Hey everyone, long time no see (or talk rather).
I know this has been brought up in past on the list,
and the general consensus is that programming using a
C compiler wouldn't work, due to the nature of
kernels, but I thought I might resurrect the idea with
a slightly different twist and get some input.
But firsly, I might also add that abstraction is kind
of one of my interests in computer science, which is
the main reason I'm interested in this, since it's
such a challenge with the VCS.
With that said, I guess what I kind of envision is
something very low level, building on what Adam
Wozniak did in the past with the CC65 compiler - i.e.
basically using C structs to represent the TIA and
RIOT. My idea is to perhaps add to this with some
general structs and unions to represent player
objects, missiles, ball in RAM; some #defines to
represent bitmask constants for various operations;
and a bunch of macros for routine operations. Kernels
for experienced people would still be in ASM. Noobs
could use C to write simple kernels and get their feet
wet.
I perceive that the possible benefits of this would be
faster development (due to the availability of
higher-level programming constructs), easier to read
code, and more people interested in the hobby.
Possible drawbacks, of course, would be that the
non-kernel code might not be quite as efficient, or
that lots of crappy games would be made by noobs. :)
Thoughts?
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