Euphoria & Gaming (was RE: QNX-porting)
Norm Goundry wrote:
>I would like to cast my 'vote' towards not discarding the opportunity to
>some day run EU on QNX.
[...]
>My other reason for
>promoting this OS is that it operates on MIPS type cpu's (RISC), and is
>particularly well suited for the SPARC cpu envirnment. This means that it
>can be made to operate as a Bolt-On OS for Sony Playstation2, Sega
>Dreamcast, and no doubt the up and coming Nintendo Dolphin, all of these
>being 128-bit machines.
That's a possibility, although I'm not sure how good the chances are of
actually seeing QNX show up on one of those platforms, even with a slight
"push" from the gaming community (or even developers).
But I see where you're headed: Euphoria on (currently) next-gen consoles. I
still don't see it happening, but that's just my view. We could actually test
the concept though; Sony has something called the Yaroze kit, which basically
lets people write their own Playstation games. From what I understand, this
is how "Devil Dice" was made; by a single programmer who sold the game to a
developer/publisher.
Anyone interested could probably use this kit to write a Euphoria interpreter
(or something lower-level but still Euphoric) for the Playstation, and see
how well it works out. It seems like a good test for the feasibility of then
trying it out on the Playstation 2 (either as an improved version, or a
complete rewrite.) Even if *that* didn't fly, Euphoria for PS might possibly
find a place among the Yaroze (or Yaroze 2) community.
Hmm, I've been interested in Game Boy programming for a while myself (it's on
my list of "Things I'll Probably Never Do", right before "Learn to play the
violin".) Anyone have any thoughts on the feasibility of a scaled-down version
of Euphoria for the GB? I've been to some of the development websites (there
seems to be a pretty lively amateur-GB-programmer community); they already
have at least two versions of BASIC for it, and I think at least one other
language (probably Pascal). I think it might be fun to try out; but I have
doubts as to how efficient a dynamic storage scheme would be for a system
that has... what, under 1MB of RAM for Game Boy Color?
>There is still plenty of time to do something like
>this before the territory is all snapped up by Windows CE
>(WinCrapEnvirnment) and Linux (WinHugeEnvirnment), to the detriment of all
>programmers everywhere.
I don't think gamers have anything to worry about from WinCE (although I'm
not going to even hazard a guess about Linux without seeing how things
progress.) I'm not too much in touch with the Japanese gaming market, but
I've heard virtually nothing on WinCE being used on Dreamcast so far. Of
course, I would expect there to be more CE development in North America
anyway, but I strongly suspect we'll ONLY see CE being used for ported
games (and not very many at that.) In my opinion, if this was Microsoft's
way of trying to get into the console gaming market, we have little to fear.
>I know this sounds crazy, but it is all real, and it will happen. There is
>plenty of intent and focus out there from manufacturers that plan to have
>people operating computers that are no longer computers as we now know them.
Well, I know there are some with that vision, but I've got doubts as to
it ever coming to fruition. There have been attempts at this for over a
decade now, and considering how long that is in "computer-industry years",
it's not a good sign. I think the TV/monitor confict is pivotal; if HDTV
ever gets off the ground, I'll probably have a bit more faith in the idea.
(And, just as a mini-rant, HDTV will *NEVER* fly as long as manufacturers
continue to only make 27"-and-larger models...)
Rod
|
Not Categorized, Please Help
|
|
