Naw, that’s no me.
But I was lying in bed this morning with my laptop, lying with it shut, with my hand over it lovingly. And I realised that I’ve almost always had a computer by my side. No, I don’t mean these computers you have nowadays, forms of computer like an iPhone and shite like that. I’m talking about real computers, computers like…
The Commodore VIC-20. The first computer that was mine all mine. We’re talking around 30 years ago. We’re talking 5k of RAM.
Let me repeat that. 5k of RAM. Games running on 5k of RAM. Nowadays, 5k would only get you a filename, if you’re lucky.
And the thing with the VIC-20 and other computers of that age was that you could programme it. Nowadays it’s all consoles and button mashing and twirling thumbsticks. Back then, you didn’t wait for the computer to tell you what to do. Back then, you told the computer what to do, as it should be. Here’s an example for you youngsters.
10 PRINT “BRIAN “;
20 GOTO 10
RUN
That would make the name “BRIAN” fill up the screen. If you took away the semicolon at the end of the first line, it would just make a vertical column of “BRIAN”s, but masters knew that the semicolon would tile it across the screen.
That’s what the weans were learning back then in the early 80s. Nowadays they’re learning fuck all, and that’s why they’ll never amount to fucking anything. Back then, we were training to be programmers, we were creating the modern world that we now take for granted (well, I don’t take it for granted, but these youngsters nowadays do, you can see it in their faces).
So this one’s for all the owners of the Commodore VIC-20. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy and prosperous weekend.
I remember the first game I bought for the VIC 20 was a pacman clone and it came on 4 sheets of A4 I had to type it all in and save it to tape.
I remember popping over to the shops and buying License to Kill for the commodore 64 for £2.99 on a tape. Spent hours playing it, I love this retro stuff.
I still marvel at an 8GB micro SD card when I remember getting a 16MB upgrade on my Amiga and saving up £240 for a 120MB hard drive for it. That hard drive could hold the equivalent of 160 Floppy Disks… 160 !!! No more disk swapping for me.
But then again we have Red Dead Redemption, Fallout 3 and Gears of War, FUCK Retro… I can’t wait to play this shit with mind never mind a clumsy controller.
So Brian list your Computers….
Mine Goes..
Vic 20
Spectrum
Commodore 64
Amiga 512
Amiga 600
Amiga 1200
PC 33mhz
PC 333mhz
PC 1.2GHZ
PC 2.4GHZ
I now have
PC Quad Core 3.3GHZ x4 Overclocked, Watercooled, 8 GB Ram, total of 4 terra byte hd and 2 x GTX 1.24 GB Graphics cards…
Unimaginable figures back in the old Vic-20 days.
Hahaha, Commodores.. I still have my C64, it gets dragged out the cupboard every now and again for some nostalgic gaming a la Beamrider and Dizzy Down the Rapids ^_^
Have you ever tried to program the sound chips on a C64??? In a word … ‘Laborious’ lol i spent the best part of an hour and all I got was a noise that vaguely resembled a robot shitting itself.
It really is mad though how much computers have moved forward, I still remember when I got my Mega Drive thinking ‘This must be it, they wont be able to make a computer better than this’ lol
In the 70′s you could get cut up in the playground for liking Roxy Music instead of Slade but in the early 80′s it was Vic20/C64 posse verses the Spectrum posse.
I had a Spectrum, it was crap and really I wanted a C64, but I’d gladly take a cutting for that rubber-keyed piece of shite.
Commodore 64 was my first computer. Didn’t need to do much programming on that as cartridges where starting to come in. I remember playing Terminator 2 Judgement day a lot and being stuck on the Motorbike level… Don’t think I ever got past it.
I also used a tape deck to play games. I had Grannies Garden, though my memory is atrocious, all I can remember is a snake with an apple at the top of the stairs. I think some programming was required for that game. It still blows me away that you could play games on a tape deck!
I wasn’t tech savvy back then, just wanted to play games. I’m 22 now so I think I was relatively young and one of the first to get a computer back then. I wish I could remember more.
My brother and I had the spectrum old rubber key jobby. Ill give you our history. between the 2 of us.
