[Coco] Native Programming Tools

[John W. Linville]

On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 08:46:20PM +0000, Manny wrote:

> I was wondering if it would be a good thing to list some of the
> tools that are missing or are behind the times in order to see if
> someone with some free time might try and update or create some of
> these tools for native use on the CoCo?  This might help create a
> better environment for programmers of games and apps... Never know.

I'm guessing Steve was referring to tools for doing graphics (both
backgrounds and sprites), music, and sound effects -- maybe even the
kind of tools that compile these 'artistic' bits directly into "code"
(i.e. video bitmaps, register dumps, animation routines, etc).  Doing
that sort of thing on the coco is probably not entirely unreasonable,
but it probably is a bit painful if what you really want is the code
and not the ultimate "retro programming" experience. :-)

FWIW, I think Roger has mentioned having some stuff like that as part
of his Rainbox IDE?  Also, I recall seeing someone (John Strong)
demo a tool he had written that ran on windows to produce graphic
"tiles" that he could use with a graphics engine he had written.
I imagine there are some other things people have used, although much
of it might be the kind of thing you write for a specific project
and never polish-up enough to share.

John
-- 
John W. Linville		Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville at tuxdriver.com			might be all we have.  Be ready.