What computers were games programmed on?

[Tupin]

I wonder sometimes what type of machine classic games were programmed on. I'm not talking about computer games, I mean console games like the 2600, Colecovision, NES, Genesis, and SNES. Did some companies use consumer type computers like the IBM PC and C64, or were workstations more common?

I would imagine Japanese programmers used different machines than Americans and Europeans.

What resources were at a programmers disposal, did they get "SDKs"?

Sorry about posting this three times, I got a server error.

[kedawa]

I've read that a lot of 16-bit games were at least partly developed on Amiga computers. I would imagine that's more likely the case in Europe than anywhere else, though.

[ccovell]

Most games made in Europe back in the day were made on Amigas or Atari STs. The entire devkit for the Lynx was an Amiga system. You can always tell a game made on the Amiga when it uses one of the Amiga system fonts or DPaint's Kara font as its own. (Super Strike Eagle on the SNES, for example.)

In Japan, they used a large number of systems. Mostly NEC PCs or older workstations.

Sunsoft, with NEC PC-9801s:
http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/misc/Sunsoft_IntPic.jpg

Nintendo:
http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/weekly/FamiStars10.jpg
A Fujitsu FM R-50

http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/weekly/FamiStars18.jpg
HP_64000 workstations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_64000) from 1979 (!!!) for programming.

In the Super Famicom era, Enix used:
http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/weekly/HowVidGames35.jpg
Generic PCs and a SFC Dev-box for programming

And X-68000s for graphics:
http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/weekly/HowVidGames43c.jpg

More:
http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/weekly/Stars_of_the_Family_Computer.html
http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/weekly/How_Games_Are_Made_DQVI.html

[Wraith Storm]

Atari Jaguar games were developed with either Atari TT030 or Atari Falcon computers. I forget which.

[badinsults]

There were quite a number of SNES games that I know were programmed on Amigas (they have a similar processor to the SNES).

Star Fox was programmed on an OS/2 machine.

[tom]

Space War was programmed on the PDP-1
later adapted for the VCS

But joking aside, VCS games were programmed on Apple ][ and also on workstations.

[ccovell]

There were quite a number of SNES games that I know were programmed on Amigas (they have a similar processor to the SNES).

Star Fox was programmed on an OS/2 machine.

Amigas and SNESes have vastly different processors. The Amigas used Motorola 68000 CPUs, same as the Genesis, while the SNES used a WDC 65816. The only major computer with such a processor was the Apple IIGS.

That's interesting about Starfox. I figured Argonaut would have used an Acorn Archimedes or something...

[Nz17]

And let's not forget, most classic games - particularly Atari 2600/VCS - were programmed in assembly code. The programmers would have been in paradise with a Software Development Kit and a 2nd or 3rd level programming language like C or Pascal. Their work would have been greatly easier with a bunch of software libraries to handle all the heavy lifting. Of course they didn't use those as the CPUs of the day didn't have enough processing power to handle all that "extra stuff" that people take for granted these days. ;)