ACD games... feasible?

[nodtveidt]

The develo kit was found in the wild quite some time ago, so I'm pretty sure that the official tools are already available to us. The only thing the average developer doesn't have is the hardware, so the official tools don't do us much good, but that doesn't really matter... the huc/pceas toolchain is better than the official devkit in some ways anyway. What makes things a challenge is HuC's bloat due to a lack of optimization and way too much reliance on macros. Hand-optimizing the resulting code fixes those issues, but you need to already have extensive knowledge of assembly to do that, and at that point, you might as well just code it in assembly anyway.

[Arkhan]

I have the develo kit, and the hardware, and it doesn't do much of anything except amuse me for about an hour.


The book however, is wildly useful.   You can thank Develo for Squirrel.

[BigusSchmuck]

I have the develo kit, and the hardware, and it doesn't do much of anything except amuse me for about an hour.


The book however, is wildly useful.   You can thank Develo for Squirrel.

I wants the book, is there a pdf version of it somewhere out there?

[Arkhan]

I have the develo kit, and the hardware, and it doesn't do much of anything except amuse me for about an hour.


The book however, is wildly useful.   You can thank Develo for Squirrel.

I wants the book, is there a pdf version of it somewhere out there?

yeah.  I don't remember the link.   If noone posts it, PM me, and I can email it or something.   Its like 80mb IIRC.   

[spenoza]

So the official tools were all assembly? Figures. You'd think they'd at least make a nod to higher level programming languages.

[Arkhan]

you could code in BASIC if you want.

Really though, with proper tools and real documentation, doing the entire game in all assembly wouldn't even be that bad.

Not to mention, doing things in C would've required an entire library (like HuC), and its still C, so it's fairly slow with 6502-based CPUs. 

[TheOldMan]

You'd think they'd at least make a nod to higher level programming languages

Which one?
C (and all of it's derivatives) was still on the drawing board.
Fortran - maybe. Cobol - maybe. Pascal ? And have the game bomb out all the time?
None of those are suitable for games, though.

So yeah, your choices were Basic or assembler. And -lots- of games were written back then with a Basic shell calling (poked in) assembler routines....

[spenoza]

You'd think they'd at least make a nod to higher level programming languages

Which one?
C (and all of it's derivatives) was still on the drawing board.
Fortran - maybe. Cobol - maybe. Pascal ? And have the game bomb out all the time?
None of those are suitable for games, though.

So yeah, your choices were Basic or assembler. And -lots- of games were written back then with a Basic shell calling (poked in) assembler routines....

I can understand why they would have chosen not to go with C. It wasn't standardized until the late 80s, but the language itself was documented and in use as early as the mid 70s. As for being on the drawing board, well, standardization does not take something off the drawing board, and just because something isn't internationally recognized as standardized doesn't mean it isn't fairly stable and developed. But that is neither here nor there.

Not all versions of Pascal were unstable. Pascal actually would have been a safe choice. It was a pretty good precursor to C in some ways.

[Arkhan]

Until something's standardized, using it for a video game console's primary development language seems like a really bad idea.


also, Pascal is... pascal.

People use Pascal on the MSX to try making games.   It goes poorly.   You might as well just use BASIC.

[spenoza]

No, I concede that point. My experience with Pascal was on the Apple II. I found it to be more powerful than BASIC by a good bit, but I didn't get very far with it. Most programming materials were for BASIC and most of the programs printed in the magazines were also BASIC, so that's where I spent a great deal more time. I'm not familiar with the memory footprint of compiled Pascal code (obviously depends on the compiler), but it did seem to perform well on the 6502 in the Apple II series.

[NightWolve]

Oh and yes, btw... it will be multidisc. Like PS1 Final Fantasy 7, it's three CDs in size. I do believe that it will be the first multidisc PCE game ever. I have already implemented its disc swap code. It's broken into three large chapters; one per disc.

Wow, you already planned this far ahead that you know right now that you'll need 3 discs ?? How much is dedicated to redbook audio ?

[ProfessorProfessorson]

It took the "pros" an extra 8 megs to fit the SNES SSFII onto Genesis. I don't know why anyone would demand more from honebrewers.

Genesis Super SF II had more voice samples though if I remember right. The Snes port is missing some.

[spenoza]

It took the "pros" an extra 8 megs to fit the SNES SSFII onto Genesis. I don't know why anyone would demand more from honebrewers.

Genesis Super SF II had more voice samples though if I remember right. The Snes port is missing some.

Lot of good it did them. They sounded like shit.

[arromdee]

People keep saying you can get an arcade card for $20.  I have an original TG-16 CD with a super system card, so if I get an Arcade Card I'd need the Pro.  Where can a Pro be bought for $20?

[turboswimbz]

People keep saying you can get an arcade card for $20.  I have an original TG-16 CD with a super system card, so if I get an Arcade Card I'd need the Pro.  Where can a Pro be bought for $20?

Assuming you have everything needed to run the card in the US system:
You won't unless you get a great deal.  Arcade Card duo - loose is 20 and 30 complete - > pro is around 55-60 (EDIT:) COMPLETE. Both + shipping - which may have to come form Japan.