nintendo ds / gba

[noeska]

It seems that in the future it might be possible to use freepascal for gba and nintendo ds developement. The arm-linux crosscompiler is already available for download.

Anyone interested here?

[WILL]

Heck yeah!

But what else would be required? What would you use for graphics and audio? What are the hardware considerations?

And will Nintendo be forthcoming with such information for indie-developers?

[Legolas]

Et voila!

www.gbadev.org

[noeska]

or for the bare bones:
http://linux.gbadev.org/gcc-gba/

could tell use how to mod freepascal if needed

[WILL]

How similar is the GBA to the GB DS? And what is the processor we're looking at?

[noeska]

the gba and ds share the ARM7 processor. The DS also has an ARM9 processor. PS the DS is not released yet, so the specs for it are a bit uncertain. Most promising is the dual screen and stylus input. Gives me some great idea's for adventure games.

[WILL]

Indeed. Well the second screen is supposed to be touch screen aswell.

Perhaps someone with GBA specs and maybe more indepth insight to the hardware(with research) can pioneer a set of Free Pascal docs/tuts/specs/code for others to collaborate on.

A Wiki site might be something great to use for this aswell... just add parts with FPC code and information or an in-progress guide.

[WILL]

I have just posted a news item on a free online book I found, and it's all about development for the GameBoy Advance.

With a little work and the latest sources of Free Pascal it shouldn't be too hard to get a few GBA demos piped out. For hardware you can easily use an emulator like VirtualBoy. Some minor changes in the op codes for ARM7 would need to be adheired to, but other than that you're pretty much good to go at some point.

[Legolas]

I found this emulator/debugger/sdk/many_other_things. It's written in Delphi and (!!!) you can download the source code!
Pretty interesting! :toocool:

[WILL]

Thanks! I'll make a news post for next week.

I'm also contimplating what to do with all of these sources. There are tons, and with the fact that the new DS supports the ARM7 Advance/Advance SP and all of it's hardware, it makes the mind wander a bit no?