#2811 - Jakerrzero - Thu Feb 13, 2003 12:50 am
I can't wait till the book
Programming for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance
to come out! It ships on May 21, 2003. I think I'm going to pre-order mine.
It'l be great to get all the info in one place. I'm also interested to see what they have to say about getting a job as a gba programmer :) Is anyone else excited about this book!?
#2832 - imikeyi - Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:55 am
To be honest, I can't see what information it could possibly have that we can't find on the net already... guess we'll just have to wait and see
_________________
microkernel advance
#2837 - isildur - Thu Feb 13, 2003 3:18 pm
| imikeyi wrote: |
| To be honest, I can't see what information it could possibly have that we can't find on the net already... guess we'll just have to wait and see |
Having the information neatly organized in a book is sometimes usefull...
But it still depends on the knowledge of the author(s).
#2863 - jsharbour - Fri Feb 14, 2003 12:52 am
What would you like to know about the GBA book?
Regards,
Jonathan S. Harbour
http://www.jharbour.com
#2902 - gb_feedback - Fri Feb 14, 2003 10:51 am
For one thing, I suppose, whether the CD contents list has been frozen?
#2927 - isildur - Fri Feb 14, 2003 3:17 pm
| jsharbour wrote: |
What would you like to know about the GBA book?
|
Will there be stuff and info not found on the net?
Is there a custom library on which the samples depend?
#2981 - jsharbour - Sat Feb 15, 2003 7:57 pm
>>Will there be stuff and info not found on the net?
I don't know what all is on the net. If all you're interested in is a FAQ, then you must not be interested in a book. I've never been able to get enough comprehensive information about anything on the net, aside from mundane ramblings from a number of self-appointed gurus on a subject. The benefit of a book is longevity (how reliable is a web site?), reference material, and progressive tutorials leading from basic to advanced topics. Most web tutorials start with the advanced materials, and if you don't understand it, well I guess you aren't 1337 enough. I disagree with that whole philosophy. It's not about who knows the most, it's about who is getting the real game contracts.
>>Is there a custom library on which the samples depend?
The book doesn't use a library nor does it develop one. 80% of the code will be raw GBA code that will compile under GCC. What I can tell you is that it is using HAM as the dev tool. Would anyone argue that there is a more comprehensive and easy-to-use tool than HAM and VHAM? DevKit-Advance under Cygwin was the focus early on, but I dropped that in favor of HAM after discovering how powerful it is, and yet easy to use. I like the built-in support for VBA, MBV2, and flash, with a single compile to target menu item. There may be a few demos here and there that use HAMlib in the first couple chapters to demonstrate that GBA coding doesn't have to be difficult. However, given that the book includes a chapter on ARM7 ASM, that is a solid clue that this is not a newbie book.
Regards,
Jonathan Harbour
http://www.jharbour.com
#3043 - Jakerrzero - Mon Feb 17, 2003 7:33 am
Hello Johnathan,
Thanks for replying to my post. I think it's great that you are writing this book. I agree with you that a book is a much more reliable and usefull tool than internet tutorials. I really can't wait to get your book. It comes out right around my birthday so i think that will be my gift to myself :) I (like everyone else around here) want more than anything to make games for a living. One thing I really hope to get out of your book is some information about how to market yourself as a gameboy advance programmer. Like if it's a good idea to bring a rom you made on a flash cartridge into an interview? I've heard conflicting arguments about how companies feel about this kind of thing, I hope your book gives some insight. Another question, how close is the book to being finished?
thanks,
Jake Kerr
Jakerrzero@hotmail.com
#3053 - jsharbour - Mon Feb 17, 2003 8:50 am
>>Like if it's a good idea to bring a rom you made on a flash
>>cartridge into an interview?
How ironic, I just covered that subject in the chapter I finished tonight. That is really funny! Well, yes, to answer your question. It's a great idea. If you have a means to get your resum? in front of a hiring manager, then you also have the means to include a demo CD-ROM with VisualBoyAdvance and all your demos (and you know what is cool, using those small 170MB CD-ROMs). I think it would be a great idea to also take a GBA with a flash cartridge with you if you are invited for an interview.
Don't get me wrong, though, I'm not a professional GBA developer, just have a lot of experience working with people in the game industry, the business industry, and so on. I did work for a game developer many years ago, and landed the job basically half on the demo disks I sent in (hehe, yes, before CD-ROMs if that's a clue about how long ago it was) as well as my programming knowledge. The demos were cheesy, but they were creative, and the lead guy liked them. Just make sure you put your name in the demo so you can prove it's actually your code.
The book will be finished in March, although it takes a couple months for layout, printing, and distribution to get them into stores. I'll update my web site with screenshots, etc, when I have time. =)
Regards,
Jonathan Harbour
http://www.jharbour.com
#3101 - peebrain - Tue Feb 18, 2003 7:57 am
Sweet, talking with the actual author! :-D
I was wondering if you could list out the titles of each chapter?
~Sean
_________________
http://www.pbwhere.com
#3154 - jsharbour - Wed Feb 19, 2003 4:04 am
| peebrain wrote: |
Sweet, talking with the actual author! :-D
I was wondering if you could list out the titles of each chapter?
~Sean |
Sure. You can see the tentative table of contents on my web site at http://www.jharbour.com/gameboy
Jonathan
#3172 - Jakerrzero - Wed Feb 19, 2003 12:15 pm
Jonathan,
Is your book going to have information on memory management on the GBA? For instance something to manage the OAM? Do you think this is an important skill for a GBA developer?
#4043 - jsharbour - Sun Mar 16, 2003 9:43 pm
| Jakerrzero wrote: |
Jonathan,
Is your book going to have information on memory management on the GBA? For instance something to manage the OAM? Do you think this is an important skill for a GBA developer? |
Memory management just kind of permeates all the various subjects, rather than being a dedicated subject. Personally, I prefer to just create chunks of memory out of IWRAM or EWRAM and use memcpy. It seems like a bad idea to me to use a function like malloc in a console program because without a lot of research, who knows where that memory is being stored? To be honest, I haven't had a need for malloc, because there are pre-defined blocks of memory already defined.
For example, create a pointer to IWRAM like this:
unsigned int* IWRAM = (unsigned int*)0x03000000;
Then you can use it like this:
char *test = "Hello";
memcpy(IWRAM, test, 5);
The 32kb of IWRAM is insanely fast because it's built into the CPU! EWRAM is slower, and only 16-bit, but it's bigger. As far as I know, nothing uses IWRAM or EWRAM, but I could be mistaken. It seems to me that this is available for your use.
#4047 - Paul Shirley - Mon Mar 17, 2003 12:02 am
removed