Who so much focus on emus?

[Chip]

Or perhaps a language not just an engine could be ported. A port of Qbasic or a compatible BASIC interpreter would allow me to run a lot of old games I wrote on the GP32.

All it takes is someone with the time, inclination, and skill

if someone wanted to port a BASIC interpreter, here is the place to start: BASIC Foundry

Didn't the C64 and Atari ST have BASIC interpreters? Why not just use one of them?

 

[Rigor Mortis]

Or perhaps a language not just an engine could be ported. A port of Qbasic or a compatible BASIC interpreter would allow me to run a lot of old games I wrote on the GP32.

All it takes is someone with the time, inclination, and skill

if someone wanted to port a BASIC interpreter, here is the place to start: BASIC Foundry

Didn't the C64 and Atari ST have BASIC interpreters? Why not just use one of them?

A. I would have to retype the programs using the GP32 buttons, right?

B. I'm not familiar with those variants of BASIC, and I bet the same is true for a lot of people - Qbasic is likely the most popular version.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

I'm trying to get new characters for my PC version of MUGEN (2d fighting engine) ... Mario & Goku vs Ryu & Sub-Zero in tag-team, perhaps?   :lol:

For the last week or 2 I've been thinking how cool it would be to have an "open" fighter platform for the GP32. One where you could create your own fighters (or just rip them off from other games) with their own sounds, combos, and special moves. It's nice to know that one exists, even if it's for linux.

Perhaps one of the "coding types" could port this over to the GP32 (ask the developer. they might let you have the source if you told them what it's for) and some of the "artistic" types could work up some fighters. I realize that 2d fighters have a rather limited appeal, but it's still an interesting and "original" project.

My version of MUGEN is for Win/DOS, not linux. Yes, I know that means it's not the most recent, but it's still good for me.

MUGEN allows custom backgrounds, moves, combos, characters, sounds, special effects, charge bars, tag-team battles, custom story modes, multiple difficulty levels, etc. You can find hundreds of characters already created and available online. To see what MUGEN can do, head over to www.the-underdogs.org and look for DragonballZ Millenium in the action/beat em up section.

 

[MojoJojo]

If I was doing a BASIC interpreter for the GP32, I would assume people wanted to type it in on a PC then transfer it accross, which means you might as well do all the parsing and stuff and make Pcode or something.

Not that Im planning to or anything.

 

[Chip]

A. I would have to retype the programs using the GP32 buttons, right?

B. I'm not familiar with those variants of BASIC, and I bet the same is true for a lot of people - Qbasic is likely the most popular version.

I suppose you could if you REALLY wanted to, but you could just typew them on the PC and transfer the files over.

All BASIC languages are fairly similar. You could port code from one flavor to another without too much hassle. The problem with QBasic is that it's certainly NOT open source. It's owned by Microsoft (programmed largely by Bill himself) and you couldn't pry the source code away from them with the biggest stick in the world. If you wanted to start from scratch you could make an interpreter that is 100% QB compatible, but that sounds like more work than it's really worth.

 

[The Dude]

There are QBasic clones out there for Windows (Liberty Basic is a popular one if I recall correctly). So it isn't unheard of to port QBasic.

Didn't the C64 and Atari ST have BASIC interpreters? Why not just use one of them?

Every computer system has had a version of BASIC. Even the Apple had it's own version (although it was really a part of the Pro-DOS operating system, and there was no IDE, it was all command line). There was even a BASIC cartridge for the Atari 2600.

The only problem with all of these older versions is the fact that they have no built in graphics functions. Graphics were done with PEEK and POKE commands, which directly control the video memory. They are not easy to use by any means, and it was a rare for a noncommercial game to use anything more than ASCII art.

Also, the various versions of BASIC are not very compatible at all. The simple commands like PRINT and GOTO work well enough, but after that, things get questionable. Things like graphics and arrays aren't handled the same, for instance.

Even the changes from ABasic to QBasic were enough that there was a section in the QBasic help files about converting your old programs.

Not to say you can't convert an older BASIC program to QBasic, but there is really no reason to. QBasic is the best and most popular BASIC compiler ever made, so there is little reason to even support other variations.

Also, there would be no way to write a program using the GP32's buttons, so the programs would need to be written and compiled on the PC.

Come to think of it, maybe you don't even need to port QBasic over to the GP32. Perhaps QBasic's compiler (the actual BASIC compiler is a separate program in QBasic) could be replaced with one that creates FXE's instead of EXE's (which of course are designed for GP32 hardware)?

 

[Rigor Mortis]

Come to think of it, maybe you don't even need to port QBasic over to the GP32. Perhaps QBasic's compiler (the actual BASIC compiler is a separate program in QBasic) could be replaced with one that creates FXE's instead of EXE's (which of course are designed for GP32 hardware)?

Yeah, that's a much better idea than having a interpreter on the GP32 - you couldn't even make small edits with a d-pad and 4 buttons....

 

[Chip]

Come to think of it, maybe you don't even need to port QBasic over to the GP32. Perhaps QBasic's compiler (the actual BASIC compiler is a separate program in QBasic) could be replaced with one that creates FXE's instead of EXE's (which of course are designed for GP32 hardware)?

A good idea, and kind of what I was thinking myself. The problem is that QBASIC's compiler, like the rest of the program, is not open-source. Neither is Liberty BASIC. Unless you wanted to start from scratch, you'd have to find a flavor of BASIC that is both close to QBASIC and open-source.