The result is this Tcl/Expect script (listed below).  First, you will need to make certain you have these dependent packages installed:

yum install expect fluid-soundfont-lite-patches timidity++

Next, you will need to fetch the multimedia files into your home directory:

svn co https://robert.hurst-ri.us/svn/rpgd/trunk/snd Music/hack

Then, setup your telnet session attributes in .telnetrc to automatically load when you connect:

robert.hurst-ri.us
    mode character
    set crlf off
    unset escape

And last, simply copy/paste the script below into an executable text file of your choice and run it.

#!/usr/bin/expect -f

# play a MIDI file
proc midi s {
  set mid [string range $s 3 end-3]
  set bool [string range $s end-1 end-1]
  set cmd "killall playmus 2> /dev/null; playmus -v 25 Music/hack/$mid.mid &> /dev/null &"
  system $cmd
}

# play a WAVE file
proc wave s {
  set wav [string range $s 3 end-3]
  set bool [string range $s end-1 end-1]
  set cmd "play Music/hack/$wav.wav &> /dev/null"
  if {$bool == 0} { set cmd "$cmd &" }
  system $cmd
}

# connect to the game server ...
log_user 0
spawn telnet robert.hurst-ri.us 7000
wave "...dungeon;0."

expect_background {
  -re "\033\\\[\\\{.*\\\}" { midi $expect_out(0,string); return }
  -re "\033\\\[\\\[.*\\\]" { wave $expect_out(0,string); return }
  -re "(.*)" { send_user -- $expect_out(0,string); }
}

interact

An original TI/99 4A computer, boxed, 22 carts (mostly games, extended BASIC, and a couple of learning aids I can use when they put me in a retirement home), BASIC and extended BASIC quick reference guides, a video cable to plug into my RCA A/V ports on a Sony HDTV (nice picture!), and a joystick adapter to allow 1 or 2 Atari-style joysticks to be used (thankfully). The boxed computer arrived in excellent condition and was “won” for only 99-cents; the A/V cable for its convenient hook-up and superior picture was $9.

I already played a few game carts, very cool and capable… but their look and feel play like a good homebrew on silicon. Not bad, but not addicting either… likely influenced by the price I paid for it today, though. If I paid retail pricing for this stuff back then, well, I probably would not have felt so justified. TI should have gotten some licensing rights from any of the arcade manufacturers; heck, I can see with its faster and superior processor and with its separated video, TI could have done some direct ports of many arcade games and done them real justice in the home computing space.

I recall being somewhat lustful of this computer back in the day when I was shopping, like the many millions of electronic consumers. I just bought Atari VCS as a family gift for Christmas 1981 with an Asteroids cart and I was hooked on the Dark Tower game we got from our parents. But I was enticed by BASIC programming from our high school computer math class, and those games only increased my thirst to learn computer programming.

At a local Apex outlet, they had a home computer stand with each of the competing models sitting side-by-side: Atari, Coleco, Commodore, and TI. Only the TI had a demo cartridge running in it always, showcasing its capabilities, and it was seducing to watch. But Atari and Coleco were backed by so many alluring gaming titles in their wonderful packaging. And while Commodore VIC 20 absolutely looked like the poor cousin of the group, the printed specs with William Shatner on it sold me that its stock features and future looked the brightest… and its $300 entry point made it obtainable.

So what detracted me most from the TI-99/4A was its “entry” price of $500. Its casing and game cartridge slot were really cool, and while it has a quality keyboard, it was still small and unfriendly for the (potential) programmer in me. Then came its built-in BASIC, ugh. I was turned off by its high entry price, limited and expensive expansions, etc.

The Atari 400 was slightly less expensive and had a lot more titles, but even a worse keyboard; plus you had to buy BASIC at the time for around $50, and it had limited and expensive expansion options. And while Coleco would be a “step up” from Atari VCS, it very much looked like a gaming console trying to pass off as a computer.

I’ll really enjoy a $100 worth of TI-99/4A home computing today… but it’s no “wonder” that the VIC 20 ate their lunches back then, followed the next year by a crushing blow the C64 delivered for the rest of the decade. And it’s also no wonder why the Atari and TI crowds are still jaded by C= today.

