CPC Development Software

[RobertM]

Hi,
    I am looking fopr CPC development software - mostly for graphics. I don't need any flavor of C as I intend to use assembly.

I downloaded the old package on this site and it wants dot net - the version it want is no longer available and it crashes with newer versions of dot net. I then tried the next package - Retro Gaming Asset Studio and it goes though wanting dependencies and then crashes when it has them all.

I am tempted to load cpctelera but for some reson I expect that it will crash to. Do I have to do the whole cgiwin thing to get the assest studio?

I am realy tring hard not to say what I think of these packages as they're probably good on the systems they will actually load on and the authors have probably put a lot of effort into them but the bottom line is that M$ doesn't give a sh!t about supporting old distros of .net so the as far as I am concerned due to the extreamly poor experience attempting to install them - well their sh!t and m$ has made this so.

The only thing that I want to do that may (or may not) have been done is to extend the palette switching out to 4 or 8 cycles.

ie - ink 1,  12,24,3,7,  3,5,23,2

Not that I would be doing that in basic but you get the idea.

Anyway the cpctelera page talks about RGAS version 0.97
and the page dedicated to RGAS mentions version 1.1.1

Can I load this thing to try?
Is there a current dot net distro that actually works?
OR do I have to do the whole cgiwin thing which I probably won't do anyway.

[mr_lou]

Here in 2016 developers have so incredibly many options to choose from when it comes to software development for the CPC (and other retro platforms).

I've only looked briefly into some of them before finding the one I prefer: CPCtelera.
(Yes I know you say you don't want C, but you can use CPCtelera for Assembler too).
I've used CPCtelera to create "Space Rivals", and my experience is that CPCtelera is just awesome.

z88dk is another option. It works the same way as CPCtelera; by using a mix of C and Assembler while offering a bunch of handy CPC specific functions you can call. But you probably know this.

The wiki has a list of "Programming software":
Category:Programming software - CPCWiki

You could check out other options there, like for example "TommyGun" which comes with integrated Sprite editor and Image editor among other things.
TommyGun - CPCWiki

For graphics creation though you can always use a standard PC pixel graphics application, like e.g. GiMP or Photoshop or whatever you feel comfortable using, and then just convert to CPC using other tools.

[RobertM]

Here in 2016 developers have so incredibly many options to choose from when it comes to software development for the CPC (and other retro platforms).

I've only looked briefly into some of them before finding the one I prefer: CPCtelera.
(Yes I know you say you don't want C, but you can use CPCtelera for Assembler too).
I've used CPCtelera to create "Space Rivals", and my experience is that CPCtelera is just awesome.

z88dk is another option. It works the same way as CPCtelera; by using a mix of C and Assembler while offering a bunch of handy CPC specific functions you can call. But you probably know this.

The wiki has a list of "Programming software":
Category:Programming software - CPCWiki

You could check out other options there, like for example "TommyGun" which comes with integrated Sprite editor and Image editor among other things.
TommyGun - CPCWiki

For graphics creation though you can always use a standard PC pixel graphics application, like e.g. GiMP or Photoshop or whatever you feel comfortable using, and then just convert to CPC using other tools.

Thanks for the tip but that wont load either. there isn't even an exe and yet it calls itself a win 32 program.

I can't believe just how hard it is to find something that works!!!!! Boy, am I having a bad day.

[mr_lou]

I believe you need to compile TommyGun yourself.

Personally I always have little to no luck compiling C/C++ source code myself. So I can't help you out there. Gimme Java any day.

But I think "all" you need is a C/C++ compiler installed, and then "simply" run a command in a prompt. Then everything "should" compile.
(They rarely do for me though, but I'm running Linux. You could have more luck on Windows).

[RobertM]

Well I tried that cpcteleria or malaria or some combination of letters that sound like that. The Cyg win or what ever it's called was a pain to install. It took about 7 attempts but it felt like 98634287569843982643264 attempts.

I like that the in stall file is setup_x86.exe - what a wonderful idea - we should call every single setup utility for the x86 architecture family 'setup_x86.exe' !!! That would save a lot of confusion!!!! Wow the person that chose that name had some serious IQ happening there - any of a dumb c***s would have just called it executable.exe

Well I learnt to navigate in the emulated directory structure and when I run the .sh I get an error that gcc is missing - oh and that is after I had to import the cpcmaleria files into the cygwin directory. Yeah that absolutely critical step is NOT mentioned in the instructions!!!!

Well I am guessing that at the end of the process (if it ever works in my life time) then I would have to deal with this emulation of a foreign system emulated in windows because if I could just run an exe then it would be there to download.

Anyway - I feel like I have hit the cesspit un-user-intuitive, un-user-friendly, un-finished, unusable, unworkable, impossible to install, bug ridden tragedy of programming that has been scraped of the ass of this planet.

[mr_lou]

Well, CPCtelera was created for Linux. So in order to use it on Windows you'll need some kind of emulation.
It's the same deal for Linux users when they wish to use Windows software, for example run Winape emulator. This gives problems too.

But regarding CPCtelera, there was a thread a while back about installation issues on Windows where I believe everything was sorted out. You may be able to find some useful info by searching for CPCtelera on this board.

