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Open Source Programming On The UK PSX2
Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this article at www.ComputerandVideogames.com the demo disc included with PS2 in Europe will come with a fun programming utility called YABASIC (Yet Another BASIC). YABASIC is an open source language that allows for the creation of simple routines, including rudimentary 3D. The programs created will be saved on memory cards. Isn't the purpose of buying a PSX2 so you don't have to play old- looking games?"
I hope this means they're going to do a similar project for the PS2.
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Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Am I the only one thinking that using YABASIC we'll be able to understand PS2's internals well enough that someone will start porting your favorite kernel to it?
The only major problem could be Sony exploiting of some of the 'features' of the Artistic License under which YABASIC is available (mainly: libraries, linked function and 'embedded version') but given a stable interface with YABASIC, it's only a matter of time before someone will be able to understand how to use these libraries to understand how PS2 BIOS and/or HW work (for an exaple, look at how the windows CODECS for AVI, ASF and DivX are used in linux/unix multimedia players).
Ciao,
Rob!
AniToolBox! An Open Source animation program!
Keep in mind that, as dailyradar mentioned, the UK has a 2.2% tax on console system imports, yet it has no equivalent tax for "computers."
;-)
With a programming language shipped right inside the box, perhaps Sony is looking to subvert that import tax by making the PS2 seem more like a traditional computer system (not that "typical" computer systems ship with programming languages in the box today anyway
paulb
Paul Bettner
Game Developer et al
You may have forgotten- the PS2 has USB, firewire (er, i-Link), and PCMCIA ports... Imagine all the applications... like missile guidance, if what the Japanese government says is true...
Personally I find games interesting only for short periods of time - then I get bored. Programming, on the other hand is always interesting. I think this is great - think of all the people who got their first programming experience on a C64 with Basic. Now they can hack away on a PS2.. that is very cool.
Ok, I know I'm going to see a lot of posts saying this is a great way to get kids into programming. Kids can use this argument on their parents too, but....
Firstly, as the article says, this is probably just a way to get around an import tax. It will undoubtably be limited, and kids who try to use it will end up more frustrated than interested.
Also, this platform is not one that I would want a newbie programmer (of any age) touching. The programming style which should be used differs greatly from pc-style programming. So the games, routines, whatever made will be bad, and asking a non-ps2 programmer about what to do to improve them will give you less than wonderful results.
If you want to get someone into programming, get them into something like tcl/tk. The interface is easy (it's a scripting language for those who don't know), allows you to draw stuff to the screen easily (compared to X), and still provides the intro to how to lay out a program, how to set up functions, etc. It doesn't write it for you, like visual-basic, so you really have to learn, but the results are immediate. It extends to object oriented design ([incr] Tcl), and when they outgrow it, all the ground-level stuff will be in place for whatever they want to get into.
Buy a ps2 for games. That's what it's for. If someone (especially your kid) has an interest in programming, get them into something that you know, so they have a solid foundation to draw from.
ROckin in the free world. NOTHING beats the fun the old 10 print aksdghf ad 20 rrun mwahahhahahhaahhhaa
~ppppppppö
Uh, perhaps we have forgotten about Frag Island...
Ok, so it isn't a complete Quake - but it does show what is possible with the language (and this was in 1997 - I could show other 3D engine examples on the net, but why bother). As for teaching it to kids - heck, it is hard to teach BASIC to kids, esp. nowadays...
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Oh yes! Blitz Basic for the PC. Excellent!
Now I can rewrite all those cheesy Amiga games that I never finished, but better and able to take advantage of decent graphics and computers. Quazatron II here I come again.
I hope it isn't that hard to come up with a Linux version either. I hope that it hasn't been coded in such a way that it ties in too directly with Windows, and that the underlying libraries that interface with DirectX can be replaced with libraries that interface with OpenGL. Still, doesn't mean that a language compatible, if not source compatible version can't be made for Linux.
