WHAT!?! FIRST game/trainer on Game Boy Advanced???

[Robby O]

Okay, no not really. And although I know some of the better coders will prolly debo this from me before I got to it, they may as well cause I may never get to it . So why not spread the idea? I thought it would be cool to have a trainer/scorekeeper made for the game boy advance so it would be portable, as well as maybe work an interface with the PC so that robot control can function through it, yknow, with the whole InnovationFIRST console code.

Much info on GBA development can be found at www.gbadev.org and www.devrs.com. Although I have had the idea for a FIRST game for a while now, I just though that Consoles, being designed specifically for games, may be easier to design for. Then again, since the route that we would take is underground... my make it just a weeeeee bit more of a challenge . Comments???

[David Kelly]

that'd be sweet. maybe Nintendo would sponsor FIRST and give every student a GBA with all that scoring and game stuff . and can be updated to every years game.

yeah, i'm dreaming. but it'd be sweet

[Matt Leese]

Originally posted by Robby O
Okay, no not really. And although I know some of the better coders will prolly debo this from me before I got to it, they may as well cause I may never get to it . So why not spread the idea? I thought it would be cool to have a trainer/scorekeeper made for the game boy advance so it would be portable, as well as maybe work an interface with the PC so that robot control can function through it, yknow, with the whole InnovationFIRST console code.

Much info on GBA development can be found at www.gbadev.org and www.devrs.com. Although I have had the idea for a FIRST game for a while now, I just though that Consoles, being designed specifically for games, may be easier to design for. Then again, since the route that we would take is underground... my make it just a weeeeee bit more of a challenge . Comments???

Unfortunately probably not. If I remember correctly, console type systems (like the GBA) require special developer models for debugging. You'd also need a license from Nintendo to develop games for the GBA (that's how they make money -- you sell a console at a loss and make up the money in game sales). You'd also need special hardware to make the cart. And you wouldn't have to do any of that with a PC or Palm Pilot.

Matt

[Nate Smith]

Originally posted by Robby O
Okay, no not really. And although I know some of the better coders will prolly debo this from me before I got to it, they may as well cause I may never get to it . So why not spread the idea? I thought it would be cool to have a trainer/scorekeeper made for the game boy advance so it would be portable, as well as maybe work an interface with the PC so that robot control can function through it, yknow, with the whole InnovationFIRST console code.

Much info on GBA development can be found at www.gbadev.org and www.devrs.com. Although I have had the idea for a FIRST game for a while now, I just though that Consoles, being designed specifically for games, may be easier to design for. Then again, since the route that we would take is underground... my make it just a weeeeee bit more of a challenge . Comments???

Well, Matt is right that generally you do need a license to produce the games, but I know of the licensing checking in other NOA systems (the old 8-bit in particular) being bypassed by certain released cartridges...I might have to check out those sites later on today...

--Edit--
While I was looking at one of those sites, I was looking at the other platforms they had on there...and the idea came up, what about the Cybiko? They cost about the same as a GBA(last time I checked), already support a PC interface, and include a wireless communications feature. I might look into picking one up in the next couple weeks and see what I can do with it...

[Robby O]

I shall reply. Im at work at the moment trying to get a job done on the production printer and having a heck of a time with it.

Granted the official publishing dealie costs cash, but I was not talking about official publishing. There is a whole underground console development scene, where people reverse engineer and devlop thier own hardware and software for programming for these consoles. As long as the official N docs are not used for creating these devices, it is perfectly legal. The cart downloader costs 35 bucks and a 64 meg GBA carts are 106. You can purchase them from www.lik-sang.com or check it out at www.visoly.com. Emulators are available at www.gbadev.org and www.devrs.com. I would recommend doing as i do and learn to program with the emulators first before dropping dough for the dev kits...

this idea came to me when reading this. everyone know how sports game have a new one every year (ex NBA Live '98, n '99). wat if we do the same 4 FIRST. so it will b like FIRST '00 n FIRST '01. n each game will b the competition that year. so FIRST '01 would b this year's competion

[Jon Abad]

palm devices is what i'm thinking...

Appforge makes a great piece of software that plugs into Visual Basic and lets you write your a program in VB and run it on both Palm and Pocket PC devices... yes folks. its that ridiculously easy.

the development environment is fairly cheap ($20) if you just want to make scoring apps and what not... if you want to link it all into a nice database app it all gets more expensive but hey... that's business...

anyways, vb has its moments occasionally and this is one of them.

I think i'm gonna start working on FIRST Live 2002...

[Tom Fairchild]

Wishfull thinking, yes, but something tangilbe are Palm Pilots. We used them this year, and saw other teams doing so as well.

[jcorbets]

Hi,

I'm a little late in joining this thread, but I'd thought I would throw my comments in anyway. The FEDS developed a couple of different scoring options for the 2001 game. We tested them in various practice and competition modes. The first scoring option was a Windows-based program. This had a built-in timer with visual and audible warnings as a time multiplier approached, as well as seperate scores for each team. The latest release version is available at: http://www.ccsdesign.com/Robotics/score2k1v2.zip
if you would like to take a look at it.
We also developed a scoring program for the Palm OS. This was written using only the free SDK and publicly-available tools. Unfortunately, this requires a decent knowledge of C++ and OS internals, but teams that have the resources do tend to share.
In the end, we found that neither program was as helpful as we wanted when on the field. The ideal program, as our developers decided, would create an infinate number of situations and advise the human player how to proceed. This would require some intensive development and hardware requirements, maybe more than the current line of handhelds can provide.
For development tools, there are a lot of possibilities. For the Palm OS, there is AppForge, as mentioned above and also free C++ compilers. For Windows CE, Microsoft offers development tools free as add-ins to Visual C++ and Visual Basic. For desktop versions of Windows, there is the Visual Studio package as well as Borland C++Builder and Delphi.
I'm interested in any other comments on this subject.

Jeff C.