Project DS Announced

[Mental2k]

yeah it should leave us with quite a back catalogue of games that we can already play. And give me an excuse to actually lean a language, instead of pickin up the basics and then gettin distracted by my next project.

[Kamjin]

[quote author=BlackAura link=board=Dev;num=1090864320;start=15#26 date=07/30/04 at 23:41:01]

This, on the other hand, will allow people who don't know C/C++, and who aren't necessarily that good at programming, to create new games for the Dreamcast.[/quote]

Blitz, Hisoft basic.. and all the others were a great thing
that spawned many good games and applications.. plus
when writing dos dools, I still use basic to prototype
out bizarre functions, since it can be done the quickest
there.

[Mental2k]

I'm no coder but just as a matter of interest would a generic basic interpreter be able to interpret all forms of basic?

[Cap'n 1time]

I was actually thinking about that the other day. Basic on Dreamcast?! That brings back some old memories.... from when i was 4 and i discovered how to make really annoying pulsating sounds on my atari computer. Ah, thoes were the days... Basic would be great for dreamcast! I could do my math homework with my DC!!!


As for java scrip being a great thing for the dc................................................ ....................................

yah its pretty cool, but some of you need to realize you cant do a whole lot with java script as its not a programming language its A SCRIPT!!!! Thats not to say you cant make some pretty cool side scrollers or stuff like that. But you arnt going to make some complexed game or anything. You could probably make some cool menus with it though! And cute little mini games for disks like pheonix.

Its a great project, dont get me wrong, but i think some of you people sound like you are looking for a new full fledged dc dev tool, and that just isnt going to happen. If you want an example of some java games (and some of them are very cool) check out
www.freearcade.com

[Kamjin]

[quote author=Mental2k link=board=Dev;num=1090864320;start=30#32 date=07/31/04 at 07:10:17]I'm no coder but just as a matter of interest would a generic basic interpreter be able to interpret all forms of basic?[/quote]

not really.. depends how the person creates it..
BlackAura's is based on Wx so the syntax is is much
more along the lines of Qbasic, the one I had started
was using line numbers. There's also a plenititude
of commands that don't appear across all basics like
Inkey$,plot, locate, graphic, etc.. Even same basics
that have the simmilar revisions.. like AmigaBasic, and
Qbasic, are not entirely compatible, since each had
specific commands geared to the hardware they were
on. like mouse controlls which was "standard" on amigas.
but very scarce at the time on PC's
The idea is that all basicish languages are simmilar,
so the learning curve isn't as bad like moving from
cobol to C++, more like C++ to Java..

[BlackAura]

[quote author=1timeuser link=board=Dev;num=1090864320;start=30#33 date=07/31/04 at 08:04:02]yah its pretty cool, but some of you need to realize you cant do a whole lot with java script as its not a programming language its A SCRIPT!!!![/quote]
Actually, JavaScript is a language. It was designed for scripting, but scripting languages can be suprisingly powerful, but they can't interact directly with the system, only with the host program. As with all scripting languages, it's capabilities are determined entirely by the program it's connected to. In most cases that's a web browser, so it can really only do web browser related stuff. In the case of DS, it's obviously not a web browser - it's a system designed for doing 2D games.

In fact, the capabilities DS has are almost the same (a few minor differences here and there) as the ones I'm working on for a BASIC interpreter. The only real difference is the language you use to write the games. They will both supply you with a lot of stuff you can use to write 2D games with, including (obviously) controller access, sound, music, 2D graphics (which should be well beyond SNES-era systems), and probably some other stuff too.

Besides, on modern systems BASIC is considered to be a scripting language as well.

[quote author=Mental2k link=board=Dev;num=1090864320;start=30#32 date=07/31/04 at 07:10:17]I'm no coder but just as a matter of interest would a generic basic interpreter be able to interpret all forms of basic?[/quote]
Short answer: No
Long answer: Most dialects of BASIC are very different. Even the basic syntax of the language can differ quite a lot. JavaScript, on the other hand, is pretty well defined.

[quote author=Wraggster link=board=Dev;num=1090864320;start=15#29 date=07/31/04 at 06:23:28]i personaly cant wait for the Basic project of Blackauras to come out too [/quote]

Actually, I've made some progress on that today. I finally had a chance to do some decent work on the graphics system. I've got it to the stage where I can set up the video system on both a PC (using OpenGL) and on a Dreamcast, load textures, and draw them to the screen correctly, which means doing a hell of a lot of work on the PC side, and virtually no work at all on the Dreamcast side. The problem is that the Dreamcast version is virtually useless without the PC version, becuase you can't really develop stuff on the Dreamcast directly.

Having to un-twiddle all the textures and then convert them to a format I can use, then depth sort everything before drawing it is bad enough, but I've also had to port fairly large chunks of KOS itself over so I can use them. It made the rest of the job suprisingly easy though. Much of my texture loading code was a simply copy-and-paste from KOS.

[Mental2k]

BlackAura will this be windows compatable? and is it based on any particular form of BASIC so i can start learnin some, for when the interpreter comes out?

[BlackAura]

[quote author=Mental2k link=board=Dev;num=1090864320;start=30#36 date=08/01/04 at 07:03:55]BlackAura will this be windows compatable? and is it based on any particular form of BASIC so i can start learnin some, for when the interpreter comes out?[/quote]

If you mean "Does it run on Windows?", the answer is "probably". There is a PC version, but I'm developing on Linux, not Windows. It should work on Windows, but I've not tried it.

It's based on wxBasic, and uses the same syntax. wxBasic has a lot of stuff that I removed, almost all related to the GUI stuff that wxBasic has, but the core of the language is the same.

[curt_grymala]

[quote author=BlackAura link=board=Dev;num=1090864320;start=30#37 date=08/01/04 at 08:08:41]

If you mean "Does it run on Windows?", the answer is "probably". There is a PC version, but I'm developing on Linux, not Windows. It should work on Windows, but I've not tried it.

It's based on wxBasic, and uses the same syntax. wxBasic has a lot of stuff that I removed, almost all related to the GUI stuff that wxBasic has, but the core of the language is the same.[/quote]

Now that would be the coolest part about the new DS and BASIC interpreter. We could create progs or games using BASIC or JS, and probably be able to test them on our PC's before we ever burned them on a disc for the DC.
Of course, for the BASIC interpreter (and possibly for DS), we would need to use the same interpreter on our PC's as we are using on the DC, but it would still be cool.

[BlackAura]

[quote author=curt_grymala link=board=Dev;num=1090864320;start=30#38 date=08/01/04 at 09:45:12]Of course, for the BASIC interpreter (and possibly for DS), we would need to use the same interpreter on our PC's as we are using on the DC, but it would still be cool.[/quote]

As long as you use the same version (if we added something, and you used it on the PC version, then tried it on an older version on the DC, it wouldn't work), it should be fine.

Hmm... I wonder if DS will work on Linux too, or will I have to steal someone else's machine to have a go at it?