Oh, forgot. I was going to get into Amiga SDK programming and then there is the company website, and where will I get the time to do graphics these days! Oh, it was great being at school and being a student - there was time available to do interesting things. Now there isn't any at all. :-(
Oh, the the PSX2 is shipping with BASIC in Europe to get around a 2% tax on games machines as opposed to computers. They are arguing that if the machine can be programmed by users, then it is a computer, not a games machine. Good on them as well, as there needs to be an outlet for the next generation of games creators.
Recently, the games industry has discovered that
there are no more games hackers coming up
through the system. The majority of the coders
learnt their trade through spending night after
night playing with their ZX Spectrums and C64's
in the early 80's.
These days, with the shrink-wrapped games running
on undocumented programmer hostile operating
systems, only the hard core hackers play with
the machines, and these aren't the sort who
would be likely to play with writing games.
Adding a BASIC interpreter to the PSX2 is a smart
move. It'll give the game playing public a chance
to play at controlling their own machine and
compete with their peers about what their latest
neat game coding trick is.. creating a new
generation of games coders for the gaming industry.
On top of this, it may also be a ploy to persuade
the EU commission that the PSX2 is a computer and
not a games console, so they don't have to pay the
2.2% levy, of course.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
That's cool when I was fifteen I was learning assembly langauge on an outdated C64, basic, and C on an 8086. I'm sure in its way OpenGL is as complicated or more so then assembly language. I'm quite sure the math involved with some of the more advanced OpenGL programming is more complex. Keep it up maybe you'll get most programmers dream job and work for a game company.
By age 15 a smart young person should be able to handle C/C++ and a good graphics library with some work. But at age 12 just being able to create a game as simple as pong in basic would be really cool.
I remember the first animation I did in basic. All it did was make a line move around the screen and bounce off the edges but I was very proud of it. After that I was sure that I wanted to work with computers. Now I'm a college student about to graduate with a degree in computer science. Sometimes all it takes is a little push. Stay with it James.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
I think this is great!
If I hadn't started programming on my C-64 (or, heck, my Sinclair ZX81) I probably wouldn't be programming today - at least, I wouldn't have been doing it for the last 15 years and have the job that I always wanted today.
There is a substantial difference between people who discovered programming as a kid and learned to appreciated it, and those who decided to take it at university for the job opportunities.
With the barrier to entry so high to get into programming these days, I think it's great that they're putting a free language, no matter what it is, in with the system.
sig fault
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
For proving all the naysayers wrong.
.rm's and mpeg1 videos on my linux box now! everything is working now. Thanks.
They said you'd never support open source or provide a quality programming environment for your PS2.
Well, you've certainly showed them. Now that hackers everywhere have a rudimentary basic that does a primitive 3D, golly, you're just gonna take the market by storm.
A call to developers : gorilla.bas clone needed.
[OT] Some people were helping me get video capture working on linux box...just so you know, I've got both realproducer and bcast2000 cranking out
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Well, aside from bypassing a tariff, I can see another reason for Sony doing this. They want the PS2 to become the center of your wired universe. Programmability is an important piece of the home automation and home networking that Sony sees their box being capable of.
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
Hey, Sony was first because they used CD in the
computer, not outstanding graphics. Because now
they have propietary API and non-disclosure to go
with it, Dreamcast seems more attractive, because
of semiopen DirectX like graphical interface.
OpenGL is better, but hey at least I can tell
anyone about it! =)
DOWN WITH PS2.
PS: I do not have anything against PS1, which is great platform, and expect Indrema to be the rocker. =)
Someone will get those region bits shifted and hack out an ISO in just a few hours. Of course, it may not be too much fun to pound out code with a gamepad with TV resolution -- maybe just a bit more convenient than than programming the TI graphing calculators. Still, it's a fun idea.
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
Oh, c'mon. I've played a few games on the Dreamcast, and I've got both SSX and DOA:2HC for PS2. From what I've seen, PS2 whups the llamas ass, hands down. From what I've heard, the differences between the two versions of DOA are minimal, but consider: it's a PS2 launch title, but a game released a year after Dreamcast launch.
