That’s really astonishing that you ever developed a game using such primitive
methods. How did you manage to fine-tune your game with such a long time
between versions?
Well, actually, I was very good at just patching RAM with new instructions, so it was
easy to see what small changes did to the game. We also had an HP analyzer that we
could use to trap on many conditions, which allowed us to find many bugs that many
development systems cannot even do today. Actually it was possible to do some new
coding while you were waiting for your last changes to be made, so less time was lost
than you think.
But you would certainly agree that modern development tools have made
game development easier?
There are several issues here. First, back then we often knew everything about the tar-
get hardware, which made it easier to see what was going wrong. Today, the target hard-
ware is often hidden from us and there are several layers of software, which can make
debugging or doing what we really want to do difficult. So in this sense it is much harder
now. Also, these modern software or hardware layers are often not documented, docu-
mented incorrectly, or just getting in our way. Second, the hardware has gotten very
complex with interactions between the many bytes causing all sorts of problems. Third,
the processors have become very complex, causing all sorts of debugging nightmares,
especially in dealing with the caches. Fourth, today there are many programmers work-
ing on a game and it is easy to mess up one of your coworkers.
Surprisingly, the development environment has not gotten any faster over the past
few years despite the great increases in the computing power and RAM. As an example,
some of my files on my 25 MHz Mac IIci with 6 MB of RAM compile and link in the
same time or faster than files on a 550 MHz PC under NT with 512 MB of RAM. Even
the same project on my 150 MHz Indy builds faster than my 550 MHz PC. I firmly
believe that every tool developer should be given the slowest possible system to use to
develop their software! Otherwise, we are doomed to continue to run no faster with
each new upgrade.
The modern tools are so much better than the old method, it is hard to imagine how
I could have done so well, but you mustn’t forget how much time is spent learning each
new software tool, processor, and operating system these days. In addition, the amount
of time wasted chasing after bugs on new systems because I did not understand some
other hardware or software is quite large. But I would not want to go back to the old
tools unless the processors, hardware, software, game concepts, and team sizes were
much simpler.
I’ve never seen your next game,Video Pinball. How did it play?
It simulated pinball by using a half-silvered mirror with a monitor below the mirror and
the graphics for the play-field above the mirror. The monitor would show the flippers
and ball, which gave the impression the white ball was on the play-field. The play-field
actually had LEDs controlled by the program which simulated lit targets. In addition,
the control panel was hinged, which allowed the player to “nudge” the cabinet to give
the ball some English. I did not think this game up. I believe it was Dave Stubben’s idea.
90 Chapter 6: Interview: Ed Logg