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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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Street Tuff
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 88 |
started in smon and later in fc3 monitor. learned from some articles in 64er magazin and from the rodney zacks book that i stole like mr.sid from the school library. what a coiincidence :-D |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386 |
i blame my father :) he is a math teacher and back in 85 the school got a dozen c64 setups sponsored from commodore. math teachers were supposed to become cs teachers, so he brought the thing home at weekends and holidays, including a ton of literature on general programming, algorithms and BASIC :) somehow i was so fascinated about it that i didnt even miss the games - and it turned out that after a few weeks i would be the one to explain things to my father, instead of the other way around =) somehow it then showed quickly that what i wanted is making demos, this is something i could rescue from the very first tape i had =) a year or two later i was introduced to The Famous Five and Florasoft and eventually formed my own shitty local lamer group International Cracking Entertainment .....
as for coding, i have used SMON and then AR-monitor - i did not know about "real assembler" until 1995, when i re-joined the scene :) |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Started out by reading and following tutorials in a book (think it was from jim butterfield) used smon for coding until I got an AR cartridge. Then would look into code in demos from this and get an idea how irqs were set up etc. At the period 1994 to 1995 I must have coded around 80 demo parts using AR and tape deck. All of which was ofcourse rubbish.
Did not touch c64 assembler at all until i had a pc. Started making c64 demos again with previous knowledge on amiga and pc probably some time in late 2006. |
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Martin Piper
Registered: Nov 2007
Posts: 722 |
Quoting ChristopherJamInitially I was assembling by hand, and entering the code as BASIC DATA statements - I don't miss those days at all.
While I started on the ZX81 with BASIC it was really the C64 where I started to really fall in love with machine code.
Write assembler on a note pad. Write hex codes next to the assembler. Poke, lots of poke. Crash. Try again.
Lots of screen/border effects and raster split tests.
I wish I still had my original notes. They were in my old C64 box stored at my parent's place, but during a move many moons ago the old note pads got lost.
I do not miss the 1KB of memory or the wobbly 16KB RAM expansion. Not one bit. |
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Radiant
Registered: Sep 2004
Posts: 639 |
I started writing shitty BASIC "games" and even some simple demos when I was 8-9 years old (1990-ish). I knew back then that you were supposed to use machine code if you wanted to get any good results, but I only had one friend who was into programming and neither he or I had any idea how we'd go about learning it, nor what software/hardware we would need to do it... Needless to say we didn't have any money of our own either.
Then I got an Amiga and stuck with various BASIC dialects such as AMOS and Blitz Basic 2 until I was 15 when I finally learned C. From then on I've coded stuff in many different languages, tried my hand at for example OS programming as well as web development, application coding, games development and even some PC demo coding, but it wasn't until I finally got a Retro Replay and diskdrive for my C64 in 2004 that I found what I'd been searching for programming wise. I remember basically coding all day and night back then, in a state of total bliss over what I'd found. :-)
Puterman's tutorial helped me a lot, but it was actually Cruzer's tutorial over at C64.ch that got me started with the first baby steps. |
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Peiselulli
Registered: Oct 2006
Posts: 81 |
Like Martin Piper, with poking and hex-to-dec calculation.
And with this book:
http://www.c64-wiki.de/index.php/Das_Maschinensprache_Buch_zum_..
After 1 Month I got a monitor program (I didn't remember the name, but it wasn't S-Mon). And from 1986 on this monitor that i found on tape again in the last days:
Turbo-Macks System 64
The first time I used a source code assembler was on Amiga, the K-Seka :-)
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
My first experience with machine code based terminology was when I was born however asking myself to issue a cry opcode by many processes such as commanding mouth muscle then air through vocal cords etc :-) |
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Cruzer
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1048 |
My graddad taught me the basics of BASIC on his C64 back in 1986. Just a few commands like print, input, if/then and goto, and I was ready to make my first adventure games.
Then I went through everything they had in the library about BASIC, and later machine code, as well as tutorials in computer mags and of course the PRG. I also disassembled a lot of other people's stuff in mc-mon, learned tricks from others by word of mouth, got hints about routines in scrolltexts, etc. And much later I was able to finetune my knowledge with all the great info on the internet.
I guess what's most important if you wanna become a coder is to have your own drive, and keep believing you can do it, even when you discover how hard it really is to put together a lot of small instructions to a big working program.
When something doesn't work like you thought it would, you can either give up and take it as an indication that you've got no talent for coding, or be curious about why it doesn't work, and keep trying until it does. The ones who take the latter approach are the ones who succeed. |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
Certainly it takes motivation and perseverence but having the mindset for it is the important thing. All these combined make the difference between a good coder and bad one |
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Bitbreaker
Registered: Oct 2002
Posts: 508 |
I started to help out my elder brother after he got his first c64 where he also wanted to code a bit. First i calculated and drew sprites on squared paper by hand, and i wanted to get my hands on that new toy whenever possible. that was around the age of 9 or 10.
However soon my brother lost interest on all the c64 stuff and i was happy to borrow that and misuse it for my purposes. First i had a monitor loaded by tape, no idea which one it was, it was located @ $c000, so much i remember. In the beginning i started to mix basic and assembler stuff. Later i also got hands on a C16 that had luckily a built in monitor. Here i learned more about 6502. Some later i bought my own c64 + amber-monitor (the graphicians in climax hated me for that, as i always ignored any colorscheme) + a 1541. Now nothing could stop me. It was the time i did my first very ugly intros and the time i got into contact with my first group climax. In 1993 i was at Eggmans place to meet up and fiddle around for a demo for a whole weekend. Besides some insane boozing event of which i can't remember much details, Danzig showed up and tought me a few important things, like opening the sideborders. That gave me a pretty boost again. Interesting enough at that meeting another coder tried his luck with a VSP but failed as his c64 seemed to be prone to the now solved bug :-)
After obtaining an AR6 i finally had my built in monitor that i used until the end of the 90s. Then i switched to TASS. Since around 3 years i finally do crosscompiling with acme.
Most of my initial knowledge i obtained by others and by trying to understand some of the mnemonics by myself. I have the programmers reference guide as a book. But also that book named c64 intern or so, helped a lot.
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