Blitzmax on Windows Mobile

I think it was Skidracer who asked.... probably a year or so ago, if anybody would be interested in this. As I recall it got quite a lot of interest. Did anything come of it?

If BRL doesn't have time to maintain three versions of Blitzmax and a version for Windows Mobile too, I'd like to see Linux support dropped in favour of Windows Mobile.

Blitzmax, in my opinion, is no longer a hobbyist language but a serious development tool. Having Linux support might be a 'nice to have' for a handful but for those of us who actually want to make stuff for market leading platforms, Linux support is of very little worth.

A few people have said that they think Windows Mobile is the perfect platform for Blitzmax. I'd love to get Buzzword up and running on a PDA.

Why hasn't it happened yet?

I add OS X iPhone to the wishlist.

But to be honest, I'd prefer having multi-threading and 64-Bit support first (where the latter is not yet that important, at least not as long as Apple and Microsoft still sell 32-bit compatible operating systems).

OSX is mostly 64-bit, but come next year (apparently) and it will be totally 64-bit.

I dont want an iphone, there cool an' all but a little locked down for my taste. Im wating for the more 'open' version from samsung (or whoever gets there first)

Yes, but as of today OS X (and also 64-Bit Vista) can still run 32-bit apps. As long as that is the case, having only a 32-bit compiler does not become a question of life or death for software written in BlitzMax.

I would not like to have Linux support dropped. It's my main OS and one of the reasons I choose to get BlitzMax.

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=64322#842954

Windows Mobile is going to explode in the next year or so - phones running WM6.1 will be released by many of the big players, most prominently Sony Ericsson with their XPERIA X1 later this year.

Having Blitzmax games/apps running on WM6.1 would be amazing, but I don't think Blitz Research are ready for it, so I'm looking elsewhere.

iPhone rocks. Anyone can make a game or app for it. To publish costs $99. Blitz would be great for it.

Linux should not be dropped.

I don't see why Windows Mobile should even be supported.

Please don't bother adding support for yet another OS, improve on the current lot.

I agree with Plash, although if support for mobiles was in the pipeline, I'd definitely go for iPhone over Windows Mobile. In fact I'd take a Java/J2ME bytecode compiler over Windows Mobile.

No-one mentioned dropping Linux - just the fact that 64-bit versions need support.

I agree with GfK. It would be good to hear if anything did come of it as GfK previously said, there was quite a lot of interest and lots of people put their names down if I recall.

Mobile\iPhone support would rock! (And DS :) But not at the expense of what we already have being developed further.

Jason.

"I'd like to see Linux support dropped in favour of Windows Mobile." - read the first post again.

I appreciate that you've quoted me out of context for the benefit of your own argument. But, what I actually said was:
...and not, as you tried to imply, that I want Linux support dropped for no particular reason.

> In fact I'd take a Java/J2ME bytecode compiler over Windows Mobile

Me too. Java is very much mainstream for Mobile phone development.
Check out http://mobile.processing.org which is a good starting point

I am using Mobile Processing for developing apps for my Viewty
The final application is a *.jar file which is easy to transfer, install, and run. The code can also be obfuscated to help protect the code content

I still hate all that Java "; {}" faffing around. I would really like to see a Blitz mobile phone dev option but I think the main problem is there is still NO standard for mobiles
Maybe Googles Android will change that?

Actually, to me dropping Linux support in favor of Windows Mobile would be 'no good reason' indeed.


I have yet to see anyone create anything 'substantial' with Blitzmax......

Ah yes! I certainly dont want Linux support dropped - if anything more is needed...

When you look beyond the hype, the world also still has yet to see anyone create a substantial consumer desktop application with the world's most popular programming language: Java. Java has become an accepted enterprise-level server platform, but it still is a complete failure on the desktop. And while we're at it, Java still has to deliver on the "write once, run anywhere" promise -- it never came out of its "write once, debug everywhere" situation, especially on cell phones. Eclipse, Cyberduck (OS X only) and Tribal Trouble are still the only Java desktop apps that leave a positive impression. Now don't get me started Netbeans -- its only purpose seems to be to bring my Quad Core Mac Pro with 8 GB RAM to its knees.

