Printable View
this is all ifs and buts but im still asking.
If KOS were ported to say the Gamecube or better still the PSP or DS could you have games that are easily portable from Dreamcast to those consoles?
Would PSP be the best option for a handheld version of KOS ?
The platform independent stuff would work, so it would at least give you a working operating system (kind of) to start from. It wouldn't have any drivers for the hardware, and it would be pointless trying to write system-specific drivers that use the same API as the Dreamcast stuff. So you'd still need to write drivers for it and then write the game for those drivers, so games wouldn't really be portable.
Still, it'd make things much easier than trying to play around with the hardware manually.
There is already a PS2 and GBA version of kos, but you dont see anyone using them.
Marcus Comstedt is playing around with the PSP so we may see some exciting stuff from that region soon.
There's basically no point in using KOS on a GBA. The hardware is simple enough that you can simply use it directly, and any kind of OS would simply get in the way. The only things that would be useful on a GBA are a filesystem (like GBFS, but I wrote my own anyway), and a sound driver (the BIOS sound driver is a bit crap / difficult to use, but it's not that hard to find others that you can use). Things like threading and similar are of no use on a GBA.
I think the PS2 port of KOS suffered for two reasons. First, it requires a Linux kit (in other words, it's not a native PS2 port, and runs on top of the RTE). Second, it has very little support for the PS2 hardware. Compare that to the other available PS2 devkits, which each run natively and support a lot of the PS2 hardware. They still won't be as nice to work with as KOS is on the Dreamcast, but at least you can create programs that use the available hardware, and run on any (modified) PS2 without requiring the Linux kit. If you had a Linux kit, you could just use Linux for developing the stuff anyway.
A version of KOS for other systems would be pretty cool. Most of the other independent devkits I've seen are more like libdream - the just provide a simple library to access the hardware, and don't have most of the nicer stuff that KOS has, like full libc, C++, and STL support, threading, IPC primitives, a good set of higher level libraries, and so on.
where does Marcus Comstedt hang out? I would be very curious to see what he has to say on things like PSP development.
Dropping in for my bi-annual cameo ;)
The GBA KOS port is actually not pointless. Its maintainer (Gil Megidish) uses it quite a bit for porting and prototyping. He hasn't managed to sneak it into an actual game yet ;) but it is definitely still nice for things like the VFS, romdisks, the addon libraries, etc.
The PS2, GBA, and PC(!) ports of KOS have all suffered from one big thing: KOS is for Dreamcasts. Despite the fact that I did a bunch of work to make it more portable a long time ago, everyone knows it's a DC thing. It's been pigeonholed in other words.
I've actually had someone email me asking about a PSP port. So there is definitely interest there. Almost any modern console could make use of such a thing... Xbox, GameCube, whatever. I dunno if no one knows about it, or they assume it's too DC specific, or it's an NIH syndrome.
I'd love to see it proceed to other consoles and become big there since the DC is declining (though it's nice to come here and see all these questions about stuff I worked on :D). Who knows if it will... the KOS list is pretty quiet these days. Most of us have moved on to other things.
Many thanks Dan! I'm just beginning in console development and am using KOS and love it so far. Your work is certainly appreciated!
You're welcome :) Of course in recent times I've more or less taken a Linus role in KOS, as many of the ported libraries that make it nice weren't done by me. So they are to thank for it all as much as I.
does this mean no more updates? cuz it sounds like it's going in that directionQuote:
Originally Posted by DanPotter