[Project] Complete guide for complete newbies

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emch
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[Project] Complete guide for complete newbies

Post by emch »

Hello everybody!

Along with my beginning journey in the Uzebox community, I have decided to start writing a small guide to share my experience and to help me understand what I'm doing!

I'm currently quite busy (like all of you) so I am writing on average a chapter per week. I have already written 2/3 chapters (not completely) and have uploaded the resulting first version here.

There are 8 chapters planned for the moment but it should increase in a close future!

Current complete or almost complete chapters are:

Chapter 0 - The book
Chapter 2 - Tasting (emulator)
Chapter 4 - Electronics (writing in progress)
Chapter 8 - Programming: IDE
Chapter 10 - Programming: game design (writing in progress)
Appendix A - Setting up a virtual machine

The level required for these chapters is: complete newbie!
Other chapters are still in draft version or not yet written.

I hope this can be useful for the community and I hope I will be able to continue working on this guide.
Please all comments are welcome. I would particularly appreciate to have your point of view on the way chapters are currently organized or chapters you would like to see ...

Thanks in advance!
emch

P.S.: any language corrector would also be appreciated, I don't know if my english is always clear enough ;) .
Last edited by emch on Mon Aug 27, 2012 6:01 pm, edited 6 times in total.
Cheers!
emch / F4GTL
Currently writing a EUzebox-from-scratch tutorial/ebook.
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uze6666
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Re: [Project] Complete guide for complete newbies

Post by uze6666 »

All I can say is wow, this is really awesome work! The Uzebox project will have it's own book, at last! :mrgreen:

Very well written and quite romising. Since it's written from the perspective of someone new sharing his experience, I'm pretty much convinced this will greatly help newbies (and less-newbies alike :) ). If yon don't mind I'll add a link to it in the wiki. It's already has great value.

Thanks for your great contribution to the project and don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions. I'll read it in more details and give you some feedback in the few days.

Cheers,

-Uze
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DaveyPocket
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Re: [Project] Complete guide for complete newbies

Post by DaveyPocket »

I've always wanted to write a guide, but my publishing skills aren't that great and I always thought it would look terrible.

Great work!!
emch
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Re: [Project] Complete guide for complete newbies

Post by emch »

Thanks for your very nice comments.
Looking forward to hearing your advice/remarks!
Thanks again!
emch
Cheers!
emch / F4GTL
Currently writing a EUzebox-from-scratch tutorial/ebook.
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Harty123
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Re: [Project] Complete guide for complete newbies

Post by Harty123 »

Hi,

wow - very cool! A lot of people asked me for such a document!!! Keep up the good work. If you agree, I will later link this document to my website...

If you need help or support don't hesitate to ask us. I've written some month ago for a german electronic magazin an article about the programming of own games / applications for the Uzebox platform. If you want I can send it to you but it is in german...

-Harty
emch
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Re: [Project] Complete guide for complete newbies

Post by emch »

Hi Harty,

I would indeed be quite interested in reading this article. My german is not what I'd like it to be but I can read it (when taking the time ;) ).
Thanks in advance!

No problem with linking to this document, once it is finished of course. I plan to release it under Creative Commons License ;) .

Regards,
emch
Cheers!
emch / F4GTL
Currently writing a EUzebox-from-scratch tutorial/ebook.
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Harty123
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Re: [Project] Complete guide for complete newbies

Post by Harty123 »

Hi,

pls send me your email address as PN. I will send you the article than...

-Harty
HardlyUnique
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Re: [Project] Complete guide for complete newbies

Post by HardlyUnique »

Very good start!

Docs like this will really help to bring more people over to the Dark Side :D.

Is it really so hard to find a Windows version of Uzem? I guess someone needs to step up and release a current Windows build!(?)

Another reason you might want the actual hardware: you can't develop new video modes and do other "outside-the-box" stuff with the emulator. The emulator doesn't actually emulate TV timings and is too forgiving; you think you're doing something cool that looks great but when you actually hook your project up to a TV the first time, there's a good chance all you get is a garbled mess. This isn't really an issue for complete newbies who plan on staying within the confines of the kernel and not hacking it at all. I'm just saying, it's another reason. :geek:
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uze6666
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Re: [Project] Complete guide for complete newbies

Post by uze6666 »

All pre-compiled windows tools are already available in GoogleCode:
http://code.google.com/p/uzebox/downloa ... akechanges

-Uze
emch
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Re: [Project] Complete guide for complete newbies

Post by emch »

Thanks! ;)

I think I already fought with those tools. I tried to recompile under Dev Cpp (not the best IDE I agree) and got some strange error linked with some configuration (I don't recall exactly). I need to work again on it but I don't have access to a Windows machine at the moment ;) . Will try again in a next future (in probably 1/2 weeks) and write the results in the guide ;) .

By the way, I started writing the first official version of Chapter 4 which will be dedicated to understanding the EUzebox electronics schematics.

Also, tell me if the way figures are organized is disturbing or not. LaTeX indeed doesn't put the figure where you actually write it in the code, which is what is done for official publications but which can be disturbing when there are a lot of figures. I tried to reference them the best way I can but it can still be annoying.

Best regards!
emch
Cheers!
emch / F4GTL
Currently writing a EUzebox-from-scratch tutorial/ebook.
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