3 ms·
This comment discusses how ball and paddle collision detection worked but leaves open the question of how the ball position was known. https://news.ycombinator.
by tssva 4y ago
This comment discusses how ball and paddle collision detection worked but leaves open the question of how the ball position was known. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32862403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32862403
Given your experience programming for it can you provide any insight to how this may have been done?
- diydsp 4y agoYeah! when he mentioned making a timer by charging a cap and letting it discharge... that could apply to the ball position registers... it could also explain how they did various angles when there's no obvious multi-bit ALU.... varying dis/charge ratio...
- kens 4y agoUnfortunately there are no capacitors on the chip and the external capacitors can't fulfill this role. So I suspect they are describing a different chip. The Magnavox Odyssey game, however, worked as you describe; the ball position was the voltage on two capacitors (X/Y), and they were charged or discharged to make the ball move. (This game system was analog, built from transistors.)