#Programming

Early computers weren’t powerful enough to draw full-screen moving graphics, so they had to use clever tricks. Let’s explore how Nintendo’s techniques for creating tile-based games on the NES can be applied to modern hardware. Using these methods, I built a scrolling tilemap system for the Agon Light using C programming.

The end result is a fairly pretty scrolling text routine that demonstrates how to draw multiple bitmaps to the Agon Light’s display using VDP commands.

This builds on my previous Agon Light C Programming video where I explained how the Agon Light’s screen works, and how to draw lines and shapes.

My aim is not to simply program the Agon Light by cloning the Windows 3.11 screensavers, but to learn how to program the Agon Light at all. Ultimately I want to learn how to program games for the Agon Light.

Easter eggs are usually hidden inside our games and software, but did you know there are some hidden inside the tools and languages used to make that software? Come with me on a fun Easter diversion while we eat our bodyweight in chocolate, and look at six programming Easter Eggs.

Let’s celebrate Pi Day in this appropriately short video by writing some Python programs to calculate Pi.

I’ve been having a bit of a play around with my Agon Light, trying to come up with some ideas for a future video. I’ve discovered it has quite a nice 320×240 64 colour video mode that has just enough pixels to be interesting.

Dive into the exciting world of DIY hardware hacking. Join in as I explore joystick integration, keyboard inputs, and serial debugging using the versatile Agon Light platform. Delve into the technical intricacies of GPIO pins, assembly language programming, and C compiler usage for low-level development. Discover the power of computational thinking, boolean logic, and UART serial communication as we navigate through hardware interfacing challenges.

In preparation for my next video I’ve been tidying up some cellular automata code I wrote. There’s some good old Conway’s Life, some 1D CAs that make pretty patterns, and one I recently discovered called Wire World.

Instead of bashing away in BASIC, it’s possible to do some coding in C on the Agon Light. Let’s find out how in this introduction to an ongoing series where I figure out the Agon hardware and work on a game. I have no idea what game I want to make, and I’m not entirely sure how to achieve some of the necessary functions, but it’ll be fun figuring it out and I hope you come along for the ride!

Hello everyone! Let’s get on with it, shall we? Last year went pretty well, I released 14 videos and towards the end of the year experimented with releasing more than one video a month. I’ll also experiment with some more spontaneous content on here and maybe the odd Short. YouTube seems to like those, and doing what YouTube likes is the secret to growing.