Why am I unable to run mario on my ti-89?

how do you get the game to start

Well, it's a great game...

Keep up the kewl job!

hc

Yes, you're right ! It's one of the two games I prefer on TI89. Those graphics are great ! It doesn't make the slowly sensation like on Mario86.
With the greyscales, I would say : Have I bought a TI 89 or a GameBoy ????? With Zelda89, it is my best game!!And I'm not talking about the Mario editor .....

Good Work !
Continue on this way !

THIS GAME IS THE BEST GAME OUT FOR THE 89!
(for now anyway...)
I dont see why some people make complaints
about such things as stars and racoon suits.
(even though I admit they would be very kewl!)
As a 68k programmer I can say that this is
a huge step forword in world of TI games.
And all the work that has gone into this game
should be appreciated and not critisized!
KEEP'EM COMING DON!!!

Yeah! This game really kicks some ass! I wish i could program like him!....
Of course i think there will be the question that still remains: will it be ported to ...
GRR...

Darn! I have to use Doors OS libs! I use PlusShell! (not as big a problem as if you use the numeric solver, then clean up after yourself; you get an address error. If you're gonna use your calc for games, then use it for games only.)

The on-calc editor is definitely a good idea. I'll see what levels I can create...

Anything in the game itself new?

I've never had this bug in DoorOS .96b ;)

Actually, it was a problem with modifying the graph screen.

I now use DoorsOS, although you have to search for your games. I like the password part; it gets in the way of yourself as well as your friends ;)

Well, I have a problem with Plusshell:
when I try to run the game, I always get the error : 'ziplib not found', although this file is present on my calc.
With Doorsos, no problem.
Could someone explain me this ?

I had this same problem when trying to run SMQ with PlusShell even though I had ZipLib. I decided to use DoorsOS instead, and it worked. I even tried taking the ZipLib out of the DoorsOS.zip file and it still didn't work. Maybe it was a problem with my version of PlusShell

Hey man, great job on Mario. The game looks great!

I think this game is awesome!! I like the graphics and the gameplay. I think the on-calc editor will be kewl. I am going to download this game. Keep up the good work!!!

There's a couple things I'd like to point out between the two, and maybe they could improve a bit on both.
1) The graphics and sprites on SMQ are HUGE! You can hardly see any of the level with 10x6 block size screen. The 86 version by Bill Nagel had 13x7 even WITH the smaller screen size and it looks just as good if not better. The sprites on 86 were 8x8, I think the ones here are 16x16 and big mario takes up two blocks, this is mario, not The Giant.
2) The 89 does have a couple of advantages though. More blocks to choose from, more enemies, and vertical scrolling. Of course if the sprites were "Normal" size the vertical scrolling probably would have been left out. If the 86 version had this and you added in a raccoon suit like in SM3 for Nintendo, it would be a big plus, same for the 89.
3) Stats. Plain, simple. Where are they? I don't see any stats on the playing screen for the 89, yet Bill Nagel managed to fit them on a screen size practically twice as small? Come on, we have to know how many coins, lives, etc we have.
4) Grayscale, 89 has it, 86 doesn't, improve.

I would suggest that someone retrofits the game into 10x10 blocks, more than enough to show blocks (Look at Super Mario 86, I don't want anyone saying "You can't get enough detail with 10x10!") and add in the best of both games as well as some new stuff. The List of what the ultimate Mario game should have: Greyscale, medium or small sprites (No "Need Ultra-Slim Fast" sprites), Lots of enemies, Stars, Fireflowers, raccoon suit, 1ups, Big Mushrooms, warps, stats on playing screen, and level editor (More should probably be included, but I can't think of any). Get together with a group like CCIA or ACZ and Bill Nagel and maybe Michael Cook. Make the best damn Mario on the market and show Nintendo that you're the better programmers.

1. Those sprites aren't HUGE but could be a little smaller. (I don't like tha vertical scrolling)

2. Bill Nagel doesn't program anymore

3. Greyscale scrolling on the 86 is almost impossible though Jimmy Mardel is working on some 'project' that may achieve this

Grayscale "smooth" scrolling may be impossible, but not page scrolling. MC Mik was a grayscale side scroller for the TI-85.

