Isn't it funny how there were hundreds of companies that made famicom games, and the systems probably has the most games ever made for a console, yet the development kits are no where to be found?
Isn't it funny how there were hundreds of companies that made famicom games, and the systems probably has the most games ever made for a console, yet the development kits are no where to be found?
Is famicon development like the 2600 so no real dev tools would would have been needed?
You said your friend had one assembler.I would be interested in seeing if these things actually exist because a lot of famicom games were made and it would be hard to make that many without a dev unit.
Wouldnt it be easier to make games if u dint need any sort of special hardware?
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Originally Posted by Paulo
I would agree. if I can develop and test on my pc or sun workstation in emulation it makes hardware needed a loss less. I would think on the old systems that would be more the way to do it. Whne it was ready for test you would burn the game to the chip. On the 2600 I have over 100 of their chips used for testing this way
Actually it's not hard to make Famicom games without dev hardware because everyone does it. I believe the only people with Famicom development hardware were maybe 10 of the top developers. I know there are some post 1990 IS tools but haven't seen them, it's clear that games like Kirby were made with a little more than DASM and DPaint. Remember this is a time when people were capable of reverse engineering each other's code so documents etc were hardly necessary.
Here is all the development hardware necessary to make/test a FC game:
-6502 assembler
-retail FC game
-2 x ROM emulators
Last edited by Calpis; 03-01-2005 at 04:43 PM.
those who can't make, mod
Well, there at least had to be some documentation from N, which I would consider a "devkit", even if there is no modified hardware. I doubt they would have used emulation back then, given the performance of all but the more expensive systems at the time. I would imagine that they used some sort of hardware to test, even if it was essentially an unmodified NES/FC with an EPROM cart (and in the case of an NES, either a lockout chip on the EPROM cart, or a bypassed lockout in the console).
I know that nowadays, it's way too easy to write code that will work on an emulator, but not on hardware (not personal knowledge, but from talking to some NES homebrewers).
Wouldn't it be nice if N financed a museum where you could see 'confidential' stuff like proto hardware and games, dev kits, and the like? It'd especially be nice if they displayed the early NES proto hardware.
Last edited by LocalH; 03-01-2005 at 05:01 PM.
wasnt there a famicom / nes thing on ebay this week something with station or so in its name, dont know if that fits your description
Documentation isn't necessary at all, I'm positive none was flying around. Figuring out the FC's memory map and I/O ports is so easy from disassembling other people's programs that nobody needed docs. Also Famicom doesn't have a lockout chip. Emulation was not feasible back then on 16mhz PCATs. By ROM emulator I mean a piece of SRAM that simulates ROM, one for the CPU and one for the PPU bus.
those who can't make, mod
That's why I said "In the case of the NES" ;)
If nintendo charged a licensing fee, you got some sort of documentation, sample code, something. And back then the PC wasn't too powerful, I can't see doing much more than coding and then burn to test eprom.
From acclaim I got this old XT with a eprom card in it, with about a 2 foot long umbilical to an eprom ZIF and was boxed with some NES eprom boards. There were three old xt's , but when I came back the next day the bastards running the auction had stolen two of them.
Sample code for NES? ;) Not necessary like I said. Seriously people would steal snippits of code from other games. All people need to know is a basic startup routine and they're set. Until 1990 or so 6502 was as known as HTML is today.
Again, ROM emulators are all that's necessary as burning EPROM is too much of a hassle. If developers wanted to create their own memory management chip, that's their own deal, if they wanted to use one of Nintendo's then that's another story. Likely Nintendo supplied MMC documents to their developers.
those who can't make, mod
You might be right, but I would still imagine there would be *some* documentation, even if it is quite basic (like a few photocopied sheets of paper or something). Just because it hasn't leaked yet doesn't necessarily mean it didn't exist - witness the huge amount of first party games without any leaked protos (not including release candidates that are binary-identical). In fact, the only two N-created games that I can think of off-hand with leaked protos are NES Mother and SNES Starfox 2, neither of which was actually released.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the CPU in the SNES was sorta backwards compatible with the NES CPU, code wise. I also believe that people found it a bit of a pain in the arse using the SNES dev tools, so they went back to using their NES tools, and so made do without some of the extra features of the SNES CPU.
I also believe that the NES devving wasn't done on a PC, but in fact something like an Atari.
*edit* Sorry, Apple II GS, but that might've been for SNES?
Last edited by retro; 03-02-2005 at 12:38 AM.
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NES DEV...hardware i never see....but i have see they use normal eprom writer to burn rom to test.
face to software dev, i have see they use MSX to programming and draw graphic,TEXT write....
SNES, japan game maker they use PC98 programming and draw graphic,TEXT write. and use special I/O card to SFII box to test.
65816 had a compatibility mode of some sort for 6502, I'd be pretty surprised if anyone used it though. Weird how they didn't bother making SNES backwards compatible with NES.
Apple IIGS units were indeed used in some development with the Super NES. As far as the NES/SNES backards compatability goes - if I recall right, apparently they ARE backards compatable save for some tiny detail. It was in something I read on Nintendo a while ago - I can't for the life of me remember what the problem was nor where I read it.
65816's 6502 mode is 99% compatible, but there are nuances ("errors") to the 6502 that were fixed in the 65C02 which were of course included in the 65816 so it's harder than it sounds to bring compatibility. I agree with what Ricky said, I know that for a fact most if not 99% of PCE/SFC development was done on PC-98s and I would imagine that the MSX would be a great (cheap) and time relevant solution for FC development.
I know however that Amigas were vastly popular for all development at the time in the UK and I imagine that they were well used from the late 80s into the early 90s in UK games.
Also I don't think that anyone used strictly 6502 instructions, don't think thats even possible.
Last edited by Calpis; 03-02-2005 at 02:53 PM.
those who can't make, mod
You know from what i read in "the ulyimsyr history of video games, based on what rare did alot of companies just made their own tools for nes games, and i do also remember reading that nintendo was extremely stingy anout giving out documentation to develpers, hence rare had to reverse enginer the console, in fact they were able to find things not documented at all such as split screen. If anyone had offical dev kits it was nintendo, however nintendo is known for recycling and trashing their dev hardware for their old systems as far as i know.
True. But the point is that one is 8 bit (65C02 = NES CPU) and the other being 16 bit (65c816=SNES CPU), which makes it *nearly* impossible to develop snes games with a NES Devkit...i presume they had an emulator running on somewhere, or something like the PS1 dev kit...but i could be wrong :P
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