Batari Basic or old school?

[Van]

Just wanted to jump in with my perspective.

I've seen and been part of the whole ASM versus Basic debate in the past. Really started back when Basic was an interpreted language on the early systems, A8s, Apples. Interpreted instructions take ALOT of cycles to do the same as a few lines of compiled asm. Basic was a toy compared to Assembly, not to be considered for commercial use. But its just a tool, if it helps you can do what you want to do, that's what counts. If it gets in your way, get a different tool.

We have a different issue with bB, it is a compiled language too, so the run time code IS asm. Just as fast as hand coded Assembly, C or anything else. The issue most detractors are pointing out in a round about way, is the fact that bB compiles to a 'stock' library of asm functions. So for the sake of user ease, you have to give up the flexibility(nightmare) of designing a unique hand crafted algorithm.

Sometimes you don't need to conserve every spare byte or machine cycle because it's more important to complete, quicker. On a PC platforms everything is written in C or VBasic or the latest greatest; waste a little ram, run a little slower BUT complete the project months earlier! Even C compilers are written in C. All compilers boil down to a set of asm function, the differences are in the quality and variety of the libraries..

Is there something wrong with bB? NOT by a long shot! It gets the program running alot faster then the trial and error of learning all the nooks and crannies of the A2600 software/hardware without a frame work. The tips and tricks we are learning and sharing as a group, back in the day would have been guarded trade secrets. Today there are a hell of a lot of people that are banging away at keyboards, learning a 30 yr old system for the fun of it. Just 10 years ago, there wasn't but a handful that would THINK about investing the time to: A. learn a very old processor, with no value besides retro romance. And then B. learn an obsolete gaming console, that a sane person leaves on the curb for Goodwill. So bB is just another great tool (stella, dasm, Harmony cart) that makes it possible for this community to grow.

Just as it was 30 years ago, Basic is a learning tool that allows access to complex computer systems. Some people find enough enjoyment with that, others search deeper and little by little replace the 'stock' algorithm with their own little work of art subroutines. Hopefully, we all have max fun!

My first programming was done on a home built ELF Computer, RCA 1802 Cosmac uP, the design appeared in Popular Electronics in the early 70s. Front panel binary switches for the data and address buses; setup your switches for the op code and address, hit load, do next. So everyone that don't use a pencil and paper to assemble their code to binary are wimps

[mos6507]

I think game DESIGN is different from game PROGRAMMING. When it's one-person-one-game you're tasked with doing both, or at least be very very receptive to playtesting. There are people who may be very good at the low-level stuff in the VCS, but their games wind up technically impressive but just not that fun, or bBasic games that are visually simple and yet very fun. For instance, the Death Raceish game in Stella's Stocking was very fun. Had I decided to switch to bBasic I might have actually finished Death Derby by now, although it didn't exist when I first started.

 

I do think there is a brass ring you earn when you get the VCS to do certain things without undue assitance. Fitting things in 4 or 8K that look a lot more complex than they should, or doing things without extra RAM. However, what I was noticing when I was on my way out and even moreso that I've poked my head back in is that the "I gotta do this with one arm tied behind my back!" attitude is the exception and not the rule. In the past you had projects that were meant to prove a point, like doing a better Pac-Man in 4K, and it's good that they happened, but at the end of the day you move on and do new things.

 

Same with hardware. There was a fairly lengthy debate back when Chimera was considered a viable project over whether it was "right" to throw that much extra hardware at the VCS, and now, I think after Harmony came out, that debate is over. Cheap and powerful support hardware arrived, and the world did not come to an end because it was thrown inside a cart. The same is true of high-level languages.

 

Back in the day Atari _tried_ to do Basic Programming for the VCS on cart and failed. It's a miracle that something that lets you write in a BASIC-like syntax while maintaining so many facilities of the Atari even exists (it is really a cross-compiler and not an interpreter, I know, but from a coding standpoint that should probably be disregarded.)