Similar things can be said about the .NET platform and its languages, unless Paint.NET, SharpDevelop and the iLife-rip offs from the Mono guys, Banshee & Co., qualify as something 'substantial' (which would not do the word 'substantial' justice).

ummm.... ok....
'substantial' was referring to anything of production value that can be considered a successful product.

The mere fact that you have a few names for java apps and .NET apps makes them noticeable as 'a serious development tool'.

I have yet to see:
Me: "Whoa, that app/game is great/decent, what was that made with?"
Developer: "Why Blitzmax of course. A serious development tool, defiantly not a hobbyist language"
Me: "Wow, I'm going to look into Blitzmax as a solution for my next great/decent app/game"
Developer: "That would be swell!"

<note to self: stop sounding like 50's commercial when doing satire>

I think the stuff Grey Alien Games and Basilisk Games produce is really cool, and they use BlitzMax. But they don't qualify for 'serious' development as in 'non-games'. But let's face it: BRL do not WANT BlitzMax to establish itself as a development tool for things other than games.

Oh, and I like that 50's commercial style. "Fallout" and the "Head First" series show that really cool stuff can made with it. ;-)

Why? Speak for yourself mate. Linux support is an untapped market for both easy languages and for games. It one of the main reasons why many people bought it in the first place.

I develop for windows, but it's great to do all the development on a less annoying system. I doubt i am alone in this opinion. Anyway, IMO its got a hell of a lot more potential than windows mobile. MS are very threatened of the likes of symbian, linux etc. on the mobile front, simply because its better suited for the job.

Erm, I was.

If you have any interest in actually making money with BlitzMax, then you'd be a fool to want Linux support over support of mobile phones.

Also if you're using Linux, then you're such a hardcore badass computer god that you should be coding in C++ anyway.

I am neither 'hardcore' nor a badass, but I do program for Linux for personal use and for work.
A few things I've recently made could be considered 'substantial', but that's for work.

I think Fairway Solitaire could be considered a substancial product. A top selling portal title can pull in an upward of $7 million anually. I don't know what the game has done thus far but they did fly Grey over to Seattle from the UK so it must have been a solid number.

My vote is for iPhone though. It's got a very open dev platform and neat hardware comprised of a camera, GPS, 3D chip, touch screen, accelerometer, and microphone. The games I've played on it haven't been great but they've all been very promising as tech demos.

If BlitzMax could compile to ARM, then in theory it would open up the doors to many of the Mobile platforms, Windows or otherwise.
The problem with mobiles (phones), is that most of them aren't made for playing games, so games tend to be very basic and sucky. Perhaps the iPhone will encourage the other manufacturers to get their act together and make it easier to create better games.


Thank you.

What Plash and brucey said,


Youre kidding right? linux like operating systems are exploding into in the mobile market, so theres is PLENTY of money to be made. Anyway, linux is a nice development environment weather you will release on that platform or not.

"203 Million Mobile Phones Will Use Linux Operating Systems by 2012, with 76 Million as RTOS Replacements"
- http://www.abiresearch.com/abiprdisplay.jsp?pressid=832
(to quote 1 of many)

aside from the ngage no mobile phone is equiped with a suitable gaming D-pad
some have something akin to one but my old phone had the ok/fire button in the middle

viewity nice as it is is limited to mostly mouse like games as you have to press large and ugly arrow keys to do anything else, ok ive only got bejeweled to go by but i think the cursor would be there on other games

If Linux can't penetrate the PC market, what makes you think they're going to beat both Microsoft AND Google in the cell phone market?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone



So... wow. Linux is going to have a whole 6% of the mobile phone market FOUR YEARS FROM NOW.

Assuming the market for mobile phones doesn't expand at ALL between now and then that is.

Yep, they're totally EXPLODING into the market! :-)


Still, I guess that's better than their whopping 1.4% market share on the PC.

