Getting started programming?

[Bonknuts]

Deleted posted. It belongs in its own topic and not really relevant for getting started.

[XtoF]

Thanks for these precise answers, you guys know your stuff! 
I'd never heard about HuC before, but now that I do, I'm going straight to Uli's Github!
   
As a matter of fact, I'm new owner of a CoreGrafX. I was always intrigued by this little machine, since I read a review of an imported cardridge of Parodius, back in the time. Now that I can play the actual game, I can say that I'm quite impressed!

So I intend to learn more details about the machine and roaming these forums seems like a perfect way to start!   

[elmer]

I'd never heard about HuC before, but now that I do, I'm going straight to Uli's Github!

You might want to look at my fork instead, there are a few important bug fixes.

I've updated the first message in this thread with a whole bunch of links to PCE information and development tools.

TED v2 Programming Notes
http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=20120.0

So I intend to learn more details about the machine and roaming these forums seems like a perfect way to start!   

Welcome! 

You'll find a lot of useful and interesting stuff if you browse through the old threads.

[Bonknuts]

Considering my last post was not really relevant for getting started, it got me thinking about "Getting into advance topics" for PCE. Something that could cover not only how certain data structures and algorithms fit more nicely with the 65x design in relation to the PCE, but also additional addon hardware and using that hardware (hysnc and advance VDC effects, arcade card, SF2 mapper, CD programming).

 I don't know if anyone besides myself has written code and demos for the SF2 mapper, but PCEAS inability to handle anything beyond 1megabit and since there's no linker system - it makes handling organization of data painful or wasteful. Injecting the data into rom and expanding it with external tools is not a problem, but putting those labels and attributes into the main source file remains a by hand process. Normally I don't complain about PCEAS not having a linker, but this is probably one case that I would argue otherwise. From my perspective, if you're going to develop a hucard game without the intent to sell in physical form, the SF2 mapper is a great choice. It just needs additional tools; both for HuC and for PCEAS.

 But yeah...

[elmer]

Considering my last post was not really relevant for getting started, it got me thinking about "Getting into advance topics" for PCE. Something that could cover not only how certain data structures and algorithms fit more nicely with the 65x design in relation to the PCE, but also additional addon hardware and using that hardware (hysnc and advance VDC effects, arcade card, SF2 mapper, CD programming).

More information and especially examples, would be great! 

I think that there's still a lot of "hidden" stuff about HuC, like your discovery of the __fastcall interface, that still isn't properly documented.

I'm definitely not the guy to do it ... but new PCE developers could really do with more documentation about HuC, and how to use it.

You know ... things like avoiding large local-variables, and making things global or static.

Stuff that isn't "normal" C practice.

Web-pages or a wiki that could be included in github would be perfect ... but blog posts or updates to Archaic Pixels would still improve things for everyone else.

Normally I don't complain about PCEAS not having a linker, but this is probably one case that I would argue otherwise. From my perspective, if you're going to develop a hucard game without the intent to sell in physical form, the SF2 mapper is a great choice. It just needs additional tools; both for HuC and for PCEAS.

You're welcome to help in the process of modifying the ASxxxx assembler/linker to be more-friendly for PCE usage, and more compatible with PCEAS.

I've already added Hu6280 support to it.

https://github.com/jbrandwood/aspce

And I'm happy to add other-people's improvements into my fork of HuC.

That's the beauty of github ... you can just create you own fork of the project, and then send me a pull-request when you've got something working.

[ccovell]

Episode 3 is up on my tutorial.  I don't get started coding yet, but I do take the necessary step of linking to programs & info sources.  Plus a bit about PCX files & 9-bit colour.

[elmer]

Episode 3 is up on my tutorial.  I don't get started coding yet, but I do take the necessary step of linking to programs & info sources.  Plus a bit about PCX files & 9-bit colour.

I've watched the whole thing now ... cool stuff, thanks for making that!   

It's a little bit slow-paced (IMHO) ... but there's really good stuff in there, although it's not quite how I'd personally choose to set things up.

It was funny to see that you're still using your Amiga toolset to create artwork. 

I know that I'm stuck in my personal comfort-zone, too ... with my Brief keymapping in the text editor, customized bitmap fonts in Windows, and use of grafx2 (Deluxe Paint, Deluxe Animator clone).