Bottom line: PS2 has the 'oomph' and the backing of the gaming companies, and will no doubt be a kickass system a short way down the road. Hell, Square alone would lead me to buy the system. Dreamcast has a great library of games, and will still be well worth it's price for a good while to come, but don't bother arguing it's technical superiority: the facts (and games!) don't lie.
Aw, blast. Look at me, I've gone and gotten into that mindless console war argument. People, spend what you can afford, and enjoy what you've got. There are more than enough games to go around. Let's just all agree that Japan is cool, and be thankful. ^_^
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"Isn't the purpose of buying a PSX2 so you don't have to play old looking games?"
Nope. Just finished FF5 on my PS2, and I'm currently halfway through FF6. Great games! I'm continually floored by what they could pull of on a SNES for FF6...
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I don't know if you could consider it a Beowulf cluster, however Sony is releasing a graphics workstation based on its Emotion Engine and Graphics Sythesizer technology. According to this here article, they're expecting it to be used for CG scenes and special effects in movies.
It puts 16 pairs of EE and GS chips together, and and this thing says it can render 1.2 gigapolygons per second in 1920x1090 at 60fps. Two gigabytes of system memory and 512 megs of video RAM.
So technically, yeah, it is possible to cluster a bunch of PS2 nodes together for high-end 3d processing...
(BTW, got that article out of a newer issue of PSM, pick one up if ya want.. October issue).
Menacer
Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code still lives on! Although I won't touch VB with a foot long pole.
Well, try reading these 2 papers and maybe that will better explain what i failed to get at: /ps 2/ps2vspc-1.html
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/2q00
and
http://arstechnica.com/ rev iews/1q00/playstation2/ee-1.html
After reading tons and tons of articles and hype about the PS2, and spending the last weekend monopolizing the PS2 down the hall. I am really disappointed. The graphics, compared to Dreamcast, or even just Playstation are pretty bland. One can only hope the GameCube and Xbox are better. For now I will stick with my N64 and Zelda 2 :-)
:P
At least my friend down the hall can justify his expensive purchase with the nifty yabasic programs he can write. WOOHOO! Maybe someone can write some sort of utility to load up CD-R games on the PS2.
[*] You could do more but lines 10+ showed up as "funny characters" as writing such large programs was never intended.
[**] out of total system RAM of 128 bytes. Also note, the 2600 had no video memory either. The code had to shovel data to the video chip as the scan line was drawing the screen. This consumed all CPU attention so your code only had about 20% CPU to run during the vertical retrace interval. Take THAT PSX2!
Naah - they will combine the YABASIC with Tekken - you will have to fight each letter you choose to type .
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While I agree that C is not that much more difficult then basic just setting everything up and understanding what's going on right away is a little difficult. Getting instant gratification with basic can be a big plus for young people. I suspect that anyone that learned how to program on a PS2 would quickly decide that they wanted to try something more powerfull. That person is more likely to try C, C++, or Java.
And with this a young person would not even have to own a computer. Most american households have at least one computer but sometimes parents are a little uneasy about letting Jr. set up new software on the computer.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
For kids to screw around with, BASIC is still a decent language. Any 10 year old who's gifted enough to be doing serious programming isn't going to be trying to learn BASIC on a PlayStation 2 anyway.
I don't think my power of abstraction has been crippled by my exposure to BASIC. I easily grasped object orientation. I rewrote a 6,000 line C++ program in 350 lines of Python.
Of course, if you have a better suggestion for a programming language for kids to screw around with, I am all ears.
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
BASIC was probably the most important thing that ever happened to me. When I was 11 at Secondary school, I was pretty typical of most geeks (without realising it) and just didn't "get along" with most other kids. So, I went and sat in the library, and had to pretend to read. The books were crap, until I came across one called something like "Programming the BBC Micro in BASIC" which was a real '10 PRINT "Hello world!"' kind of book.