Yes, but there is no guarantee that all those fancy Linux-based cell phones will be compatible to each other (not even the mobile Java VMs guarantee compatibility) and what's even more important, today is 2008 and only so-called 'Smartphones' represent a commercially interesting target platform for software development NOW.

That smartphone market is dominated by RIM (Blackberry, anyone?), Windows Mobile (56 percent market share, wasn't it?) and Apple also managed to gain a significant share and generated a lot of hype during the last year.

Of all brands and manufacturers, only Apple has a standardized distribution channel for third party software that reaches -all- of its phone customers through -one- portal, including billing services. As of today, they also have the most sophisticated -and AVAILABLE- development platform with the richest feature set.

There still is no Android phone on the market, and it also looks a lot as if Android's going to be a 'paper tiger'. FreeRunner also only is of interest for geeks and hackers, but not (yet) for paying consumers.

Except for the name, how much has Windows Mobile actually in common with Windows XP/Vista? Supposedly not enough to make porting a compiler for Win32 to Windows Mobile an easy task.

Except for the kernel, there probably is also only little similarity between the Linux-based cell phones. The different distributions are already a show-stopper for commercial desktop apps for GNU/Linux; I cannot imagine that the situation is any better in the cell phone world.

If you want to port BlitzMax to a mobile platform, OS X iPhone is by far the most interesting target. It's not only the same kernel as OS X Leopard uses, it's also the very same OS foundation with many shared frameworks. It's available NOW and already has more than 10 million users. And no competition except for the official Apple SDK. It also won't face the 'interpreter' licensing problems as Java, Flash or Python do.

I'd bet on OS X iPhone, if I were BRL.

I was being facetious.

People who use Linux are like people who code HTML by hand. They are the kind of people who obsess over MD5 hashes of files they download even though internet protocols have built in error correction. They enjoy pain and suffering. They love going to the store and browsing aisle after aisle of GAMES THEY CAN'T PLAY and APPLICATIONS THEY CAN'T USE. They thrive on wading through page after page of instructions detailing exactly which parts of which build they need, and compiling it themselves from a command line.




Phones are all moving towards a touch screen interface anyway. Also, given the Iphone can already detect its screen's orientation, which is being used to control some games, real tilt and acceleration sensors in a phone can't be far behind.

Just because you can't do certain types of game well on a phone doesn't mean it's dead as a gaming platform. It just means different games are suited for it.

sswift, Google's Android is a Linux-based Java platform. So Google wouldn't be a competetion, but part of the target market.

Okay, but if it is a "paper tiger" as you say, then that doesn't really affect the point I was making, does it?

...And they are all using windows mobile are they? LOL!.

Dont forget almost all of those 3.3 billion cellphones are old bricks using whatever firmware crud comes with them. Phone, SMS, address book and calculator.
Hardly a comparison.

Google would probably be swinging with some kind of linux.. Like they do now : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Android
Their server infrastructure is linux based too btw.

If BRL done what everyone said ages ago and hired more programmers then this wouldnt be an issue there could be the multiple versions of BlitzMax, why should a version be dropped just because there isnt enough farsight to hire people to work on the new version when the others work fine.

If you want a mobile version of BlitzMax then why not get BRL to hire people to make it why should users suffer to support a market that is unproven. Yes there is loads of mobile games out there they have to be created on something and yes it would make it easier but to alienate Linux users in favour of a untested market would be foolhardy and stupid, it would also be shooting BRL in the foot as it would say 'we will drop you when a minority want something else'. If you want to code for mobile phones go choose a language that caters for it already stop badgering for a version to be coded because you cant be bothers to learn a language yourself.

Yes, Google's server are based upon Linux, but they use their very own customized kernel and highly customized distribution - you won't find 'their' Linux anywhere on the free market, and not even the GPL forces them to make their changes publicly available. After all, the software is only run on their own servers.

Nobody was asking to drop the Linux port of BlitzMax. But BRL should ask themselves how many users are actually using BlitzMax on GNU/Linux and how many would be using BlitzMax for a mobile platform, if it were available? And if they really had to make an either/or decision, which one would make more economic sense for BRL to develop and support?

