[Why-Fi]

So I recently watched this video and I think it would be interesting to share it here, since it relates to the bread and butter of MZX development.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Even before knowing anything about binary representation, I was able to intuit the format used for MZX's char edit command entirely because that was what I had learned with the SYMBOL command on the Amstrad CPC464. So yeah, a lot of the lessons from that era are pretty useful in MZX. There's also a lot of overlap between NES limitations and SMZX mode..

[Graham]

Great video! Thanks for sharing it

[T-Bone]

Great video indeed, I'm just watching it now. It really cool to think about how we got away with "new" colors in ZZT and MZX so long ago, using a lot of the same methods that were used by commodore 64 and even NES programmers.

I was actually considering a few years ago making a video documentary about using MegaZeux. This video is very similar in that it shows the start of of planning by graph paper and going in to your color limitations and how to utilize your pixels in your limited "char" space.

Can't wait to see his part 2 video

This post has been edited by T-Bone: 19 August 2015 - 03:25 AM

[Graham]

The video made me miss the numbers that were beside the character representation in char edit mode. Anyone else notice that they are conspicuously absent? When all else failed, if I needed to recreate a character I could use the numbers in the character edit command to re-draw a character. Can't do that as easily anymore.

[T-Bone]

wow I actually remember that now

[Dr Lancer-X]

Graham, on 19 August 2015 - 01:26 PM, said:

The video made me miss the numbers that were beside the character representation in char edit mode. Anyone else notice that they are conspicuously absent? When all else failed, if I needed to recreate a character I could use the numbers in the character edit command to re-draw a character. Can't do that as easily anymore.

They disappeared when the multi-char editing functionality was introduced. I think because it's a feature that sees very little use, but you always pay for it as it takes up space and obscures the background. Also, manually-entered values into char edit isn't as necessary as it used to be with partial charsets and the ability to read data in from files and char edit to it.

[Exophase]

If you want to recreate character sets from a char edit command I recommend using the char set reading and file manipulation functions in a robot. It might be more work the first time but you'll be glad you did after that.

[Graham]

Exophase, on 19 August 2015 - 01:20 PM, said:

If you want to recreate character sets from a char edit command I recommend using the char set reading and file manipulation functions in a robot. It might be more work the first time but you'll be glad you did after that.

Great idea. I've gotten a lot better about saving my work, but I'll definitely keep that one in mind.

[CJA]

Despite having beaten into my head how a console works, how code pages work and how MZX works, it was interesting to see the environment and the technological limitations that created those restrictions and protocols.