Andrew Owen

Profile: Chris Horrie Investigative journalist, author and academic.

#Profile

This month on the Byte High, No Limit blog, a profile of investigative journalist Chris Horrie from the archives.

andrewowen.net/blog/profile...

Emulation and virtualization on iPad in 2025 It's been a year since Apple updated its terms to permit emulation of retro devices in the App store.

andrewowen.net/blog/emulati...

It's time for me to switch to Firefox Running Chrome on a machine with less than 16GB of RAM is no longer viable for me. And the last feature I was holding out for is now in beta in Firefox.

andrewowen.net/blog/its-tim...

Creating an API style guide Writing for a developer audience.

#GraphQL #REST #API #Writing

Last month on the Byte High, No Limit blog: Creating an API docs style guide.

andrewowen.net/blog/creatin...

Fixed a bug in the world map fetch code by reverting to newer code. It's slower, but it works.

Hybrid document management systems revisited An alternative to component content management systems.

#Writing #Archbee #Docusaurus #TinaCMS

This week on the Byte High No Limit blog, Hybrid document management systems revisited. How to keep your writers and developer-contributors happy.

andrewowen.net/blog/hybrid-...

I think I've got all the tests figured out now. This should provide full coverage for all the game logic and features.

Yes, the color resolution is impossible for a ZX Spectrum. Originally, I was porting U4 to T/S2068 derivative (which had 8×1 attributes). In 2011 JoeFish showed it could be done in software across 16 columns with BuzzSaw+. I went two better and did it across 18. But, ZXodus I was just a tile engine.

Line of sight occlusion is done. I'm grateful for this info (buff.ly/4hvJgfI). But ended up with a 137 byte lookup table in fast RAM, ray casting from the center out. I used bit twiddling to swap buffers and mark the end of rays. It's a reasonable compromise between appearance, size and speed.

As much as I want to put off doing combat, my QA has asked me to prioritize it. So I've created this strange looking combat map that has all the possible terrain types that you might encounter. You'll get a default party of cleric, fighter, mage and thief to test the various combat styles.

Done:

World map test (overhead or zoomed).
Town map test (17 towns).
Encounter map test (17 maps).
Font test (256 characters).
Tile test (512 tiles) with animations.
Audio test (11 tunes & 28 sfx).
Create game package (tape).
Watch the moon phases from the game menu.

To do:
Zoomed town maps

Reading a 32×32 chunk of the world map into the buffer is done. It's possible to view the whole world now, but it's quite slow because it's refreshing the entire buffer every time you move (1024 bytes). Next up is to scroll the buffer and fetch only the missing 32 bytes, which will be 32× faster.

Yes, but it’s made out of tiles, so that explains the typo.

No bad data in the encounter maps. To save memory, the tile screen is also technically an encounter.

The mini-map uses pure color and 8x4 attributes. This means if one of a pair of even/odd tiles is bright, they both will be. But the maps look better that way than if I reduced them to 8 colors. Also, the test-driven development is really paying off as two of the compressed town maps were corrupted.

In a large project, it helps to have well documented code. I'm using ASM Doc, a Perl script by Bogdan Drozdowski inspired by Java Doc. I only had to change one line of code to get it to work with modern Perl. All the visuals changes are done purely with CSS.

It's now possible to view all 512 tiles in the devkit. Half are used in the 2D view and the other half in the 3D view. The next task is to add the animation code. Sprite animation is done by swapping, or cycling through tiles. This will be confined to animations that modify the tile definitions.

The software driven screen mode is added with the timing fixed for the +2B model. The raster chasing code is about 6K in length. I should fix the code so the display mode works in the monitor as well as in runtime. But I'm tempted to do the title animation first.

I realize I should really post a video of this. But, I got the music working in the devkit. But to do that, I had to get the interrupt manager working (there aren't enough t-states in a frame to do everything every frame). The biggest hassle was keeping track of which ROM is paged in. Next up: S.E.

The devkit can now build the game package. That's all the I/O done. Time to start building tests for the assets.

I now have the basic I/O working on the game engine. I can:
* Print text to the screen.
* Read keyboard input into a buffer.
* Load from and save to tape.

Three of the main menu options are now functional:
* FONT TEST
* CREATE GAME PACKAGE (saves the game to tape)
* EXIT (back to the game)

boot screen logo

This year, I resumed work on my 8-bit cRPG engine. Now that I'm stitching it all together, I'm not sure the dialogue tree for 256 NPCs is going to fit into 16K of RAM. I guess I'll have to prioritize the ones that are most important to the plot in the sample game I'm developing to go with it.

Cawl Of cawl, Catwg Ddoeth said: "It is as good to drink the broth as to eat the meat."

#recipes

Today's recipe, the of last of 12 over the holiday season, is for a traditional Welsh stew.

andrewowen.net/recipes/cawl/

Beer Bread Which came first, beer or bread? Who cares; let's combine them!

#recipes

One of the few things I miss since leaving England is real ale, one of the main ingredients in today's recipe.

andrewowen.net/recipes/beer...

Banana Smoothie The smoothie has gone global, but its origins are in Australasia.

#recipes

Today's recipe is the authentic Australian banana smoothie. Accept no substitutes.

andrewowen.net/recipes/bana...

Crêpes and galettes Much to the horror of the French, I'm happy to use a savory batter to make a desert pancake.

Today two recipes; one for crêpes, and one for Breton galettes.

andrewowen.net/recipes/crep...

#recipes

Satay Sauce The perfect accompaniment to chicken skewers.

The last of the recipes I picked up on my New Zealand road trip is for satay sauce.

andrewowen.net/recipes/sata...

#recipes

Sweet Pickle Relish Also known as cucumber relish.

I may be a professional level cook, but I still appreciate a good hot dog. However, getting my favorite condiment can be a challenge.

andrewowen.net/recipes/swee...

#recipes

Double Choc Chip Muffins This recipe is endorsed by a French professional baker I met in New Zealand.

Today's recipe is approved by a French professional baker.

#recipes

Anytime Coffee It's not snobbery, it's simply a matter of discernment.

#coffee

This barely counts as a recipe, but if you're looking for the perfect blend of anytime coffee this may be it.

andrewowen.net/recipes/anyt...