A question to Joe

darkhog

New member
Will you ever continue tutorials for "real" coding for the NES? It looks like there aren't many good ASM6-based tutorials (and asm6 seems to be easiest assembler) and I've found an old unfinished tutorial series on Joe's vimeo, right here: https://vimeo.com/127556151 (the same lovely voice right there we all love)

Dunno where to put that so I've put it here.
 

Mihoshi20

Member
I actually second this as those tutorials are amazingly well done. There really are no decent NES specific assembly videos or text based tutorials period. A lot of people cite the nerdy nights tutorials which are outdated and poorly structured and don't provide a product you built from start to finish. Instead just building disjointed tech/proof of concept demos and hoping you absorbed all the technobabble.

Joe's videos were very well thought out and also very importantly helped you understand what the NES does and why more then just type this code and see what happens, now here's a technobabble dump that I hope you understand. I'm not stranger to programming or game design, but I was not used to such low level ways of working with the hardware it took a while for even the basics to click like having to setup the memory manager yourself or having direct control over the RAM and CPU. I was so used to the hardware doing that for me through the OS or otherwise. People who design for and work with the hardware so closely sometimes overlook ways to make it understandable to someone just jumping in for the first time.

Joe's videos are well designed in this aspect. After that I could go back and read the tech documents and follow other tutorials and actually better understand what it all meant.

Though I do understand the challenges in making more vids, especially if they don't get enough views to make the time worth it. He also can't be working on NESmaker, raising a kid, working his dayjob/keeping a tidy home if on maternity leave, finding time to ones self to recoup, and also make NES assembly tutorials all at the same time. It would be overwhelming.
 

dale_coop

Moderator
Staff member
Just watched those videos this morning. Agree with you guys, hope there will be more NES dev videos by Joe!
 

RadJunk

Administrator
Staff member
Just seeing this now, floating through some of the topics I don't frequent.

Let's get this thing out in the world first, then I may revisit. The problem is the subject is SO nebulous! So what might be easier is showing how things are done with the engine underneath the core of NESmaker, where users can see immediate results of their changes, rather than have to code for a week just to see a result on a screen. :)
 

Mihoshi20

Member
TheNew8bitHeroes said:
Just seeing this now, floating through some of the topics I don't frequent.

Let's get this thing out in the world first, then I may revisit. The problem is the subject is SO nebulous! So what might be easier is showing how things are done with the engine underneath the core of NESmaker, where users can see immediate results of their changes, rather than have to code for a week just to see a result on a screen. :)

I couldn't agree more. One of the annoying things about developing for the NES and what makes NESmaker such an amazing product is like with QBasic or Game Maker, you could make one simple change and just do a test run and see that change instantly. Granted Game Maker does the backend compiling for you first like how NESmaker passes everything to ASM6 for assembly and then launches the assembled rom. If you were just doing raw coding in a notepad, then having to save it, then edit the batch file for asm6 or nesasm, then then open the rom into your emulator only to have it black or gray screen. I'd still love to have an intuitive, interactive, and user friendly debugger but NESmaker is already light years ahead of doing it the old fashioned way.
 

darkhog

New member
Mihoshi20 said:
TheNew8bitHeroes said:
Just seeing this now, floating through some of the topics I don't frequent.

Let's get this thing out in the world first, then I may revisit. The problem is the subject is SO nebulous! So what might be easier is showing how things are done with the engine underneath the core of NESmaker, where users can see immediate results of their changes, rather than have to code for a week just to see a result on a screen. :)

I couldn't agree more. One of the annoying things about developing for the NES and what makes NESmaker such an amazing product is like with QBasic or Game Maker, you could make one simple change and just do a test run and see that change instantly. Granted Game Maker does the backend compiling for you first like how NESmaker passes everything to ASM6 for assembly and then launches the assembled rom. If you were just doing raw coding in a notepad, then having to save it, then edit the batch file for asm6 or nesasm, then then open the rom into your emulator only to have it black or gray screen. I'd still love to have an intuitive, interactive, and user friendly debugger but NESmaker is already light years ahead of doing it the old fashioned way.

Same reason I like stuff like fantasy consoles and I'm hyped for this product (which I'd buy if I'd get an instant access to it). You do some stuff, click run and you see immediate feedback on screen.
 
TheNew8bitHeroes
I've just finished your unfinished Nes Development series, and I can confirm: it is an excellent series. This would definitely be useful to more advanced users, who would like to go beyond the NesMaker frontend. I would actually post it on Youtube to have a better idea of its potential popularity. I'm pretty sure many beta testers are already thirsty for more advanced knowledge on how to personalize their game.

Actually, my new conspiracy theory is this: it was Joe and the team's intention to make us learn 6502 coding all along, and are luring us into it with the attractive NesMaker frontend. Let's see how they try to debunk that one!

Anyway, I would like to see a "Coding within NesMaker" series that would take up where "Nes Development" left off, which will eventually be requested by many, I'm sure, as people get more and more familiar with the omnipresence and necessity of code in NesMaker and the limitations of the frontend.
 

dale_coop

Moderator
Staff member
Couldn’t more agree, "Coding within NesMaker" as Joe started with his Pi Empty tutorial videos are my fav kind of videos <3
(with the « brew and homebrews » ones)
 
Until then, check this out! An interactive "e-book" that lets you tinker with 6502 code!!!! I'm having a blast!
https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/
 

darkhog

New member
vrbandwagon said:
Until then, check this out! An interactive "e-book" that lets you tinker with 6502 code!!!! I'm having a blast!
https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/

Yeah, it's a good thing... for absolute beginners. The main problem (and the reason I've never written a C64, NES or Apple II game so far) is interfacing with hardware. Instructions can be easily looked up, especially now that we have google (I really pity and am amazed by 80s NES devs that were able to do it only with a book, graph paper and probably a very primitive assembler/memory monitor), what's hard is interfacing with hardware.
 
darkhog said:
vrbandwagon said:
Until then, check this out! An interactive "e-book" that lets you tinker with 6502 code!!!! I'm having a blast!
https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/

Yeah, it's a good thing... for absolute beginners. The main problem (and the reason I've never written a C64, NES or Apple II game so far) is interfacing with hardware. Instructions can be easily looked up, especially now that we have google (I really pity and am amazed by 80s NES devs that were able to do it only with a book, graph paper and probably a very primitive assembler/memory monitor), what's hard is interfacing with hardware.

Well, hopefully we won't have to be too proficient in ASM in order to make our games, which is the whole point of NESmaker. Also, the team has created a lot of macros for us to use, which might lower the bar even more. Finally, I'm still hoping for a return of the programming tutorials found here https://vimeo.com/127556151 but incorporating NESmaker, of course.

Anyway, the next few months surely sound exciting.
 
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