Otherwise @ronaldo is usually very good at helping out here on the forum.

And please, I know it can be frustrating when things aren't working, and everything just feels like we're wasting time (that we don't have in the first place), but keep in mind that these tools are created by your fellow geeks and they're doing their best. Most of them spends a great deal of their time on the forums to help out anyone who has problems with their tools.

[krusty_benediction]

With this project: cpcsdk/docker-amstrad-crossdev · GitHub I am trying to make available a strictly identical crossdev CPC development toolchain for Linux and Windows.
I daily use it for Linux, it works perfectly
I have tested for Windows but it works only with the command line tool. I'll try to find a way to use graphical interfaces under windows as soon as possible in order  to use the graphical softwares installed with cpctelera.

I suggest you to give it a try and report me improvements useful to do for windows users

[FloppySoftware]

Thanks for the tip but that wont load either. there isn't even an exe and yet it calls itself a win 32 program.

I can't believe just how hard it is to find something that works!!!!! Boy, am I having a bad day.

You could just use CPC native tools to do your work with the help of emulators.

Or develop your own cross-tools and share them with the rest of CPC developers.

[FloppySoftware]

I believe you need to compile TommyGun yourself.

Personally I always have little to no luck compiling C/C++ source code myself. So I can't help you out there. Gimme Java any day.

But I think "all" you need is a C/C++ compiler installed, and then "simply" run a command in a prompt. Then everything "should" compile.
(They rarely do for me though, but I'm running Linux. You could have more luck on Windows).

For Windows there is Pelles C, a very good free C compiler.

[FloppySoftware]

Well I tried that cpcteleria or malaria or some combination of letters that sound like that.

By saying that, you are not respecting too much the authors of that software.

They have put a lot of effort in their work and freely shared it to all CPC developers.

Maybe what you need is a bit of humble soul and learning.

People here are trying to help you.

Maybe you could try to develop something for the PCW to see the difference about the available tools. In this way, you could blame less and say "thanks" to all people that offer their work to improve CPC development.

[villain]

Well I tried that cpcteleria or malaria

I'm already curious for your upcoming well polished and bugfree releases. ☺Even if one may understand your frustration the developers deserve the necessary respect. Imho.

[RobertM]

I'm already curious for your upcoming well polished and bugfree releases. ☺Even if one may understand your frustration the developers deserve the necessary respect. Imho.

Well I would cheet! As for cross platform - I woulod use a higher level language that has all the cross platform issues sorted like Java or Lua.

I was only interested in an image / sprite / tile map editor and not the full IDE and I was hoping to avoid writing it.

And as for the developers - I aknoledged they "probably" put a lot of effrort into their projects but !!! I didn't get to see the fruits of any of that effort due to the platforms they have chosen.

[arnoldemu]

@RobertM: I don't think the tools allow palette switching tricks as you describe. You will need to make your own tools to do that, or use existing tools and merge the data together using your own code.

I downloaded RGAS v1.1 and it worked for me out of the box. I am using Windows 10.

.net 4 is here:

Download Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Web Installer) from Official Microsoft

.net 4.5 is here:

Download Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 from Official Microsoft Download Center

for other .net:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0phXUCWdHE

Can you post a text file of the crash you get? Perhaps it is shown in a dialog window and you can copy/paste it here?

[arnoldemu]

@RobertM:

for a tile map editor you could use tiled:

Tiled Map Editor

I wrote a script to extract the tiles. It is attached.

I used my own tool for extracting sprites/tiles from a bmp image.

[ronaldo]

I am tempted to load cpctelera but for some reson I expect that it will crash to. Do I have to do the whole cgiwin thing to get the assest studio?

Anyway the cpctelera page talks about RGAS version 0.97
and the page dedicated to RGAS mentions version 1.1.1

Tools included with CPCtelera, like RGAS, are independent tools: you can use them without installing CPCtelera. You can even remove everything else from CPCtelera and use the tools you like. All of them are included under the folder cpctelera/tools.

CPCtelera page does not mention 0.97: that is CPCWiki's page on CPCtelera, which dates from CPCtelera 1.0. It requires to be updated. CPCtelera includes RGAS 1.1.1. However, you may download it independently, as it is and independent tool.

Well I tried that cpcteleria or malaria or some combination of letters that sound like that. The Cyg win or what ever it's called was a pain to install. It took about 7 attempts but it felt like 98634287569843982643264 attempts.

I personally think this is not an appropriate way to refer to any free software, no matter how bad it is. Moreover, If you want to truly critizise any software, I think you should have a better understanding of it. Cygwin does not have anything to do with CPCtelera. Critizising CPCtelera because of Cygwin's installation is like critizising Photoshop because of having a bad experience installing Windows. That only shows that you do not exactly know what you are doing, and that is your responsability.

Moreover, if you ask for help, It is not a good idea to inadequately critizise developers. All of us want criticism, but proper criticism, not gratuitous one.

Well I learnt to navigate in the emulated directory structure and when I run the .sh I get an error that gcc is missing - oh and that is after I had to import the cpcmaleria files into the cygwin directory. Yeah that absolutely critical step is NOT mentioned in the instructions!!!!

