Unpublished Italian game: FLIGHT, a flight sim!

[orion70]

Dear all, here we are at last with the one and only FLIGHT, a visual and instrumental flight simulator for the 16 Kb expanded VIC 20. It was written as early as 1986 by Gianluca Prato, and reader of the glorious monthly publication MC Microcomputer, pioneering the spread of IT culture in Italy since the early Eighties. This program was originally published in April 1986 (issue 51). During several years, some of us belonging to the Italian Denialers community fought with the bad readability of the listing both in the online magazine and on the real paper (I even bought one, but in vain).

But then out of the blue came an incredibile stroke of luck: the new member Astrocity, whom I thank from my heart, found an old cassette with all those old Italian original games, and started pouring them over the forum (at the moment, there's another one, and it's another good one).

The simulator is as accurate as a 16 Kb VIC program can be, sporting three different flight options: straight flight, postal flight, and final approach to the landing runway. Many parameters are constantly refreshed and displayed onscreen, as well as a wonderful - well, almost - view of the outside world. There's even a map of the territory you're flying over!

Please find every info in the enclosed manual (available as a single page PDF and a booklet you should print double-side and fold). I hope my English translation of the original won't disappoint you, the aim was just to re-create the feeling of those early simulators and let you know how to fly

There are two programs. The first should be loaded after POKE 641,67: POKE 642,36: SYS64824 and it automatically loads the second. Apart from this complicated way of loading it into memory, there's only one ***KNOWN BUG***: the control stick of the plane, i.e. the VIC joystick, won't work unless you issue a RUN/STOP and RESTORE and re-RUN the game. I cannot explain why, happy if someone can address this issue.

For this reason, and because I encourage you to try the sim and let me know if you find other flaws, I won't put this in the New Releases of 2021 thread.

[srowe]

Apart from this complicated way of loading it into memory, there's only one ***KNOWN BUG***: the control stick of the plane, i.e. the VIC joystick, won't work unless you issue a RUN/STOP and RESTORE and re-RUN the game. I cannot explain why, happy if someone can address this issue.

It's like to be an issue with the VIA DDR register. If you run it VICE and use io to dump the register state before and after it should be easy to come up with a POKE to fix.

[orion70]

Too complex for my knowledge I'm afraid

[srowe]

OK, if no one else does I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

[Ola H]

Great work with the manual
Absolutely fascinating that such a complex game (A 16K Flight Simulator with visuals! ) was published as a type-in in Italy in 1986. Incredible. Seems very inspired by C64 Solo Flight (which I always loved)

I tried playing (before reading your entire post) but could only control the speed. Now I see that there is a problem with the joystick. Really hope this can be fixed because this is a very special release.

Thanks!

[orion70]

Thanks

Not really an issue as long as you press STOP and RESTORE and re-RUN the program. The joystick will work again. If you want to feel the thrill of a takeoff with the VIC, press 9 (max power), then in turn B (release brakes), F3 (flaps), and pull the stick (joy down). You can also hear the sound of the engine. The runway will disappear as the aircraft gains height. Then... Well, you're flying!

[orion70]

OK, if no one else does I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

Thank you Srowe, that would be great.

[tokra]

I have quickly "fixed" the game, so it does a SYS65017 at the beginning of the main-program which resets the VIA-registers. Most tape-based games just compare concrete values for joystick, but disk-access sets or deletes some bits and then the value-compare-approach does not work. This would not happen with correctly designed joystick-routines, but using SYS65017 is a quick fix for that.

Furthermore I added a loader as the first file, so you don't need to type those POKEs and SYS at the start.

It would probably also be possible to one-file this game, since the first part is just a DATA-loader, but this is something for another day/person.

[srowe]

The main program has an odd load address that petcat isn't happy with. I think the following patch should work

Code: Select all

--- a/flight-2.bas
+++ b/flight-2.bas
@@ -19,9 +19,9 @@
 40 IFA$="{f5}"THENF=0:POKE4363,13
 43 IFMA<>0THENPOKE36877,138+10*MA
 44 IFMA=0THENPOKE36877,0
-45 IFPEEK(37137)=118THENCO=1:POKE4360+13,14:IFGH=1THENPI=PI+.125:VA=VA-2-INT(PI^2)
-46 IFPEEK(37137)=122THENCO=-1:POKE4360+13,14:IFGH=1THENPI=PI-.125:VA=VA+2+INT((PI^2)/2)
-48 IFPO>PEANDGH=0ANDPEEK(37137)=118THENGH=1
+45 JY=PEEK(37137):IF(JYAND8)=0THENCO=1:POKE4360+13,14:IFGH=1THENPI=PI+.125:VA=VA-2-INT(PI^2)
+46 IF(JYAND4)=0THENCO=-1:POKE4360+13,14:IFGH=1THENPI=PI-.125:VA=VA+2+INT((PI^2)/2)
+48 IFPO>PEANDGH=0AND(JYAND8)=0THENGH=1
 49 IFGH=0THEN70
 50 IFDP=0THEND=INT(((PO-PE)/6)+(PI*VA^2)/6000)
 55 IFDP=1THEND=INT(((PO-PE)/4)+(PI*VA^2)/6000)

[orion70]

Many thanks to both Tokra and Srowe, you really can do magic with VIC software
Now this funny sim can be played flawlessly, at least until other bugs come to our observation. Thank you so much again to the person who wrote this, the one who typed it in and retrieved the game after all these years, and to you guys for your amendments. Another gap was filled!

[orion70]

Download link refreshed. Published in the VIC-20 Software Releases of 2021 thread.