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[Shine Klevit]

I'm not sure if this exists, or even how to phrase it, but there was a thought that's been sticking in the back of my mind. Are there any good libraries/environments designed explicitely to simulate a system with extremely limited resources?

I've always had a deeper respect of older games; especially 20+ hour RPGS that were built on 16 bit platforms, or RPGs that are even playable on 8 bit. Not just for nostalgia, but for the idea that they were working in such constrained environments.

I always felt that it'd be cool to sort of work on a project that emulates those environments. It's not something that I want to do immediately as I probably won't have enough time to pick up another project for a long while. It's really just a curiosity at this moment. Howver, I want to keep the possibility open in the future.

I know homebrew is a possibility. It's someting that I haven't looked that deeply into. But, I was just wondering if there are any suggestions on ways to approach this.

I'm even tempted into setting up a custom sort of environment. I'm guessing probably in C if I go forward with it. I imagine it'd have to get pretty low level.

I've been thinking maybe SDL to do a limited color palette(even though it's a bit more generous than most 8 bit or 16 bit systems from what I read), and possibly just using a byte(char) array to kind of simulate ram(an idea that makes me feel a tad dirty, I guess). These are just vague thoughts, though, I'm sure there are better ways to approach it.

Then again, I don't know if that would really truly simulate that kind of environment seeing as how on glancing in information about devkits that 8 bit and 16 bit systems did not have them, and that they had to be made in-house, usually. Presumably using heavy dosages of machine code, but I still would like to someday look into experimenting in that direction.

[voidSkipper]

I never miss an opportunity to pimp my own project

I have a similar reverence for limited systems development, and as such I built a virtual console that runs in your browser.

It has a 32bit CPU @ 72khz, a 15bit PPU @ 30fps, and limited addressable RAM and ROM space.

At the moment the only development platform available for it is assembly.

You can find it here: http://vo-em.com
The wiki with specs and dev docs: http://wiki.vo-em.com

[emptyfortress]

You may be interested in Pico-8, "a fantasy console for making, sharing and playing tiny games and other computer programs. When you turn it on, the machine greets you with a shell for typing in Lua commands and provides simple built-in tools for creating your own cartridges."

It uses lua but you can peek() and poke() at the ram etc...

linky: http://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

[Shine Klevit]

I never miss an opportunity to pimp my own project

I have a similar reverence for limited systems development, and as such I built a virtual console that runs in your browser.

It has a 32bit CPU @ 72khz, a 15bit PPU @ 30fps, and limited addressable RAM and ROM space.

At the moment the only development platform available for it is assembly.

You can find it here: http://vo-em.com
The wiki with specs and dev docs: http://wiki.vo-em.com

That's actually quite intriguing. In fact, far more committed to the concept than what I was thinking. I'm definitely going to keep it in mind. If not, at the very least, as an excuse for me to finally get around to learning assembly(Something I've always wanted to do, but have been kind of intimidated by).

You may be interested in Pico-8, "a fantasy console for making, sharing and playing tiny games and other computer programs. When you turn it on, the machine greets you with a shell for typing in Lua commands and provides simple built-in tools for creating your own cartridges."

It uses lua but you can peek() and poke() at the ram etc...

linky: http://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

I skimmed through some of the games provided on the site. This also seems like a viable option.

[voidSkipper]

I never miss an opportunity to pimp my own project

I have a similar reverence for limited systems development, and as such I built a virtual console that runs in your browser.

It has a 32bit CPU @ 72khz, a 15bit PPU @ 30fps, and limited addressable RAM and ROM space.

At the moment the only development platform available for it is assembly.

You can find it here: http://vo-em.com
The wiki with specs and dev docs: http://wiki.vo-em.com

That's actually quite intriguing. In fact, far more committed to the concept than what I was thinking. I'm definitely going to keep it in mind. If not, at the very least, as an excuse for me to finally get around to learning assembly(Something I've always wanted to do, but have been kind of intimidated by).

Have a read through the tutorials - if you still find it intimidating, I'll rewrite them and make them clearer.

Assembly is actually surprisingly easy.