I've managed to debug Minus4j using Eclipse. This is a JAVA based IDE and its pretty spiffy in places. Couse...being Java based, its a bit sluggish - even on my new monster PC. Oh well, at least I can single step my applet!
So, which one hurdle down, another begins... I've ported a lot of Minus4 back to Minus4j (its pretty cool that the code bases are virtually identical, coz I can cut and paste most changes), and the bug I had was simple that the mainloop on Minus4w had changed a bit, so a quick change on the java side, and we're all go!
Minus4j now has inverted characters, the flash attribute, and a proper hardware cursor (not that anyone really used it outside of basic of course... but still... I'm also trying to update the CPU module as well, as minus4j is prone to crashing, and doesn't run some games (like Mercenary). I'm having a little trouble getting Mercenary to work - oh it runs and all, but it doesn't get past the intro. I'm sure this was a BCD problem, but I've ported the BCD stuff back from Minus4w and its still fubar. Mmmm...
What would be nice is if Plus4world could just allow EVERY game to be played online. Sure some wouldn't work, but I think most would and it would be easier to exclude some, then include them all.
Anyway, back to work I guess. I need to try and fix this BCD issue (if I can find it), and then add an option for joyport swapping to the paramaters (another request). I would love to add sound, but I'll need to look into doing dynamic WAV's under java. I know the C64 emulator can do it, so I might disassemble that and have a peek.
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