What's stopping you programming the Jaguar?

[sh3-rg]

I have been warned beforehead, so it`s not like I didn`t expect this

 

So before you even thought of looking at the Jaguar, someone tipped you off that you would have no end of problems... not just technical problems of an archaic system architecture, but people would be "abrasive"? Some people might say you get what you go looking for and reap what you sow. Lucky for you you didn't decide to do this 3 years or more ago... then you'd have been subjected to a whole new definition of harsh and abrasive, I can guarantee you that!

 

Anyway, enough of that nonsense, here's a suggestion or two based on what I've seen in the past few years. Take a step back and look at it from the point of view of the guys who have been members here for 10 years or so, and before then back on older forums that have been lost to time... They've seen people blaze in, make claims, tell them they're coming at it from the wrong angle, that they know best and begin to make promises and claims that, at best, are stretching possibilities, at worst, building false hopes. Even before they've opened up their first project file and written a single line of code they've got mock-up screens of what they will produce and, before they've even begun to write in joined up letters, they've looked to secure a publisher for something to rival the entire works of Shakespeare.

 

Basically.. first things first... It's good that you have a programming background, that you are employed in the industry and that you can demonstrate that you've put stuff out there, even if it was built with the Lego bricks of modern software development (something that bears little relation to a hit-the-hardware hackers playground such as the Jaguar) - it's more than some. What is a shame is that you didn't take the time to research the system, its strengths and deficiencies, and a gain a basic understanding of the hardware, before you began to make claims of what you can or will do. It's a shame that you make demands of others to set up your environment when you show little respect for their knowledge or experience of the Jaguar because they're not doing it the way you want to do it.

 

For these reasons, it's not surprising that you have rubbed some people up the wrong way and endured a little chaffing, but for the good of everyone, don't take them on or hit back with "I've been warned about you" type stuff, that's going the way of the bad old days. It's not going to help you make friends. it's not going to help you get on with getting to where you want to be. If you believe you know best & want to prove it, that's fine - people take their motivation from many different things. Take the time, do your homework, come back and make your claims when you can back them up and you'll only hear good things. You'll not only earn the respect of the Jaguar fans, you'll also prove a point to the existing developers and probably open the door for like-minded individuals to walk your beaten path...

 

Different people chose different ways to conduct themselves. You may feel the existing tools and methods of software creation are insufficient or not suited to yourself... but demanding others do something about this for you is probably not the best way to reach your goals from such an "abrasive" group of individuals. If you just want to enjoy hacking away at the Jaguar and see what can be done, why not take a leaf out of Dr.Typo's book? He didn't badger people or make great claims of his prowess, he just got on with it in his own time and posted links to finished work.

 

OK, that's that dealt with... so how to proceed?

 

The fact is, you want to set up the Removers library and begin experimenting with the Jaguar - that's as good a place to start as any, especially if you want to gauge possibilities. You've seen what Belboz has put together for developers. You've set your heart on working with existing libraries, but not in a way that is already proven to work. It seems glaringly obvious to me that you need to contact the person responsible for the libraries directly and work with him. Unfortunately, Seb rarely comes here. Even if he did you'd probably have more luck posting your questions and requests in the programming section, rather than buried deep in some old poll thread or someone else's release threads.

 

How about this? Visit the Jagware forum (somewhere Seb is active) or contact Seb directly via the infos on his website. Ask questions directly and if possible work with him directly, as others have, in order to get to where you want to be. If you feel the need to document your progress and help would-be programmers who want to follow your previous efforts, by all means make yourself a blog and link to it in your signature or start a new thread in a programming section of whichever forum you prefer. The benefits of that approach must seem quite obvious to a technically-minded programmer I'd have thought. And how about you leave all the what ifs, what could bes and what will bes for your future in Jaguar development for now or post them all to a section of a blog or a thread where you describe your ambitions and goals for the fruits of your labour a few years from now, instead of posting your claims in the threads of other subjects and other people's work? Basically, set out and lay sufficient foundations before telling us how high your skyscraper will rise or demanding others provide you with the basic machinery for you to dig yourself a hole to build up from (no pun intended), but by all means exercise your right to do so.. just in a manner that isn't going to rub the existing abrasive userbase up the wrong way...

