Modern programming languages; stop complaining

http://thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/94909.aspx

Albert or not, I'm glad I wasn't alive in the 'good old days'.

That's a nice article :)

Real computing was born from the ZX80 and reached it's peak with the 48K Spectrum - everything before and since is bent.

I remember the ZX81 - B&W ascii graphics, 1kb, press panel keyboard, tape recorder for a harddrive.

Only small octopii were capable of progamming the spectrum due to the keyboard layout.

Seriously tho. Remember how speccy software got better and better year after year as programming techniques improved without a single hardware upgrade?

The other day I downloaded a beeb emulater and ran `Citadel`. 32k cold! [Ceetadel...Ceetadel...Ceetadel]

Yep. That's why so many people like consoles. Developers can't be bloody lazy and release their new games along with a readme saying "buy another new $400 videocard, loser" with consoles. They actually have to <GASP!> work harder in order to get better results.

For sure. I was gobsmacked by the PS1 and what it could do all whilst being kicked around the room. The PS2, I dunno - it doesn't deliver the increase in performance that I had expected and can no longer be kicked across the room when in operation. The XBox, who needs another PC?

The ZX games improved as they tried to match the superior c64.

>Seriously tho. Remember how speccy software got better and
>better year after year as programming techniques improved
>without a single hardware upgrade?

I remember reading an interview with the people who made Freespace, and they remarked how they were just coming to grips with the the current hardware, but now had to learn to use and apply the features of the next generation hardware.

>The ZX games improved as they tried to match the superior
>c64.

Yep, and remember how much better the C-64 games were in 1994 compared to 1985?

Andy

R-TYPE was good on the spectrum

You think it's easy making modern games look and run as good as they do on modern day PCs? It takes a tremendous effort to learn new technology for the current gen and then apply it in a solid enough way to get a game out the door.

You greatly discredit modern day developers by calling them lazy.

Locomotive Basic on the Amstrad CPC, mmmm, happy days! :)

10 PRINT "Press a key"
20 CALL &BB18
30 PRINT "You pressed a key"
40 END

For some strange reason, instead of using WaitKey in Blitz, I sometimes (rarely, but still do) write call &bb18 by accident! It must be burned into my brain!

Dabz

Yeah, Spectrum Basic and Amstrad/Locomotive Basic... the best! (Um, apart from Blitz.)

Did I say I thought it was easy? I'm one of those developers, so I'd be a bloody fool if I thought it was easy. In fact, it's precisely because it's not easy that the temptation to increase system requirements to get it out the door instead of spending another couple of months tightening up code arises in the first place.


I didn't call modern day PC developers lazy. I said that on consoles developers *can't* be lazy. It doesn't automatically follow that everyone who isn't developing for a console is lazy, but we both know that there are lazy developers out there. I'm sure you've played the games I've played, where the graphics are no better than dozens of games released a year or more before but the system requirements have been jacked up three notches. There are a few publishers in particular who practically specialize in these types of games <cough>JoWood<cough>

You do the intelligence of every gamer a great disservice if you seriously mean to tell us that there are no lazy developers out there making lazy games. In fact, when it comes to Anime Bowling Babes, I could be borderline guilty myself on that score, because I made no real effort to optimize that. If it doesn't have a lot of room to be made to run better on lower end machines, it's pure dumb luck.

Hmm, sorry, I guess read too many implications into your post.