Topic: Come next January, I'll be DS Developer

[DAaaMan64]

I'm going to be working with a DS devkit for about 14 weeks. So if you have any interesting questions for me to ask and find out about I'll see what I can.


One interesting thing I know about the DS is that it has no FPU (Floating Point Unit). Which means basically it has no hardware level understanding of decimal point numbers, such as 1.5. It only understand the 1. However, there are software ways around this.


Anyway, just thought ya'll would like to know.  Later I should be working on the Wii. Can't wait to try to figure out how TEV works and how hard it is to work with

[UncleBob]

DS Dev kit... three weeks before the 3DS is released?

[noname2200]

DS Dev kit... three weeks before the 3DS is released?

High-quality NES games were coming out (from Nintendo, even) over three years after the NES' release.  The PS2 saw some notable releases two years after the PS3's launch.  It's not optimal, but it's workable.  In any case, good luck DAaaMan!

[DAaaMan64]

DS Dev kit... three weeks before the 3DS is released?

LOL yeah. But thats the way it goes.

[Ian Sane]

One interesting thing I know about the DS is that it has no FPU (Floating Point Unit). Which means basically it has no hardware level understanding of decimal point numbers, such as 1.5. It only understand the 1. However, there are software ways around this.

As a programmer that seems very weird.  But I work with financial software and such where decimals are absolutely essential.  But with a game, yeah, that probably is not as essential.  Still instinctively seems weird, though.

[KDR_11k]

Old computers didn't have FPUs and could calculate floating point numbers anyway. IIRC FPUs are physically very large so small embedded CPUs tend to omit them.