3 ms·

It's really kind of cool how many of these old games were built on top of their own custom vms. Of course there is the Infocom Z-machine, going way back, that

by douche 10y ago

It's really kind of cool how many of these old games were built on top of their own custom vms. Of course there is the Infocom Z-machine, going way back, that made porting between all the different microcomputers of that era somewhat easier. Another interesting writeup of this kind of an architecture is for Another World [1]. Along those lines, I wonder in the case of The Lost Vikings, how much of the game code was able to be reused between the different platforms it was released on (SNES, Genesis, PC, maybe Mac, I don't remember?) [1] http://fabiensanglard.net/anotherWorld_code_review/index.php http://fabiensanglard.net/anotherWorld_code_review/index.php

digi_owl 10y ago
I suspect the mix of CPUs in use back then had an impact. After all, you had the 6502, Z80, 68000, and various x86 generation all bouncing around (the 486 was introduced in 1989, this game was released in 1993). The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive for example had both a 68000 and a Z80 inside it, while the SNES used a 6502 clone.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  The Mega Drive's Z80 was essentially just powerful enough to play music and sounds - it couldn't really be used for much else, leaving the 68k to focus on gameplay and manipulating the sprite-based Video Display Processor.
  - boomlinde 10y ago
    Only relatively speaking. The MD runs the games of the previous generation (Master System) natively on the Z80. The hardware of the MD, including the VDP and audio, is basically a superset of that of the MS.
    - vertex-four 10y ago
      While true, people expected better audio out of the Genesis than the Master System, which involved more processing power.
- khedoros1 10y ago
  > while the SNES used a 6502 clone The NES used a 6502 clone, with a few minor changes (no BCD mode, I think some changes to interrupts, addition of sound-generation hardware). The SNES used a 65c816 clone, from the same family of chips.

by douche 10y ago

digi_owl 10y ago

I suspect the mix of CPUs in use back then had an impact. After all, you had the 6502, Z80, 68000, and various x86 generation all bouncing around (the 486 was introduced in 1989, this game was released in 1993). The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive for example had both a 68000 and a Z80 inside it, while the SNES used a 6502 clone.

vertex-four 10y ago
The Mega Drive's Z80 was essentially just powerful enough to play music and sounds - it couldn't really be used for much else, leaving the 68k to focus on gameplay and manipulating the sprite-based Video Display Processor.
- boomlinde 10y ago
  Only relatively speaking. The MD runs the games of the previous generation (Master System) natively on the Z80. The hardware of the MD, including the VDP and audio, is basically a superset of that of the MS.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    While true, people expected better audio out of the Genesis than the Master System, which involved more processing power.
khedoros1 10y ago
> while the SNES used a 6502 clone The NES used a 6502 clone, with a few minor changes (no BCD mode, I think some changes to interrupts, addition of sound-generation hardware). The SNES used a 65c816 clone, from the same family of chips.