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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
Holy Grails
I've been wondering about them, with some having been finally discovered, others not yet, and some probably going to remain in the realm of the impossible forever.
I'm speaking of things like:
- 320x200x16 graphics without restrictions
- Crash-free all-direction hardware scrolling
- Digi replay of 8-bit samples at one register write per sample and without requiring cycle accuracy
on standard vanilla hardware, of course.
Some examples of discovered grails are:
- Cube rotating at 50 fps about 3 axes
- The 9th sprite (with some restrictions)
- On-the-fly standard GCR block read+decode+checksumming
As for definition, they all satisfy some measure of being perfect or optimal or being possible after all, with no further improvements required, possible or necessary. But i'm not so sure if that definition holds water with regard to some of the examples i listed. :D
The question is, what other Holy Grails are there, already discovered or still elusive?
What are your pet grails you've been chasing after for decades or have found eventually? :) |
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Iapetus/Algarbi/Wood
Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 71 |
For me the grail would be a "fast" 3d game using an engine similar to that one of Andropolis. |
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Ninja
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 411 |
My personal holy grail was surely 6 sprites over FLI. Once I designed the timing and understood it was technically possible, it was "just" finding the magic opcodes to match all these conditions imposed by the method. But I knew this was a super-rare chance to steal a VIC-based record from Crossbow. That was a dream since I learned from his effects in the early 90s. And I knew that 6 would be the ultimate upper limit, so it would be eternally my record!
Ah, great times of sitting in a train to my girlfriend with just pencil & paper trying to solve what HCL rightfully named FLI-sudoku later. That took me a while but it was all worth it.
Feels great to have found a holy grail :D |
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Mixer
Registered: Apr 2008
Posts: 452 |
One holy grail would be a tool, perhaps a compiler, that can interleave assembler code. Basically what interrupt does, but in a source code pre processor that can count cycles and generate interleaved source. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
Quoting MixerOne holy grail would be a tool, perhaps a compiler, that can interleave assembler code. Basically what interrupt does, but in a source code pre processor that can count cycles and generate interleaved source. I seem to remember Jackasser talking about something like that. Pretty sure he's used it in some productions of his. And also pretty sure he wasn't the only one. :) |
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Ninja
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 411 |
Quote: Quoting MixerOne holy grail would be a tool, perhaps a compiler, that can interleave assembler code. Basically what interrupt does, but in a source code pre processor that can count cycles and generate interleaved source. I seem to remember Jackasser talking about something like that. Pretty sure he's used it in some productions of his. And also pretty sure he wasn't the only one. :)
S:T Lars Meeting III - Invite
Source included. Not a generic compiler, though, but still... |
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JackAsser
Registered: Jun 2002
Posts: 2014 |
Quote: S:T Lars Meeting III - Invite
Source included. Not a generic compiler, though, but still...
Thanks for mentioning. This one interleaves two streams of assembly; one with timimg constraints. It track register usage on both streams and interleaves them while keeping the timing constraints. I.e. a speedcode/rastercode source multiplexer. |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5094 |
Jacky, thats crazy, didnt know about that one. I often dreamed about this too, and its done since a decade ? :) |
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JackAsser
Registered: Jun 2002
Posts: 2014 |
Quote: Jacky, thats crazy, didnt know about that one. I often dreamed about this too, and its done since a decade ? :)
Sorry.. ;) |
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Mixer
Registered: Apr 2008
Posts: 452 |
Quote: Thanks for mentioning. This one interleaves two streams of assembly; one with timimg constraints. It track register usage on both streams and interleaves them while keeping the timing constraints. I.e. a speedcode/rastercode source multiplexer.
Excellent. 16khz synthesized sounds incoming..... |
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Bubis
Account closed
Registered: Oct 2012
Posts: 10 |
I would add "free-rotating tunnel" to the list. :) |
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