No Fragments Archive 10: Diskmags/nf_archive_10.iso/MAGS/MUNSI/MUNSIE.MSA/MUNSIE.NOW_C1_2.DAT

Text File | 1995-05-17 | 6KB | 159 lines

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Article by Dave Munsie
I've been involved with the Atari Computer
platform for quite a while now. I've had just
about every Atari piece of hardware since the
2600. I still think the Atari 400/800 days were
some of the most exciting personal computing
days in the history of the home computer. I
used to code every now and then back in the 8
bit days. I coded a drum machine called
AT1.OBJ and I also coded a drum machine with
actual pictures of myself playing the drums.
It was marketed (however so poorly) through
a little know company called REEVESOFT. I did
a few MUNSIEPEDE games, and believe it or not
I coded a Desktop Publishing program for the
8 bit that for it's time was the most powerful
piece of 8 bit publishing ever coded. Easily
outperforming anything in it's class,
including anything running under DIAMOND. It
was shown to a few users here in Texas and
everyone agreed it was indeed a powerful
tool. I sent a beta version to ANTIC and they
indeed liked it and were planning on placing
it on their cover disk, but they soon enough
shut down and PERSONAL PUBLISHER never did
see the light of day. I still have it here
somewhere. But after that things changed for
me. I was introduced to the ST line up and
was instantly brought into the 16 bit world.
I also enjoyed the Amiga for a while but
quickly came to my senses and stuck with the
ST line up. The problem was, the ST turned
me back into a USER not a programmer. I
found myself wanting to play with the machine
rather than code or learn anything about the
insides of it. So programming was put on the
back burner for quite some time.


Along comes RETAIL madness. I decided I want
to get involved with the retail side of things.
I started working at one of the local Atari
stores. (Yes there was a few of em...) So,
over the course of the next couple of years
I'm doing retail kinda things, I even decide
to get involved with my own STORE!! I took
on a partner and quickly realized I should
have NEVER took on a partner. Parting ways
was the only way out. I split from the scene
and eventually, about 6 months later the
store was closed for good.

I took some time off, got a real job and
basically didn't touch my ST for a while.
But then it hit, I don't know why it did
but it HIT bigtime. I bought another 1040ST
system and started doing some actual
productive things on it like word processing,
spread sheets, etc, then I bought a copy of
something called GFA BASIC from HI SOFT. It
was amazing how easy it was to get something up
and running. So for about a year I was coding
for myself, a bunch of little things, I even
coded a few 100% GFA games. This was about the
same time that I started getting into public
domain software and reading the European mags
like ST ACTION, ST WORLD, ST FORMAT.

I found myself coding more and more games.
I must of coded about 10-20 games within a years
time. None of these made it out of my house but
I was learning alot of things ON MY OWN without
any reference material at all to go by. I had
no idea that I could release my own stuff into
the pd world and get some response. At the time
I still didn't have a modem!! So, one day I'm
reading a copy of ST FORMAT and I see some
reviews of some public domain software, and I
realized that I could code something almost as
good as the software being reviewed in the
magazine. So, I bought an assembler, started
to write some low level routines and soon enough
had enough power in my grasp to code some decent
little games. Once I was coding SERIOUSLY, this
is when it became hard. I found myself actually
trying to FINISH something. Everytime I came
close to finishing a project, something else
would get my attention and I would start coding
that. Again, some time goes by and I find that
I have coded a bunch of little routines that
when placed together in one program provided a
nice tool-kit of routines. From this point on
I started programming in modules. Everything I
would code from this point on could be used
by itself in another program. This allowed me
to finally build a shell that would handle all
the low level stuff and leave me to code in
a somewhat high level PROCEDURE based style.
The first game to come out of all this madness
was something called GP_SHOOT. After that came
a game called EVADER followed by KID_GP. To
this day I think KID_GP was one of my best
overall efforts because it was simply fun to
to play.

So over the course of the next year or so I
coded a few things, EVADER, KID_GP, ST INVADERS
FROGGER, KABOOM, KID_KONG, PC1QUENCE, BUGS!,
DELUXE INVADERS, DARK PEARL, BERZERK all
using my 1040ST floppy disk based system. A few
of these games made in onto the cover disk of
one of those glossy mags. And all is well.

Well, to make this part shorter than it
actually was, about a year or so ago I found
myself making a decision that will haunt my
wife and I forever. Let's just say the pot
of gold was just around the corner but I
ended up trying to climb out of the gutter
instead.

So with almost a full year wasted, where
can one go but up when you've reached the
bottom! That's exactly what is happening now.
With our new releases like FRANTICK, ASTEROIDIA
and SQUARE OFF we're having more fun than ever!

I'm now using a graphics engine that is much
more low level and thus more difficult to work
with but it does allow me to do some things
quicker and easier than before. My current
engine can just about run under any language
but I'm still using GFA for my shell.

I still have that 1040STf but I've been using
a MEGA STe-4 40 meg hd system for quite
some time now. I have plans to purchase a
Falcon sometime soon, but that's another
story to unfold on it's own...