Well, it all started last summer. I had been playing VP tables for a few years, but never tried to write my own table. So I decided to write my own. I started with Eala's Kiss, and I must say I didn't understood anything. But after 2 months I was able to code a few originals (Nemesis, Tru Calling...), tiltjlp remembers that, since he was a great help by pointing me to the tutorials at VP Originals and the ones in Pinball Nirvana. I read all the tutorials I found on those sites, and I played all the tutorial tables. I tried to follow the shiva engine, but I gave up. It was too big and complicated for me. Old tables from the 60's or 70's were much better. The code was short and the tables had few objects in them.
I always played the tables found in IRP, since I wasn't very fond of the VPM tables. I think the change from VP to VPM happened when someone wrote in the VP forums that he enjoyed much better the VPM tables, to know that he was playing with the original programming of the real table was the best for him. So I took a look at some VPM tables.I usually could not see what was going on with so many ramps and objects blocking the table. But later I found out that many tables were only written for VPM, and not all them were so full with objects, so I decided to try to make someting out of a table that had bad graphics. I chose Harley Davidson (Bally), and I played with the graphics and the code. I didn't changed the code, I did not understod a single line, but I changed all the graphics.
Then on the forums someone suggested that it was time to recreate the Taxi table, I think a few started it but nobody finished it. So I took the script that racerxme had done. And with a working script it was no problem to make the table. At the same time I added objects to the table, I had also to understand how the code works, and that's it. The rest you know.
I have been a computer technician sine 1984. I programmed a lot between 1985 and 1995, mostly assembler and C, but some Basic too. By then the internet had already started and I found that it was easier to get the programs from the internet than to write them myself. So I have never programmet under Windows, only under Dos. I helped my son when he was studying programming at the University, and I learnt a little Sun's Java. That was very different! My programming was the standard top down model, but Java was a chaos. Objects all over the disk, files all over. Now in VP the programming is quite easy to understand and to follow. Many authors write down many comments and that helped me a lot. The people here, and in VP forums, have been very helpfull. They sent me comments of how to improve the tables, pieces of code, examples, etc.
Well, that's all. Now I prefer to begin the tables from cero, because then I have to learn how they work, and how I can do it in VP. I have started with Speakeasy. At the beginning it looked very easy, but now I see that the spinner/roulette will need more programming than I thought. The fly away targets are also new for me. I can always use the script from the old table, but then I won't learn anything. And that's the whole point. Panthera was a plain table, it could had been an EM table. The script was also very easy to write. Ok, I have to admit that I had to look at the Trough routine of the old table, I'll never understand how that thing works. Sometimes the ball ejects, and then sometimes not. It is good to have other tables to look at how others authors have solved the problems.
I stop writting, now. :) Any other questions? :) (I promise I'll be short)
JP
, there probably would be a start. Only that language thing takes me any courage to think about to start.