At the time it was Lent (coming up to Easter), and so it being a Catholic school, there was the oppurtunity to not go for school dinners, and instead spend the money on getting into the computer room by donating it to charity. I thought, what the hell, I'm a fat git anyway (still am as it happens) so spent the whole of Lent in there. After 4 weeks, I had learnt the BBC inside out. I was by far ahead of most of the school (including those much older than me), at programming, and from then on I used to spend the small amount of pocket money I got on computer magazines and books. For the last 11 years I have lived, breathed and loved technology, programming and everything that was a part of it all. Even my grades in Maths and Physics went up. At GCSE level under the new national curriculum I was given an A* (top 2% of the country), in Computing, and ended up doing a degree in Software Engineering.
I'm now, at the age of 22, the Technical Director of an ISP and I get to write code as much as I want. I get paid a decent amount of money, I'm happy with my life, and I've certainly escaped the poverty trap that was waiting for me if I hadn't got out early enough (I started working part-time at the age of 15).
In short, if I hadn't picked up that book and just started learning BASIC - even just the "Hello World" stuff, I would not be here right now. I think that as a result, giving people that first taste of the possibilities - that they don't need to be good with a pen or a brush to be creative, and to show them that they can actually create things, is fantastic. And yes, this is probably waffling bullshit, but I will quite happily physically fight any person to the death who says that any initiative to teach kids the basics of coding is pointless. We haven't all got Daddy to buy us the latest laptop (PSX2 will drop to $100 within the year, making it affordable to all), nor are we all endowed with the fantastic skills to be anything that we want to be.
Sometimes kids just need to be shown that they can do this complicated shit and be like us when they grow up if they want to be. In the UK at least, geeks are respected by everybody with any sense.
I support anything that allows people to look under the hood and see how computers are programmed, this could be a good introduction to programming logic. Children could quickly learn the limitations and abilities of computers.
I don't particularly like basic, but it is an easy language to use for beginners.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
Add kidding aside, this is a good thing, however you look at it. First off, it lets all us geeks play around with the PS2 without getting out a custom burner and forking over thousands of $$. If someone figures out how to pull the programs off the cards, I could easily see some people learning some nifty peeks and pokes to make the PS2 do some tricks and it could build a community.
Which get's me off to the other good thing. Allowing something to be modified by end users has always proven to be good, just look at the popularity of mods among the FPS's out there. I don't know how you would input code on this, but if it's easy then someone's gonna get bored and come up with some cool stuff. And if they've found an easy way to create code on the PS2, then maybe mod development would extend to the consoles. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to reprogram those street fighter characters or the snipers in syphon filter?
Game programmers are learning that scripting brings about easier content creation, leaving more for the artists requiring less programmer intervention, making better games in less time, and with some of the more creative mods, things that the developers probably never dreamed of, and since the power gamers eat this stuff up, it forms more of a gaming community and can only help to push the creativity of gaming further. I just hope other companies see this, and hopefully implement something similar for their games.
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The usefulness in this isn't to play old looking games, or even to port classics like Asteriods, even though I'm sure a few people will do just that. Think exposing the next generation of kids to game programming. Or programming in general.
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Sell this to sony:
10 PRINT "Pick a number: ";
20 INPUT num
30 PRINT "You typed ", num
40 GOTO 10
when the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. they might as well be dead.
"The European launch of the PlayStation 2 isn't far away, and in an effort to lower costs to the consumer, Sony Corp is striving to negotiate with the UK to reclassify the PlayStation 2 as a computer, which will put it in a lower tariff category. With it's current classification, the PlayStation 2 will carry a 2.2% levy. Sony is even willing to take this issue to the World Trade Organisation. The UK has already rejected the idea that the PlayStation 2 was a computer, commenting that it was not significantly different from the PlayStation." Think i'm blowing out of my arse, look here... They're doing it to get into the lower tariff's, not to encourage newbie programmers =P. If you can program for it, the more you can make an appeal to call it a computer.