Commodore 64/VICE question.

[JohnnyRockets]

Hey all!

 

Okay, I have successfully written a program in ASM for the C64, and launched it if VICE, I understand how to do this by dragging and dropping my *.prg file.

 

But how does one go about programming in BASIC on the C64 using VICE? Program in the console, or write it somewhere else, save it as a *.prg file and drag and drop(?)

 

 

Sorry, this is probably really obvious, but I just don't get it!

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

 

JR

[The Usotsuki]

Usually by typing it on the metal...

[TMR]

You can also write BASIC programs in a text editor and copy/paste them to the most recent couple of iterations of VICE; you'll see the program being "typed in" a line at a time which is cool, but there's an upper limit to how many lines it'll deal with without stopping without any prompts and all commands have to be in lower case for it to work. This is sort of how i did the listing for RG Rampage, a bespoke Windows tool generated the listing to a text file and i copy/pasted that to VICE for testing.

 

There are also BASIC tokenisers for Windows that build a PRG file, things like CBM PRG Studio or C64List. Personally, i've not used them on the C64 (that might change soon), but to me at least the latter looks the better choice since you don't have to mess around with line numbers, it can use labels on the relevant lines and the program generates the line numbers when it saves for the C64.

[JohnnyRockets]

Hi guys!

 

Thanks for the info.

 

TMR, hey thanks, those tools look very promising! I will definitely check them out.

 

TMR, have you written some of your games in BASIC (it appears)? I had just assumed that all of your development was in ASM.

 

 

Thanks again for the great tips.

 

 

JR

[Arkhan]

You could do it all directly on the C64, but it would be a frustrating lesson in patience.

 

Once slip up and there it all goes. Especially since the C64 has some annoying key placement (home next to delete)

 

gah.

 

 

Go with what TMR said. When I messed with BASIC C64 stuff (I kinda just went straight to ASM, really), I did the drag and dropping, and It was fun to watch but it definitely had its drawbacks. The tools will certainly make you less frustrated.

 

 

I made some fun screen things in BASIC on the C64. Some of them were on accident.....

[JohnnyRockets]

Arkhan,

 

Yeah, I was wondering, can good games be made in BASIC? Or do they end up just being endless string of PEEK's and POKE's that probably could have just been handled by ASM?

 

Bottom line, is BASIC useful for game development? Or is it just to slow or limited?

 

 

JR

[Arkhan]

Ultima 1 was written in BASIC.

 

There is your answer.

[TMR]

TMR, have you written some of your games in BASIC (it appears)? I had just assumed that all of your development was in ASM.

 

Nothing i've released was written in BASIC but i started with it doing VIC 20 and then C64 programs and some of my homegrown tools were written in BASIC because there was no real need to get them going in machine code; the slowest routine ever was the "object compiler" for the bitmap tech-tech in my demo Contraflow which took about five hours to run on a spare C64 because it had to check so many conditions on every scanline. Until very recently (when i re-wrote it using BlitzMax so it's a Windows tool now) all my cosine curves were generated using an expansion of the BASIC program i originally helped write whilst at secondary school in the mid 1980s.

 

RG Rampage was originally released as a type-in listing in issue 100 of Retro Gamer where it was four pages of DATA statements that were POKEd into memory to produce just shy of 4K of machine code and data; i had to generate a BASIC listing from the machine code i'd written for that (the conversion was done with a bespoke Windows tool, again written with BlitzMax).

 

Bottom line, is BASIC useful for game development? Or is it just to slow or limited?

 

It depends what you're trying to write really, the main problem with any interpreted language is speed and the C64's BASIC is pretty slow and devoid of "helper" commands to deal with sound, sprites and so on. That's not to say something reasonable can't be done and there are a few exceptional games written in BASIC or a combination of BASIC and machine code subroutines, but in the long run it's probably as much a struggle to build and test those games as it would be to write the entire thing in machine code in the first place!

[Arkhan]

You could write some pretty excellent text adventures in BASIC. I have this book showing all of that. It's pretty neat.

 

If you don't want to make a fast paced game, it would be at least worth a bit of time to try some things out in BASIC before moving on to 6502.

 

You'll peek/poke/etc, and then move to assembly and go "ohhh so thats what I was peeking and poking for"

[JohnnyRockets]

Cool guys, thanks!

 

Yeah, sounds like BASIC and ASM on the C64 definitely have their merits, so I'll keep tinkering with both.

 

I have a nice system to cross "complile" for both languages and run them on VICE now, so I'm all set to "tinker".

 

 

Thanks again!

 

 

JR