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Floppy Bird: A Flappy Bird clone in 16-bit x86 assembly

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Re: Floppy Bird: A Flappy Bird clone in 16-bit x86 assembly

#21

Post by ekr »

anoxic wrote: post #17
habosa wrote: post #12

First of all, this is really cool and I think the closest thing I have seen to 'readable' assembly. Tiny nitpick: doesn't running asm still require an operating system? I haven't read all of the code but I assume that there are instructions for I/O or other traps that require the OS. Isn't the OS just the layer between the hardware resources and programs that want to access those resources?

I think it really means floppy bird IS an OS, albeit one that can get nothing done but a flopping bird

No, it's not an OS by any means, as it doesn't provide a way to abstract computations (processes), doesn't provide support for file systems, etc.

Re: Floppy Bird: A Flappy Bird clone in 16-bit x86 assembly

#23

Post by nawitus »

habosa wrote: post #12

First of all, this is really cool and I think the closest thing I have seen to 'readable' assembly. Tiny nitpick: doesn't running asm still require an operating system? I haven't read all of the code but I assume that there are instructions for I/O or other traps that require the OS. Isn't the OS just the layer between the hardware resources and programs that want to access those resources?

I think the Floppy Bird uses Real Mode[1], which provides an easy access to various devices directly through the BIOS. Practical opearting systems switch to protected mode, which provides more features, but doesn't allow you to use BIOS interrupts (and at that point you need to start writing device drivers).

1. http://wiki.osdev.org/Real_Mode

Re: Floppy Bird: A Flappy Bird clone in 16-bit x86 assembly

#25

Post by Scuds »

habosa wrote: post #12

First of all, this is really cool and I think the closest thing I have seen to 'readable' assembly. Tiny nitpick: doesn't running asm still require an operating system? I haven't read all of the code but I assume that there are instructions for I/O or other traps that require the OS. Isn't the OS just the layer between the hardware resources and programs that want to access those resources?

> Tiny nitpick: doesn't running asm still require an operating system?

The great 8-bit systems of the 80's - Apple II, C64 - booted their apps and games off of floppies all the time.

Re: Floppy Bird: A Flappy Bird clone in 16-bit x86 assembly

#26

Post by salgernon »

Thanks for wasting 4 minutes of my life! For some reason, I picked up a Wyse Winterminal S50 from Weird Stuff last week... a thin linux client box from 2006 that has some sort of underpowered x86 and very little memory.

So I was playing with it and it has this weird linux on it that lets you set it up to very slowly browse the web and such, but it wasn't very interesting, all told.

When I saw this project come up, I grabbed the .img, wrote it to a spare usb stick and damn if the thing didn't just boot up to floppy bird. Nice work! Now I wonder what other dumb PCs I have sitting around that can boot it...

Re: Floppy Bird: A Flappy Bird clone in 16-bit x86 assembly

#28

Post by wtallis »

gizmo686 wrote: post #18
cyorir wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person who wrote this wrote it to be booted directly from BIOS. That means it must handle everything an OS would otherwise do for it: bootloader, resource management, hardware access, random number generation, etc. So a project like this has great value as an introduction to low level systems and OS development.

As someone who has written no-os code, you do not need to do everything the OS does. If you do not mind giving up most of your RAM, you can stick to realmode and take advantage of the BIOS functions (you can work around the RAM limitation by jumping between modes). If your computer has UEFI, you have access to a much more advanced set of functions, and (for many purposes) can target that. I haven't done anything beyo…

UEFI is awesome in terms of what it enables you to do without an OS, but once you install a few tools like an EFI shell, it's at least as much of an OS as DOS ever was.

Re: Floppy Bird: A Flappy Bird clone in 16-bit x86 assembly

#30

Post by cyorir »

icebraining wrote: post #19
habosa wrote: post #12

First of all, this is really cool and I think the closest thing I have seen to 'readable' assembly. Tiny nitpick: doesn't running asm still require an operating system? I haven't read all of the code but I assume that there are instructions for I/O or other traps that require the OS. Isn't the OS just the layer between the hardware resources and programs that want to access those resources?

It might or might not require an OS; you can implement the hardware access code directly into the program.

True, you could leave out the bootloader and some of the sys code and this would then nearly be a DOS program, at least the port to DOS would be easy. Leaving it as is allows it to boot without an OS.
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