What is your C64?
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In the late 70s and early 80s (that is 1970s/1980s) there was a big rush in the home computer market, that concludes in our time with computers everywhere... I had some discussions about that time and was wondering... * Was that really that good? * What was so good (or bad) about it? * Do we have it somewhere today? * What is/was your C64? I wasn't aware of it then (no other experience), but what is most amazing while looking back is the total control, the work without any mediator between you and the computer, between the software and the hardware (which was of course a source some interesting smell/smoke/noise)... I could sit down after-school and within a few seconds was in the computer, hacking it away... What is your experience?
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
My first computer was the VIC 20, then the C64 by which time I also coded on the BBC micros at school. The C64 (and VIC 20) was great because it's BASIC was limited (the same reason many hated it) and so it forced you to use machine code / assembly language to do the exciting stuff like animated sprites. I am glad I coded on it because it taught me a lot about low-level programming and how computers work. These days you can too easily avoid all that (I code mostly in Java these days, with a bit of C++/C#) but I still find it useful to have an insight into the inner workings, and besides it's interesting. Modern PCs are surprisingly (or not) similar in basic architecture. The BBC had better BASIC and I used it to write a database management program at school (just simple creation, search and editing features). I enjoyed using all three of these computers. In the end my C64 and VIC 20 failed in the way they usually did - the power supply adapter failed. I do occasionally dabble on a C64 emulator for nostalgic and academic reasons. I never did become a fully-fledged professional coder (I always found the industry a bit too scary!), though I do code a lot as part of my academic teaching role.
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My C64 was the PDP-11 RSTS/E opeating system made available to computing science students in the ACT (Australia) in the late 1970s. Wrote my first AI program on it in 1979/1980 (analysing syllogisms) and a real-time ADVENT type game which transported the interaction from caves and trolls to a galaxy far, far away with attacking robot spacecraft. My first ever personal computer was a Dick Smith System-80 (https://collection.maas.museum/object/456918), followed quickly by an AMIGA 1000 (still the best gaming/graphics/multi-tasking PC I've ever owned) and then sadly nothing but a series of IBM PC clones ever since. True story - one of my friends from university (with whom I had lunch just this week) was a co-founder of MicroForte which wrote the official America's Cup game for the C64 in the early 1980s.
i think you did catch some time of the hippie programmers, i was too young for that. when i finally got to university we had a i486 running on Linux serving the orange monochrome terminals. a little bit later i managed to buy an old Amiga 500 with two of my friends, but sadly at that time a 15 year period of stupidity begun in my life so i didn't really catch up with MC68K assembly. apart from the demo scene as an example of people working many hours for free, just for fun, the other example i can think of is that of the hippie university programmers and hackers. the pioneers of Unix and the world as we know today. well... maybe many see it as the world of Gates and Jobs, but just to think of how modest Dennis Ritchie was compared to this two guys...
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In the late 70s and early 80s (that is 1970s/1980s) there was a big rush in the home computer market, that concludes in our time with computers everywhere... I had some discussions about that time and was wondering... * Was that really that good? * What was so good (or bad) about it? * Do we have it somewhere today? * What is/was your C64? I wasn't aware of it then (no other experience), but what is most amazing while looking back is the total control, the work without any mediator between you and the computer, between the software and the hardware (which was of course a source some interesting smell/smoke/noise)... I could sit down after-school and within a few seconds was in the computer, hacking it away... What is your experience?
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
Way back I had a TI 99-4A. Loved that little machine. Still have the BASIC programming guide as a keepsake. Also a TRS-80 Model 100 portable, which I guess was the first laptop computer. Worked on a gob of D batteries and had a big old 4 line / 40 column screen. It's in my closet and still works if I spend a fortune on batteries.
Sometimes the true reward for completing a task is not the money, but instead the satisfaction of a job well done. But it's usually the money.
