Trying to program games

[bruno199]

Hello everyone!

I've just managed to be allowed to post here after accepting the rules several times. I've come to the conclusion that computing has gone wrong somewhere along the way, leaving us with a situation where people are actively discouraged from programming.

Instead of anyone feeling they can do some programming you supposed to leave it all to an elite group of programmers who are somehow better than the rest of us. A few weeks ago I bought a DVD full of emulators, including some computers I'd never heard of, which turned out to be Tandy CoCo clones.

I bought this from the other Bay and it's called "MMCOAD" for "Multi Micro Computers On A Disc", but I don't know if it's still available. Unfortunately, it seems very very difficult or even impossible to type and save BASIC programs from within these emulators. After reading various scanned user guides and magazines on this DVD, I came to the conclusion that the Atari 8 bit range of computers was a really good and simple system for games programming.

I nearly got an Atari 8 bitter as my first computer years ago, but I limited myself to computers with a full blown synthesiser chip instead of a sound chip or tone generator, so then after my Dad (who was lending me the money) had a phone conversation with a sales assistant who told him "The Commodore was a better one than the Atari", I was pushed into accepting a Commodore 64, because it had 64K and was made by a company with a business background instead of a games background.

Little did we know what stress and torment this would have, due to lack of any BASIC commands for colour, graphics, or sound. We sold it about 11 months later, with some books for about half price of the total. I moved on to an Amstrad CPC, but although I did lots of things with that, which I found impossible on the Commodore 64, I didn't manage to program any games.

I'd like to wipe out my memories of ever having a Commodore 64 and explore the alternative option of the Atari 8 bit computers, which I think is a kind of therapy. Last night, I managed to save a BASIC program from the Atari800WinPlus emulator and reload it, after getting lots of advice from a forum.

Unfortunately, although I saved two versions of the program, I could only reload one of them. I've recently studied some 6502 Assembly Language from a scanned book on my emulators DVD. I also like the idea of the new Raspberry Pi, but this is a modern and far more complicated computer than the Atari 8 bit, so I think it may be impossible to take much control of it.

As some people on BBC Click said over a year ago, you're always shielded by the OS and drivers. I think it's good that it runs Linux, which is the OS I use most of the time, apart from Mac OS X and Android.

 

[-Acid-]

Hi and welcome, just a suggestion here - i would break that text up into some paragraphs to make it more readable as it's quite a large block and will put quite a few people off reading it.

 

[Zetr0]

After some gentle return carriages (CHR$=13) a very interesting read, thanks for sharing =)

 

[drwho]

I was always a fan of the original Atari 800 (not the XL's, the old beige ones) and when I was younger, I dreamed about owning one to learn to write games in assembler. Unfortunately, I just couldn't afford one.

I ended up with a Commodore VIC-20, which was a decent starting point for writing programs in basic, but, it was very limited. Just about that time, I was trying to scrape the money together for an Atari 800 (again) and along came the Commodore 64 which my mom purchased for me as a gift.

I have to say that I really, really liked the C64, especially for writing programs and playing games. I learned a lot on that machine. All of my previous assembly language experience was on the 8080 and Z80 CPU's on a home built S-100 system and later on my trusty TRS-80 Model I, respectively. By comparison, the 6502 was much easier to program on with its RISC sized instruction set.

To this day though, I would still love to spend just one weekend with a nice Atari 800 setup and try to throw a game together, even if it's just something simple. I often see them on ebay for sale cheap, but, with all the money I spend on Amiga stuff I am hesitant to purchase anything else.

But, your post has sparked some interest in me ... hmmm .... [stroking goatee with evil gleam in eye] :twisted:

 

[johnim]

hello and welcome

 

[AmiNeo]

Hello everyone!

I've just managed to be allowed to post here after accepting the rules several times. I've come to the conclusion that computing has gone wrong somewhere along the way, leaving us with a situation where people are actively discouraged from programming.

I was told it's too difficult and you have to start as a child to have any value with it only to find a passion for it at university, so I understand where you're coming from. Something's definitely wrong with people today in terms of how they view programming.

Best advice: Don't listen to the masses, if you have the brain for it you will excel at any age!

Also modern languages are no more difficult than older languages, you can just do more with them and hence there is more to them. But you don't necessarily have to learn ALL of the language to get results.

 

[robinsonb5]

Also modern languages are no more difficult than older languages, you can just do more with them and hence there is more to them. But you don't necessarily have to learn ALL of the language to get results.

I also think it's a very good thing to learn lower-level languages in which not so much of the heavy-lifting's done for you - 8-bit BASICs and especially Assembly languages are ideal - as are microcontroller Assembly languages - simply because then you end up with a intuitive understanding for what C++, Java and .net are doing on your behalf behind the scenes.