From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,e0a4c379cedcce08 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: John Howard Subject: Re: Game Development using Ada 95 Date: 1996/08/28 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 177065671 references: <321E00E6.41C67EA6@larc.nasa.gov> to: Larry Matthias content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII organization: SkyNET Corporation mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-08-28T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: On Fri, 23 Aug 1996, Larry Matthias wrote: > Dear Ada Group, > I am interested in finding any information on groups that > are using Ada 95 for games. This includes Windows 95, > Nintendo, Sony Play Station, and Sega Saturn. Since Ada > was designed for real-time embedded systems I was curious > if anyone was using it. > > Any help will be greatly appreciated. > Please respond with email to l.e.matthias@larc.nasa.gov. > Thanks in advance. > > Larry Matthias I think gaming is one of the best ways to get someone involved with programming. That is pretty much how I started out in 1978 with a TRS-80. I have a 15-year old nephew who can now program in Ada 95. He has a BASIC background and an interest in writing BBS games. He wanted to try one of my abandoned Turbo Pascal dialects but I got him to give GNAT for DOS a try. At first he was discouraged due to installation problems. Then we tried working together on a conquer-the-universe type game. He came up with a snazzy title and central theme. We wrote several packages. The game is 50% done. He had to move across the country two weeks ago. Now I am waiting for him to get email access so we can continue the development. We will distribute the game. An interesting feature for gaming is the use of tasking. I want our game to allow non-human players to pursue individual goals. Each player object will use multiple tasks. I like it that Ada lets us start with simple records during design that we can later tag for reuse as classes. This lets us universally use a data structures approach from the beginning. I wrote a 2d/3d sprite game using Turbo Pascal. It has a voxel-like landscape to explore and perform 3d air-to-air/air-to-ground combat. The majority of the game play is a 2d platform style chase through mazes. The game uses VGA modes X & Y. I did not finish the sound support or all the sprite images. It started out as a testbed for enhancements I was making to a sprite engine. Unfortunately it became a mess of hard-to-reuse and non-portable code. This helped convince me to try something better. Meanwhile I had to get a real job doing software consulting. Those jobs were using Borland Pascal with Paradox Engine and telecommunications. I had reached a few of the frustrating limits of 16-bit Borland Pascal software. Last year I began learning OS/2 and Ada 95. I established a family business and now have time to do programming as a hobby. The point is that when I have the choice and the chance, I start writing up new games. I now prefer to use Ada together with a little assembler as needed. BTW, OS/2 is an awesome platform for gaming. I heard last January there were over ten million OS/2 users and half of them were using Warp. Of course, the Windows mentality of "there can be only one" has made finding OS/2 software on the store shelves very difficult. Most OS/2 software is available via mail-order or the Internet. Here is another thing: the OS/2 Developer Connection provides code libraries, documentation and support for the BRender engine. BRender is used on more game consoles than any other. You can write a freeware game for OS/2 using BRender and pay no royalties. Also, you can inexpensively prototype a BRender-based game on OS/2. And you can interface to the BRender libraries from Ada 95. To me, Ada and OS/2 fit the bill for high reliability under a multitasking PC environment that's ready for gaming. -- John Howard -- Team Ada Team OS/2 -- P.S. I have created a mail-order distribution channel that will soon be on the Web. Contact me should you desire a retail outlet for your software product. Christmas season is about to begin and we service gift giving consumers. We are interested in exclusivity and drop-shipping arrangements with our software suppliers. If you don't want the risk of lost revenue from shareware distribution then consider using our unique infrastructure. We are reasonable and committed to offering good value.