General Programming Question

[Atari Scorpio]

Hi,

 

I am new to the programming scene and was wondering if it was possible to convert program code, say from a Nintendo Gameboy game, and play it on an Atari video game system such as the Atari Lynx or 7800? Is this possible?

 

Atari Scorpio

[Sir Plus]

Not really.....since the hardware itself varies so much between systems. With available "source code", this type of conversion would be pretty easy if the hardware is similar (like converting the 800 software to run on the 5200), but more difficult on different platforms (like converting the 800 software to run on a C64). The fact that all of those (besides the lynx) are using the 6502 instruction set is little consolation.....you would need to change so much code that it would be easier to program the whole thing from scratch.

[eric_ruck]

Actually I would think that you could port Gameboy games to the Lynx rather easily, since the "tile" system can be done pretty simply with Lynx sprites. But it would still be a big job, with our without the source code.

 

Emulation would be out of the question...heck, to get good Lynx emulation under Windows you need at least 800MHz CPU.

 

Eric