I really should be using ProMotion more, particularly now that there's a free version to recommend to people.

I was definitely a bit surprised to see you dropping stuff into the Windows directory instead of just editing the user path to add stuff ... especially because Mircosoft seem to be trying to lock down the Windows directory more-and-more with each revision.

**************

BTW ... does anyone know who runs the Archaic Pixels site, and how to get an account to edit stuff?

The whole site disappeared for a few weeks last year, but I see that it is back up now.

[ccovell]

Thanks for the comments.  Yeah, someone commented in YouTube to just get on with the programming, already, and I agree.  But I also wanted to point complete beginners towards where they could actually find and set up the assembler & documentation, because there isn't a single resource AFAIK on the web for this.

Heh, yeah, I could also have told people how to edit their path string.  :-)

I did mention the good programs like Grafx2, and I'm sure the Gimp is serviceable too. Maybe.  I am aghast at how people just do pixel art in MSPaint (and Photoshop to a degree)...

[Gredler]

Photoshop's art tools are unparalleled, I dug around for a long time but still haven't found anything that comes close to it.

If you could manually arrange indexed palettes easier there would be no need for anything else, but between Photoshop to make the art and gimp to clean up the palettes everything else seems less flexable and much less powerful.

Smart objects for tilemaps alone make it worth it, then layers and selection tools pffft fuggidaboutit!

[ccovell]

Deluxe Paint has layers too!  Well... up to 2 of them, anyway.   

[Arkhan]

Photoshop's art tools are unparalleled, I dug around for a long time but still haven't found anything that comes close to it.

If you could manually arrange indexed palettes easier there would be no need for anything else, but between Photoshop to make the art and gimp to clean up the palettes everything else seems less flexable and much less powerful.

Smart objects for tilemaps alone make it worth it, then layers and selection tools pffft fuggidaboutit!

I use PaintShopPro because Photoshop is a giant piece of shit that inverts PCX palettes for whatever dumb reason and it angers my a$$hole.


Also, it lets you manually arrange and deal with indexed palettes.

and doesn't tard out with RAW files.



and isn't $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[ccovell]

I use PaintShopPro because Photoshop is a giant piece of shit that inverts PCX palettes for whatever dumb reason and it angers my a$$hole.

I did actually mention and show that in my video.  The P$-> PCX part, not your angered a$$hole, I mean.

[Arkhan]

lol.

It's horrible of them to do that to the PCX files.  Someone needs punched.

[Bonknuts]

Thanks for the comments.  Yeah, someone commented in YouTube to just get on with the programming, already, and I agree.  But I also wanted to point complete beginners towards where they could actually find and set up the assembler & documentation, because there isn't a single resource AFAIK on the web for this.

Heh, yeah, I could also have told people how to edit their path string.  :-)

I did mention the good programs like Grafx2, and I'm sure the Gimp is serviceable too. Maybe.  I am aghast at how people just do pixel art in MSPaint (and Photoshop to a degree)...

I thought the video was fine. Some tutorials tend to race through things, and it can be frustrating for beginners IMO. I think the pacing in your videos is fine.
 

[elmer]

BTW ... when you said in the video that the necessary documentation was spread out all over the place ... well, I've just finished cleaning up the scans of the Hudson's English developer docs that have been floating out there on the interwebs for a while, including finally finishing off the splitting up and cleanup of the scan of the CD docs from bonknuts's site.

That makes a tidy little package of 10 reasonably-sized pdf files that cover all of the information that is needed to develop on the PCE in assembly-language, except for the SGX and Arcade Card.

IMHO, it would be good to have a single public website that you could point to in your videos that would have links to all the useful info, including Charles MacDonald's PCEtech and SGXtech documents, Bonknuts's Arcade Card document and PCE Cribsheets, and your PCEMon.

Now personally, I'd favor putting that page somewhere on esteban's tg-16.com, if he's willing ...

... partly because it's a short url, partly because he's already doing an amazing job of archiving a huge collection of PCE documentation, partly because his site is backed-up on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at web.archive.org, and partly because he's a neutral 3rd-party, and then we don't have to worry about delicate developer-egos.