4 ms·

> Surely most professionals used cross-compilers on real computers I've often wondered about that. Writing machine code on an off-the-shelf Spectrum with a tap

by Joeboy 15y ago

> Surely most professionals used cross-compilers on real computers I've often wondered about that. Writing machine code on an off-the-shelf Spectrum with a tape deck was extremely painful, and I never really got beyond a few funky machine code graphics routines. I'd be really interested to know how many of the people that did were working with the same limitations I was.

Steve44 15y ago
I first got a ZX81 and learned to program on that. When I got the Spectrum I started writing assembler on it. The first few games were developed entirely on one Spectrum in my bedroom. In hindsight it probably was difficult, but at the time it was wonderfully exciting and that is the way it was. I did use Hisoft tools at some point, can't remember from how early. I also wrote a few of my own. When I later went in-house with a company they used TRS80s with a hardware link. The code was edited and assembled on the TRS80 then downloaded and executed on the Spectrum. They were fantastic pioneering days to me. I owe a lot to Sir Clive.
garymcm 15y ago
I once read an article on "Ultimate Play The Game", masters of the Spectrum from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and they did indeed cross compile their code from a mainframe I believe.
Steve44 15y ago
garymcm, I'm not sure about a mainframe for Ultimate - they were very clever guys though. I know Imagine (spin off from BugByte) used Unix workstations for development. I can't remember what they were called but when they went bust I went to the auction and drooled over all their kit
mpclark 15y ago
Early on there just weren't cross compilers and "real computers", at least not in the British "back bedroom" games scene. I didn't write on the Spectrum, but certainly on the Dragon and the C64 it was a case of write, save, execute, reset, load, write some more. It was this sort of tedium which provoked at least one of my more able chums to write out his assembly in longhand and then produce pages of handwritten hex to type in instead. After I made a bit of money I upgraded to two C64s and two floppy disk drives, so I could write on one and test on the other. That would have been about 1985. And then a while after that a miraculous invention called "PDS" came along, which involved a hardware connection from a PC to the target system, and simplified everything greatly. You wrote code on the PC and just squirted it into the target's brain. Oh how I wanted to use that, but by then I was out of programming... The Oliver Twins have written reams of background about the early days that touches on this: http://www.olivertwins.com/history http://www.olivertwins.com/history
- gaius 15y ago
  Both of those had keyboards you could use comfortably for long periods tho' (as did the VIC-20 and BBC Micro). Certainly they're as good as if not better than many modern keyboards!

by Joeboy 15y ago

Steve44 15y ago

I first got a ZX81 and learned to program on that. When I got the Spectrum I started writing assembler on it. The first few games were developed entirely on one Spectrum in my bedroom. In hindsight it probably was difficult, but at the time it was wonderfully exciting and that is the way it was. I did use Hisoft tools at some point, can't remember from how early. I also wrote a few of my own. When I later went in-house with a company they used TRS80s with a hardware link. The code was edited and assembled on the TRS80 then downloaded and executed on the Spectrum. They were fantastic pioneering days to me. I owe a lot to Sir Clive.

garymcm 15y ago

I once read an article on "Ultimate Play The Game", masters of the Spectrum from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and they did indeed cross compile their code from a mainframe I believe.

Steve44 15y ago

garymcm, I'm not sure about a mainframe for Ultimate - they were very clever guys though. I know Imagine (spin off from BugByte) used Unix workstations for development. I can't remember what they were called but when they went bust I went to the auction and drooled over all their kit

mpclark 15y ago

Early on there just weren't cross compilers and "real computers", at least not in the British "back bedroom" games scene. I didn't write on the Spectrum, but certainly on the Dragon and the C64 it was a case of write, save, execute, reset, load, write some more. It was this sort of tedium which provoked at least one of my more able chums to write out his assembly in longhand and then produce pages of handwritten hex to type in instead. After I made a bit of money I upgraded to two C64s and two floppy disk drives, so I could write on one and test on the other. That would have been about 1985. And then a while after that a miraculous invention called "PDS" came along, which involved a hardware connection from a PC to the target system, and simplified everything greatly. You wrote code on the PC and just squirted it into the target's brain. Oh how I wanted to use that, but by then I was out of programming... The Oliver Twins have written reams of background about the early days that touches on this: http://www.olivertwins.com/history http://www.olivertwins.com/history

gaius 15y ago
Both of those had keyboards you could use comfortably for long periods tho' (as did the VIC-20 and BBC Micro). Certainly they're as good as if not better than many modern keyboards!