[+Gemintronic]

For the total n00b who doesn't want to install Visual C try xampp to get a Windows 7 64-bit compatible nmake:

http://www.apachefri...pp-windows.html

 

Manually add nmakes folder to your path:

;C:\xampp\perl\bin

 

Download Jagulator for an emulator:

http://subqmod.com/?page_id=25

 

Fire up a command line and type nmake in the C:\JAGUAR\HELLO directory

 

Fire up Jagulator and hit LOAD BINARY. Select the jag.bin file that was created in the C:\Jaguar\Hello folder. Enter 4000 for the loading address.

 

Making an actual Jaguar .ROM is beyond me at this point. Heck, I just figured this out a few minutes ago thanks to GroovyBees hints

Edited July 1, 2012 by theloon

[+GroovyBee]

If you Google around you can get an old version of Microsoft NMAKE (v1.5?) from their website.

 

I hadn't noticed that there is already that very same version of make in the ..\bin directory. All you need to do is add the full path to that tools directory and away you go.

[+GroovyBee]

I find it odd that two people who aren't actually jag coders managed to get a "C" compiler going for it (with an IDE) in under an hour whilst somebody who actually wants to be a jag coder has been going on about it (and failing at it) for a couple of weeks. Only in the jag scene! .

[+Gemintronic]

If you Google around you can get an old version of Microsoft NMAKE (v1.5?) from their website.

 

I hadn't noticed that there is already that very same version of make in the ..\bin directory. All you need to do is add the full path to that tools directory and away you go.

 

Not for Windows 7 users. NMAKE 1.5 is a naughty no-no.

 

P.S. I'm not even a C programmer. I got back 12 errors last time I tried to compile a 7 line hello world example in Borland C!

Edited July 1, 2012 by theloon

[+GroovyBee]

Not for Windows 7 users. NMAKE 1.5 is a naughty no-no.

 

Thats good to know. I'm still on XP for homebrew dev.

[+CyranoJ]

This one seems to work

MAKE.zip

[LinkoVitch]

 

Not for Windows 7 users. NMAKE 1.5 is a naughty no-no.

 

P.S. I'm not even a C programmer. I got back 12 errors last time I tried to compile a 7 line hello world example in Borland C!

 

What version of Win7 are you running? If it's 64bit then it will flat refuse to run old 16bit DOS applications (Win7 32bit will still run them however). I got around this problem (I still use MAC and ALN) by using DOSBOX on my win7 64bit machine.

 

HTH

[LinkoVitch]

It`s so easy you can`t be bothered, eh ?

 

With attitude like that, why should I bother to help?

 

You said yourself your free time is limited, you think mine is not? I have a raft of things I need to do, an even longer list of things I want to do, and then life as well! As with most of my projects I tend to stick them on a list and when I get a bit of time and the mood takes me I'll pull something off the list and do it.

 

You come here asking for help, tell people they are wrong when they try to offer advice or help, essentially call them stupid, and have the gall to make demands! Yet we are the ones who have setup dev environments, have written code, have released things, but we are in the wrong?! nice.

[the.golden.ax]

I never learned how to read.

[+GroovyBee]

If people spent more time researching rather than complaining about the lack of tools they might have found this :-

 

http://www.hillsoftware.com/file-downloads-2/

 

Just download the first link "Windows 2K/XP/VISTA comp Jag dev tools v1.02 (5MB installer)". Then go in the hello folder after you've installed it and take a looksee in there.

 

Looking at the startup code that gets the machine into a good state the example is only good for BJL images "out of the box". For cart based game development it'll need a linker script and startup.s code changes to handle the BSS and DATA sections correctly.

[VladR]

If people spent more time researching rather than complaining about the lack of tools they might have found this :-

 

http://www.hillsoftw...le-downloads-2/

 

Just download the first link "Windows 2K/XP/VISTA comp Jag dev tools v1.02 (5MB installer)". Then go in the hello folder after you've installed it and take a looksee in there.

 

If people actually bothered to read the thread they rushed to spit into, they would have fond out that I got the C-dev env configured under Windows already about 2 weeks ago and that this is about getting Removers library examples compiled under CygWin.

 

 

 

I find it odd that two people who aren't actually jag coders managed to get a "C" compiler going for it (with an IDE) in under an hour whilst somebody who actually wants to be a jag coder has been going on about it (and failing at it) for a couple of weeks. Only in the jag scene! .

