[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Why No MULE For The Apple II?

Linards Ticmanis wrote:

heuser.marcus@freenet.de wrote:



On the one hand I don't think that analog joysticks would work well
in this kind of situation (though the game could be adapted for it,
naturally) and on the other hand the multiplayer aspect for obvious
reasons wouldn't be the same (one person using a joystick, the
other using the keyboard?).



That was the way it worked on the C64: Two persons at the joystick, the
other two at the keyboard.

But of course the C64 has a host CPU scanned keyboard matrix. So it's
easy to read multiple keys at the same time if you arrange them in a
smart way so that they don't interfere with each other.

On the Apple I don't think there's an easy way to detect two
(non-modifier) being keys pressed simultaneously. Also on the II+
there's no way to tell if a key is being held down; an important thing
for M.U.L.E. auctions.


On the II's after the ][+, the keyboard delivers a new keypress on each
depression, even if other keys are held down.

That's how RT.SYNTH makes the //e keyboard more like a piano keyboard.


This pretty much rules out simultaneous four-player action on the Apple,
unless you'd use additional hardware, such as two pairs of paddles with
some adapter to get them to work all at the same time, or maybe a
6522-based digital joystick adapter card.


If the concern is "fairness", then you can read all four paddle inputs
in the same loop, to slightly less resolution--but that shouldn't be a
problem if they are just directional inputs.

It's easy to sample all the input devices and then act on the changes
in some random or rotating order, so that "fairness" is observed.

-michael

NadaNet networking for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."