Hi everyone,
My friend and I are running a Star Wars video game marathon. Recently, we found a listing for two Star Wars games for TI-59 calculator -
Starwars (1978) and
Darth Vader's Force Battle (1980).
Using TI59 Emulator (created by
Alain Zanchetta) I typed codes into .ti files, but due to my poor familiarity with this platform I have difficulties with both checking the code for errors (
Darth Vader's Force Battle - due to the peculiarity of data presentation in the magazine) and with the sequence of loading subroutines from "magnetic cards" into the emulator's memory during the game (
Starwars).
Could someone look at the resulting files and help us with the sequence of actions in each case? Program files and source listings
are available here.
Game videos on previous gaming platforms
can be viewed here.
I'm unfamiliar with the TI-59, but skimming the description of the game, it's pretty impressive that any kind of game could be built on a calculator with a single line numeric display. But then, I guess that's why it was worth
showing off in October 1980's issue of BYTE magazine.
I spent some time studying how to operate the calculator, and agree that the magazine's presentation of the program is difficult to input if you're not already familiar with the system.
One thing that confused me was your .ti files, because I didn't see any way to load those in the emulator you linked. I started manually typing in the program and cross-checking in the debug view which seemed to work okay, but not needing to figure out the keystrokes and just checking the resulting program bytes would be easier.
Tari wrote:
One thing that confused me was your .ti files, because I didn't see any way to load those in the emulator you linked.
To download file, in the main mode (not editing mode) press [INV] + [2nd] + [Write] and select filename.ti
File recording: [2nd] + [Write] and create newfile.ti
Well, I cross-checked your version of Darth Vader's Force Battle against the magazine and it seems reasonable. I noticed that program locations 34 and 46 are unclear with how they're written (as 'X' and 'x' respectively), which I agree seems like they're both meant to be the multiplication sign. It's also odd that location 126 is blank, but based on the comment it also seems like it should be 0.
Having run this for a bit and attempted to play the game, I'm not sure if it's working correctly. It seems to cycle through putting me in the losing position and possibly being responsive to my own movement inputs, but I was unable to get an enemy hit (display 505) and seemed to lose faster than expected. It might just be that the game is effectively random and very difficult to win (based on the text saying the only way to consistently win is to be lucky, this seems to be given) but also it feels like the emulator is pretty unresponsive to me pressing R/S in order to input a number and do anything so it's difficult for me to tell if I'm making anything happen or if the program is playing itself.
"Gameplay" aside, it feels to me like the magazine editors didn't really understand TI-59 programming themselves and probably copied the program listing from a handwritten letter they received from the author: that would explain the odd spelling of 'LBI' rather than 'LBL' for labels and inconsistent capitalization of 'X' I noted above. I also think the editors chose to include this program in particular because it includes use of undocumented programming features, which was presumably rather novel.
However, because this depends on undocumented capabilities of the TI-59 I wonder if the emulator is even capable of running it correctly- that could explain why it seemed to behave oddly when I tried to play, if it actually behaves differently from a real calculator with regard to those unanticipated instructions. One could presumably debug the program and figure out whether it's actually working correctly, but that's beyond my interest at this point because I would first have to better learn how the calculator works. When I lost the game I also noticed the emulator was displaying a single-digit '0' rather than the "flashing 0000000000" described in the text when I lost, which seems like another emulation inaccuracy.
In conclusion, at least for Force Battle, I suspect there may be no emulator suitable for running the program. Somebody with firsthand experience using a TI-59 might be able to understand the program and say with more certainty, but I don't know of anybody matching that description.
Tari, thank you very much for taking the time to try to figure this out! I have pretty much the same impressions from the gameplay, and now I understand better the reasons for its strange behavior. Well, I hope that the game will interest someone familiar with the TI-59, who can fix the game code.
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