After adding some improvements to controller support with ggvm this evening, I uploaded a new build of Owlia and pushed it. Then I downloaded it in my steam client, and it crashed. (I've since reverted it to the build everybody already had)

Spent 3 hours haphazardly trying to solve the problem.

Then later I remembered, OH WAIT. I have git. Used git bisect, and found the actual, exact problem in 20 minutes.

git basically makes suffering unneccessary, particularly for problems where you go: "When did that break?"

Difference engines are a great invention!

@Derek

A bit off topic.

I really thing that it would be very cool if you write your own (tutorial guide manual whatever) on making NES games.

I mean, you have very big dedication in what you do, experience, you have a cheerful friendly way to express yourself, and great skills and competence in programming, so I think that a write up on the subject from you would be something really worth reading, for everyone approaching the task (and likely also for anyone else).

Of course, I can imagine how much time such kind of write ups take, so it is likely not something you are willing to tackle, and I can understand that very well, I'm just saying that I would enjoy that reading.  

The problem with me writing a tutorial is I'm such a huge fanboy of Jeff Duntemann's "Assembly Language: Step by Step" where I got my start, I'd wind up plagiarizing the guy. Maybe I could ask him permission to paraphrase it for an NES-specific tutorial some day, with the understanding I would not be making any profit from it.

The purpose of the OP here was that: I frequently observe fellow homebrewers ripping their hair out over problems which in many cases can be greatly helped by the power of source control. I know it has somewhat of a learning curve, but the payoff is so fucking huge it's worth it. I mean, if you're a cognitive genius with endless memory banks, BY ALL MEANS, don't use source control. But if you're like me and can't remember what you did 2 seconds ago (let alone days or weeks), it's pretty much essential.

I'll tell you what though user, if I could be a professor teaching nes dev full time, that would be a pipe dream.

As long as you use your own words, and adapt the concepts to what the specific goal is (design, code, program, a NES game), you are not violating anything, and it is your creation. Else, any book teaching math would be violating the previous, Pitagora is Pitagora, the same exact concept, in any of these books. Keep in mind that you cannot copyright an idea, you can claim rights only on the block text that you used to describe such concept.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, ask advice to more competent people if you have doubts, but basically you can feel safe (ask advice to more competent people anyways) about explaining something with your own words: it is your genius, your work, and your creativity.

By the way, thanks for the name of the book, I might be very interested in giving a look at it, if I can find it.  

Check out this thread I made a while back: http://vintage.nintendoage.com/fo...

I actually set up a VirtualBox for folks (its still up on my dropbox) to use the old DOS version of that book, with all free tools.

Though, if you are comfortable with linux, I'd say just get the new version of the book and use that. 

It's about x86 assembly, but, it gave me a strong foundation because of how well written it is. For pretty much all of my life I hated reading math textbooks and programming textbooks. I needed somebody who was a good teacher who was entertaining and funny to hold my hand. Jeff Duntemann did that. Seriously---I failed so many classes in college but aced assembly language because of that book. That's how good he is.

Good teachers are EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY RARE.

Alright, how you wish sir. Thanks!  

Done, I gave an extremely quick read to chapters 4 and 5, skipping the ones about binary math and such. Honest honest, I can believe you that it is a very good book, but I could find on internet very good (older) books about ASM for 6502 processor, which in my humble opinion are more focused on.

Also, I'm a more pragmatic and lazy kind of person maybe, but this book seems to me very academical. I mean, someone who wants to makes a game for the NES really needs all of the basics of coding in assembly for x86 processor with Windows (or in this case Linux)?

I think under this point of view nerdy night are really good because they teach "what you need to know, now do it, don't care about what wasn't explained yet. Done? Understood? Nice. Now, next chapter... ". And it is very precise, without being overfilled up with technical contents. I was thinking something more along these lines, or even a completely different approach, but still targeted to tell people: once you get the logic behind this routine, this behavior is not hard to implement. What you propose does not have to be the best possible solution, but just a good solution to achieve such result.

