7 ms·

A Commodore hacker’s story

77 points by ludwigvan 8y ago

projectramo 8y ago
Its just astounding how similar all these stories are. Maybe having the machine just switch on to BASIC alone was enough to get people involved. I remember telling my mom to upgrade to a iPad, and she asked what the difference was. She didn't really understand the benefits. The PC also had a browser, it also had netflix etc. Finally, I told her there wasn't this long power up time. You just switch it on and it is right there, and it sort of clicked. Once she got it, there was no going back. That initial power on state -- to a graphical interface, to BASIC -- is just so compelling.
- amelius 8y ago
  Yes, every PC/Mac session begins with a negative user experience.
  - steve1977 8y ago
    I rarely shutdown my Mac to be honest, I usually just reboot if I have to after updates. Otherwise it just sleeps and comes back online pretty much immediately.
    - rusk 8y ago
      On the other hand, I reboot my Windows 10 work computer nightly. Up until this beauty reared it's head [0] I'd probably go months between reboots of my MBP. Protip: It doesn't happen any more since I stopped leaving Safari running in the background. [0] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8475586 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8475586
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    I'm not sure pressing a button and waiting 10 seconds is a "negative user experience" tbh.
    - rusk 8y ago
      10 seconds??? Maybe on my macbook pro but that's far from a universal experience. Even my iPhone takes longer than that ...
    - amelius 8y ago
      How would you feel if clicking a weblink or hitting submit took 10 seconds?
- bitwize 8y ago
  When I was a kid growing up, programming a computer was like riding a bike or writing with a pencil: the computer was a tool shaped specifically for that purpose. Because as soon as you turned the thing on, the first thing it did was to prompt the user and await the entry of a program. Using other people's software by loading it from tape or disk was a kind of shortcut. You still had to instruct the computer to load the program with a command! A stark contrast to today, where we are presented a menu of "apps" but no obvious way to program the device (and in the case of some common devices, no way at all). People think that kids these days "know tech" because they spend a lot of time in front of "screens" but imho that's not the case... we may have gone a step backwards in terms of tech savviness since the Commodore generation.
- dahart 8y ago
  > Maybe having the machine just switch on to BASIC alone was enough to get people involved. Reminds me of this recent conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18228740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18228740 Personally, while I think the power on to BASIC definitely was compelling at the time, and it lead to many years of hacking fun for me too in the 80s, I don’t think it can work anymore. It wasn’t just having BASIC, it was having BASIC and also having nothing else to do, except maybe a couple of crappy games that were either too hard or too boring after a few minutes. Today, there’s a vast ocean of amazing choice, and kids don’t have the patience for something like a BASIC terminal. I’ve tried and tried with my kids, and they can’t bring themselves to choose programming or playing in a text shell, even though they’re super interested in the ideas and want to learn to make games.
  - rusk 8y ago
    This space is nowadays occupied by Raspberry Pi. Cheap hackable hobby platform. wrt your kids, programming just isn't for everybody [0] [0] https://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming-sheep-f...
    - dahart 8y ago
