TIC-80

Fantasy computer for making, playing and sharing tiny games. · By Nesbox

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Assembly!

A topic by 0xDEC0DE created Feb 25, 2018 Views: 1,945 Replies: 10

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0xDEC0DE6 years ago (1 edit)

I've used TIC for quite some time now, and have been thinking about how interesting it could be (at least, in my opinion) to implement some form of assembly as a compatible programming language. I don't have my hopes up for this to actually be added as I know it would be difficult to achieve that, but I wanted to share my thoughts nevertheless.

It would be a great educational opportunity -
- Assembly is a great way of understanding how a CPU works
- The added challenge would be good for people who want to test themselves
- It would teach how games were created back in the day

And, on the topic of early games:

Assembly would enhance the retro experience -
- The whole point of TIC-80 is to be retro, right?
- It would be much closer to programming for an early machine
- You could provide nostalgia for the early game developers
- People who want to develop retro games using assembly won't need to use different assemblers or emulators or whatever else if TIC has them all built into one little package. Convenience, basically.

The only downside to this (that I can think of) is the time it would take to implement assembly, but I personally think it would be very much worth it. I'm interested to hear other people's opinion on this ^^

bent6 years ago

Maybe not that difficult, using a modern assembly-like language like this:

http://www.vintageisthenewold.com/kick-assembler-updated-to-v4-19/

0xDEC0DE6 years ago

Ooh, that would be interesting.

FabianLC6 years ago

I love the idea , it has always intrigued me how games were made in asm for the nes, having that here would be simply awesome.

0xDEC0DE6 years ago

I know right ^^

Zus6 years ago

I hate the idea. I love TIC-80 for its simplicity. It is easy to pick up and actually make some funny stuff in that can be shared with others.

As for your suggestion, I think there's already a project like you have described it is called 8bitworkshop:

http://8bitworkshop.com

Also you'll probably like Zachtronics's stuff like TIS-100 or Shenzhen IO:

http://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io/

http://www.zachtronics.com/tis-100/

0xDEC0DE6 years ago

Okay, I'll take a look at those :D

LionRoar6 years ago

I came here just to post the same question :)

According to the info the tic-80 supports multiple progamming languages: Lua, Moonscript, Javascript and Wren.

So, in theory it should be possible to have assembly in it and I would prefer 6502/6510 assembly. Maybe this nice online console can be used by a great developer to integrate it with the tic-80: http://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/ That would be wonderful!

0xDEC0DE6 years ago

Yeah, that seems pretty cool ^^ If this somehow does become reality with the TIC-80, I'll be surprised if it isn't something similar to 6510 assembly.

bent6 years ago

Tic-80 also supports Brainfuck.

Why would you ever use Brainfuck? You wouldn't, but the option is there.

65xx is super fun, a less hair-pully-outy version with scripting support and no silly limitations (eg no indirect addressing with x register and what-not) sounds exciting to me. :)

0xDEC0DE6 years ago

Exactly! All I can think of is, 'Why the hell not?!' It adds to the challenge for those who want it. If people still want to use the simpler languages, then absolutely nothing will stop them. Assembly would just be for the people who want to take retro to a whole new level ^^

itch.io

TIC-80

Assembly!