So, most importantly, I was not proposing you to write a whole book about assembly language, you can easily skip most contents just saying: "I suppose you already know about binary math, hex numbers, and NES architecture; let's talk your NES game development now. Chapter one, ...".

Heck! you can even structure it as the development blog of an hypothetical game, and you have the dedication for NES programming and the sense of precision in the contents that you write (and proper English) to make a write up which is worth reading stuff.

I say all this only because you often post about how much you enjoy doing this or that in assembly, and see a game taking shape; so maybe if little by little you would collect little write ups about your techniques and methods while designing and coding a game, or about any other aspect related to the subject, you could easily end up with a worth to read document (or series of documents), without displaying the arrogance of writing a book on the subject, but just a write up, guide, manual, tutorial, series of articles put coherently together, on the development of a potential game for the NES, from your point of view.

All this of course, most importantly, if it is fun for you to do and you have time to!  

Maybe if I finish all this ggvm madness, catch up with my artist on my current project, and get bored, I'll consider it. Haha.

To be honest though I feel like the nes homebrew world has moved beyond the way I do things. Take: https://nesdoug.com/...

for example. That's surely going to bring more people into the scene than some quirky bastard like me doing a tutorial on asm.

Asm's weird. I feel on some level it's actually EASIER for beginners because there are fewer commands, and fewer syntax errors you could make, than, say, C. Yet it's also HARDER because you have to break everything down into tiny steps so it takes a long time. It's a trade off I guess!

Easier or harder depends on motivations. To begin with, why to make games for the NES? Nostalgic reasons, ok. Then maybe your game directly talk to the processor without an intermediate OS, or the fascination for boolean arithmetics and machine language, or you like the aesthetic of 8 bits graphics, or whatever else, to each its own. Also, personal skills and qualities maybe. Like something purely "mechanic" like assembly can be easier for someone, while something more abstract and "high level", like an actual programming language, can be more friendly to others. Who knows, maybe in future even a suite to make NES games with templates, some object oriented programming too maybe, and such more high level options will be attempted to be made. Some enjoy programming in assembly, some others don't, and that's just fine, I guess, no matter what the share % is there on each side, you still are free to do use the solution that you prefer. At least, I think so. But I can see you reasons for keeping it for yourself, without publicly write a document about it. Sorry for the long delay on this answer, I needed some relaxed time to put together my thoughts on your question, and translate them.  

Somewhat off topic rambling response:
I've been struggling with this lately. I'm really inspired by Undertale, on Steam, which was made with Gamemaker. So like the polar opposite of NES development with respect to how time consuming the actual coding aspect is (not that it wouldn't take effort to iron out, even with script in gamemaker, of course it would, just not as fiddly and full of bits and bytes as asm). The guy is mainly a musician and storyteller. So he could put all this effort just into the game design and storytelling, where when I make a game sometimes I'm sinking weeks just into some fiddly technical aspect. However, I have to remember for me part of it really was the nostalgia of coding for an old computer, the feeling of having such a simple environment brings me joy. I have so much momentum and experience now making NES games in asm I don't think I could change to something else if I wanted to.

I'd love to make a tutorial someday but man, I'm slammed right at the moment between my game project and ggvm, haha. Maybe some day. I really dunno if the scene needs another tutorial. I really think https://nesdoug.com/... is probably the best one around and this is the one I recommend to beginners these days, as it gets some things correct that are not correct in other popular tutorials.

"I'd love to make a tutorial someday but man, I'm slammed right at the moment between my game project and ggvm, haha. Maybe some day."
Yeah. If you lack free time, don't. If you lack the enthusiasm and will, don't. You will hate the journey.
To write coherent and valuable contents takes time, and needs high motivation to be something worth to read.

Exactly! If it works for him/her, why blame such choice?