      > wrt your kids, programming just isn't for everybody The paper that article was based on has been retracted. That should make you at least think twice about claiming it's true. It's also studying college undergrads, not children. And it's from 2006, before the iPhone. I honestly don't think it's very relevant to the issue I was referring to. In any case, my kids are both interested in programming and able to do it. They just choose not to, most of the time, because there is a flood of more entertaining and very well designed choices. We didn't have anything like this level of choice when I was a kid. BASIC was it, that's the beauty of it. The environment was so limited, you had no choice but learn to program. At work, we're seeing patterns in hiring as well. Older applicants have all been programming since early teens, while the vast majority of new college grads today started programming in college. It definitely feels like programming is starting later in life, even though general computer literacy is starting earlier and is much more widespread.
nla 8y ago
Don't you mean a Commodore pirate's story?
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  Breaking copy protection certainly involved hacking, ditto making impressive intros. A lot of groups would add cheats too.
  - Annatar 8y ago
    Hacking is putting something together quickly, just enough so that it barely works. Bypassing, disabling, removing a copy protection or extracting the data from a protected medium is cracking, the metaphor being that the protection cracked as glass would have. Those had to work perfectly, and they were often bug fixed, trained and level-packed as well as single-sided, thus making them better, faster and smaller than the original. That's not a hack.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      In my mind hacking is fiddling with things with a vague end result in mind and learning as you go. I think a lot of cracking falls into this category.
      - Annatar 8y ago
        Not a chance. There was no fiddling, and the end result was crystal clear: disable copy protection and release the cracked version before any of the other groups do. For lots of commercial copy protections, the steps or concepts to disable them were well understood.
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      > Hacking is putting something together quickly, just enough so that it barely works. That's one definition of a hack. The word famously has many different meanings depending on context. http://catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html
mark_sz 8y ago
I do remember these days. I was part of C64/Amiga demoscene. I saw intros before cracked games on C64 and I wanted to build my own. That was the whole reason I got in to programming... And now, 28 years later... I can still write simple assembly code on C64:)
INTPenis 8y ago
No mention of the TURBO 250 loader that dominated my childhood. I'm actually too young for the C64 but we didn't have much money so my big brother left it for me when he moved out. So when my friends had SNES I had C64, when they had Playstation I had SNES, and so on until I started making my own money in IT. Anyways, I still have all my old tapes left from those days. All TURBO 250, all pirated.
- Annatar 8y ago
  "No mention of the TURBO 250 loader that dominated my childhood." I'll mention it: Turbo 250D by Mr. Z of TRIAD! (The "D" version implemented <-D or DSAVE, which could save a large file back to a floppy disk from tape.) https://csdb.dk/release/?id=20633 https://csdb.dk/release/?id=20633
  - vigo 8y ago
    rezpekt <3
jhallenworld 8y ago
Was C16 BASIC different than C64? It's always funny on C64, because its version of BASIC is terrible: two character variable names, no direct support for sound or graphics. Atari 800 BASIC on the other hand, was awesome, except for the bugs and slowness (all numbers were floats).
- atesti 8y ago
  Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_16 "The ROM resident BASIC 3.5, however, is more powerful than the VIC-20's and C64's BASIC 2.0, in that it has commands for sound and bitmapped graphics (320×200 pixels), as well as simple program tracing/debugging."
fka 8y ago
I know him well, he's a legend in Turkey's software industry.

