Andy even controlled the physical layout of bytes on the CD-ROM disk so that—even at 300KB/sec—the PS1 could load the data for each piece of a given level by the time Crash ended up there.
For the sake of getting things done, I am glad we have surpassed the need to deal with problems like this, but man this sort of problem would make for a hell of a work week.
I actually came to say the opposite. It's going to make me sound like a rachety old man, but...
Now that this kind of storage and memory is cheap and available, many programmers have lost the ability to make elegant programming tricks like here.
When I was a kid, computer and console games were packed as tight as humanly possible, like in the article. Now, a lot of games and programs are bloated for the sheer fact that they can be.
No, I get it, it used to be a unique skill, and require a level of talent and understanding of not only the language, but how the machine works too. Nowadays its jus download a javascript ide and go to town, no need to understand anything but the high level language you're working in. Its good for getting things done in a compuer driven society, but there is something special about what programming was.
Reminds me of David Crane's Pitfall Classic Postmortem. Of particular interest is the fact that the Atari 2600 had only 128 bytes of RAM memory. That's half a 6502 page, so you don't even have room for a stack, much less any kind of bloat. Forget fancy high level languages, you're writing in 6502 assembly at best. This is the realm of hand coded machine language where you exploit every possible aspect of the hardware to avoid having to add another byte or cycle to your code.
Is there a way that I, as a beginner programmer who is still trying to grasp the basics, can get on this guy's level and develop games on specific hardware limitations?
13 comments
11 u/TheSniperFan 26 Jun 2015 15:57
Jesus christ. After that, you're a man.
5 u/Shakyamuni 26 Jun 2015 12:27
Goddamn.
4 u/SevereHeebieJeebies 26 Jun 2015 14:30
For the sake of getting things done, I am glad we have surpassed the need to deal with problems like this, but man this sort of problem would make for a hell of a work week.
5 u/2716057 26 Jun 2015 18:58
I actually came to say the opposite. It's going to make me sound like a rachety old man, but...
Now that this kind of storage and memory is cheap and available, many programmers have lost the ability to make elegant programming tricks like here.
When I was a kid, computer and console games were packed as tight as humanly possible, like in the article. Now, a lot of games and programs are bloated for the sheer fact that they can be.
2 u/SevereHeebieJeebies 26 Jun 2015 21:17
No, I get it, it used to be a unique skill, and require a level of talent and understanding of not only the language, but how the machine works too. Nowadays its jus download a javascript ide and go to town, no need to understand anything but the high level language you're working in. Its good for getting things done in a compuer driven society, but there is something special about what programming was.
0 u/bigfondue 28 Jun 2015 13:23
If you want to experience this again, look into embedded programming.
2 u/Clbull 28 Jun 2015 16:02
Not necessarily. I'm sure we've lost this ability because of how large, complex and feature-packed games are these days.
It's a lot easier to optimize a character model with about 50 - 100 polygons than than a character model with thousands of polygons for instance.
3 u/jordanary 26 Jun 2015 17:50
Ugh, I think I would break my brain having to do this.
1 u/mereblood 26 Jun 2015 18:00
That was the most interesting part of the article for me. It's like breaking everything you've been taught to make it work.
0 u/effusive_ermine 27 Jun 2015 16:08
Reminds me of David Crane's Pitfall Classic Postmortem. Of particular interest is the fact that the Atari 2600 had only 128 bytes of RAM memory. That's half a 6502 page, so you don't even have room for a stack, much less any kind of bloat. Forget fancy high level languages, you're writing in 6502 assembly at best. This is the realm of hand coded machine language where you exploit every possible aspect of the hardware to avoid having to add another byte or cycle to your code.
0 u/Clbull 28 Jun 2015 15:51
Is there a way that I, as a beginner programmer who is still trying to grasp the basics, can get on this guy's level and develop games on specific hardware limitations?
1 u/adrianN 28 Jun 2015 17:25
Sure, it's called hard work and dedication. You could read "From NAND to Tetris" for starters. After that you should have the basics down.
0 u/effusive_ermine 30 Jun 2015 15:33
You probably don't to, but you could grab an emulator for your favorite 1980s home micro and teach yourself assembly language.