News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Writing a Game Boy Emulator in OCaml. Parent comment

Re:Writing a Game Boy Emulator in OCaml by tombert on Wednesday January 12, 2022 @09:31AM (#29906721)
That seems to be the consensus that I've read online.

Still, the reason I want to do it online is specifically because I want an excuse to really understand low-level hardware. I (and probably a majority of people on HN who do software) really only have "real" experience with "Java or Higher" with maybe hitting C if I have the rare occasion of having to worry about saving a few milliseconds. An emulator would force me understand low level hardware, or at least I think it would.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Writing a Game Boy Emulator in OCaml by coldpie on Wednesday January 12, 2022 @10:39AM (#29907853)
Another fun option for learning low-level stuff is analyzing existing games. I did this to create a level map dumper for one of my favorite NES games[1]. You can see other ideas on the excellent Displaced Gamers YouTube channel, for example[2].

Also, read the book Code by Charles Petzold.

[1] https://tcrf.net/Proto:M.C._Kids#Level_Changes

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGdpst_6k9k

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Writing a Game Boy Emulator in OCaml by yoyohello13 on Wednesday January 12, 2022 @12:03PM (#29909503)
I think Nand 2 Tetris [1] is a really good way to get a good intro to this stuff at a basic level without too much friction with tools. You essentially start with a nand gate, and eventually build up a whole computer including a Java-like programming language.

[1]: https://www.nand2tetris.org/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Writing a Game Boy Emulator in OCaml by rjhallsted on Wednesday January 12, 2022 @01:44PM (#29911120)
I've been meaning to get to Nand2Tetris, it looks really interesting.
[ Parent | on HN ]