Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!charon!jurjen
From: jurjen@cwi.nl (Jurjen NE Bos)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Proposal for new CHIP
Message-ID: <2547@charon.cwi.nl>
Date: 15 Nov 90 16:16:35 GMT
Sender: news@cwi.nl
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 21
Originator: jurjen@lijster.cwi.nl


By now, I guess most netreading 48 users are convinced that CHIP-8 is one
of the greatest programs ever written for the 48.  While playing games, I
had an idea to improve on CHIP.  We would lose the compatibility with old
CHIP programs, but probably we could make a converter.  Losing compatibilty
with the 1802 doesn't look like a big problem to me :-).
Here are the ideas:
- use the full 131*64 display instead of the low-res 64*32
- store the sprites in the same bit order as the display to speed up graphics
    and simplify the program
- adapt the instruction set so that Saturn ML can be called
- use the HP48 fonts instead of the CHIP characters
- proposed name: CHIP-48 (of course) or CHIP-SX.
- removing the number input, and replacing it by a "wait for key or timeout"
    instruction (this saves batteries)

All those changes hopefully make CHIP faster and smaller.
If I had the time, I would have done it, but I propose that the genius who
wrote CHIP-8 thinks about it.
I don't think it is a good idea to try to put too much features in CHIP; it
will lose the beauty of being small.