UPDATE 1 JAN 2013… er 2014
First official day of the Retrochallenge and I reached a significant setback. It was only now when I discovered that PROMAL has absolutely no direct support for sound… bummer…!
This leaves me with a decision to make. Switch to SuperForth 64 and learn to basically “this program like” using a stack philosophy I’m not all too familiar with, or take advantage of PROMAL’s ability to integrate assembly language calls into the base code. But the latter choice means, I’ll need to learn how to drive the SID chip directly from Assembly. That might require me to basically “steal code” for sound effect routines given the time frame. SuperForth 64 has SID chip calls, but it’s still basically like the PEEKs and POKEs of BASIC, only without the need to remember specific memory locations.
Decisions… decisions…
I’m sure I’ll decide something soon. I’ll just have to spend some time dabbling with Forth and Assembly to see what it might require to continue. Who knows, I may find myself liking Assembler so much that I’ll switch solely to that. But I won’t even consider making a decision until after I finish today’s pork and sauerkraut.
Happy New Year Retrochallengers!!!
UPDATE 30 DEC 2013
After reviewing the two languages, I think I’ll be using PROMAL.
It’s not that I don’t think the goal could be accomplished in Forth, but the syntax in Forth is vastly disparate from what I’m used to. I still like BASIC-esque keywords and I don’t think I’m quite ready to write an application which requires me to build its functionality on a “stack.”
Besides, I’m already stacking the odds against myself with the type of game I want to make. I am going to attempt a “match 3” type game, where you slide symbols in a line on a grid to create three or more in a row, then they disappear from the grid.
The only problem I see with this kind of game is the speed of the compiled PROMAL output. It may not be a fancy looking game because of that.
Worst case scenario, I might just end up writing a tic-tac-toe game. 😛
5 DEC 2013
It’s that time of year again! The semiannual Retrochallenge is almost here!
My current plan for this Retrochallenge is to teach myself a new programming language for the Commodore 64. I will create a game (with no specific level of complexity) in either:
SuperForth 64, or
Promal 2.0
I’ll know for sure which language after I review the basic foundation of each one. There is still the remote possibility I might completely change my mind.