'Badgering for a version to be coded' translates to actively asking BRL to improve and enhance their product and, in this case, enter a quickly growing market which BRL have not served so far. I think BRL should be very happy that their existing customer base is literally begging them for a new product - it should be great for their business when they heed the call.

@ sswift

The iPhone already supports full tilt controls and the touch screen is amazing. The games I've played so far haven't been limited by the phone as an input device. On the contrary I think it's among the best I've used. I have a simple 3D tilt racing game and a RTS game and both are wonderfully intuitive and just plain fun to control.

The iPhone would be a great platform for Tilt Scream Pong http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7aJU5RfSFA :) Would love to see iPhone users screaming at their phones on the subway.

I think that everyone saying Linux is a more profitable distribution platform over Windows Mobile are completely and utterly wrong.

Linux is a great OS, but ultimately a commercial games developer stands no chance of making a ROI on their work, because the Linux community is built around a free computing environment.

My guesstimate is that iPhone and Windows Mobile will control 40% each in the mobile market sales for indies in 2009 and onwards. The rest will be catered for by Java and platform-specific stuff.

You are welcome to challenge me on this.

I vote for getting BlitzMax to run on iPhone. Doesn't iPhone do flash now and can't we do some kind of browser plugin system that runs BlitzMax games over the internet?

I agree with gfk somewhat. Market-wise, I could careless for linux as well. I've been working heavily on a large project that would support the 3 platforms, but after really seeing some market percentages from linux users, it's a waste of time. Linux support could cost 50% more time for support, while the market is <10%.

Also, 'dropping' support for linux wouldn't hurt linux users all that bad. You would just get what you paid for, minus any new (and probobly useless) updates that could likely be made by users themselves.



Touche



I'de call it a nice 'hit', but nothing major. I think by substancial, meaning million dollar achievements, give or take.

Blitzmax just isn't popular enough for people/organizations to weld their interest and investments into it. It probobly would help though to support more mobile development, but mark clearly can't do all of that on his own.

I would prefer multi-threading first though. It's going to become one of the biggest hinders to the language in due time.

Theres loads of commercial stuff on linux. (Bmax itself for a start).

With the ability to compile for linux, opens far more doors than the ability to compile for WM ever could in terms of multiple potential areas it can be used, everything from PCs to embedded interactive information displays to mobile phones and pdas.
Ive aready done a bit of custom embedded work in max/linux and got paid a good price so to say it doesn't pay is not true.

I would like to see support for WM (more the merrier) but what GFK was originally suggesting is a big step back if you ask me.

re: Fairway Solitaire



I'm sorry, but I think you are totally wide of the mark. Porting a game such as this to Windows Mobile or iPhone opens up a MASSIVELY untouched marketplace. Apple is on track to sell over 10 million iPhone handsets worldwide in the first year of launch (regardless of 3G-ready or non-3G). In comparison to PC sales, this may not seem a lot - but I would be willing to bet that mobile consumers are more easily parted with their cash than desktop PC gamers.

If Windows Mobile takes off similarly (v6.1 and v7 in 2009), as I think it will, developers will want a language and rendering engine that can provide a fast and solid player experience, and I believe Blitzmax can cater for this.

I agree threading is important already and is going to become even moreso especially when you're starting to get 2, 4 or even many cores and can only use one of them - effectively a major performance hit.

I think Apple has a great future with the iPhone apps and I'd definitely be developing for it if BlitzMax could be persuaded in that direction, especially since we're likely to see yet another wave of really basic crappy games being released for it to begin with (as usual).

I do think a few Blitz developers have produced and released some products in reasonably large numbers, Gray for example is doing quite well, but I wouldn't say anyone has really hit the bigtime and turned into a millionaire. We're pretty much all still Indie developers with small-time or non-existant budgets. The quality bar has to be raised quite a bit in most Blitz products, and it's not so much because of Blitz limiting people.

