Hydra Gamedevelopment with C

wuut

Hi,
i'm fairly new to the hydra community and have a few questions about the Hydra and the C Compiler Catalina/ImageCraft.

So sort thing about me;
I'm a student from vienna creating a class for next year (Hydra + C) as support for the normal class (c-development).

I just wanted to know if someone could tell me:
a) Are their any games for the Hydra developed in C only (best if developed with catalina)?
b) Is Catalina/ImageCraft wide enough developed to give access in game development?
c) Are libraries supported in Catalina/Imagecraft (did not found anything.. )?
d) If so.. is there a list anywhere?

Thank you for your help and greetings from vienna
Wuut

trodoss

Hello!
It sounds like it would be an exciting and interesting topic for a class.

Re: A
There are examples in the \demos sub-directory of the Catalina install, such as:
othello.c
startrek.c

There may be more examples, if you look through the Catalina thread(s) on the forum, however I am unaware of other Hydra game projects in C.

Re: B
Using either Catalina or ImageCraft C it should be possible. I do not know if any of the Hydra-specific code has been adapted for use in either (meaning the graphics code like the HEL or COP engines). Many of the code that has been converted has been from code similar to TV.spin, VGA.spin.

Re: C
Catalina has access to TV(PAL/NTSC) and VGA objects that target specific platforms, and you might check the http://obex.parallax.com for other drivers that would work for graphics/sound.
There is a "Readme.Hydra" in the \target sub-directory of the Catalina install that may give you more information.

Re: D
The only list I am aware of game projects is the PROJECTS master list thread (http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?t=108626), and most of the code examples are in Spin.

Hopefully that helps.
--trodoss

wuut

actully it does thank you for your reply;

i will go for some researches..

wuut

Hi,

i have done some researches with Catalina now and successfully compiled a Hello World as a binary object.

Now i tried to compile the startrek.c demo and an error showed up:

-------------- Build: Release in StarTrek_Hydra ---------------

catalina.exe -D HYDRA -x0 -M32k      -c ..\Catalina_Download\demos\startrek.c -o obj\Release\Catalina_Download\demos\startrek.obj
Catalina Compiler 2.6
        1 file(s) moved.
catalina.exe -D HYDRA -lc -x0 -M32k  -o bin\Release\StarTrek_Hydra obj\Release\Catalina_Download\demos\startrek.obj   
Undefined or Redefined symbols:
 pow undefined
 fabs undefined
 sqrt undefined
 pow undefined
 log10 undefined
Catalina Compiler 2.6

any ideas what i do wrong?

Second thing i have the Hydra Xtreme 512K Memory Card and in the Catalina readMe it says that "However (as shipped) the Xtreme only allows random access of the first 64kb,
which only allows Catalina programs to have code segments up to 64kb (plus
data segments of up to 32kb)."
do i need to reprogram the card or will it work with startrek?

Thank you for any upcoming help
wuut

trodoss

wuut,

It looks like you might be missing a command-line parameter.
You might try adding -lma (so that library is included). If that does not work, if you could post which makefile/.bat you are trying to use, or the text of the file, then it might help to see what is not working.

I have not personally used the 512k module, however if you search in the Hydra forum (posts by RossH, the creater of Catalina), you may find information that you need about the module.

--trodoss

trodoss

Here were two threads discussing the 512K module that may be of some help:

PROJECT: Extended addressing for Extreme 512K
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?t=95106

Building the Lattice ISP Programmer (aka CPLD prgramming cable) for the Hydra HX512
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?t=113554