 

I find it odd that I have to repeat the same statement in a same reply to a same person(right below the original statement),but here it goes again:

I got the C-dev env configured under Windows already about 2 weeks ago and that this is about getting Removers library examples compiled under CygWin.

Only in the jagscene !

 

Now, I understand that some people are slower (don`t get me wrong, there`s nothing wrong with that!), so just to be on the safe side, I`ll repeat (for the third time, but others, please show the compassion and bear with me - thanks!):

This is about getting Removers library examples compiled under CygWin.

 

 

It`s so easy you can`t be bothered, eh ?

 

With attitude like that, why should I bother to help?

I wanted to apologize, if you have taken my above quote as "demanding and audacious". The point of that teasing comment (did you notice the smile there? Still nothing ?!?) from me was that Cyrano was comparing dev-env setup of a simple assembler (where all you need is smac/sln) to Removers library set-up under Cygwin, even though he never tried it (yet, he had the audacity of attacking me).

But the damage has been done, so it`s too late for me to apologize for the misunderstanding, anyway. So, screw that...

 

 

 

I know 1.5 gb is a bit much, but, if there's no Win32 ALR linker I still think Portable Ubuntu may give it a chance. We're talking native Linux running under Windows.

Fantastic idea, man ! Thanks ! I completely forgot about Portable ubuntu as an alternative to Cygwin. This way, I wouldn`t have to reboot the machine every time I find a small time slot for Jag development (which is my primary reason, why I don`t want to go the Linux-Jag-DevEnv-Boot-CD way). I just tried the Win-32 ALN linker, but it obviously doesn`t recognize the *.o generated by mint under cygwin, just as I expected.

 

Either way, thanks for the idea ! I almost considered an idea of the Linux Boot CD. Yuck !

 

You are the only one who actually gave a constructive suggestion. That`s kind-of shocking, to be honest. Are you sure you just didn`t forget to bash me first ? You`re a beacon of light here, which (after having been warned multiple times) I totally didn`t expect it at all within this community of

[Shamus]

Getting back on topic...

 

For the longest time I never tried because of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth and carrying on about how unbelievably difficult it was to do anything on the Jaguar. So, one day I decided to see just how difficult it really was for myself, and over the space of a few days and a few spare hours, made this little demo. It's nothing special really; no RISC action, all 68K and OP with a tiny smattering of blitter action (for block copying--it's much faster than the 68K for that chore ).

 

And yes, it works on real HW too.

demo1.zip

[+GroovyBee]

So, one day I decided to see just how difficult it really was for myself, and over the space of a few days and a few spare hours, made this little demo.

 

Looks like you got everything you need going to make a game in your demo. You just need an idea, time, art/sound assets and you are off and running.

[+Gemintronic]

Not for Windows 7 users. NMAKE 1.5 is a naughty no-no.

 

P.S. I'm not even a C programmer. I got back 12 errors last time I tried to compile a 7 line hello world example in Borland C!

 

What version of Win7 are you running? If it's 64bit then it will flat refuse to run old 16bit DOS applications (Win7 32bit will still run them however). I got around this problem (I still use MAC and ALN) by using DOSBOX on my win7 64bit machine.

 

HTH

 

I dunno which parts are 16-bit but following my instructions one should be able to compile things under a 64 bit Windows OS. I didn't try anything RAPTOR related as I was given the impression the C library version was a work in progress.

 

If anyone needs a dead-end user to test compile a RAPTOR example I'm available This offer is actually more useful than you'd think. In a previous career I was a software tester. The trick is to retain an end-user mentality while being literate enough in software development to document UI and bug related issues. Could save a bit of grief down the line.

Edited July 2, 2012 by theloon

[+Stephen]

Getting back on topic...

 

For the longest time I never tried because of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth and carrying on about how unbelievably difficult it was to do anything on the Jaguar. So, one day I decided to see just how difficult it really was for myself, and over the space of a few days and a few spare hours, made this little demo. It's nothing special really; no RISC action, all 68K and OP with a tiny smattering of blitter action (for block copying--it's much faster than the 68K for that chore ).

 

And yes, it works on real HW too.

Wow - that is really cool looking! I love the references to Antic, and the rainbow fuji