Re: Donkey Kong (I might actually get somewhere with this one)

[Steve Nickolas <usotsuki@buric.co>]

On Tue, 6 Nov 2012, bpiltz@gmail.com wrote:

> Why not just do DOS 3.3 and ProDOS versions? (I loved how you did so 
> with Qix)
>
> Seems like the DOS version would be easier, take less disk space, and 
> have more memory available to it exclusively without having to worry 
> about the limitations ProDOS imposes. And you could probably get it more 
> easilly single-load (and exomized) if ProDOS was out of the equation.

The reason is because I can't pack it tight enough.  A multifile version 
is easier with ProDOS - you have contiguous memory available from 
0800-BEFF and the API is better defined.  I didn't have much luck with
Qix - if you saw, the title screen got scrambled on the DOS/RDOS version, 
while on the ProDOS version it's fully intact.

Donkey Kong has a whole 56K of loadable code!  The only way I can really 
do that crunchably is by using 128K, and even that would be VERY 
difficult.  By keeping it loadable, I only raise the requirement from 48 
to 64.

(56K - 8K title, 4 8K level maps, 4 4K level maps.)

It's very inefficiently written.

-uso.