I don't see any reason to drop Linux now that it's already supported, but I do agree to adding mobile/iPhone/arm outlets. I think there would be a LOT of interest from new developers/customers if BlitzMax could compile for iPhone or other handhelds. I certainly don't want to have to learn something like Objective C or use something like XCode just to be able to support it.

As an aside, whatever happened to `Amiga Anywhere`, supposedly the next great better than Java platform? I think Java started out on the wrong foot by not having fast JIT compilation originally, it gave itself an image as a slow language and Javascript didn't exactly help.

Whilst I am totally agreed that people shouldn't moan that the current version of Blitz limits them - we have seen this repeatedly for Blitz3D - this is a discussion that asks Blitz Research to look into mobile development, not just for our benefit as developers but for theirs. In all honesty, this is probably a new area for all of us - and maybe one we're not comfortable with in terms of realising our development dreams - but ultimately it is becoming a marketplace where we can earn a living.

To be fair, BRL have put a lot of work into the Linux version of BMax, and to expect them to drop further support in favour of the non-existant Windows Mobile is narrow-minded and selfish. If you really want to develop for Windows Mobile then go fire up C++ and get cracking.

Non-existant? Selfish? I think you need to look at current and projected sales volumes for Windows Mobile devices and iPhones.

I don't know the numbers exactly but from relative stories I think Fairway will hit $1 million at least in sales.

The important issue for BRL:

-How many windows mobile users do programming vs. how many linux users do programming?

(remember; it's BRL's sales which counts for Mark, not how many users you, as a developer, can expose your game to)

I don't know if you're still being facetious, but that is without doubt one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever heard. People who use Linux are simply people who prefer to get work done, without the operating system getting in their way, or automatically rebooting their PC after an "automatic update", because you stepped out of the apartment for a few minutes to pick up some groceries. Linux is the OS for people who simply want technology that works and stays out of your way, not interrupting you every 5 minutes, because it can't decide on its own whether it should let "CreditCardThief.exe" access your address book, or let "KeyLogger.exe" connect to the Internet.

Being sarcastic doesn't really work from a point of ignorance. The reason you check MD5 hashes (or even better, SHA-1 hashes or GPG signitures) , isn't to ensure the file was transfered correctly, but that it wasn't maliciously modified, by say a man in the middle, trojan injection.

There is one significant difference between a mobile phone and GNU/Linux. Only one of them is a viable development platform. The iPhone, as fancy as it is, with it's full size virtual keyboard thingy, would still be utterly horrible to develop ON.

From what I can tell, the Linux version costs next to (if not) nothing to support. If it was a matter of support cost, it would make most sense to drop the Windows version.

Except Linux users are traditionally self-reliant, so the actual support cost is likely closer to 0%. So essentially, Linux is a license to print money. Yay!

Personally i dont know anyone who wants a windows mobile device. Most of the people i know who are gadget nuts/IT savvy want Iphones or are waiting for the linux equivalent to be released. The rest of them wouldn't know the difference/care and the vast majority simply want a phone/sms device.

I dont think MS are going to dominate the mobile market, in the remote off-chance they do, then it will be nowhere near a 90% holding like with PCs. Because of this if blitzmax was ever going to be a language for use on portable devices you would need a runtime environment on every platform if it had even the slightest chance of competing with python etc. Otherwise developers would say "whats the point in using this if we can only release on the WM machines". At least with existing bmax linux support -some- mobile compatibility is already there for intel devices.

I'm only being facetious in as much as I'm stereotyping all Linux users as being of one type. I'm sure everyone who uses it has their own reasons.





I run XP. I have automatic updates turned off. I have the firewall turned on. It neither reboots my PC, nor asks me if I should allow applications to access the internet, with the exception of the first time an app that needs to access the net runs.

Also, just how much work can you get done when the tools and APIs you need aren't even available for your OS? I mean presumably even if you're using Linux to write the game, you do plan on making money on it, and so have no choice but to make it work with Windows. How are you gonna make sure it works nice with Vista's user access controls, or its sound system, or that your code even runs fast on it? Reboot into Vista every 30 minutes to test your code? That sounds like a real time saver.

