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Wanderer
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2003
Posts: 478 |
Side border scrolling
Here's a question that I've had on my mind for almost 20 years now.
How do you think side border scrolling was invented?
Do you think someone had sprites on the screen while a scroller was moving and they noticed a gap?
Perhaps someone was watching a depack routine and noticed that the side borders opened up by one raster line. You know the crunchers that used to increment $d016 as it uncrunched.
Or did someone simply break out the programmers reference guide and figure it out?
This is speculation but I'd like to hear your comments.
Oh and here's another... in the early 80's when there were no cartridges I always wondered how games were cracked. You would reset the computer by grounding the first and third pins on the far left port but you'd also lose data in the process sometimes. How would they have done it??? Granted much of it was simple disk error protection but it would still require you to reboot and load a monitor to view.
p.s. I think the easiest crack of all time had to be Flight Simulator in which, if you viewed the sectors it read "23 READ ERROR". You changed the 23 to a "00" (for OK) and it was cracked.
Mike
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HCL
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 728 |
I go for the depack effect, or possibly someone wrote a crap program like inc/dec$d016, jmp back. Found something strange and started to investigate. I think most vic-tricks were invented that way. I accidentally found what is nowadays called sprite-crunching somewhere in 1994-95. A bug that is a bit harder to trigger, and thus it wasn't used until relatively late. |
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A Life in Hell
Account closed
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 204 |
Quote: Here's a question that I've had on my mind for almost 20 years now.
How do you think side border scrolling was invented?
Do you think someone had sprites on the screen while a scroller was moving and they noticed a gap?
Perhaps someone was watching a depack routine and noticed that the side borders opened up by one raster line. You know the crunchers that used to increment $d016 as it uncrunched.
Or did someone simply break out the programmers reference guide and figure it out?
This is speculation but I'd like to hear your comments.
Oh and here's another... in the early 80's when there were no cartridges I always wondered how games were cracked. You would reset the computer by grounding the first and third pins on the far left port but you'd also lose data in the process sometimes. How would they have done it??? Granted much of it was simple disk error protection but it would still require you to reboot and load a monitor to view.
p.s. I think the easiest crack of all time had to be Flight Simulator in which, if you viewed the sectors it read "23 READ ERROR". You changed the 23 to a "00" (for OK) and it was cracked.
Mike
I'd imagine that, once removing the upper/lower borders was figured out (which probably did happen due to either random poking of depack effects - since you have eight lines in order to do the modification, it's going to happen randomly often enough to be noticed), that how sideborder removal works would have been a logical progression - only held back by having to work out the timing of the vic, and the effect of sprites thereon. |
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Graham
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 990 |
Since upper/lower border routines were invented around 4 months before, I'd assume they had just taken the idea from $D011 to $D016. |
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Cruzer
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1048 |
so, who invented upper/lower border opening? |
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H.O
Account closed
Registered: Oct 2002
Posts: 70 |
Cruzer: The most common opinion is that Flash (of Flash Cracking group, Light Circle, etc) was the one who opened the top/lower border first.
At least that is what 1001 crew claimed, and since they (together with Sodan) were first with sideborder it seems quite likely.
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Graham
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 990 |
I think the inventor is Holger Gehrmann (later boss of reline), he published an article about upper/lower border in a late '85 issue of the 64'er magazine. The first demos with open vertical border appeared in december 1985, short after the article has been released. |
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tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1790 |
Quote: Here's a question that I've had on my mind for almost 20 years now.
How do you think side border scrolling was invented?
Do you think someone had sprites on the screen while a scroller was moving and they noticed a gap?
Perhaps someone was watching a depack routine and noticed that the side borders opened up by one raster line. You know the crunchers that used to increment $d016 as it uncrunched.
Or did someone simply break out the programmers reference guide and figure it out?
This is speculation but I'd like to hear your comments.
Oh and here's another... in the early 80's when there were no cartridges I always wondered how games were cracked. You would reset the computer by grounding the first and third pins on the far left port but you'd also lose data in the process sometimes. How would they have done it??? Granted much of it was simple disk error protection but it would still require you to reboot and load a monitor to view.
p.s. I think the easiest crack of all time had to be Flight Simulator in which, if you viewed the sectors it read "23 READ ERROR". You changed the 23 to a "00" (for OK) and it was cracked.
Mike
Side borders opening appear from time to time. I remember I saw this in the game kikstart (or was it kikstart ii) later. The side border opened in glitches, but with no sprite, and I though that this might be how they discovered it. Anyway, if you first found out about how to open the upper and lower border it is quite logical to think that you could possibly (with some luck) do the same trick, but horizontally. The same mechanism for enlarging the border, as you know, exists both for vertical and horizontal borders. |
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tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1790 |
Quote: Here's a question that I've had on my mind for almost 20 years now.
How do you think side border scrolling was invented?
Do you think someone had sprites on the screen while a scroller was moving and they noticed a gap?
Perhaps someone was watching a depack routine and noticed that the side borders opened up by one raster line. You know the crunchers that used to increment $d016 as it uncrunched.
Or did someone simply break out the programmers reference guide and figure it out?
This is speculation but I'd like to hear your comments.
Oh and here's another... in the early 80's when there were no cartridges I always wondered how games were cracked. You would reset the computer by grounding the first and third pins on the far left port but you'd also lose data in the process sometimes. How would they have done it??? Granted much of it was simple disk error protection but it would still require you to reboot and load a monitor to view.
p.s. I think the easiest crack of all time had to be Flight Simulator in which, if you viewed the sectors it read "23 READ ERROR". You changed the 23 to a "00" (for OK) and it was cracked.
Mike
No cartridges? There have been cartridges for the c64 for a long time. The first one I had was Hesmon which was released in 1983. It was an extension of Hesmon 1.1 from the vic20 (1982). This is very good actually. What is bad about it is that you can't read below ROM and I/O + not at $8000-$a000 (hack protection :P). You can ofcourse always write a little copy routine to get the data you want.
Still, making a small tape-transfer style crack is well within reason to do with this, or even a non-cartridge monitor.
I personally used Per Håkan Sundell's CCS Mon which is a severly hacked version of Hesmon with added disk- and tape-turbo and ofcourse handling of memory below ROM and I/O.
I never had a freezer. |
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Brainwalker
Account closed
Registered: Aug 2005
Posts: 5 |
Flash/FCG/FAC/TLC/RWE was the first who opened the upper/lower border. i know this from him, so it must be true ;) |
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Graham
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 990 |
Any demos or other examples from him? There is a lot of dudes who claim that they have been first, but didn't release anything. |
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