrote a FAQ with more information, including what’s happening with the manuals bundled with new MEGA65s. Let me know if you have any questions.
Release testing update
The v0.96 release package has been in public testing for a month, and we’ve been chasing down issues and polishing it up for factory installation on all of the new MEGA65s. This process should be complete a week or so after you read this. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the testing effort!
What happens next: the v0.96 release package will be made official and sent to Trenz for the factory installation on new machines. It will be declared the new stable release for R3A and R6 mainboards, and made available on Filehost. Everyone with the “retail” MEGA65 will be encouraged to upgrade.
DevKit and Nexys board owners will need to wait, just a bit. In order to meet the assembly schedule, we have had to defer preparing new cores for these boards until after this release. The plan is to immediately start work on these deferred tasks, and issue a v0.97 update within a couple of months that includes support for these boards. You’re always welcome to help test along the way, just be aware of known issues with slot 0 flashing on the older boards.
Upgrade party at lydon’s place! 🎉
New Intro Disks!
Gurce has put a ton of work into preparing the new software bundle for the SD card that will ship with the new MEGAs. Current owners are familiar with the “Intro Disk” menu that starts when you first switch on the computer, as well as other bonus goodies that come on the pre-installed memory card. The new bundle includes all of that and much more, a total of 191 (one hundred and ninety one!) menu entries. And that’s not even counting the disk menus themselves, with useful information and musical accompaniment. This compilation starts all new MEGA65 owners off with plenty to do on their first day. Huge thanks to Gurce for his meticulous work on this project, and of course to everyone who has written software for the MEGA65.
You can download the new software bundle on Filehost. (There’s a separate download for registered owners with a more complete version of GEOS.) If you don’t yet have a MEGA65, you can try it out in Xemu—or save it as a surprise for when your MEGA65 arrives!
New on Filehost
Don’t miss these new titles on Filehost:
Rocket Delivery