[zzt++-progress] zzt++ v0.8.44

[W. B. <wbo...@an...>]

This weekend zzt++ has taken another small step towards completion, although
it's not quite there yet. Here's a short run down of the current state of
affairs:

BM.DrawChar() interface
The entire zzt++ application can now 'talk' to the BoardManager in terms of
zzt codes. Basically it means that BM now takes care of all translation from
zzt coded characters to ascii code before printing them on the screen. BM
also keeps a record of the actual zzt codes in a special zzt code buffer
somewhere in memory. A funny fact is that zzt knows no codes for stuff like
spaces (ascii code 0x20) or special characters like the arrows. There were a
number of empty slots in the translation table which i was able to use.
Special characters like the double lines and such are not translated.

Timing
Right..back and forth it goes with the timing issue. I'm now back at running
zzt++ at a rate of 36 updates per second so that I'll be able to play 32nd
notes in the future. I'm working on getting the time measurement routines
right. There is a space in the BIOS area where the number of clock pulses
since midnight are stored, which I was reading. It appears that this area is
only updates by BIOS when INT0x1a,0 is called. Now it's down to measuring
the amount of time passed and figuring out how to wait at the end of the
game loop. Low level stuff, but fun to do!

Planned work
Oh well, the plans keep changing, but the main focus is the GameEngine and
interpreting objects. But first I want to be able to compress a board
in-memory so that the player can safely walk from board to board. Also, menu
handling is an item on the to do list....

Oh and welcome to the mailing list.

wep
http://www.planetzztpp.com