I've just completed 70% of my planned 50+ deep dives into The Sentinel, Geoff Crammond's epic #BBCMicro game
Batch #7 is now ready: 4 new articles about drawing the 3D landscape, ray-casting and quadrants
thesentinel.bbcelite.com/deep_dives
Batch #8 coming soon
Enjoy!
#retrocomputing #c64 #8bit
Yay! Got Elite working on The Beast™.
(Built in green monochrome CRT and simultaneous RGB to SCART TV) #RetroGaming #RetroComputing #BBCMicro #Luggable #Acorn
@bbcmicrobot I should have thought this up before the Basic 10 liner competition, because it is _actually_ a 10 line game. When you press space, this really does generate new puzzles that it knows the solution to. Press the wrong number, and it knows you've made a mistake. But how?
Easy: every […]
The Sentinel and four sentries, drawn very small
A high-resolution robot, drawn in-game in The Sentinel
Left: The Sentinel and four sentries, from the landscape preview in the classic game. Astonishingly, these are not sprites. They are fully rendered 3D objects, using the same code as the game.
Right: a robot, drawn by the same routine.
Micro *and* macro excellence!
#retrocomputing #c64 #bbcmicro
Retro Game Review #447
Row of 4
(Software for All)
BBC
Laserbug issue 6: Value 3/5
#randomgamereview
#BBCmicro
Acorn had subcontracted distribution to BL Marketing a subsidiary of breakfast food giant, Weetabix), but erratic deliveries from ICL and Cleartone, and weaknesses in BL's record system had been a formula for failure. As a result, the Weetabix Group decided to shut down BL Marketing. The BBC supported Acorn's decision to set up a distribution arm, and to recruit BL's former staff, to run the operation under Acorn's direct control, while bringing distribution and information services under Acorn's customer relations and marketing management.
As for its suitability for the classroom: Students were known to crash-test BBC Micros by standing on them, and their keyboards were tested well beyond the limits of what a Sinclair QL could withstand.
📖 Blimey, some right nuggets of gold found within “Voices from a Future Passed”.
I had no idea about Weetabix impacting Acorn’s distribution of the #BBCMicro, or that “Students were known to crash-test BBC Micros by standing on them” 😳
👨🏫 #NonFictionBooks 💡📚💙 #BookSky 🦋 #RetroComputing ⌨️
😎 Getting the day’s #HammockTime in with my (first) non-fiction read of the month, Robert Napier’s “Voices from a Future Passed” history of Acorn and the #BBCMicro.
So far I’m up to chapter 00000011 🤓 and there are lots of points I had no idea about 🧐
👨🏫 #NonFictionBooks 💡📚💙 #BookSky 🦋
This is my first time using a memory heatmap to analyse #BBCMicro code
Here's The Sentinel calculating landscape visibility (b-em emulator)
Look: ray-casting radar patterns matching the landscape layout, right there in memory! The algorithm revealed!
I love this #retrocomputing meta-level stuff 🤯
A red Macaw parrot sitting on a branch, lovingly rendered in chunky pixels and an eye-searing fully saturated RGB only palette. Yes, it's Teletext.
I made a new old thing! Claude Code helped me update some ancient C for converting images to Teletext into modern Python and add a host of new preprocessing options.
Consider this a beta test. Feedback welcome!
huggingface.co/spaces/kiera...
#teletext #bbcmicro #mode7
Documenting The Sentinel is really growing my collection of disassemblies at bbcelite.com
Five projects: Elite, Aviator, Revs, Lander, The Sentinel
1,038,891 words of source code commentary
507,016 words of deep dives
All Shakespeare's plays? 835,997 words
#retrocomputing #bbcmicro #c64 #8bit
Wow. Very interesting BBC Micro variant that I didn't know existed. Not something I'll be adding to my collection, but fascinating that it exists. #BBCMicro #RetroComputing #Retro #Acorn
📬 Received my first new paperback of the year today, and it’s a non-fiction history of Acorn, #BBCMicro, ARM, etc. that @kevedwardsretro.bsky.social highlighted recently.
I reckon this might be my non-fiction read of the month for March.
👨🏫 #NonFictionBooks 💡📚💙 #BookSky 🦋 #MarchBookHaul 📦
Time for some more deep dives into The Sentinel, Geoff Crammond's epic #BBCMicro game!
