256 Byte Games 


  Here are some tiny little games I wrote in my spare
time for competitions on the internet. What makes them
interesting, is that they are only 256 bytes long.

  That's just 256 numbers, or 256 letters, or, for
example, the following number of zeros....


0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000


  I think you will agree that this is does not
constitute a very large program! - Especially in these
days of Mega-Downloads. They are presented here for you
as a demonstration of the power of machine code over
high level languages. I believe that whatever you can
code in C, you can code smaller or faster in machine code.

  The programs have been heavily worked upon to squeeze
every last ounce of functionality from the code. However,
despite the seemingly never ending rounds of optimization,
the programming was still an excersise in frustration,
with many features having to be dropped for lack of space.
For example, just three more free bytes in the invaders
program would have allowed some degree of animation of
the invaders sprites.

  The programs have benefited from any and all
understanding I have of the PC architecture. Most
obviously they utilise text mode, which serves its
purpose as an early form of hardware graphics
acceleration well.

  NOTE:  The programs should all be run from a DOS
command line, on a 386 or better processor. If you
intend to run the programs from Windows, do so in full
screen mode.


  INV  {http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jchap/tvproin.htm}
A tiny version of the classic arcade game, 'invaders'. 

  BD3  {http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jchap/tvprobd3.htm}
Boulder Dash. 

  TET  {http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jchap/tvprotet.htm}
A miniture version of one of my favourites: TETRIS. 


===========================================================
  A page from James David Chapman's website. 
  Located at: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jchap/
  Site mirrored here at: http://www.j.chap.btinternet.co.uk
  This page last updated: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 16:03:37 GMT
