Were you a Commodore 64 programmer?

[The_LED_Museum]

Remember, these demos were written on an 8-bit computer with 38,911 bytes of RAM if you use the BASIC interpreer, but close to 80K if you use machine language only.

 

[The_LED_Museum]

And here's the C=64 startup screen itself - after a load error occurred.

oops...got a "?SYNTAX ERROR" message this time.
Loved seeing that particular error...it meant I was human, not an android.

 

[Kinnza]

woow! i envy your memory, The_LED_Museum :bow:

I started with the Apple II in 1984, i programed in Basic and machine code, but now im sure im unable to write a single line of it :huh2:

My best friend buy a C64 some years after, and i waste a lot of time with it. Its a great memory, wich i didnt remember in many years. Thanks for refreshing it to me!

It do me thinks about how some creativity from that years had been lost. The great things that existed, wich 64KB of RAM and 128KB of floppy disk wich have the size of a A4 sheet of paper :twothumbs

There was good chess programs yet, and awesome games

Nice memories

 

[The_LED_Museum]

Let's see here...the BASIC and assembly programs you'd need to change the border & background colors to black on a C=64:

0 POKE53280,.OKE53281,.:END

Invoke this BASIC program by typing RUN at the "READY." prompt.
Yes, it is legal to substitute the "0" with the "." in BASIC code on the C=64.


8000 lda #00
8002 sta $D020
8005 sta $D021
8008 rts

Invoke this assembly language routine by typing SYS32768 at the "READY." prompt.

 

[NewBie]

I never spent much time with the fancy 64, but I spent many days programming the Pet Commodore.

 

[The_LED_Museum]

I have a CBM8032, which is *very* similar in appearance to a Commodore PET.
Both have "green screen" monochrome monitors, and come in a case that looks like this:

It's the thing on the right with the big monaural ghetto blaster on top of it.
This image is blue-green because the sole illumination came from an InReTECH MEGA-SIX flashlight.

 

[bitslammer]

I had only a Commodore VIC-20 with a cassette drive. You are all eletist snobs.

 

[The_LED_Museum]

Hey...I had a Vic-20 as well...in fact, I made (what I believe was) the world's first completely portable COLOR terminal out of it.

I powered the computer with six D cells, displayed its video on a small (2.5"?) color LCD TV, and connected it to a 300BPS acoustic modem ("mouse ears").
I took it to a nearby bar, typed a short terminal program on it in BASIC, took it to a pay telephone, and called my BBS after connecting the modem cups to the telephone handset...success!!! I successfully logged in, snooped around a bit, then logged off.

 

[luigi]

MSX guy here I was in the other sidewalk.
Was mine the dark side or the light side? We will never know... I used to program in MSX basic, mostly utility applications and some games, the MSX basic was veeery cool, I guess we all miss the peeks and pokes and the simplicity of the 80s where once you knew what you had to know it was just up to your imagination.
My MSX2 with 256K of Ram and 31/2 disk drive was quite advanced for the time being, and it has DOS 2.1 compatible with the DOS that early PCs launched so you can actually transfer files from a PC to the MSX.
Konami games,basic, asm the Z80.... it's always nice to remember those times....

Luigi

 

[gadget_lover]

I remember those days.

I could not afford a vic-20, so I started with a Timex/Sinclair ZX80. Moved to the Atari 8bit line after that. The Atari was not necessarily better or worse than the C-64, just different.

My claim to fame was helping a friend hack one of the more popular BBSes to allow 4 modems. Then we added Xmodem transfers in machine code. It was quite impressive at the time, considering it was a 6502 processor in a 1.79 mhz system. That was the Atari 800.

I no longer remember a single detail of those days. The experience did help me get where I am today.

Daniel

OTOH, anyone remeber memory expansions with bank switching?

 

[Canuke]

Exactly right, Craig. The Video Toaster marked the very beginning of desktop video. It was a combination of hardware and software that included a real time studio-in-a-box video switcher and effects device, titler and 3D graphics and animation. I've used them on a number of occasions.

One of the inventors of the Video Toaster is Brad Carvey. If that last name rings a bell, it's because he's the brother of comedian Dana Carvey. I met Brad at a trade show once and he's a brilliant guy. I think that creativity runs in his family.

