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Commodore 64 turns 30
will_die writes "The Commodore 64 came out 30 years ago and to celebrate this the BBC went and got two groups of kids to try out an old system, complete with tape drive. It's sure to bring a few grins to people who had one of these old systems. From the article: 'The Commodore's ability to display 16 colours, smoothly scroll graphics and play back music through its superior SID (sound interface device) chip - even while loading programs off tape - helped win over fans, but it did not become the market leader until the late 1980s.'" Last spring a modern version of the C64 was released.
10 For x=1 to 30
20 Print "Hello World"
30 Next x
My cousin got one in 1984, just one year before Nintendo. I was an atari2600 die hard and when C64 came out, it was like a whole new world was opened to what games could be like. I remember playing Bruce Lee with my cousin and discovering the second player could take away one enemy and even fight the remaining enemy :) We played Bruce Lee coop for a while, and the game isn't exactly easy even then.
My favorite game of the 80s was on c64: Legacy of the Ancients. It was an easy to play RPG that was moderately complex for its time.
I remember Pool of Radiance, the beginning of all the AD&D series of games. Pool of Radience, Wasteland and Final Fantasy 1(not c64) was what inspired me to try and make the first MMORPG in 1992. It is pretty hilarious when your first video game ever is trying to be a MMORPG. I just saw MMORPGS as the future, along with instant messaging. I think many game designers wanting to code their game are guilty of trying too much on their first game.
I programmed some on C64, it is where I learned the "if" statement and graduated from print rockets I did in elementary school. The if statement opened a lot of doors for developing games, but unfortunately C64 didn't distribute a graphics library for basic, so unless you could learn how to peek/poke with no documentation, you're not making a commercial game.
If you want to write one of the wildest C64 programs ever which I don't recommend on these new systems who might not boot up if you do something bad:
Psuedo code:
10: Poke Random int,Random int;
20: print,"Hello"
30: goto 10
This program is like giving your computer drugs, you never know what might happen. The screen might melt, the sound might start playing, it might stop saying hello, and start saying different things. The screen might split up into 4 regions. If you have a C64 by, you should code it up and run it a few times. The biggest problem with this program is that there is no way to save one specific sequence, since the system changes itself over different times, and it might be referencing time.
God spoke to me
The most amazing thing to me is that coders are still trying to push the video chip to new heights. It is now possible to display all 16 colors any way you want in 320 x 200, and with enough external memory you can play back video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QATUjaFYbJ4&feature=player_detailpage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QATUjaFYbJ4&feature=player_detailpage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QATUjaFYbJ4&feature=player_detailpage
Mostly random stuff.
Agreed. My Commodore equipment was a hugely important stepping stone to my current career. I mastered 65xx assembly on my C64, learned Z80 assembly on my C128 and learned 68k assembly, C programming and how to use a BSD TCP/IP stack on my Amiga. Installing NetBSD on my A3000 gave me an interest in BSD that forged a path to my current job in the embedded BSD field.
Had I gotten a KayPro or IBM PC instead of a C64, I'd probably still be in the tech field. But most likely, it'd be a different part. I most likely would have ended up living in a different part of the country, would have married a different woman, would have different friends, etc... Butterfly effect to the maximum.
I just can't imagine the same scenario if I had bought an HP calculator rather than a TI-81 in middle school. My life would have turned out roughly the same either way. Same goes for a lot of stuff from my youth. But my home computers were a huge influence. I imagine the same is for many people, which is why they have such a soft spot for them, defects and all.