Catchin' Up With Zach

Hello again, world!

Where should I start? We’re wrapping up the first term of work on our capstone project. This term has mostly consisted of research and planning. In fact, we just submitted the v0.0.2 assignment. This was a slightly confusing assignment. We haven’t done much development yet. The real development starts next term. However, we were asked to set up a “Hello World” type of repository for our project. As a group, we weren’t entirely sure what to include in this repository. Since I’m in charge of the PPU implementation, I was in charge of setting up a PPU test file for all intents and purposes of the v0.0.2 assignment.

For this assignment, I decided to do something simple and straightforward. I created a very basic C struct that contains four members. The four members correspond to the four components of the NES PPU’s OAM. OAM stands for Object Attribute Memory. Basically, each graphical sprite can be represented by four bytes of data in the OAM, one byte designated for each component. The four components are as follows: Y position, tile index number, attribute information, and X position. With the struct that I added, we can create OAM structures that contain these four bytes of information as their components. So, I did exactly that in the test file. I created a Sprite OAM struct, assigned some values, and printed the Sprite OAM struct’s data to show that the structure was fully useable.

I’m looking forward to future development. This project still has my interest peaked. I can’t wait to get into the late-night coding sessions. This class has offered me an opportunity to do something truly awesome and my group seems very reliable, so I think the journey will be a positive experience. Our Discord server is quite active. All members of the group seem to respond quickly and appropriately. Things are going much smoother than I thought they would. Hopefully the next term and future progress on the project goes as smoothly as the researching and planning has gone. I’m hopeful and confident that things will be perfectly fine, regardless.

Thank you for reading my post! Catch ya next time.

Hey everyone!

So, I got assigned the NES Emulator as my senior project. Honestly, this project is much different than what I expected, but I could not be more excited to work on this.

I knew the project would involve low-level architecture. I figured our group would be programming in a language like C or C++ and we are. However, I did not fully understand the idea of emulating another hardware. It takes so much more knowledge of the original hardware than I originally thought. I spent the first few weeks reading about NES architecture and watching videos on NES emulation. Funnily enough, many of these videos were simply there to teach you about NES architecture. Understanding the fundamental hardware components that make up a system is super important to being able to emulate the system, so I’ve learned.

For my project, I have mostly spent my time researching two major components of the NES, the CPU and the PPU. The CPU, an abbreviation for the Central Processing Unit, is a component that is responsible for processing commands and coordinating with other components. The PPU, an abbreviation for the Picture Processing Unit, is a component that is responsible for processing sprites and background images and displaying them to the screen. They’re both very complex components and I can’t say that I fully understand them, but I am beginning to see how they work. At first, everything was overwhelming. At this point, things are starting to make sense. My group is very supportive, and every individual seems committed to the task of building a NES emulator. Our group started off with a solid level of excitement and I feel like the group, going into the end of the first quarter, is still quite excited. This probably has a lot to do with the structure of the course that is guiding us.

Overall, the course has been great. At the end of the day, this class is more about the project and the experience gained from working in a team, rather than a grade. There is a lot of work to do, but I don’t ever feel stressed to get it done. This is partially because I’m excited to work on the project and learn the material, but also partially because of the structure of the course. Assignment deadlines are very helpful in keeping us on track but forgiving enough to not cause any problems within the group. I look forward to the next two terms of this course, with this project and my specific group.

I’m very excited to continue learning about the NES and emulation in general. I’m very excited to begin development of the emulator itself. I’m confident that we’ll get it done. This has been a majorly positive experience, and I can’t wait to see where it leads.

Thank you for reading my post! Catch ya next time.

Hello, World! Welcome. My name is Zachary Adkins, but I often go by just Zach. I live in Pennsylvania so I’m 3 hours ahead of OSU’s time zone. I am a full-time student and have been for about 3.5 years now. Coming to OSU was my first experience with higher-level education. Life happened after high school, and I took several years off. So, currently I am 28 years old and should be graduating within the next year and a half! Woo! I am very excited.

My time consists mostly of schoolwork, but I do have a few hobbies. I mostly enjoy playing video games. I used to play a lot of Call of Duty and Counter-Strike but have moved on to less competitive games. I mostly play Path of Exile and Runescape nowadays.

Runescape is surprisingly the game that got me into computers. I started playing when I was about 12 years old and learned to type quickly on this game. I became interested in programming when I started to think about how Runescape was made. This simple game really was the beginning of a long journey that has brought me to where I am today. What started as a small curiosity in game development has flourished into a huge passion for programming and the Software Industry. For the two years leading up to the pandemic, I was researching game development and general programming stuff and found a Python course on Udemy that I followed, teaching me some very basic practices and general Python knowledge. My best friend from high school was graduating from university at this time as well, and ended up in the Software Industry, which allowed some insight into what the career would be like. Covid rolled around and everything went remote, so I entertained obtaining an online degree. By the end of 2020, I was enrolled here at OSU and by January of 2021, I was taking my first college class.

I feel like I have learned so much from the classes I’ve taken. Even some of the core general education courses have been enlightening. I have 5 quarters left before graduating, which are all very CS heavy workloads and I can’t wait to see what else I will learn.

This Senior Project class seems to be one of the most interesting ones in the program. Having looked over the project repository, I think I’m going to greatly enjoy this one. I’m going to list the projects that I applied for and a little blurb about each one below.

1. NES Emulator – This project seems to be all about low-level programming. Honestly, I loved Assembly language. That class was one of the most enjoyable classes I’ve taken so far. If I get assigned to this project, I’m eager to see how more advanced low-level programming feels. I’m not sure about which specialization/field to target after graduation so this project could be eye opening.
2. Artificial Life Simulation – This project just sounds and looks incredible. The potential for this project seems to be through the roof and it is the most “awesome” project in my opinion. I have zero clue how to develop something like this but I would be excited to figure it out.
3. Top-N Music Genre Classification – I’ve heard about Keras and Tensorflow. I’m quite experienced with Python. I’ve watched videos of incredible programmers and mathematicians developing neural networks from scratch. I also LOVE music. This project looks to be pretty awesome.
4. Engineering Simulations with Game Development Tools – This project appeals to the physics lover in me. I am currently taking General Physics with Calculus (PH 211) and am taking PH 212 next quarter. I’ve been a huge physics nerd for a long time but never formally educated until now. I’m excited to see what these classes have to offer, and I would love to contribute to the physics aspects of this project if these classes teach the relevant information (or not. I love learning so I would be willing to learn more physics!).
5. Travel Planner Website – I have always entertained becoming a full-stack web developer. It’s sort of my safety net specialization. The work seems to be pretty enjoyable to me given what I’ve experienced so far in classes here at OSU. I’m much more interested in fields like AI, ML, data-driven fields, and game development, but web development is important and this project seems like it would absolutely solidify my understanding.

I look forward to seeing what this series of courses is going to bring me! Regardless of which project I get assigned to, I know that I’m going to have an absolute blast. I’m hard-working, very easy to get along with, and my availability allows for communication/grouping with pretty much anyone. Thank you for reading my post! Catch ya next time.

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