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   alcinnz (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Sunday, 22-Dec-2024 05:12:27 JST alcinnz

   As I discuss how I'd build devtools (from scratch) for our hypothetical idiomatic computer, we need to know whether these tools are actually useful for building real software.

   Usually we'd start with Hello World, but... The computer I described does not natively understand strings! Only a 2D framebuffer of colours! Text is left to software.

   So how about we have fun & use gamedev to assess the quality of our tools?
   I can think of nowhere better to start than Pong!

   1/2?

   • Embed this notice
     alcinnz (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Sunday, 22-Dec-2024 05:17:31 JST alcinnz

     in reply to

     Pong consists of a ball bouncing off the top or bottom of the screen, or 2 player controlled paddles along the left & right sides. If the ball misses the paddles the opposing player's score is incremented (we can use our hex-decoder circuit, which we're using to program the machine, to display the scores).

     So that's comparing the ball's X/Y position against the screen bounds to negate the X or Y component of its velocity, & updating the position of the ball's & paddles every frame.

     2/3!

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     alcinnz (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Sunday, 22-Dec-2024 05:21:57 JST alcinnz

     in reply to

     All of these sprites can be rendered as low-res rectangles, after blacking out its old position. The whole gameplay could probably complete in the DVI/VGA h-blank period, leaving no smearing (not that'd be bad to happen occasionally) without switching framebuffers.

     The hardest bit could be to avoid the game running too fast, so registering it as an h-blank would be the easiest solution.

     3/3 Fin for today! Tomorrow: Hello World!