If you're going to all the trouble to use Linux because Vista has a few annoying features, WHICH YOU CAN DISABLE, then that's just downright foolish.




Paranoia, pure and simple. One's chances of being a victim of such an attack are one in a million. You have a better chance of being killed in a car crash. That doesn't stop you from enjoying the convenience of the automobile though, does it?

I'd love to see BlitzMax support both the iPhone/iPod Touch and Windows Mobile. I own both (a Touch and an HTC mobile phone), and I'd love to write games for them both. I've already spent more on games for my iPod Touch in a week than I have on PC games in over a year.

I'd happily see Linux support dropped, as I've never really cared for it myself, but I appreciate that others will disagree.

I agree with Milky Joe. Support for mobile smart devices would be great, and would encourage me to use BlitzMax much more than I do currently. We already do a fair amount of dev for smart devices using c++/C# and some flash. BlitzMaxMobile would definitely be useful for us, as it could potentially standardise mobile development across different ARM platforms as it currently does across win/mac/linux.

I would love to have iphone/ipod touch/windows mobile support.
But I don't think it will ever happen.

Which tools and APIs would that be?

Or the iPhone.

The same way you use Windows to develop stuff for Windows Mobile. You run an emulator.

Actually, they're quite a bit smaller than that, judging from the size of most botnets. Regardless of the real chance, when it happens to you, it doesn't really matter.

Ditto.

Compiler.Set.Target = var
var = 1 Windows
var = 2 Linux
var = 3 Apple
var = 4 Windows Mobile
var = 5 IPhone
var = 6 Shockwave

Seriously, I don't see why this is not possible. Especially if you're creating 2d apps. Granted it would be alot of work. ;)

I think your all forgetting one major part......

MARK IS WAY TOO BUSY TO EVEN CONSIDER IT.

The really funny thing about BRL is that it would seem it has the average of .8 developers on staff. We've seen this shift before, the traditional post from <you know who>:
"So today I messed with shaders, I think I've got them down. I've tried out some LOD and then played with Windows Mobile a bit, looks promising and I have a few libraries that I wouldn't mind introducing at some point"

And then, fast forward 9 months and a few locked/deleted threads of no word from BRL where said features and ideals are dropped for another train of thought.

Take the following as you wish however know that it is not intended as offensive to BRL: They're old, they're done, and they're tired....

Lets look at the run of products shall we? Blitzbasic, Blitz3D, Blitzplus, Maplet, Blitzmax. Now lets look at all the iterations of each product. Factor in how much time has gone into each iteration. Lets crossreference that with the number of hairs ! pulled out of marks head (hehe, lets see who got stuck at the not and who kept reading without a even a second thought).

They've done well. Venturing into more avenues will merely introduce more hostility from the general community (which seems to be shrinking as it is). As it stands, I see the best move for them to 'complete' their existing products

No, it isn't, because the GNU/Linux world is all about FREE software - and I'm still betting on that for most of its users the 'free as in beer' part is more important than the 'free as in speech' story.

Red Hat, Novell, O'Reilly and maybe IBM are still the only ones who make money in the Linux market - and not with software, but with services around the software. Which is kind of interesting, because it somehow invalidates your statement: Obviously, at least enterprise-level Linux users need (and pay for) support.



Well, whoever wants to develop for the iPhone has to do it on a Mac anyway -- neither Xcode nor the SDK run on any other platform. Development for mobile phones is --always-- cross platform development.

Well, when I think about the entire 'BlitzMax for mobile phones' story in bright daylight (as we have it here right now), I think Dark Half is absolutely right:



It's just not gonna happen. Unless maybe somebody buys the company or at least the full rights to the BlitzMax product. And that's also not going to happen.

This quote from OnStartups.com (taken from an article about C# and Python) unfortunately also applies to niche languages like the ones we all like so much:



http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/129/Python-vs-C-Understanding-Personal-Bias.aspx

I don't know about you guys, but I'm having some kind of Déja vu here. The same discussions keep popping up very frequently on this board, the BRL folks don't comment on anything and the situation in general just doesn't change.

