Messages

31

Trademarks / Intended uses of the RRPGE dragon

« on: April 23, 2014, 02:13:58 PM »

The plans on the uses of the RRPGE dragon logo.

I (and later the organization) may allow the uses of the RRPGE logo primarily for various implementations (hosts) and related tools on the ground of quality and good intentions towards the concepts of RRPGE.

• Emulators (software hosts) may use it at start clearly showing the user that the emulator conforms well the RRPGE specification and (if possible on the given system) will not complain for loading any application.
• Real hardware implementations whose primary purpose is to realize RRPGE may use it on their box or cover on the same ground.
• Tools may show it indicating their strong relationship with RRPGE if they behave properly, in general in a beneficial way to the system.

The RRPGE dragon won't be permitted to be used by any implementation if it restricts the user from running any freely distributable application or any (non-free) application he legally owns. Exceptions are only made if the underlaying system itself requires such restrictions, and on the following base:

• A compile-together solution (where an application is distributed compiled together with an RRPGE host and library) may get the permission to use the RRPGE logo if the application also justifies for it.
• A generic RRPGE host may only gain permission if it does not discriminate along the applications the user may acquire for it (that is for example if each application needs an additional fee, that fee is calculated irrespective of the application itself, and any existing RRPGE application may be purchased).

RRPGE related tools should be open source to get the permission to use the logo. Whatever task they perform, they should do it that the result conforms well the RRPGE specification.

32

Trademarks / Fair usage policy

« on: April 23, 2014, 02:11:25 PM »

You may use the RRPGE logo for the following purposes:

• In reference to RRPGE in text material (such as articles, blog posts etc), or with fair intentions in non-interactive context (such as still pictures, movie clips).
• In example RRPGE applications demonstrating the possible uses of the system or general algorithms, distributed under a license actually permitting these types of uses.
• In reference to RRPGE in other software works (including RRPGE applications) if the referential or artistic purpose is clear and is an integral part of the work.

You must not use the RRPGE logo on the startup of any computer program (excluding example applications as above). This type of use is regarded as a source of confusion for the users possibly misidentifying the environment the application executes in a well-behaving RRPGE implementation. Exceptions from this may only raised if the program in question has a very definite and acceptable artistic quality to justify for this.

33

Tutorials / First steps in game & application development

« on: April 23, 2014, 02:08:46 PM »

So you want to give application development a go.

First download and install RRPGE components

Nothing fancy, just read the short tutorial in this topic, taking care to also get (or leave) the assembler in place. Note that the assembler does not need SDL, so on Windows you may freely copy it away alone.

Get the RRPGE specification

Either download it directly from the RRPGE main site (http://www.rrpge.org) or read or check it out from GitHub. Unpack it to some convenient place. It is in plain text, so any plain text editor may be used to read it (such as Notepad++ on Windows, or mcedit on Linux). Alternatively you may browse it directly on GitHub which formats it's reStructuredText nicely.

Check out the assembler's documentation

If you downloaded a binary package, you will find it as README.rrpgeasm. It is just a short documentation describing the assembler's capabilities apart from recognizing and translating opcodes. For the processor's instruction set, you should use the specification mentioned above.

If you want to start without configuring stuff on your system, just copy the rrpgeasm binary in the root of your RRPGE application project, set up a main.asm file to become your project's main, then starting the assembler will just compile it right there.

Check some RRPGE examples for start

You can check out the sources of the RRPGE examples from GitHub. Check how the main files of those are formatted, experiment with them to see how the system reacts to your coding. Note that the assembler should always be ran from command line so it can report back compilation warnings and errors. When it does so, it pinpoints the exact location of the problem in your source, so it should not be hard to fix those.

Important!

RRPGE is undergoing large changes right now, nearing finalization. If you are really interested in developing for the system, don't use the binaries on the main site, rather check out the current state from GitHub. It already works, however it is still largely untested, and lacks many examples. Once these holes are somewhat filled in, it will be packaged and published on the main site for a more convenient start. For some information on the planned stability of this new iteration, check out this topic.

34

Tutorials / I just want to check RRPGE out - what to do?

« on: April 23, 2014, 01:44:13 PM »

This little tutorial is for those who just want to try RRPGE or some game or application developed for it.

Download an appropriate RRPGE binary

Navigate to the RRPGE main site (http://www.rrpge.org), and scroll down to Binary downloads. There you will see some "RRPGE binary package for ..." entries. If you use any version of Windows, you need the "RRPGE binary package for Windows, 32bit" (I won't link it here since the exact archive changes frequently as the project develops). It will run happily on a 64 bit Windows as well, so no problem. If you use some version of Linux, use the appropriate Linux binary package (it will likely work on most distributions). Download the package.

Install the package

Good news: no matter what kind of system you have (Windows or Linux), you don't need installation. Just unpack the downloaded package somewhere accessible. To run the emulator, you only need the binaries (rrpge.exe in Windows, rrpge in Linux), and in Windows, the SDL.dll file (if it is left next to rrpge.exe, it will work all right). The other binary in the package is the assembler which you will only need if you want to develop applications or games.

Try it out

The emulator won't start by itself: it needs an RRPGE application as parameter. In Windows in a different Explorer window navigate in the examples directory, pick for example the rotozoom.rpa file which is an RRPGE application, and drag & drop it onto rrpge.exe. The emulator will start it, you will see the RRPGE logo zooming in and out in it's window. You can exit from it by simply closing the window. In Linux, you may use the command line to do the same.

Advanced: Assign .rpa files to the emulator (Windows)

In Windows if you attempt to "start" (double-click) an .rpa file (such as the rotozoom.rpa mentioned above), Windows will offer you to assign it to some application. Just find the rrpge.exe file, and assign to that. Now the RRPGE applications will be opened by the emulator when double-clicked.

Advanced: Compile from source (Linux)

If you use Linux, you may use the GitHub pages to check-out the source code of the "RRPGE Minimal library & host" (this is the emulator) and optionally the source code of the assembler. They can be compiled simply by make (no Automake or anything) on either 32 or 64 bit systems.

35

Forum and Web site / Later plans for site and forum themes

« on: April 23, 2014, 01:11:59 PM »

Currently this SMF forum just goes along with it's default theme (my previous try got burned up in spam, needed some hasty action).

Later like for the main RRPGE site and my blog, I plan to design some dark theme preferably myself. Of course given that the forum is theme-able, I will retain the possibility for selecting a bright theme for those who like that. Why I like the "dark side" is that my eyes are quite sensitive: I can not much endure the usual bright background designs for long. Dark also gives some good retro-ish feel which is a nice thing to have here.

36

Forum and Web site / Administrator approval required

« on: April 23, 2014, 01:01:24 PM »

Currently to sign up on this forum, administrator approval is required. So please be patient!

I set this up so since I don't have much experience in running forums, and I neither can be around all the time while performing my daily routines and of course developing RRPGE. This restriction will be lifted once the forum is properly staffed.

Typically I review applications in about two days, but I might delay with it a bit. To be successful, please choose some sensible user name, it may help if you also use it on other sites so I can find it is likely valid. In doubt I might send you a mail before approval.