77 points by ludwigvan 8y ago

Its just astounding how similar all these stories are. Maybe having the machine just switch on to BASIC alone was enough to get people involved. I remember telling my mom to upgrade to a iPad, and she asked what the difference was. She didn't really understand the benefits. The PC also had a browser, it also had netflix etc. Finally, I told her there wasn't this long power up time. You just switch it on and it is right there, and it sort of clicked. Once she got it, there was no going back. That initial power on state -- to a graphical interface, to BASIC -- is just so compelling.

amelius 8y ago
Yes, every PC/Mac session begins with a negative user experience.
- steve1977 8y ago
  I rarely shutdown my Mac to be honest, I usually just reboot if I have to after updates. Otherwise it just sleeps and comes back online pretty much immediately.
  - rusk 8y ago
    On the other hand, I reboot my Windows 10 work computer nightly. Up until this beauty reared it's head [0] I'd probably go months between reboots of my MBP. Protip: It doesn't happen any more since I stopped leaving Safari running in the background. [0] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8475586 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8475586
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  I'm not sure pressing a button and waiting 10 seconds is a "negative user experience" tbh.
  - rusk 8y ago
    10 seconds??? Maybe on my macbook pro but that's far from a universal experience. Even my iPhone takes longer than that ...
  - amelius 8y ago
    How would you feel if clicking a weblink or hitting submit took 10 seconds?
bitwize 8y ago
When I was a kid growing up, programming a computer was like riding a bike or writing with a pencil: the computer was a tool shaped specifically for that purpose. Because as soon as you turned the thing on, the first thing it did was to prompt the user and await the entry of a program. Using other people's software by loading it from tape or disk was a kind of shortcut. You still had to instruct the computer to load the program with a command! A stark contrast to today, where we are presented a menu of "apps" but no obvious way to program the device (and in the case of some common devices, no way at all). People think that kids these days "know tech" because they spend a lot of time in front of "screens" but imho that's not the case... we may have gone a step backwards in terms of tech savviness since the Commodore generation.
dahart 8y ago
> Maybe having the machine just switch on to BASIC alone was enough to get people involved. Reminds me of this recent conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18228740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18228740 Personally, while I think the power on to BASIC definitely was compelling at the time, and it lead to many years of hacking fun for me too in the 80s, I don’t think it can work anymore. It wasn’t just having BASIC, it was having BASIC and also having nothing else to do, except maybe a couple of crappy games that were either too hard or too boring after a few minutes. Today, there’s a vast ocean of amazing choice, and kids don’t have the patience for something like a BASIC terminal. I’ve tried and tried with my kids, and they can’t bring themselves to choose programming or playing in a text shell, even though they’re super interested in the ideas and want to learn to make games.
- rusk 8y ago
  This space is nowadays occupied by Raspberry Pi. Cheap hackable hobby platform. wrt your kids, programming just isn't for everybody [0] [0] https://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming-sheep-f...
  - dahart 8y ago
    > wrt your kids, programming just isn't for everybody The paper that article was based on has been retracted. That should make you at least think twice about claiming it's true. It's also studying college undergrads, not children. And it's from 2006, before the iPhone. I honestly don't think it's very relevant to the issue I was referring to. In any case, my kids are both interested in programming and able to do it. They just choose not to, most of the time, because there is a flood of more entertaining and very well designed choices. We didn't have anything like this level of choice when I was a kid. BASIC was it, that's the beauty of it. The environment was so limited, you had no choice but learn to program. At work, we're seeing patterns in hiring as well. Older applicants have all been programming since early teens, while the vast majority of new college grads today started programming in college. It definitely feels like programming is starting later in life, even though general computer literacy is starting earlier and is much more widespread.

nla 8y ago

Don't you mean a Commodore pirate's story?

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
Breaking copy protection certainly involved hacking, ditto making impressive intros. A lot of groups would add cheats too.
- Annatar 8y ago
  Hacking is putting something together quickly, just enough so that it barely works. Bypassing, disabling, removing a copy protection or extracting the data from a protected medium is cracking, the metaphor being that the protection cracked as glass would have. Those had to work perfectly, and they were often bug fixed, trained and level-packed as well as single-sided, thus making them better, faster and smaller than the original. That's not a hack.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    In my mind hacking is fiddling with things with a vague end result in mind and learning as you go. I think a lot of cracking falls into this category.
    - Annatar 8y ago
      Not a chance. There was no fiddling, and the end result was crystal clear: disable copy protection and release the cracked version before any of the other groups do. For lots of commercial copy protections, the steps or concepts to disable them were well understood.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    > Hacking is putting something together quickly, just enough so that it barely works. That's one definition of a hack. The word famously has many different meanings depending on context. http://catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html

mark_sz 8y ago

I do remember these days. I was part of C64/Amiga demoscene. I saw intros before cracked games on C64 and I wanted to build my own. That was the whole reason I got in to programming... And now, 28 years later... I can still write simple assembly code on C64:)

INTPenis 8y ago

No mention of the TURBO 250 loader that dominated my childhood. I'm actually too young for the C64 but we didn't have much money so my big brother left it for me when he moved out. So when my friends had SNES I had C64, when they had Playstation I had SNES, and so on until I started making my own money in IT. Anyways, I still have all my old tapes left from those days. All TURBO 250, all pirated.

Annatar 8y ago
"No mention of the TURBO 250 loader that dominated my childhood." I'll mention it: Turbo 250D by Mr. Z of TRIAD! (The "D" version implemented <-D or DSAVE, which could save a large file back to a floppy disk from tape.) https://csdb.dk/release/?id=20633 https://csdb.dk/release/?id=20633
- vigo 8y ago
  rezpekt <3

jhallenworld 8y ago

Was C16 BASIC different than C64? It's always funny on C64, because its version of BASIC is terrible: two character variable names, no direct support for sound or graphics. Atari 800 BASIC on the other hand, was awesome, except for the bugs and slowness (all numbers were floats).

atesti 8y ago
Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_16 "The ROM resident BASIC 3.5, however, is more powerful than the VIC-20's and C64's BASIC 2.0, in that it has commands for sound and bitmapped graphics (320×200 pixels), as well as simple program tracing/debugging."

fka 8y ago

I know him well, he's a legend in Turkey's software industry.