Rubber Key Spectrum
Amstrad CPC 464 with green screen monitor
Commodore 64 (new shape but had the old style massive floppy drive for it)
Amiga 500
Amiga 1200 (I can remember my bro getting his 80MB HDD for it)
I wont go into PCS and consoles cos we’d be here all day
The good old days. I loved my vic 20. I had the extended memory cartridge that went into the back. The hours spent typing in programs only to get the dreaded syntax error at line 1320. At least then you learned stuff. Not now unless you’re a genius.
Christ on a pedalo you have me on a retro trip.
At the age of about 13 we used to go into Debenhams in Nottingham and write
10 Print “CUNT” ;
20 Colour RND(8)+1
30 Goto 10
Run
Cunt was interchangeable with our names
On as many bbc’s as we could. They had about 10 identical BBC micros on display like some sort of trophy room. Right next to the Lazer Disc players.
Then things advanced to the BBC Micro which was a great computer. Anyone who has experienced them might remember the *FX functions which did various things. I’ve put a link at the bottom for anyone who wants a *FX reminder or fix.
Anyway, one of these functions was *FX137 which turned the cassette motor on/off. When the motor was on a little light would come on on the computer too. It was not unknown to go into the shop and at a demo BBC Micro write a wee BASIC script…
10 *FX137,1
20 *FX137,0
30 GOTO 10
So, this repeatedly turned the cassette motor on and off and resulted in a constant buzzing sound. After a while the solenoid would snuff it.
http://central.kaserver5.org/Kasoft/Typeset/BBC/Ch42.html
ahhh – spending 3 days programming in a black and white crap version of frog. then getting a typo error – which took you three weeks to find….and the wee shop up in the Anderson Centre where you could get cheap games – or just stick them up yer jumper… allegedly.
kasule rock.
10 print “what is your name?”
20 input a$
30 if a$=”sir clive sinclair” then goto 70
40 if a$=”sir alan sugar” then goto 80
50 print a$; ” is a dick”;
60 goto 50
70 print “wow you’re amazing sir clive”
80 print “fuck off ya beardy barrowboy, leave my company alone. you never even went to uni, prick”
etc…
Totally agree. Kids nowadays just get their mum to top up their bloody ‘Xbox Live’ points and download to their Xbox, or order it on Play.com
When I was a kid I had a BBC Master 64k. When I wanted a new game I would get a programming book out from my local library and sit for hours or days at a time copying in the code. That’s how much effort I went to!
As far as games go, Palace of Magic and Barbarian on the BBC are two of the finest games ever made. I had Barbarian on cassette tape!! Took bloody 20 minutes to load then sometimes it wouldn’t work and you’d have to start it again. Crazy. Other notable highlights: Revs, Repton and Tron.
Post-BBC: when I played Monkey Island on the Amiga for the first time I actually couldn’t believe just how amazing it was. I don’t think any game since then has ever given me that same feeling. Kids today, they just don’t know.
Syntax Error!!!!……i had a Commodore C16, slightly crapper than a Vic 20, the Vic 20 was the shit at the time, and later on the C64 was a bedroom standard for anyone who is thirtysomething now. who remembers getting the ‘pokes’ out of the magazines to try and cheat on the games ha…..I remember playing ‘Yie Ar Kung Fu’ alot on the next door neighbour’s BBC micro too, classic times.
Out of interest Limmy, what happened to would be programmer that you were ?
Regardless if you were VIC 20, C64 , Speccy etc , if you took your gaming seriously you were doona barras at the weekend.
In the 90′s they were gettin wide as fuck down there for games, banners up on the wall with all the new games for that week. Wisnae always like that. My first trip down there ,mid 80′s, I got pointed in the direction of this stall sellin plastic fruit n veg ,and some broken barbies. “Äny games mister”,I ask nervously, he has a shifty look left and right to see who’s watchin, then I got this piece of paper the size of a stamp with his speccy games in microscopic writing.
Of course you got home, and one in a million actualy loaded, and even then that was after twidling about with the tape heads ( they always told you to do that if you try to return them)
Commodore were liars – the Vic 20 didn’t actually have 5k of usable memory as 1.5 k was used by the system. So the most a game could ever use was 3.5k.
Which, when you think about it, makes it even more awesome!!
“Out of interest Limmy, what happened to would be programmer that you were ? ”
What?
” Back then, we were training to be programmers “
Gary, I mean that I don’t understand your question. You asked me “What happened to would be programmer that you were?”, and I don’t quite get it cos your English isn’t very good, you sound either brain damaged or foreign, which one is it?
