#Retro Computing

This is part two, go read part 1 first.

The modern world is far too complex. Software has become piles of APIs stacked on top of each other, running on virtual machines inside browsers. Even the CPUs themselves are too complex for anyone to understand.

I decide that doing DOS development means I need a real computer, rather than an emulator. I have an old laptop, surely making it run DOS can’t be that hard, right?

From the mind that brought you “let’s try to write games using just pure C” I have a new idea for making my life difficult.

Let’s write DOS software using period correct tools…

Join me on a journey as I attempt to write a game for my Agon Light using nothing but raw C programming. In this second episode I figure out how to make a very basic 2D rigid body physics system work.

Writing games is hard enough by itself, requiring a lot of different skills. So how can I make this even harder? How about I do literally everything myself, starting with nothing but a blank source file and write all the code by hand. No game engines or libraries. If I need something, I need to write it myself. And since we’re doing this the hard way, let’s write games for an embedded microcontroller based around a Z80 CPU.

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.

It’s the Easter holidays and I’ve got two weeks off work. Amongst highly exciting things like weeding the garden and waiting for a new washing machine to be delivered, I’m doing some programming.

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.