I built a Go runtime that runs on the Sega Dreamcast, the 1999
console with 16MB RAM and a 200MHz SH4 CPU.
You can write games in Go with goroutines, channels, garbage collection,
and all the language features you'd expect. It compiles using gccgo and
runs on real hardware or emulators.
The project includes 3 game examples Pong, Breakout and Platformer, input handling, audio support, and integrates with KallistiOS (the Dreamcast homebrew SDK).
I just wanted to say how impressive your documentation is. I expected an average readme.md, but not only is your readme great (the performance table is wonderful), but the full documentation is awesome. It pretty much answers all questions I had. Nice job! I wish all projects were like this.
Hey panos! I only had a short look at this for now, and it looks impressive! I'll have to dust off my Dreamcast and get this running.
I looked at gccgo when porting the runtime to n64, but at the time it wasn't updated since go1.18. Can we use Go Generics on the Dreamcast? I see that gccgo is obviously needed to support SH4.
> Who is this for?
> ...
> Anyone who enjoys the challenge of severe constraints
Remembering what a powerhouse the Dreamcast was when it came out, and how amazing games like Soul Caliber and Shenmue looked, it's hard to think of the Dreamcast hardware as "severely contained".
> Replaces the standard Go runtime with one designed for the Dreamcast's constraints: memory 16MB RAM, CPU single-core SH-4, no operating system.
24 total megabytes, with an M, of memory between system and video (another 8 there), single core 200mhz CPU, graphics chip runs at 100mhz. Shenmue runs on it.
I built a Go runtime that runs on the Sega Dreamcast, the 1999 console with 16MB RAM and a 200MHz SH4 CPU.
You can write games in Go with goroutines, channels, garbage collection, and all the language features you'd expect. It compiles using gccgo and runs on real hardware or emulators.
The project includes 3 game examples Pong, Breakout and Platformer, input handling, audio support, and integrates with KallistiOS (the Dreamcast homebrew SDK).
* Star Here: https://github.com/drpaneas/godc * Documentation: https://drpaneas.github.io/libgodc/ * Video Tutorial: https://youtu.be/ahMl0fUvzVA
Happy to answer any questions about the implementation!
I just wanted to say how impressive your documentation is. I expected an average readme.md, but not only is your readme great (the performance table is wonderful), but the full documentation is awesome. It pretty much answers all questions I had. Nice job! I wish all projects were like this.
I also dig the documentation / book styling.
This is kind of cool, kudos for the effort.
Hey panos! I only had a short look at this for now, and it looks impressive! I'll have to dust off my Dreamcast and get this running.
I looked at gccgo when porting the runtime to n64, but at the time it wasn't updated since go1.18. Can we use Go Generics on the Dreamcast? I see that gccgo is obviously needed to support SH4.
> Who is this for? > ... > Anyone who enjoys the challenge of severe constraints
Remembering what a powerhouse the Dreamcast was when it came out, and how amazing games like Soul Caliber and Shenmue looked, it's hard to think of the Dreamcast hardware as "severely contained".
I thought that gccgo supports only some old go version? Or subset of features? I will need to refresh my memory for sure
> Replaces the standard Go runtime with one designed for the Dreamcast's constraints: memory 16MB RAM, CPU single-core SH-4, no operating system.
24 total megabytes, with an M, of memory between system and video (another 8 there), single core 200mhz CPU, graphics chip runs at 100mhz. Shenmue runs on it.
Glares at Teams.
It baffles me that Microsoft can build an entire OS, and build and rebuild GUI stacks, and they couldn't build the Teams UI using C#???
If they built Teams with a C# UI framework, it'd have to be rebuilt 4 times by now.
> CPU single-core
This does not fare well for Go though.
Paging Mythbusters
Could implement a custom Teams client on top of that.
I mucked about with Microsoft Graph a bit before, didn't seem too bad.
The "Effective Dreamcast Go" docs on this are fantastically well written. I've read much worse docs from major corporations.