Only kidding. But seriously, I don’t know what you’re asking exactly. Sorry to be a wank, but please use the English you were taught in fucking school to communicate clearly.
Brain damaged most likely , and does scot abroad count as foriegn ?
Commodore 64 all the way. It was the vic-20′s younger brother, with 64k of memory, 16 colours and the amazing SID chip.
Still love the C64 music, it still has a healthy scene too
Rob Hubbard was genious:
Monty on the run – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpsN14TFy90
One man & his droid – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kznOwGB8ulU
Sanxion – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It7yJh-NwPY
Commando – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrQuR1LHAVI
Ocean Loaders – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn1sQLxvTac
and – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRqvpskK4zc
nice stuff limmy
mind the big machines at schools, were they bbc’s?
Grog revenge on the c64, qualitee
I’m only joking, Gary, what is it you’re asking?
Check this shit out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0-wimNNh3Q
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXTdSoNGsHY
Aw I loved my C64, loved making multiple choice adventures with lots of swearing.
I made a bootable disk (startup sequence.. it’s aw comin back) and popped it into an amiga at partick’s comet, which displayed a 70′s lady with her doofs out and the message ‘comet staff love big knockers’.
I was a speccy. Ruined all my memories recently by playing old games online. Hours and hours I played that fuckin’ Manic Miner. It is shit and now I understand how a graveyard of joysticks existed under my bed. You kept them for cannibalising micro-switches to replace the ones you broke on your Quickshot 2 that you had launched of the TV screen, because of the shit collision contact and colour clashing. I loved how the thin metal covering the rubber keys eventually peeled up at the sides. My first computer was a ZX81. I feel fucking ancient.
I had an Amstrad CPC 464, not a Commodore, but I also used to do the name thing on the computers on display in Currys in Argyle Street…
one of my favourite bits of GTA Vice City was the retro tape loading screen at the start – reminded me of my old VIC 20….aaah
AMSTRAD CPC 464 YOUNG TEAM!!!!
I’ve still got my old Amstrad CPC 464 as well as one I bought a few years ago and a lot of the old games. I love the really obscure ones that would terrify me as a wee guy which mentioned death in the title. Games like “Death Stalker” and ” Deathville”.
What about the Jet Set Willy and Dizzy games. They were classics.
I made a wee video in homage to it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M0GkYzLXaU
Booyah.
Also have to say that the code rilos came out with was genius.
@Limmy-’I’m only joking, Gary, what is it you’re asking?’
I think what Gary was meaning when he asked ‘what happened to would be programmer that you were’ was why are you not a programmer now! but i think you are or your atleast something along those lines judging by all the playthings n shyeeeeeeeeeet.
Aye, that would be a daft thing to ask, Senor, considering that here he is on my site, which has contained interactive playthings for over ten years that I programmed with my own fair hand.
Foreigners eh
Good on ye Limmy. Although I’m not old enough myself to remember them coming out (I wasn’t born, har har), I use my da’s Commodore 64. Epic fun.
Mega galactic lamas battle till the end of time on the vic got me on drugs.
Commodore 64 for me, a wee bit of Bruce Lee (the green Yammo was a wank), Beachhead and Mission impossible, Friday the 13th was no bad as well.
My brother wouldn’t let me have a go on the commodore. But I had my stylophone, zippy-zither, and I wrote ‘boobs’ on my calculator.
Although the usuable memory on the vic20 was only around 4k, you could buy a 16k RAM pack for it! Booyah! This was something around half the size of a VHS cassette. I remember thinking it was called a RAM pack because you had to RAM it in really hard.
My Commodore 64 was my most prized posession when I was wee. Many hours were spent playing Boulderdash, Magicland Dizzy, Park Patrol and Finders Keepers. Oh and Paperboy, that was brilliant.
Still got my Vic 20. And still get frustrated at never getting the wee guy out of the room he woke up in, in ‘The Count’. Go to window. Open window. Go to door. Open Door.
I loved ‘Rockman’ though. Always thought that was what KLF were singin about.
I read that post while listening to The Church “under the milky way tonight”,It made me feel sadly nostalgic.I remember going round to mates houses to play football manager on the spectrum until 5AM ,and that was without drugs,just pure adolescent angst.
