Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social

Demonstrating to the world one day at a time that the Atari STE is actually quite a nice machine.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

This is the latest build of the Atari STE game I am now provisonally calling "Cavey Taxi".

Pick up passengers in a tight cave complex and drop them off elsewhere, fighting gravity, time and fuel consumption. With pretty parallax scrolling and particles.

What's not to like? 😀

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@punkrulesok1234 I'm surprised Claude couldn't find a way to fix it - I've found it to be doggedly persistent at solving problems!

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

A flythrough of the track featured in the Atari ST version of Hard Drivin', with the view distance and screen res we all dreamed of back in the day. 😀

(Yes, I'm aware of the jerky camera and visual glitches - it's just a throwaway experiment...)

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@LeglodF I avoid doing that, not because I don't want to drift, but because that skidding sound is really painful to listen to!

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@LeglodF I think the first game plays those samples in-game.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@oldyzach Barely deserves to be called a game. Nowhere near "finished" in any sense of the word. Yet I absolutely loved it!

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@Mug_UK It's only hosted privately within Claude currently, although I should be able to ask Claude for a copy that can be hosted elsewhere if that would be helpful.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@vampsinthe No Second Prize was a nice showcase, but the landscape was a bit spartan compared to something like Hard Drivin'. I did run the ST version through Claude and it managed to get around a 10% increase in framerate, so there's clearly some potential for performance improvements.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@malgordon Thanks - appreciate your interest!

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@000Angus000 I’ve already been banned from Claude once - I’m towing the line from now on 😁

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@000Angus000 F29 Recarrierator Drivin Command.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@rhyder Yes - I’m very pleased with the outcomes of my previous manual reverse engineering work but I can’t imagine much of that happening from now on.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@punkrulesok1234 From a starting point of 6-7fps, the latest build reached 10-11fps. It does need 4 meg of ram for all the compiled sprite data though. 😁

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

In one final effort to bump up the framerate of Atari ST Turbo Cup, I pointed Claude at the custom sprite rendering code I used in Faster, and told it to apply it to Turbo Cup. And it did just that.

So here we have a 1988 game incorporating tech from a 2024 demoscene game. 😆

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@AnotherHowie I'm afraid this is on contemporary hardware - I would be shouting a lot louder if I was able to get this level on detail and framerate on the original ST!

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@LeglodF As long as it's a driving/racing game. 😀

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@shazzdoe If you're talking about the original game, or even the second one, I think they need a lot more than a refresh. 😀

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@LS_pixel I think I may have misunderstood - are you talking about the source code for these enhancements, or the generated disk image?

I must admit that I've not looked at all at the source code - this is "vibe coded" in the purest sense!

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@LS_pixel I don’t plan to release this officially due to the current climate of backlash against anything AI assisted or AI generated. But I’ll be happy to send a disk image to anybody who DMs me. 😁

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@CommodoreBlog I’m quite pleased with how this has turned out but I’m a bit reluctant to release it in any “official” capacity given the current climate of backlash against anything AI assisted or AI generated!

Happy to send a disk image to anybody who wants to DM me though 😁

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@greayson2532 Yeah, it's unusual but it works very well. The French were masters at this kid of stylistic innovation.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@dad_prg Yeah I thought this was pretty cool. I get the ability to build something cool without suffering the guilt that it's all just code ripped off from the hard work of others. 😆