[OT] Which IDE / Editor do you use?

Nick Sabalausky SeeWebsiteToContactMe at semitwist.com
Thu Sep 19 04:53:44 PDT 2013


On Thu, 19 Sep 2013 09:54:35 +0200
"PauloPinto" <pjmlp at progtools.org> wrote:

> On Thursday, 19 September 2013 at 07:24:19 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
> wrote:
> >
> > That's essentially the same strategy behind the graphics 
> > hardware in
> > most 8/16-bit consoles. Basically the ones from around SMS/NES 
> > and then
> > up until 3D. You can identify them from the grid-based
> > layouts (which were a huge improvement, for both gamers *and*
> > developers over the "carefully time your opcodes to adjust the
> > scanlines while they're being drawn" used by Atari VCS/2600 
> > and, I'm
> > guessing, probably the ColecoVision and SG-1000, which is what 
> > make
> > them so amazingly affordable at the time).
> >
> > In DOS, a lot of CGA/EGA/VGA games used a similar approach as
> > DOS-text-mode/NES/SMS/etc, but it had to be done in software.
> > Obviously in those cases it didn't reduce the amount of data 
> > sent to
> > the video card, but it did still reduce (significantly) the 
> > amount of
> > HDD and RAM required to store the levels, and it somewhat
> > simplified/reduced the amount of processing needed to render.
> >
> > (I've done a bit of old-school homebrew, and got my real coding 
> > start
> > in DOS VGA gaming. Fascinating and incredibly fun stuff to 
> > develop for.
> > I'd love to design/build my own tile-based console someday, 
> > just for
> > the heck of it.)
> 
> You are not alone. These guys are still in business selling 
> hardware just for that.
> 
> http://www.xgamestation.com/

I wrote three of the demos and two of the drivers that are packaged
with the Hydra ;) Still have my prototype unit sitting on my desk here.
Unfortunately I don't have much (any) time for hardware tinkering these
days :(

Andre's old DOS-based gamedev books were key for me in going from
"BASIC-hobbyist who once tried to learn C" to finally grokking C and
doing more serious things.



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