Despite having some fantastic clones of classic coin-operated games, the VIC 20 has a remarkably small list of straight arcade conversions to its name, so a version of something loud and shooty like Berzerk was almost guaranteed to be popular here at Retro Gamer.  And since the developer is Robert Hurst, the man behind the excellent unexpanded Pac-Man clone Quikman 2008, we were pretty eager to get our hands on Berzerk MMX.

The VIC graphics are, unsurprisingly, chunkier than the original version’s but serve their purpose well, in-game sound effects are simple but again appropriate, and the action rapidly becomes frantic as the poor player-controlled humanoid fights for his life.  And while Berzerk MMX runs on an 8K expanded VIC 20, for the users blessed with 16K expansion there’s a second version, which ships with most of the speech from the original in place and goes even further towards replicating the arcade experience.

87%

I could not be more pleased with that — cool!

Now what to do with the 80+ cartridges I own?

The combination of the temperature and easier course slope rating was welcomed on both fronts.  And it translated favorably on the scorecard, too.  I played the South with a pair of 43s for an 86 total, with a sand-save birdie.  The West went even better with a 41-40 for 81, with a tap-in birdie and only 28 total putts.

I didn’t fare any better at TPC Myrtle Beach.  We played their back nine first, and I continued lackluster play with a 59(!), but finished the last two holes strong with two bogeys.  With the afternoon heat dissipated and an aspirin later, I found my second wind and completed the first nine with a 46 for 105.  The heat affected everyone’s play, and there were many complaints of heat rash from the excessive sweating and chaffing.  But the complimentary minty cold towels handed to us at the end of the round were most welcome — whew!

I played a fairly typical 46 on the front-nine, 3 pars with 4 double bogeys.  The back nine played better: the highlights was a birdie putt made after tough sand shot out of a potted green-side bunker leaving a 20-foot putt; and I had a chance to break 40 when my approach shot on the 18th landed within 7-feet of the cup, but the putt lipped out.

It was a good day to play golf and I was pleased with my scorecard that recorded no triple bogeys (or worse), no penalties, and no three-putts (31 putts for the round).  Now I need to get through tonight’s sleep tuning out my older brother’s snoring if I am going to survive two rounds tomorrow.

But instead of crafting new scripts to compile it, I headed instead to a Gnome-based programming tool, Anjuta IDE.  What attracted to me most outside of the expected C source and header file management was its integrated ability to work with autogen and subversion.  Autogen produces configure and makefile for multiple targets, which is useful since rpgd (aka Hack & Slash) is made up of three binaries: rpgd (the service daemon), rpgclient (the user interface), and rpgweb (cgi to display player stats).

Now that I have the project under new IDE and version control, it should make for improved coding and debugging while maintaining the ability to compile, link, and go on multiple architectures.

Fear not, it’s Boray to the rescue!  He provides a nice link to a Windows utility, PRG Starter, that will deter those PRG loading blues — particularly for PET, VIC 20, and C64 BASIC programs — although there is quite a bit of logic for the more esoteric program loads, too, and for the other VICE emulated machines.

After permission to examine his source code, I decided I could use a simply elegant utility such as this for my Fedora desktop — after all, like Windows, GNOME offers the same customized launching feature via an associated filetype extension.  You can find the C source archive to the simple launcher dubbed run.

After associating filetypes, such as .prg, p00, .a0, .crt, .d64, .g64, and .rom, to launch a customized command, run, you simply double-click the Commodore 8-bit binary file and it will run the correct VICE emulator with any associated command-line options, such as memory expansion, attach as a cartridge, or boot from a floppy or tape.

You can even do this from the command-line.  Here are some examples (with the verbose option on):

$ run -v quikman2k8.prg
**** Commodore VIC 20 ML program ****
xvic -memory none “quikman2k8.prg”

$ run -v berzerk-mmx+.prg
**** Commodore VIC 20 ML program with 16kb memory expansion ****
xvic -memory all “berzerk-mmx+.prg”

$ run -v Super\ Zaxxon.crt
**** Commodore 64 game cartridge ****
x64 -cartcrt “Super Zaxxon.crt”

And of course my favorite:

$ run -v mega-cart.rom
**** Commodore VIC 20 with Mega-Cart ****
xvic -cartmega “mega-cart.rom”