The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi all,

Just found that screenshot (attachment) of ST Karate which is the Atari ST conversion of QL Karate and thought that it might should be possible to do an graphical improved version of QL Karate. I would be happy in converting the ST Karate background pictures in QL Format if there is somebody who could insert them into the original game. Any coders out there who are intersted in doing this?

Cheers,
TH

That does look superb. How does Ql Karate play? I have it on microdrive but it's damaged

It plays great! There is a short video here, done on a Q40, it's a bit fast

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d11fQvqZECM

More info can be found here: http://forum.rwapadventures.com/ql_wiki ... tle=Karate

and here:

http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/updates.html

It would be really good to release a version with improved graphics - unfortunately, without disassembling the original code (which was a real pain), I am not sure how / where the existing screen is stored (let alone the characters!).

Hopefully the screen is simply stored as 32768 bytes at a certain position - should be able to work that out easily enough.

I wonder if we could get permission to re-release this as a new program?

OK - I just did a quick check in q-emulator - unfortunately the screen is compressed in some way (probably something simple like RLE), so it means disassembling the code to find the screen storage area and format.

A quick look at the code shows the screen clearing routine at +11150.

Drawing routines appear very complex - at around +535458 - for example the introduction screen is drawn as the border down the left hand side, then the border down the right, then the centre. Not found the main screen loading!

Sounds complicated. I remember when we first tried to hack some games on the C64 (my first computer) we used a program that showed the code as graphics, for example hex code as caracters and we were able to replace text. No idea if such a prog exists in QL world and if this helps in any way.

Just did a quick and dirty conversion of the ST screen into 4 colours. Resolution is 320 x 200 from the original ST format, meaning that there is still some area around to reach the 512 x 256. With some hours more spent on this it could clearly get better

8 color version will be nicer, but then it probably needs to be rewritten from scratch.

There is no point in doing a 8 color version. With the availability of enhanced QL modes the least you can do is a 256 color version.
I have done something similar in the past (left it unfinished).
I took Andy Owen's ManicMiner BlitzBasic version (I did receive permission back then - have to find the email though) and converted all the sprites to hicolor Q40 ones. The code needs to be adapted but it's basic after all... any takers?
From what I remember, it wasn't that tough to convert. I even went so far as to implement some SDL calls to S*basic functions. They did "Turbo" quite nicely.
Rich, I remember talking to you about it back when I was doing the QWord Gfx and sound

SinclairQLGr wrote:There is no point in doing a 8 color version. With the availability of enhanced QL modes the least you can do is a 256 color version.
I have done something similar in the past (left it unfinished).
I took Andy Owen's ManicMiner BlitzBasic version (I did receive permission back then - have to find the email though) and converted all the sprites to hicolor Q40 ones. The code needs to be adapted but it's basic after all... any takers?
From what I remember, it wasn't that tough to convert. I even went so far as to implement some SDL calls to S*basic functions. They did "Turbo" quite nicely.
Rich, I remember talking to you about it back when I was doing the QWord Gfx and sound

I think you meant Andy Noble and here's the link http://retrospec.sgn.net/game-links.php?link=mm