How where they made in the old days?

• Assembler
• C
• Look up tables for almost anything other than an addition or subtraction
• Tweaked graphic modes so you code write to all 4 planes of a VGA card so you could write 4 pixels at a time for scaling and filling.
• Everthing based on a a pow of 2.
• Virtually all multiplications and divisions could then be bit-shifted instead of an actual multiplication.
• If you needed more than int precision you used fixedpoint math.
• 2D games usually used bit-masks so you could do cheap collision tests using bitwise operators.
• Self modifying code to cut down on the codesize (usually less than 64K to work with)

-Lee

"To be civilized is to deny one's nature."