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Darkus
Registered: Apr 2007
Posts: 8 |
Coding for beginners
I`ve been searching the net for assembler guides and applications but I hoping someone can recommend the best guides and programs I should use for starting out - plus are there any issues with using emulators only ? Anyone who may answer these questions, please bare in mind I know very little about the C64 platform at this stage :) |
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Conjuror
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 168 |
My lecturer at college was getting the students to do the 2^x, I took over after 2^8 and went to 2^16. They all looked at me like I was a freak. All from memory of course.
Steve
Conjuror/TF
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Martin Piper
Registered: Nov 2007
Posts: 722 |
Being able to mentally convert bases, especially decimal to binary or hex, is very useful while coding low level languages. I've been disappointed by the number of times I've interviewed job applicants for programming positions and found they couldn't convert the hex numbers in programming tests or understand the concept of bit masks. |
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Conjuror
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 168 |
Quote: Being able to mentally convert bases, especially decimal to binary or hex, is very useful while coding low level languages. I've been disappointed by the number of times I've interviewed job applicants for programming positions and found they couldn't convert the hex numbers in programming tests or understand the concept of bit masks.
I think thats a bit harsh. Ok I can do it (sometimes), but don't need it in my every day job. (Java Developer.)
Maybe it shows a mind set or an extra interest in how computers work, so is a bonus.
My maths generally is not that good, but rarely do I need it at work. Recently I had to do coding to calculate the decay of radionuclides which wasn't too bad but calculating expiry dates was tricker. I had to reverse calculations which were exponential using logarithms. Didn't have a clue, but have friends with the knowledge so still managed to give the client what they needed.
Steve
Conjuror/TF |
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Sander
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 496 |
Hehe, though i'm not a coder... i had a similar experience.
In primairy school, the teacher and the kids were in awe when i had to double the numbers and said these numbers in a row without a second of thought: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048. (ok, mine ended just there.. soz i became pikseler) |
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Archmage
Registered: Aug 2006
Posts: 185 |
I'm with Sander on this one. Still I am convinced that it is possible to do some ok coding without being able to do decimal to binary to hex conversion standing on one foot. It's not all about the records either. A screens with some graphics displayed and a tasteful simple effect plus a scroller can be nice too. |
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Burglar
Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 1101 |
Quote: I'm with Sander on this one. Still I am convinced that it is possible to do some ok coding without being able to do decimal to binary to hex conversion standing on one foot. It's not all about the records either. A screens with some graphics displayed and a tasteful simple effect plus a scroller can be nice too.
that maybe true, but even for a simple scroller you need to know hex or binary. you need to understand how $d016 (smooth scroll register) works and what to store in it... doing that in decimal is more difficult ;) |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5094 |
I have made a "smooth" upscroll in basic I knew how to use d011 (trial and error) and print statements to scroll up a charline when needed.
I have made my own charset in basic including data lines, poking them to mem, switching it on, etc. without a char editor, by drawing the chars on paper and calculating them by hand.
I have made a sprite editor in basic, which even saved the sprites as seq.
I have made a little animated (different phases for directions, animated turns) airplane sprite flying around the screen, being able to takeoff/touchdown to a runway, dropping bombs, etc in basic.
all this without knowing shit about hex or binary. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386 |
you have created a sprite bitmap and calculated the right numbers to poke in memory without knowing binary? somehow that seems unlikely =P you might have not known that you did indeed know about it at this point =P |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5094 |
there was a book explaining the process(edit: chapter 6.2 in the user manual, it explains it without introducing binary or bytes). I had another book explaining all the "pokes" of the sid/vic/cia with examples. fex.: poke 53265,(peek(53265) and 248)+yscroll |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386 |
Quote:
there was a book explaining the process.
it had a table with all possible combinations of the sprite bitmap and the corrosponding bitmap?
or did it explain the process of converting a row of pixels (== a binary number) to decimal?
i dont know, but somehow one of these seems unlikely =) |
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