It's not very reassuring, and it reminds of a language manufacturer that I've worked for a couple of years ago which was a larger company than BRL. The company was dying a slow death because of the very same non-information policy, wrong development focus and because the people in charge did not care for the demands of their customers in the first place but were only interested in, well, crap that they cared for themselves.

After they went bankrupt, they launched another company which, of course, also went bankrupt after a short while. Then they started another incarnation of the same company with the same product - which might survive, not because they changed their attitude and course, but because there are only four of them left and their customer base might still be large enough to keep them afloat.

It looks as if BRL found a similar niche for themselves - one that allows them to stay in business and make a living and, most importantly, work exclusively on the things that interest them. This is great for BRL and I congratulate them. Just don't expect them to all of a sudden become customer-oriented.

Partly correct i guess, although myself and most of those that i know who use mainstream linux distros would say that its all about free software to allow you to USE your PC for simple/usual tasks. This doesn't usually extend to required, specialized or games software (XSI, Maya and World Of Warcraft are good examples).

As for the rest i completely agree.

110% agree with you there.

Amen Winni

Not so long ago BRL produced Windows-only products. Now with BMax BRL can provide products for the three main desktop OS's. That was their goal with BMax and they accomplished it, other OS's like Windows Mobile aren't as important.

Personally, I think it's largely a waste of time to develop games for mobile phones, even if there is a market, because the screen's are so small and the buttons are not designed for games. To me it's a gimmick that will die out in a few years. IMHO, BRL would be better off focusing on Max3D and improving the BMax language Edit: and the debugger and maybe overloading and threading ;).

Amen Winni, Markcw

Fix the damned debugger please! (and maybe overloading ;)

and threading, if it had threading it would allow for loading in the background etc. Windows has supported it for ages why not max

Yeah, and even I can understand the assembly version of threading..
(masm32)

.386
.model flat,stdcall
option casemap:none
WinMain proto :DWORd,:DWORD,:DWORD,:DWORD
include \masm32\include\windows.inc
include \masm32\include\user32.inc
include \masm32\include\kernel32.inc
includelib \masm32\lib\user32.lib
includelib \masm32\lib\kernel32.lib

.const
IDM_CREATE_THREAD equ 1
IDM_EXIT equ 2
WM_FINISH equ WM_USER+100h

.data
ClassName db "Win32ASMThreadClass",0
AppName  db "Win32 ASM MultiThreading Example",0
MenuName db "FirstMenu",0

.data?
hInstance HINSTANCE ?
CommandLine LPSTR ?
hMenu HANDLE ?
ExitCode DWORD ?
hwnd HANDLE ?
ThreadID DWORD ?

.code
start:
	invoke GetModuleHandle, NULL
	mov    hInstance,eax
	invoke GetCommandLine
	mov CommandLine,eax
	invoke WinMain, hInstance,NULL,CommandLine, SW_SHOWDEFAULT
	invoke ExitProcess,eax

WinMain proc hInst:HINSTANCE,hPrevInst:HINSTANCE,CmdLine:LPSTR,CmdShow:DWORD
	LOCAL wc:WNDCLASSEX
	LOCAL msg:MSG
	
	mov   wc.cbSize, SIZEOF WNDCLASSEX
	mov   wc.style, CS_HREDRAW or CS_VREDRAW
	mov   wc.lpfnWndProc, OFFSET WndProc
	mov   wc.cbClsExtra, NULL
	mov   wc.cbWndExtra, NULL
	push  hInst
	
	pop   wc.hInstance
	mov   wc.hbrBackground, COLOR_WINDOW + 1
	mov   wc.lpszMenuName, OFFSET MenuName
	mov   wc.lpszClassName, OFFSET ClassName
	invoke LoadIcon,NULL,IDI_APPLICATION
	
	mov   wc.hIcon,eax
	mov   wc.hIconSm,eax
	invoke LoadCursor,NULL,IDC_ARROW
	
	mov   wc.hCursor,eax
	invoke RegisterClassEx, addr wc
	invoke CreateWindowEx,WS_EX_CLIENTEDGE,ADDR ClassName,ADDR AppName,\
           WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,CW_USEDEFAULT,\
           CW_USEDEFAULT,300,200,NULL,NULL,\
           hInst,NULL
	mov   hwnd,eax
	invoke ShowWindow, hwnd,SW_SHOWNORMAL
	invoke UpdateWindow, hwnd
	invoke GetMenu,hwnd
	mov  hMenu,eax
	
