Source code of classic games of the 80s?
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Don't you know if any company released the source code of its old console games of the 80s? I was trying to get anyone, but I didn't find it until now.
I'm not speaking of clones, I want the original ones, if possible (or the later clones of the 80s). I'm very curious about how they programmed them, specially the classics (Pacman, Lode Runner, you know).
Please post here the URLs you know. Old articles of game making (80s, also) allowed, too.
Thanks.
H. Hernán Moraldo aka DoctorK
PD: don't tell me about Wolfestein, Quake, Doom... I'm looking for the very old ones!
Edited by - DoctorK on June 28, 2001 11:46:51 AM
Most of those games were writtn in assemble for the 5402/10? and 68000 series of processors. Most of the "logic" has to do with getting an entire game in as little as 4k of space.
Except for neto value, the source would be worth little since most of what the pogrammers were doing is now done by the OS or other basic graphics lib.
Except for neto value, the source would be worth little since most of what the pogrammers were doing is now done by the OS or other basic graphics lib.
Yeah. Most were written in assembly back then. Most emulators I''ve come across have a disassembly window. So you can just download the emulator, and the game you want, then go into the disassembly and read away. I doubt it''ll be much help though unless you''re good at that sort of thing.
Yes it would be cool to see the source code (or at least the game logic part) for old games. Even old NES games would be sweet. BTW - what were those programmed in (nes)? C, assembly, both?
Assembly.
Most games were written primarily in assembly on consoles until the PSX/Saturn era. There were a few Genesis games that were mostly C with a bit of asm, but most were 100% asm.
Most games were written primarily in assembly on consoles until the PSX/Saturn era. There were a few Genesis games that were mostly C with a bit of asm, but most were 100% asm.
Author
Hey, don''t tell me it wouldn''t be cool to have the original sources! I''m not just speaking about the ASM code (it can be disassembled), but the commentaries too, and maybe the documentation and all that stuff.
Didn''t nobody at these old gaming enterprises decide to release the source code of these now useless games???
Didn''t nobody at these old gaming enterprises decide to release the source code of these now useless games???
For historical purposes, having the commented code for some of these games would be cool. But from a purely technical standpoint, even the original assembly listings (with comments and documentation) would be nearly useless to anyone except emulator authors, or people who write games for obsolete systems for fun.
Essentially none of the specific tricks/tips/general coding practices that were used back then are particularly useful now. Some of the same general concepts apply, but its easy to learn these concepts without looking at the old source (plenty of information on them is available in books and on the net).
Essentially none of the specific tricks/tips/general coding practices that were used back then are particularly useful now. Some of the same general concepts apply, but its easy to learn these concepts without looking at the old source (plenty of information on them is available in books and on the net).
quote:Original post by DoctorK
Hey, don''t tell me it wouldn''t be cool to have the original sources! I''m not just speaking about the ASM code (it can be disassembled), but the commentaries too, and maybe the documentation and all that stuff.
Didn''t nobody at these old gaming enterprises decide to release the source code of these now useless games???
First off, games back then were all programmed exclusively in assembler. Believe it or not, people actually wrote stuff before compilers came about.
We''re talking 20-30 years ago, where programmers didn''t even have enough room to store the entire 4 digit date in programs. What makes you think they had room for comments as well?
Disassembling ASM code is amazingly difficult, and most of the time results in worthless unreadable code.
These games were not programmed in a programming language. They were made in assembler.
Second, companies still own the intellectual property associated with those games. Even if they had source to give out, why should they? They still want to make money off of ''classic'' collections.
And I doubt many programmers used much in the way of comments back then, either. They were used to machines with very little memory or storage space. Extensive commenting would have eaten into these vital resources.
quote:Original post by Mithrandir
We''re talking 20-30 years ago, where programmers didn''t even have enough room to store the entire 4 digit date in programs. What makes you think they had room for comments as well?
Disassembling ASM code is amazingly difficult, and most of the time results in worthless unreadable code.
Wouldn''t you imagine that most programmers probably diagrammed their code in a special document or something like that? Like "in addresses 10A5-11BF is the code that draws the characters to the screen." Having that along with the assembler code would be cool but I doubt any companies would release that stuff because they have so little to gain.
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