For my first day, I chose to start with ChatGPT.
Admittedly, it’s a general-purpose AI and not one specialized in software development, but I figured it would be a good starting point.

My goal

I had a fairly clear idea: develop a small game in C.
I had also read that for anything related to graphics, it was better to use assembly language.
So I planned to rely on ChatGPT to guide me through that language. 😉

I then wanted to test the program in an emulator.

First attempts

I started by explaining my context and needs, then asked for useful references.
ChatGPT listed several blogs and tools… but most of them no longer existed: deleted repositories, moved links, unknown or unreachable tools.

On the code side, things got complicated:

  • The first proposals didn’t compile, mainly due to obsolete compiler options.
  • ChatGPT suggested code using stdio.h and putchar, even though I couldn’t use external libraries in this context.
  • After several back-and-forth exchanges, I finally obtained code that compiled.
  • All that remained was to run it in the emulator…

The .k7 nightmare

ChatGPT became convinced that it could generate a .k7 file using the -k7 option of cmoc, which doesn’t exist (or no longer does).
Then it pointed me to buildcass (vanished repo: columboo/buildcass) and then lwbin2tap, which I never managed to find.

As a fallback, it suggested writing a Python script to convert a .bin file into a .k7.
We tested several versions, but none of them worked: in dcmoto, the message “rewind the tape” kept appearing over and over.

I tried loading the .bin file directly into dcmoto, but nothing worked either: the LOAD, EXEC, etc. commands produced no result.

A glimmer of hope… then another dead end

After some research, I came across Olivier P’s repository:
👉 OlivierP-To8/BootFloppyDisk

I asked ChatGPT to take inspiration from it to generate a small “Hello world” program in assembly.
But once again, the program didn’t work.

End-of-day thoughts

A bit frustrating, I admit.
Everything seemed promising: the discussions with ChatGPT were interesting, ideas were plentiful, examples were detailed (even a mini-game!)… but nothing actually runnable in the end.

The references were out of date, the AI seemed to lose track of the context, and sometimes even go in circles.

So it was time to move on to an AI dedicated to development. 🚀

To be continued…