Homebrewing: Which of these is the easiest to program for...

[courtesi96]

Atari 7800,
Sega Master System,
Sega Genesis.


Also take into consideration acquiring chips, cartridges, defeating any encryption if need be.

[AB Positive]

I'd say about equally difficult/easy with the nod going to 7800 and Genesis as a tie due to the documentation out there.

I don't really know the SMS homebrew scene too well though so I could be wrong. Right now I'm trying to learn 68K assembly for Amiga and Genesis homebrewing, it's difficult but rewarding - good luck!

[Steve W]

Has anyone homebrewed anything on the Sega Master System? I've never heard of that before. The 7800 and Genesis, sure. If you could find proper documentation on the SMS, enough to be able to put together a game, then I'd go with that one. You could be the first person to make a new game for it!

[ccovell]

http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=3

and

http://www.smspower.org/maxim/
http://www.smspower.org/martin/
http://www.smspower.org/nick/
Demos

SMS/GG development isn't the most active in the world, but there have been several games and demos made for them.

[Arkhan]

Im going to say Genesis since 68000 ASM is sexy and great.

Its the friendliest of the ASMs

plus there exist some music tools, and you can always go the sega-cd route too.

[tomaitheous]

SMS is pretty decent. The video setup is much straight forward than say, NES.

But I'd have to go with Genesis on this one. The 68000 processor is thee EASIEST processor ever to learn to code for in assembly. There's also the fact that there is no bank switching. It's all linear/flat addressing. That's a huge plus for beginners.

The VDP is a little more complicated on the Genesis than the SMS, but it's still pretty straight forward. The only thing I don't like about it is how they section out the source vram address. When you pick a vram address, it's not just a linear 16bit address. Some higher bits are in the second port write. But other than that, sprites, tiles, tilemaps, etc are all straight forward.

So on SMS, you have to worry about banking memory and the instruction set isn't as nice as the 68k. You wrote more code, etc. The video side though is fairly simple. It just sucks that the tilemap is soooo small. It doesn't mean you can't scroll like other consoles horizontally, but it requires more thought and design.

I've not coded for the 7800, but from what I've seen/heard/read - it's not even as close to the SMS or Genesis in terms of learning to code something reasonable for. Hell, I'd put 7800 lower than the NES - which is a bit convoluted at times.


Edit: I'd personally like to see more SMS homebrew dev. There's already a ton of great commercial titles for the Genesis. I dunno, just rather see some new SMS stuff. And some really graphically beautiful 8bit graphics from that system too.

[ccovell]

The only problems with the SMS are that the VDP timings and eccentricities are even more confusing than the NES. Check out SMSPower; the VDP is complained about quite a bit. Second problem is the complete lack of sprite tile flipping; third, the complete lack of mid-screen vertical scroll adjustment, meaning no stretching/warping effects, static roads in racing games, etc.

[Arkhan]

yeah, SMS games need to be had. Graphically the SMS always seemed superior. Double Dragon is a prime example.

[MASTERWEEDO]

I always wanted to program for the genesis but I thought it was gonna be too hard and didnt do much research(back when TavernRPG was just an idea). I guess I'm easily discouraged. i was trying to find a way to make music for the genesis, but i couldnt, maybe now there's some programs, but i havent looked in years.

[AB Positive]

I always wanted to program for the genesis but I thought it was gonna be too hard and didnt do much research(back when TavernRPG was just an idea). I guess I'm easily discouraged. i was trying to find a way to make music for the genesis, but i couldnt, maybe now there's some programs, but i havent looked in years.

I may be mistaken here but I'm under the understanding that MilkyTracker would take care of anything you'd want 68K music-wise. I know it has ST and Amiga music capabilities... but hey, who knows? Not I since I'm still banging on the ASM right now.

[Arkhan]

I may be mistaken here but I'm under the understanding that MilkyTracker would take care of anything you'd want 68K music-wise. I know it has ST and Amiga music capabilities... but hey, who knows? Not I since I'm still banging on the ASM right now.

there is a tracker that emulates the Genesis FM chip. I forget its name but i have it somewhere around here. Its got a few cool songs packed in too!