The Video Toaster is what launched me into my current career as a visual FX artist. After dabbling with Turbo Silver and DPaint on my Amiga 2000 (with a Zeus 68040 board and a Picasso 24-bit display board), a friends installed a Video Toaster in it, and I got down to business learning LightWave.

Before that, I was a programmer on the Coleco Adam. I wrote a golf game ("Adam Links Golf"), a football game, a BASIC interpreter modified from the original "Smartbasic", and something else (it's been ages).

 

[PhotonWrangler]

The Video Toaster is what launched me into my current career as a visual FX artist. After dabbling with Turbo Silver and DPaint on my Amiga 2000 (with a Zeus 68040 board and a Picasso 24-bit display board), a friends installed a Video Toaster in it, and I got down to business learning LightWave.

Before that, I was a programmer on the Coleco Adam. I wrote a golf game ("Adam Links Golf"), a football game, a BASIC interpreter modified from the original "Smartbasic", and something else (it's been ages).

Very cool, Canuke! I remember Turbo Silver and DPaint well. DPaint was my first paint program. I also knew the guy who wrote ToasterPaint.

 

[Big_Ed]

I got a Commodore Vic-20 when I was growing up. I ended up getting the Datasette, and a "Big Blue" printer from a company called Protecto Enterprises. It used rolls of fax paper. I did some very basic programming with it, as well as played lots of video games on it. I loved Omega Race, Pole Position, Donkey Kong, and Frogger the best. All of this is still somewhere in my parent's house. A neighbor friend of mine, got a Commodore 128 when it came out, and the graphics and games really blew me away! I later got one, and never really did any programming on it, but got lots of games. I still have that sitting in a box somewhere.

What great memories. Thanks for starting this thread, Craig!!

 

[The_LED_Museum]

I made a web page with screen dumps of these demos, links to a C=64 emulator for Windows pee-cees, and three of my demos on it.

http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/seventh/c64.htm

Careful @ work - there's a toliet word on the page - it is the name of one of my demos, so it really couldn't be censored out.

 

[ICUDoc]

Wow what a blast from the past on this thread!
I had a Sinclair ZX-80 then _WOW_ a ZX-81. The Vic-20 was a blast but the Commodore 64 was the best- it was so easy to write in machine code on that thing- the resulting programs were blazing fast- faster than the video chip, so you had to write in raster interrupts and time-out periods just to let things catch up!
These days I couldn't program a bloody thing- where did all my time go???
Anyone remember paying $1000 for 512K of RAM!?!?!?!?!?!

 

[Canuke]

Very cool, Canuke! I remember Turbo Silver and DPaint well. DPaint was my first paint program. I also knew the guy who wrote ToasterPaint.

I'm sure I knew that at one point, can't recall right now. Newtek people I've met include Allan Hastings (LightWave) and Stuart Ferguson (Modeler). The latter two are at Luxology now.

I've also met Tim Jenison a few times, including the Newtek SIGGRAPH party last year, at the Walt Disney Auditorium (it's a Frank Gehry, uh, "creation", that had just opened earlier); we had a brief "laser-off", with his modded greenie about 10mW better than mine. Next time, I bring my PPL

 

[PhotonWrangler]

I've also met Tim Jenison a few times, including the Newtek SIGGRAPH party last year, at the Walt Disney Auditorium (it's a Frank Gehry, uh, "creation", that had just opened earlier); we had a brief "laser-off", with his modded greenie about 10mW better than mine. Next time, I bring my PPL

I've met Tim Jenison at a couple of NAB shows. That's cool that he carries a modded greenie! Never met Hastings although I know one of the contributors of the original sample 3d model sets pretty well.

 

[The_LED_Museum]

You know, if I still had my C=128 (primarily for its machine language monitor) and my C=64 demo making tools (compactors, linkers, etc.), I'd write a memorial demo for my best friend Paul Casey, who passed away on 06-16-06.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

You know, if I still had my C=128 (primarily for its machine language monitor) and my C=64 demo making tools (compactors, linkers, etc.), I'd write a memorial demo for my best friend Paul Casey, who passed away on 06-16-06.

That's sweet, Craig.

Maybe you can write his name on the clouds with a laser demo some evening.

 

[Eugene]

Did you ever see any of the Eric Shwartz Amiga demos?