KOS - X86 exporting?

[affection56k]

I read on the KOS website that there was some X86 support? Is that still a feature? If not, how easy would it be to port a KOS app to X86 windows?

[BlueCrab]

The KOS x86 support was for booting on the bare metal and having a VERY limited OS that could basically do... well, nothing. It wasn't for compiling your Dreamcast programs to run on a PC by any means (so, the stuff on the Dreamcast side like pvr_*, maple_*, video_*, etc. didn't exist at all). It certainly didn't run under Windows or anything else like that

KOS 2.0.0 still has the code in it for the tree, but it probably doesn't work at all (and would be of very limited usefulness if it did). It has since been removed from the Git repository and won't exist in any future versions of KOS.

There was something more along the lines of what you wanted at one point in time called KosINE, but I don't remember if it was ever released for others to use (and it would probably choke on newer KOS-targeting code anyway). Also, there was a similar setup for OS X called KOSX that actually was released, although hasn't been maintained at all since.

Simply put, if you really want to debug on a PC and don't have a Dreamcast available at all, you can always rely on an emulator like nullDC or lxdream. Neither will give you 100% perfect results, but they're probably better than nothing. Of course, nothing beats using the real hardware to test your code with (and you definitely should always test your code on the real hardware).

[affection56k]

Oh I have a dreamcast, it's just I was wondering if it was possible to create a multiform game with KOS. Thanks for the info.

[MisterDave]

With careful use of KGL and some #ifdefs around the controller input and file loading it is possible to create a game that runs on both PC and Dreamcast with a simple recompile. This may get a bit more complex if you are pulling in external libraries though.

[BlueCrab]

There was also a library that was developed in the KOS SVN repository called Tiki that was designed for cross-platform programming targeting PCs and the Dreamcast. Or, you could take the approach I did back in the day and write your own cross-platform library. It's relatively easy to make something that uses OpenGL on a PC and calls on lower-level APIs on a Dreamcast, especially if you're doing 2D.

I'd point you toward my old library, but it probably doesn't even work anymore...

[Quzar]

I remember playing Bloop from warmtoe via KOSINE. Found the thread on it:

http://www.dcemulation.org/phpBB/viewto ... 29&t=40106