Grayscale scrolling on the 86 is NOT impossible, not by any means! Despite what you'd think, actual scrolling does not take very long at all. ~21000 t-states for vertical scrolling, ~27000 t's for horizontal. Redrawing the pixel strip will probably take about that same amount of time, so you can figure on about ~50000 or so t's for normal scrolling.


If you add grayscale, then you have two planes, so you have to do everything twice. So that would be in the neighborhood of around ~100000 t-states per frame.

For those of you not familiar with Z80: t-states are a way of measuring how long it takes to execute instructions. The Z80 in the calcs are 6Mhz. This means that they can execute 6 million t-states per second. So at one hundred thousand t's a frame executing six million a second, you could have 60 frames a second!

Of course, you will never achieve this high of a frame rate. You must also figure in copying the double or tripple buffers, which may come close to halving the speed. You must do this, of course, or there will be tons of flicker. You then need time to draw the sprites, update the enemies, etc. All this takes time. But you should theoretically be able to get about 5-10 frames a second of scrolling grayscale. Not bad at all, considering anything faster than that and it's all blur. Darned slow LCD, hehe.

If there's enough demand, I might whip up a little scrolling grayscale demo...

if you count one person as enough intrest then i'm the first one. it would be great if you could and release some good commented source or a tutorial of some sorts.
i don't think it would be too awful much work to change the sprites in jimmy mardel's squarz (is that how to spell it?) and add greyscale would it.
sounds great

To my knowledge it's not the z80's speed that is the issue, but that the screen can only refresh so often. My guess is that the screen limits the implementation of greyscale. I may be wrong since I never actually programmed the 86 but I think this is correct. Anyone else with any other info?

Greyscale has been done quite well already on the 86...just look at ZBlitz or Maze3D. I think that the main problem is size restrictions - the 86 can only have 10k Asm programs (Bill Nagel got around this by placing a lot of code in a string, then having the .86p refer to it. This could be useful for greyscale coders.)

about the stats,
the game isnt finished yet

You are right, the sprites are a bit out of proportion. Is the screenshot when mario is small or large? Ya know what I really want. I want a moderate greyscale (not MC Mik, not B&W) version of mario with all that cool stuff you said. Oh, and what is this I hear about Bill Nagel not programming anymore?

the screenshot is mario small. This is a great game i recomend it to everyone.

Ryan

Yep, Bill Nagel's not programming anymore because he's being a baby about getting more complaints about Mario 86 then compliments so he stopped programming.

Ack, does this mean us 86 users will be doomed to play mario with just mushrooms and no other power-ups until the day of our death? (gulp)

Your absolutly right about the block size. As soon as I saw the screen shot from this game I thought: "Wow, those are some nice GFX" and then 1 second later: "Eww, those block are absolutly huge". The block should be approx. the width of Mario, no more, no less. I have an 86 and there'll probably never be a port to any thing less than a 89. That means that I'll never probably play this game, But I hope that the final product of this game has all of the features that make the game whole(fire power, racoon/frog suits, start power, pipes that work, hidden 1ups, pipes that actually work, ect. ect.) Even Bill's Version of Mario for the 86 was missing those things, but I still admire his skills BTW. And whats this I hear of him done programming, if he's done with programing for the TI's he's on to something else because programming is an addiction to people who actually do it(unlike the minority of people who just rip other peoples work and put their own name in). OK back to mario. This game has alot of potential and with some of these gfx I've seen from the screen shot. But most people wont be 100% satisfied with the game untill it almost perfectly resembles Mario to deserve the name Mario.



Gandalf

(this is pointed to everyone about size-thing)
Did you know that Mario became what he is because of 8-bit Nintendo's limits? The sprites had to be small and the amount of colors was very limited and that's how Super Mario born. I know sprites can be done well in 8x8. It's hell hard but not impossible. They have to be optimized to the limit or they will look like shit. Believe me, I know, I made Zelda in 10x10 sprites for TI-85(still under development) and it was NOT easy...

There was a Mario before Super Mario. Remember Donkey Kong?

yep.. classic game:)
and Mario Bros, too(Not Super Mario Bros) where you had to beat monsters by blocking them... those times were gold.
What I meant was mainly that Mario's look was created because of the limits of those times game systems.. i've read it somewhere but can't remember if it was for any spesific NES game or just every early NES Mario... might also be for arcade games, I can't remember. The main point is that he's(mario's) look was created because of the limits of technology.