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+--- Thread: Porting "Real" Games to the Microbee (/thread-203.html)
Porting "Real" Games to the Microbee - elpiggio - 28-09-2020
Just out of curiousity, is there any "mainstream" 8-bit system that has even a reasonable degree of similarity with the Microbee graphics hardware / format?
Is there any possibility that one of these can be ported?
https://skoolkit.ca/links/
Skool Days was ported to the Oric, which has an entirely different processor, so must have been a monumental amount of work.
Could some genius, possibly, port something like this to the Microbee (being that it has original, well commented Source Code)?
https://www.bbcelite.com/
I know the Microbee has some great games, and some excellent games have been ported too. But just having ONE of the Spectrum / Amstrad / BBC type games would be beyond cool.
I don't believe the Microbee is any less capable than one of these platforms. But maybe the hardware is just too different.
Thought the BBC had a Z80. Nope. Edited the post accordingly
RE: Porting "Real" Games to the Microbee - someone - 28-09-2020
Hi Elpiggio,
If you read someone's "Microbee - The ultimate Doppelganger posts", you'll find that it can emulate many other platforms including the ZX Spectrum, TRS-80, Exidy Sorcerer and authentic arcade games.
Here is an example.
https://microbeetechnology.com.au/forum/showthread.php?tid=131
Here's another arcade game.
To emulate a ZX Spectrum, the character size is configured as a 32x24 screen of 8x8 chars. The colour RAM mechanism is almost identical using both a foreground and background attributes. Like the microbee, the ZX Spectrum also has a bit bashed speaker.
As standard, when the microbee is using an 8x8 character matrix, half of the PCG RAM is wasted but with a simple mod the half that was wasted can be reclaimed. With even more mods, vastly improved colour ability can be accessed including a 320x256 mode with 2 bit colour combinations for each pixel from either 16 or 256 user configurable colour palettes.
BTW: The BBC Micro had a Z80 expansion board to enable it to run CP/m.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro_expansion_unit
RE: Porting "Real" Games to the Microbee - elpiggio - 29-09-2020
(28-09-2020, 08:19 PM)someone Wrote: Hi Elpiggio,
If you read someone's "Microbee - The ultimate Doppelganger posts", you'll find that it can emulate many other platforms including the ZX Spectrum, TRS-80, Exidy Sorcerer and authentic arcade games.
Here is an example.
https://microbeetechnology.com.au/forum/showthread.php?tid=131
OK. If I can see Manic Miner running on my Premium+ I will be seriously impressed.
Go ahead, impress me
RE: Porting "Real" Games to the Microbee - someone - 29-09-2020
No permission to distribute the software but here's the next best thing. A video
RE: Porting "Real" Games to the Microbee - someone - 13-10-2020
For those who are wondering, can skool daze be ported to the microbee?
Can you gauge it from this picture of just the background map and status bar on a microbee (emulator for ease of screen shot)?