Kids these days don’t know the half of it,we were fucken revolutionaries back then,with the threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads and shite like Thats Life on the telly,and I had two paper rounds.
bollocks….you spent every waking hour wanking you fucking degenerate.
I meant wanking. Sorry. You wanker.
Fuck I got it right first time. Ignore that last comment.
Kids these days have literally NO idea how things work. Actual retards, the lot of them.
Commodore 64 started me off. Was into the Cracktros at the start of robbed games, then moved on to the Tracker scene, like a proper Euro-Boy.
Next up; Amiga 500! Seeing the graphics in Shadow Of The Beast for the first time nearly gave me a heart attack as a young lad. Fucking immense.
Programming my own games in AMOS, composing techno in Sound Tracker and Pro Tracker, working through really badly written 68k Assembly language manuals, reading Amiga Format, Hacking .MOD files from a soft reboot, customising my own version of Workbench, getting way too good at DPaint IV, playing Syndicate, Lemmings, Sensible Soccer, soldering my busted Sound Master sampler, learning OctaMED by myself, decompiling demos and modding the code, … and all at 11 years of age, by myself.
Kids these days know FUCK ALL.
FUCK. ALL.
we went through 5 returned zx-spectrums ’til my dad finally bit the bullet and coughed up for a commadore 64… of course my brother pretty much hogged it but loved playing finders keepers, paperboy, school daze and was always pretty good at the winter games… skiing and shooting were my forte’….
quickshot II…. now that was a joysick!!!…
oh and god forbid you put the wrong tape in your personal stereo by accident…. i swear my ears are still damaged from that mistake…
after that it was nothing til my first p.c. about 8 years ago….
of course the very first games console we had when i was wee was the ‘telly game’…
does anyone remember that?… two lines and a dot playin tennis… and anything else they could make up with two lines and a dot!!!…. big brown and black console with the joysticks attatched…. sure it’s still in my dad’s loft somewhere…
Quickshot II eh ? ‘Now that was a joystick’ People like you disgust me. Take your filth elsewhere madam.
@rohypnotist – there’s always one isn’t there…. i don’t even know why i’m surprised…
Please accept my profuse apologies. I don’t know what propels me to come out with such nonsense. I’ll bet you went through a few of them though…eh-what ?
@rohypnotist – it’s a form of tourettes….. where you are forced to randomly blurt out comments laced with toilet humour in tense or nervous situations…. sewerettes i think it’s called…
Thank you for the diagnosis Doctor. Now, have you got any leeches for this…….
I had a speccy – until ma cousin blew up the power pack (the prick!). I loved playing the Dizzy games and yin called Fast Food. I can mind the music was always good on the codemasters games
. After that I got a couple of different Amstrads, then finally a pc. As a lassie I still get funny looks when I tell folk I like games such as Command & Conquer and Fallout 3.
My first was a C64, but had much experience and joy with other machines that friends had.
First ever game i played was ‘Horace goes ski-ing’ on a ZX-81 with 1K RAM expansion pack, woo hoo!!
I even went to a computer camp as a kid where they had the full gambit of commodores and disk drives!! I was amazed at the loading speed and reliabilty in comparison to my C-64 tape deck
I also remember smashing a glass top table after banging the portable tv on it out of frustration while playing Bruce Lee, sorry mum.
Downloaded a C-64 emulator recently and almost cried when I heard that sound chip again.
I could be wrong, but I think Bomb the Bass used a C-64 (but may have been an early amiga) to sequence his first album. He must have been very patient.
I totally agree wrt the programming. I think it taught a lot of us the value of patience and that a little effort can reap rich rewards (usually giggling at the back of Comet or John Menzies after programming abuse onto their machines). Both qualities have helped me through numerous incidents of Windows hell .
I probably wouldn’t be doing the job I do today if my Mum hadn’t succumbed to my nagging and bought me that 64.
I met an IT teacher not long ago and asked how he taught harware structures to kids, you know Data flow, I/O’s, Busses, CPU, RAM etc. He said he didn’t!!
And he didn’t even know what a UART was, elemenary in my day. (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter, just in case you are wondering) I didn’t bother asking if he knew what an opto-isolator was.
Commodore Amiga – two words.. Sensible Soccer ; )
Sensible Soccer! Yeah, that was mint.
Was all about the demos, the trackers and the coding though really.