8bitwidgets.com Posted July 1 Share Posted July 1 OK so some quick surface questions. 1. can batari work with pong paddles? I'm looking to make some games that use them and while i saw some "paddle" references in the batari manual, it just wasn't clear if they mean something else. 2. i'm using a mac and wondering if there are any IDE for mac. The ones I've seen are all windows based. So far i've just been using sublime for coding and terminal to compile.. then stella to run my builds 3. Assuming there are no Mac IDE options, if I were to be on a PC, is there any general IDE / Tools that are helpful in making batari dev that much easier? I'd just love to get some leads on this vs. spending a bunch of time tinkering / googling stuff. 4. can batari use bank switching / ram (thinking like save features, high scores, save games) 5. are there some examples of games or hard limits that batari gives up compared to writing in assembly. I have seen some great batari games, so i'm sure i can achieve my goals, but still curious why anyone would learn assembly if no tradeoff. I'm sure more will come to mind, but i think this will go a long way as I further read the manual. I'm very impressed with what seems possible so far. TYIA Caleb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Karl G Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 2 hours ago, Caleb Garner said: OK so some quick surface questions. 1. can batari work with pong paddles? I'm looking to make some games that use them and while i saw some "paddle" references in the batari manual, it just wasn't clear if they mean something else. Yeah; you can use paddles with the standard kernel using the "readpaddle" kernel option. 2 hours ago, Caleb Garner said: 2. i'm using a mac and wondering if there are any IDE for mac. The ones I've seen are all windows based. So far i've just been using sublime for coding and terminal to compile.. then stella to run my builds Yes. Atari Dev Studio us an extension for Visual Studio Code, and works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Highly recommended! 2 hours ago, Caleb Garner said: 3. Assuming there are no Mac IDE options, if I were to be on a PC, is there any general IDE / Tools that are helpful in making batari dev that much easier? I'd just love to get some leads on this vs. spending a bunch of time tinkering / googling stuff. 4. can batari use bank switching / ram (thinking like save features, high scores, save games) Yes; bB can use bank switching or SuperChip on-cart RAM. This doesn't have anything to do with save features, high score saving, etc. For that, an AtariVox or SaveKey may be plugged into the second joystick port. The bB manual has some links to forum posts giving instructions on how to use these within bB. 2 hours ago, Caleb Garner said: 5. are there some examples of games or hard limits that batari gives up compared to writing in assembly. I have seen some great batari games, so i'm sure i can achieve my goals, but still curious why anyone would learn assembly if no tradeoff. Yes; absolutely there are tradeoffs. Atari 2600 kernels are custom-crafted to provide what the game needs while saving processor/display time by removing what isn't needed. bB lets you do some of this with the kernel options where you can enable some features at the expense of others, but it is still not as flexible as pure assembly. Probably the biggest limitation of the standard kernel would be not being able to reuse the two hardware sprites elsewhere on the screen in order to get more sprites. The Multisprite kernel can do this, but has other limitations (ROM-only symmetric playfield). The DPC+ kernel can also do this with less limitations, but requires carts with hardware assistance in the form of the ARM processor. I hope this was helpful! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8bitwidgets.com Posted July 4 Author Share Posted July 4 On 7/1/2023 at 9:48 PM, Karl G said: I hope this was helpful! absolutely, thank you for all of those insightful answers! That all sounds very much as I imagined. Does anyone know how widely used / supported DPC+ arm processor carts are? is there some sense of a customer base? I'm not making these games to get rich or anything, but i think we all want to maximize our efforts even if it were a free game, it's not as exciting to make a game if only 10 people can play it Also what cart(s) have ARM processors to use DPC+ This game was made with batari and i see multiple sprites beyond the two.. now i know there is flicker so maybe this is the tradeoff.. but i'm still VERY impressed with everything going on here in batari.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+splendidnut Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 15 minutes ago, Caleb Garner said: Does anyone know how widely used / supported DPC+ arm processor carts are? is there some sense of a customer base? DPC+ is currently only playable with the Harmony / Melody boards, either with a Harmony Cart or via the Melody board which is one of the available boards used by the homebrews in the AtariAge store. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8bitwidgets.com Posted July 4 Author Share Posted July 4 4 hours ago, splendidnut said: Harmony / Melody boards Cool, I've emailed them to find out how much these cost for myself. I know the offer a nice $30 service soup to nuts which is nice, but if I want to DIY everything but the PCB, I'm wondering what that runs. These have been around for awhile so I imagine that means it's likely one of the more widely known / used multicarts out there for rom distribution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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