	.WHILE TRUE
		invoke GetMessage, ADDR msg,NULL,0,0
		.BREAK .IF (!eax)
		invoke TranslateMessage, ADDR msg
		invoke DispatchMessage, ADDR msg
	.ENDW
	
	mov eax, msg.wParam
	
   ret
   
WinMain endp

WndProc proc hWnd:HWND, uMsg:UINT, wParam:WPARAM, lParam:LPARAM
	.IF uMsg == WM_DESTROY
		invoke PostQuitMessage, NULL
		
	.ELSEIF uMsg == WM_COMMAND
		mov eax, wParam
		
		.if lParam == 0
		
			.if ax == IDM_CREATE_THREAD
				
				mov eax, OFFSET ThreadProc
				
				invoke CreateThread, NULL, NULL, eax, \
									NULL, NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS, \
									ADDR ThreadID
									
				invoke CloseHandle, eax
				
			.else
				invoke DestroyWindow, hWnd
				
			.endif
			
		.endif
		
	.ELSEIF uMsg == WM_FINISH
		invoke MessageBox, NULL, ADDR AppName, ADDR MenuName, MB_OK
		
	.ELSE
		invoke DefWindowProc, hWnd, uMsg, wParam, lParam
		
	   ret
	.ENDIF
	
	xor    eax, eax
   ret
   
WndProc endp

ThreadProc PROC USES ecx Param:DWORD
        mov  ecx,3000000000
Loop1:
        add  eax,eax
        dec  ecx
        jz   Get_out
        jmp  Loop1
Get_out:
        invoke SendMessage,hwnd,WM_FINISH,NULL,NULL
        ret
ThreadProc ENDP
end start

I still think apps for iPhone and iPods are going to be a huge market and there is definitely demand for software/apps at this point in its life and who knows where it's heading later.

I do agree with FlameDuck that developing ON the iPhone would be horrible which is why Apple has you develop in XCode with an iPhone simulator. BRL would need a similar kind of iPhone simulator which would act like an emulator to run/test the software in, so not only would it generate binaries but also an interpreted version.

That aside, and guessing that maybe we won't see a new compiler for Mobile or iPhone anytime soon (since mark is working on Max3D) - how about someone creating a BlitzMax to XCode sourcecode converter, ie you still develop and code in BlitzMax as far as you the programmer goes, but to get it to compile you pass it through a translator and then compile in XCode using whatever the iPhone needs there? Then you wouldn't need a BlitzMax compiler, per se, just a source converter. ie Translate the language but don't actually attempt to make a binary or object file from it? I guess it might entail converting all BRL BlitzMax code into C or something?

Well you're entitled to your opinion of course. Personally I don't know a single Linux user who use an entirely free distro, neither speech or beer wise. Everyone will have at least non-free nVidia graphics drivers and a version of Cedega installed.

Ignoring your ignorance about which companies make money on Linux, unless you're developing enterprise-level games that's entirely irrelevant.

Which is, at best, problematic as BlitzMAX isn't exactly geared for cross platform development.

Yes. Objective-C even. However once you take that step, there seems like little incentive to continue to use BlitzMAX at all.

FlameDuck, I just love reading your replies, they're always good for a laugh. Your best statement ever was "you need at least an MSc to talk so much bullshit" (or something like that).

lol..His and Dark Halfs. Keeps me encouraged that people with great personalities (in my view) hang around this forum. Letting seriousness take some much needed relieving humour