Batch #6 is now ready: 3 new articles about screen buffers, panning, scrolling and dithering
thesentinel.bbcelite.com/deep_dives
Batch #7 (drawing the landscape) coming soon
Enjoy!
#retrocomputing #c64 #8bit
It would be cool if there was a kind of compendium of all the different things a #bbcmicro was used for. What job it did with what expansions and what software. This one ran a lab between 1983 and 1989 using custom software that controlled… etc
Brand new weekend reading: even more deep dives into The Sentinel, Geoff Crammond's #BBCMicro epic
Batch #5 covers the unique equirectangular projection system, drawing filled polygons, the screen mode and more
thesentinel.bbcelite.com/deep_dives
Batch #6 soon…
Enjoy!
#retrocomputing #c64 #8bit
I'm (slowly!) releasing 50+ deep dives into The Sentinel, Geoff Crammond's epic #BBCMicro game
Batch #4 is now ready: 5 new articles about 3D objects (defining, drawing, managing)
thesentinel.bbcelite.com/deep_dives
Batch #5 (drawing polygons) coming on Friday
Enjoy!
#retrocomputing #c64 #8bit
Training a Neural Network on a 1982 BBC Micro www.jamesdrandall.com/posts/neural... #BBCMicro #retrocomputing #machinelearning #neuralnetworks
Just released: 6 brand new deep dives into The Sentinel on the #BBCMicro and #C64
This is where it gets interesting!
Generating 10,000 3D landscapes; tile data and shapes; enemies and trees; secret codes
thesentinel.bbcelite.com/deep_dives#latest
Batch #4 coming soon
Enjoy!
#retrocomputing
43 years ago:
These first two letters from Computer & Video Games magazine are hilarious 🤣👍
#ZXSpectrum vs. #BBCmicro
"The Endorian Forest" – The 10th level in 'Manic Miner'. Screenshot from MSX version.
"The Endorian Forest" – #ManicMiner – Just a nice place to be.
My favourite level. Apples, bears and foilage, what's not to like?
🍎🍏🐻🌳🍃
#RetroGaming #ZXSpectrum #MSX #C16 #C64 #Amstrad #Amiga #Dragon #BBCMicro #Oric #SAMCoupe #TatungEinstein #MTX #PMD85 #MatthewSmith #BugByte #SoftwareProjects
This is pretty cool.
It's a visualisation of the internals of The Sentinel on the #BBCMicro.
This is it generating the game landscape for the first level from 256 pseudo-random numbers.
Next week I'll be releasing a deep dive into exactly how this works.
#retrocomputing #retrogaming #c64 #8bit
@retrocollective.co.uk's spectacular series w/ Professor Steve Furber CBE, instrumental in hardware designs of #Acorn & #BBCMicro #microcomputers and the #ARM architecture.
1st hr: #retrocomputing
2nd hr: Building a brain with ARM.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2yD...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh9p...
I'm (slowly!) releasing 50+ deep dives into The Sentinel, Geoff Crammond's epic #BBCMicro game
Batch #2 is now ready: 7 new articles about maths, geometry, trigonometry… and Revs
thesentinel.bbcelite.com/deep_dives
Batch #3 (landscape) coming soon
Enjoy!
#retrocomputing #retrogaming #c64 #8bit
Retro Game Review #421
Mined Out
(Quicksilva)
BBC
Home Computing Weekly issue 38: 5/5
#randomgamereview
#bbcmicro
The Sentinel on the BBC Micro (and others) was a brilliant 3D strategy game featuring 10,000 (!) levels. A highly innovative game and great fun. Written by the great Geoff Crammond #thesentinel #bbcmicro
Found myself recreating the classic BBC / C64 game Thrust including the original physics and timing and an emulation of the BBCs sound chip and OSWORD interface. You can read about it and play it online here.
www.jamesdrandall.com/projects/thr...
#retrogaming #bbcmicro #typescript #gamedev
I'm releasing over 50 deep dives into The Sentinel, Geoff Crammond's epic #BBCMicro game.
Batch #1 is now ready: 6 new articles about memory maps, program flow and interrupts, all at thesentinel.bbcelite.com/deep_dives
Batch #2 (maths!) coming soon.
Enjoy!
#retrocomputing #retrogaming #c64 #8bit
