The N Language is bootstrapping.
This is what Lin Lixin considers his most brilliant achievement outside the gaming industry.
There is a truth in the field of computer languages: the first compiler for any language was always written in another language.
Even the rapidly developing C Language was developed based on the B Language.
Lin Lixin truly racked his brains to ensure that the N Language could be used completely independently without relying on other languages.
Its first compiler was written in C Language.
Subsequently, Lin Lixin used this C Language- based compiler to write a new compiler code and compiled it using this compiler.
This process may seem convoluted, but ultimately it's all about achieving independence.
And he did indeed do it.
Today, Lin Lixin no longer needs to spend a lot of time and energy every day maintaining the N Language compiler.
It has fully realized the ability to write itself.
In this way, Gerald, Carmack, and others could participate in the maintenance of the N Language without any barriers and continuously improve its functionality.
This makes the N Language unparalleled in efficiency in the field of game development, and no other manufacturer has the right to challenge it.
Its only problem is that it cannot control everything on the board as easily as using assembly. Even with several optimizations by the three of them, it is difficult to completely match assembly.
However, this point seems to have become less important after the advent of 16-bit machines.
Mike's eyes swept across the wide array of goods on the shelves, searching for what he wanted.
It didn't take him long to find the floppy disk in the GAMENOVA themed section.
This is not a game, but software.
A development tool.
The development tools for the N Language include its standard library, integrated editing environment, compiler, and other modules.
Priced at just $39.99, N Language is extremely affordable compared to other vendors' prices of $50 or even $100.
If you can't get your hands on an NX main unit, buying a floppy disk containing N Language development tools shouldn't be a problem.
Pay, take your goods, and go home!
After Mike inserted the ROM into his burner, its contents were finally revealed to the three of them in their entirety.
"Let me see—wait, isn't it?!"
Contrary to my expectations of a cluttered environment, this sample mod has a highly concise, even elegant, file structure.
A core header file used to describe information about the mod itself.
The Mike tapped on the keyboard, attempting to open the file.
Several paragraphs of text, identical to those displayed in the game, were listed on the screen.
ModID="Module Template Author=GAMENOVA- Lin Lixin This----can hardly be considered programming."
This is essentially no different from writing in plain text.
Even complete beginners who see this will understand how to change the module name.
This was truly incredible for these geeks who were used to reverse engineering PC games.
It's important to understand that regardless of the programming language, even assembly language, the final output must be bytecode that the device can understand.
That was a true cryptic text, pure data composed entirely of binary 1s and 0s, completely beyond human comprehension.
Even with the many interesting decompilation tools available today that can help them painstakingly decompile binary data into something somewhat understandable, they still can't achieve the same effect as what's currently being presented.
The text was in plain language, without any ambiguity, laid bare before them.
An ID should be called an ID, not some random string of unknown information.
Without hesitation, Mike changed his ID to Blizzard, which the three of them had agreed on earlier. It was incredibly cool.
After making this change, the author naturally had to change it back to Mike's own name.
After writing a few random lines in the description, Mike ran the compilation and burned it into the EPROM provided by the manufacturer.
Next, I connected the machine and gave it power.
The song " Dream of Flight," which had been firmly etched into my mind, played again, announcing that the game had been successfully loaded.
Frank hesitated slightly, then slowly clicked on the additional content option.
He was genuinely afraid that this thing would ruin the NX he had worked so hard to get, or break the Civilization program.
That would be a huge loss.
However, perhaps because Mike's skills were reliable, or perhaps because of the excellent quality of the N Language itself, the expected trouble did not happen.
Blizzard
[Author]: [UCLA Mike ]
[Description]: [I'm just writing something randomly; this is still under development -- WIP]
Wow!
It actually works?
Mike was the most surprised.
Because no one knows better than himself just how simple what he just did was.
It simply opened the existing content and modified some of the plaintext entries.
And just like that, the content of the game actually changed.
Mike picked up the mod development guidebook and began trying to modify the most crucial parts following the instructions.
In other words, it means developing your own leader and nation!
"To implement more features, we need to write code. Let's not be so radical yet. Let's try changing the textures and names instead."
Within the file group, under a file tree called "Resources," there are several files with special formats.
If you try opening them with an N Language editor, you'll find that they are just simple pixel art.
One of them is the familiar stick figure illustration.
In other words, replacing or modifying this file might directly change the character art in the game.
At GAMENOVA headquarters, Lin Lixin and Carmack stood in front of Gerald, watching him tinker with two large machines.
They were even larger than Gerald himself, standing in the center of the room like a wall.
And their prices----
It's much more expensive than a wall.
The price for a single unit alone has reached hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Including one-time expenses such as peripheral equipment and engineers, the final total cost is estimated to be in the millions of dollars.
This does not include the hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual maintenance costs.
Lin Lixin and his team even renovated a special server room for these two precious machines.
Temperature and humidity controlled air conditioning, backup power supply, and fire protection system.
These two devices are not both for the development department; one of them has a more important task.
Central server!
Even now, GAMENOVA still hosts the data for works that allow uploaded scores to be managed by hosting companies.
This is, of course, also related to the lack of a suitable server environment.
Now, that gap has finally been closed.
In addition to storing players' scores, it will take on a brand new task.
A resource server, which, according to Lin Lixin, is called "Workshop ".