Making a new target platform: The Pokitto MCU device

[hanski]

Hi,

I just joined the forum. The MPAGD tool looks very nice!
I have few questions about creating a new target platform. I am thinking about a port to this MCU device: www.pokitto.com. It has a bit over 20 kb free ram, and 256 kb of flash rom where the code can be stored. The screen resolution is 220x176 with 16-bit palette. So the plan would be generating C++ code for the platform and let the C++ compiler optimize it to ARM asm. 

- Is the all the code open source? 
- Do you see any potential problems preventing using MPAGD in this kind of setup?

[jltursan]

The main problem I can think of now is the MPAGD engine being always an assembler program and yours need to be a C++ engine. The hardware specs are enough if you keep in mind that the resolution is slightly lower than the usual MPAGD target machines (256x192).

Seems doable with the right amount of work, of course...

[hanski]

Thanks for a quick reply!

What kind of problems you see when the engine is C++? I mean there are already different CPUs with different Assemblers so I could imagine there are no limitations of the language used for implementation? I also could made it directly in ARM assembler but I see it as a more work than C++.

Is there a fixed resolution of 256x192? I do not aim so much to compile existing games to Pokitto, but rather using MPAGD as a tool for beginners for creating new games to Pokitto.

[jltursan]

There're no problems with the language used of course, it just means that you'll need to write all the code from scratch. Usually when porting MPAGD, if the target shares the CPU, a lot of assembly code can be recycled.
Having said that, if you manage to create a C++ (or better C if you feel brave enough) engine it probably could be universally ported to any other "big" machine capable of run a C++ compiler, that's really cool.

Is there a fixed resolution of 256x192? I do not aim so much to compile existing games to Pokitto, but rather using MPAGD as a tool for beginners for creating new games to Pokitto

No, Amstrad CPC has right now only a lower resolution multicolour mode (160x200). Having a different resolution means only changing some constants in the engine and a couple of calculations, not a big deal. The real problem appears when you want to convert a game from another platform that doesn't matches your specs; but if your main goal is to provide a tool to create new games, it's a really powerful tool.