Wow, interesting philisophical point.
I've done about as much as anyone in terms of trying to tamp down the
initial learning curve for 2600 coding, but I absolutely see Fred's
point.
The article of faith is almost less "it can't be done" and more "it
could probably be done but the resulting games wouldn't be worthwhile"
I guess there are two questions: how flexible will the available
kernals be, and will it stir people's creativity to make lots of neat
stuff, or will it just lead to a flood of crap...does the dedication
learning 6502 and all the TIA stuff provide a useful trial by fire, or
does it mostly get in the way? (ok, that's 3 or 4 questions, but
whatever..)
I guess the risk is it would make the homebrew scene look like the
hacks scene...hmm.
On 5/18/05, Fred Quimby <c9r@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >Now I know that the resulting games would not be as groundbreaking
> >and distinctive as all-from-scratch 2600 games. But as you say, it would
> >broaden the hobby. And the actual creating of the tool itself
> >would be *very* groundbreaking and distinctive, since everyone has
> >taken it as an article of faith that it Can't Be Done. (:
>
> I'd be surprised if anyone said it can't be done. I have seen discussions
> in the past that indeed said it would be difficult but certainly not
> impossible, as long as you used prepackaged kernels.
>
> Now, I hate to be the only dissenter here, but I think this is all a bad
> idea, given the requirement for prepackaged kernels! Perpackaged kernels
> lead to games that are all essentially the same. I think that "less than
> groundbreaking" is an understatement. I think that this would not broaden
> the hobby at all, but instead diminish it with a flood of games that are
> mostly bad or at best mediocre, or perhaps even discourage programmers like
> me who have spent countless hours trying to do real 2600 programming,
> essentially killing the hobby with a mini-crash reminiscent of the original
> crash of '82-'83.
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