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You are 10 years my elder. If you programmed on the C64, is there any lessons/insights that you would teach to someone 10 years younger than you are? I have h

You are 10 years my elder. If you programmed on the C64, is there any lessons/insights that you would teach to someone 10 years younger than you are? I have heard cool things, like an actual complete user manual, including how to program registers. I don't think I would download a C64 emulator in my spare time and actually see how it worked for myself.

IronBacon 8y ago
> I have heard cool things, like an actual complete user manual, including how to program registers. I think that was the Apple II. I should still have the C64's user manual tucked somewhere, but it didn't described the internal architecture. I recall there were a couple of examples in Basic to move sprites and to produce sound from the SID "poking" (the PEEK and POKE Basic instruction) values to a few registers.
- bitwize 8y ago
  ISTR there was a complete programmer's guide available from Commodore, but it was a separate purchase.
  - radicalbyte 8y ago
    Indeed, the programmer's reference guide was needed if you really wanted to understand the machine. The user manual had an introduction to basic as far as I can remember :) Some kind soul has scanned it: http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Commodore/C64%20Programmer%27s%20Reference%20Guide.pdf http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Commodore/C64%20Programme...
koonsolo 8y ago
I played games on the C64, but never programmed it. I started with GW-BASIC. I guess it depends on the kind of programmer you are. I consider myself a top-down programmer, where I try to get functionality as easy as possible. If there is a lib, I will use it, and don't need to know what's inside. So for me, these times are way better where you can get crazy amount of functionality in a few lines of code. But I know plenty of programmers that I label as bottom-up programmers. They love the technology first, and functionality comes second. So for these people, they were able to fully understand a system back then. I worked with plenty of such people in the embedded world. So if you are into that stuff, I wouldn't waste my time with old systems, but get your hands on something new, but still simple enough to fully comprehend. Such as an Arduino. But maybe better ask a "bottom-up" developer what they enjoy nowadays.
- mikorym 8y ago
  Cool advice, for me the analogue would be Raspberry Pi's. And indeed, I find it a great way of understanding most parts of the system.

IronBacon 8y ago

> I have heard cool things, like an actual complete user manual, including how to program registers. I think that was the Apple II. I should still have the C64's user manual tucked somewhere, but it didn't described the internal architecture. I recall there were a couple of examples in Basic to move sprites and to produce sound from the SID "poking" (the PEEK and POKE Basic instruction) values to a few registers.

bitwize 8y ago
ISTR there was a complete programmer's guide available from Commodore, but it was a separate purchase.
- radicalbyte 8y ago
  Indeed, the programmer's reference guide was needed if you really wanted to understand the machine. The user manual had an introduction to basic as far as I can remember :) Some kind soul has scanned it: http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Commodore/C64%20Programmer%27s%20Reference%20Guide.pdf http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Commodore/C64%20Programme...

koonsolo 8y ago

I played games on the C64, but never programmed it. I started with GW-BASIC. I guess it depends on the kind of programmer you are. I consider myself a top-down programmer, where I try to get functionality as easy as possible. If there is a lib, I will use it, and don't need to know what's inside. So for me, these times are way better where you can get crazy amount of functionality in a few lines of code. But I know plenty of programmers that I label as bottom-up programmers. They love the technology first, and functionality comes second. So for these people, they were able to fully understand a system back then. I worked with plenty of such people in the embedded world. So if you are into that stuff, I wouldn't waste my time with old systems, but get your hands on something new, but still simple enough to fully comprehend. Such as an Arduino. But maybe better ask a "bottom-up" developer what they enjoy nowadays.

mikorym 8y ago
Cool advice, for me the analogue would be Raspberry Pi's. And indeed, I find it a great way of understanding most parts of the system.