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ChristopherJam
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 1409 |
How did you get started?
I noticed a lot of reminiscing on PAL's "I want to code" thread, which was interesting to read, but pretty off topic so I'm starting a new topic over here :)
I, too, got my c64 coding off the ground with a copy of the Commodore 64 Programmer's Reference guide (pdfs of which can now be found at http://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_programmers_reference/c64-p.. ). Initially I was assembling by hand, and entering the code as BASIC DATA statements - I don't miss those days at all.
I switched to FASSEM as soon as I got hold of a copy (in 1986 IIRC), and did a lot of debugging of my own code and examining of others' using my brother's Final Cartridge, before eventually graduating to an Action Replay (don't ask me to remember which versions!) I particularly remember spending hours poring over a disassembly of Walker's music routine as extracted from Armalyte, and printed out on sheets of green and white paper.
My fastload coding bible was and still is Immers & Neufeld's "Inside Commodore DOS" - one of the few paper books I still refer to.
How did you guys get going?
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Glasnost
Account closed
Registered: Aug 2011
Posts: 26 |
I learned coding basic on boarding school 1988/1989 and soon after machine language by my good friend Mikael, better known as Spinx in 1989 and started immidiately programming some game that i never finished. The reason was probably that one of our schoolmates, Skyhigh, was a big time swapper, who introduced me to demos and from that time i was hooked. Especially the amiga demo from humanoids with the big almost meditative plasmapart inspired me, and was copied to c64 in "The Mist II". C64 programmers reference was an invaluable help to learn to master the machine. My c64 had a built in fault that somehow was so lucky for me.. The TV output changed the colour just slightly at badlines and whenever the VIC jacked buscontrol, making it rather easy for me to find out how various VIC tweaking effects were made. The funny thing is that im still learning tricks making this good old breadbox one of my favourite toys.. |
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Cruzer
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1048 |
Quoting radiantxit was actually Cruzer's tutorial over at C64.ch that got me started with the first baby steps. So happy to hear that! I remember that tutorial as quite a failure, since I never finished it or even got to the interesting parts about demo effects, but glad to hear that it wasn't completely in vain! :) |
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Pantaloon
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 124 |
am i the only one who allready knew machine code when i was born ? |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386 |
you are crossbow? |
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PAL
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 292 |
Mom got a abc80 machines with some fantastic gear to put into the machine... you put this into the machine and you had pole that you could put in something and it peasured the ph value of what it were in. That got me interested in computers... then the dragon32 and then finally the c64 with all the cool dudes that were a bit elder in the neighboorhood having one and all... ohhh... I got heros on the c64 just like the rock and pop stars and then I wanted to be as they. And I liked doing the stuff on the machine and loved to swapp floppys and all. |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Before the c64 my experience with opcodes was with this diy computer kit that only had 10 leds a beeper and a number display. I think it was one of them radioshack kits. Only had 128 bytes of ram if I recall correctly |
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Dane
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 423 |
Many are the coders who I have tormented with the eternal question:
"Yes, but how does it work?"
Eventually some things tend to stick. |
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JackAsser
Registered: Jun 2002
Posts: 2014 |
I started when I was 5 years old, with some simple basic stuff (I have the disks still lying around! :D). So, technically I don't even remember what it is like not to know how to code. Then I quickly moved on to Amiga Basic, then Amos basic (more available gfx commands). After that one year of pascal, then C in Dos (high school, coding doom-engines). Then moved on to Java when that was released. C++ got acquired along the way, dunno exactly when and how. Then came iOS with obj-c etc... Anyway, back in 2004 I moved back to the C64 and actually bothered to learn 6502-assembly and with the previous programming experience it was quite simple indeed! :D |
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NecroPolo
Registered: Jun 2009
Posts: 231 |
Interesting stories, thread was a good read :)
First of all, I don't qualify as a coder but I had some fun with C64 programming. It's like a lifelong mystery where I can explore little steps time from time without seeing the whole. In the mid '80s in the elementary school I did a lot of stuff in BASIC because I calculate really (I mean really) wrong on paper and I'm quite lazy when it comes to things that I don't care much anyway so I got most of my time consuming math and physics calculating homework done with my C64. I also had some machine code books but looking back, they all missed the right direction, left out some must-have keys to catch up, at least to me. I was always playing music with anything I got in the hands so I ended up using SID editors, it was effortless and clear from the start so I dug myself into it and forgot BASIC. Looking back I realise that BASIC and C64 composing experience directed me to my present profession, during the years as a studio engineer I was programming a lot of stuff from old bogged MIDI sequencers to broadcast processors quite easily without actually knowing how to program. Also, I was also interested in game music creation from the start but I had no contact and luck back in time because the house of the only quite competent game coder I knew burnt down with all the project sources we did together, only some memento SIDs remained. I thought it was time to quit and boxed the C64 for a long while.
Over a decade after, I dug out all my old C64 stuff when I created a SID remix album an sent the bunch of my old SID tunes to iAN CooG and HVSC. He sent me a little player in machine code, 10 lines or so? I figured out how it works and I started to expand it. I started to read Puterman's and Richard's tutorials and started to understand some basic principles that were so clearly demonstrated there. It was like continuing an old adventure but now with a good map. I also learned to respect this machine even much more than before. Due to my terrible math and a somewhat too loose systematical thinking (that was proven to be a blessing for music creation/production anyway) I'll never be a coder as I can see in "matrix" only in music but for sure I'll have a lot of fun while doing anything on C64. I guess, having fun is the most important thing in it as this old machine is one of the few little corners of the world that is not fucked up. |
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Stone
Registered: Oct 2006
Posts: 172 |
When a classmate got a computer I was immediately hooked on the idea of programming. When I bought myself a book about some random programming language and started writing programs on graph paper, my parents probably realized that I was serious about it and got me a C64. I learned Basic, but it wasn't very satisfying and I knew that none of the games I had were written using Basic. They all had these mysterious SYS lines that nobody knew anything about, other than that behind it all there was "machine code". I found the Commodore 64 Reference Guide in a bookstore and together with figuring out how HESmon worked, that was the biggest Eureka! moment of my life. I learned a lot from cracking games in the early days, but figuring out how to do raster interrupts actually came from hacking a Danish Crackers intro: Danish Crackers Intro |
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