Lee Bee wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 12:22 pm
But on the other hand, I do know there are programmers in this community who enjoy the challenge of a limited size code, which is why 16k appeals to some.
What are your own feelings on this? Is a limit to code size sometimes fun - but usually not?
it depends of a motivation. i mean, i, for example, won't even bother trying to write something serious for C64 or NES: i never had those machines, and i have no feeling towards them.
but ZX Spectrum 48K is the whole different story! i am basically doing the things i wanted to do as a child, but couldn't. so Speccy limitations doen't bother me a little.
so, for some device there are two kinds of people who embrace limitations: people who love that device, and people who feel competetive. (it is not mutually exclusive, of course. ;-) ah, of course, there are people who doing it strictly for money too, but that's not our case, i guess. ;-)
now, let's look on the problem from a slightly different side. i have ~40K for both code and data on Speccy. of course, this won't allow me to write something like Baldur's Gate 3… and it's good! because instead of suffering of constant feature creep, i may concentrate on the core gameplay, and add one or two bonus features later, if i'll still have room for them.
so it kinda helps to actually
finish projects — because there is inevitable moment when you simply physically cannot add anything more. ;-)
but it is very hard to come up with some reasonable limits and hardware for such "limited system". historical systems got their limits… well, historically. and with a brand new system it is not that easy to decide what to include. AY? meh, why not SID, SID is much k00ler! MSX+ VDU? or some other VDU? or no VDU? 8-bit CPU? 16-bit? 32-bit? maybe two CPUs? and so on, so on…
ParadigmShifter wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 12:37 pm
or Ketmar will be along soon to mention Forth which also has a very compact code footprint
please, note that this time it wasn't me who started talking about Forth! ;-) (also, F8 is not compact anymore. ;-)