Another thing you should do before acidly critizise is properly reading instructions. If you read them, you may find interesting parts like this one:

Some considerations

   
• It is recommended to unzip CPCtelera to a folder inside your user's $HOME path (typically /home/username/ or C:\cygwin\home\username\).
• Once you run setup.sh, CPCtelera will be installed in the path you have previously unzipped it.  If you move the folder to a new location, you should run setup.sh again.
• However, CPCTelera can be installed anywhere in your system, provided the path does not contain any spaces.
• setup.sh checks software dependencies.  If some dependency is not met, you will receive an error message requesting you to install it and then launch setup.sh again.

You may also find interesting this other part of the instructions:

Under WindowsUnder Windows Cygwin is required for CPCtelera to work.  You may download Cygwin 32 / 64 and install it along with these packages (you may launch cygwin's setup.exe at any time to install them),

   
• Commands: gcc-core, gcc-g++, make, bison, flex, wget, unzip
• Libraries: libboost-devel, libintl-devel

If you do not properly install gcc, installing the exact packages listed in the instructions, it is completely normal that the installer script tells you that you still need to install it. We've invested time into creating an installer script that does these checks and informs you about these situations. As I told you previously, Cygwin is not part of CPCtelera, but a way to have a GNU development stack in your Windows system. We cannot do that step for you: we only can warn you if something is not properly installed. If you are a developer, you should know that. Anyway, asking for help is much better than acidly critizising, and much better if you are going to critizise others on you own mistakes.

Anyway - I feel like I have hit the cesspit un-user-intuitive, un-user-friendly, un-finished, unusable, unworkable, impossible to install, bug ridden tragedy of programming that has been scraped of the ass of this planet.

This past year 2015, 27 games and some utility software have been developed using CPCtelera. Of course, CPCtelera is really far from being perfect, but may be you should consider two possibilities: 1) a lot of genius are there, able to work with un-user-intuitive, un-user-friendly, un-finished, unusable, unworkable, impossible to install, bug riden tragedies, or 2) you are not patient enough to read and follow some install instructions.

Any development software out there requires plenty of knowledge of what you are doing, and a great deal of patience. Even using the latest Visual Studio from M$ requires tons of patience and time for learning and understanding. If you do not believe me, install it, create a project and try to link it with 2 or 3 libraries. I've helped this year much more users on VS linking issues than on Amstrad CPC programming problems.

And as for the developers - I aknoledged they "probably" put a lot of effrort into their projects but !!! I didn't get to see the fruits of any of that effort due to the platforms they have chosen.

Well, if 27 new games for Amstrad CPC is not a fruit for you, then I don't know what it will be. However, I see no reason why developers should use your platform for developing. May be you should think it reverse way: if you want to develop, you may use the platforms developers mainly use. Anyway, again, you should take into accouint that giving you a product that works on Windows, Linux and MacOS is not precisely easy to do. More concretely, Windows is the worst of these three for development as it is the only one not having a POSIX compliant terminal, nor a GNU development stack. This is the reason why we recommend Cygwin for Windows development. If you don't like Cygwin, you may use a virtual machine with Linux or MacOS, or a real system. That's always up to you.

Last, but not least, if you think so badly on the software developers give to you for free, you have 2 alternatives:

• Develop your own
• Pay developers a monthly wage. Then you'll have the right to come up with exigencies.

All of us are glad to help you and all people that wants to do things and to expand our community. However, throwing your frustrations on the face of developers is definitely not the way to build community.

[RobertM]

I'm already curious for your upcoming well polished and bugfree releases. ☺Even if one may understand your frustration the developers deserve the necessary respect. Imho.

Complete: no
Well Polished: no
Bug Free: no
Cross platform: yes
Cross Device: yes
OS Independent: yes
Runtime Dependencies: no
Easy to Install: no installation required

Amstrad CPC Sprite Editor

I am not making any commitment to finishing this. It's just something that I am trying. I don't know the underlying code types - HTML / CSS / JavaScript. The JavaScript seems simple - it's just another curly bracket language and the API is called a DOM. Apparently it is different for different browsers. I am still trying to work out how to do the visuals of drag and drop, this is easy in LUA which I suggested before but LUA requires an install on most devices.

[RobertM]

@RobertM: I don't think the tools allow palette switching tricks as you describe. You will need to make your own tools to do that, or use existing tools and merge the data together using your own code.<snip>

Thanks arnoldemu

I am just after a sprite editor and later a tile map editor. i am going to try to put something together in a browser.

Thanks all the same.

Perhaps later I will try tr .net thing. This computer hates .net

[RobertM]

@RobertM:

for a tile map editor you could use tiled:

Tiled Map Editor

I wrote a script to extract the tiles. It is attached.

I used my own tool for extracting sprites/tiles from a bmp image.

Thanks arnoldemu, I downloaded both and I will give them a try

[Ast]

You also could use iMPdraw to do it =)

[AMSDOS]

It seems one of the missing links when it comes to Development Software, is plz/sys & plz/asm. The 8080 equivalent is pl/m, though plz/sys only seems to exist on the net in Documents or electronic books.