5 ms·

A little off topic but wondering if anyone remembers keying in and debugging the "game of the month" featured in Antic magazine (Atari 800)? You you have to ha

A little off topic but wondering if anyone remembers keying in and debugging the "game of the month" featured in Antic magazine (Atari 800)? You you have to hand type and debug pages of line number basic and the games were largely simple sprite games.

andybak 6y ago
I hand typed apps on other 80s home computers. Credit to anyone who managed it on an Atari 400 which probably had the worst keyboard this side of a ZX81.
- TacticalCoder 6y ago
  There was one worse: the one that came with the BASIC on the Atari 2600. And this was actually my first "computer" on which I wrote BASIC programs: an ATARI 2600 console. The BASIC cartridge was coming with some kind of keyboard controller that you'd plug in the 2600's joystick ports. It was horrible but it allowed to do simple programs and even draw colored lines etc. IIRC.
luckman212 6y ago
Oh yeah! been there done that. Somehow typing those damn things in was usually more fun than the actual game. At least, that's how I remember it.
progmetaldev 6y ago
My dad had an Atari 800XL, and typing in the games is what got me interested in development as I got older. Even in my early forties, typing in code from a book gives me more understanding than just reading code already handed to me.
sokoloff 6y ago
I typed in pages of code for years, though mostly from Analog. At one point, they had pages of hex (or base36?) data lines and created a checksum process that would spit out the checksum after each line entry and you could check it against the magazine listing. Basically, you were typing in ascii representation of machine code for pages on end for these assembly games.
- TacticalCoder 6y ago
  This and GP: I do totally remember. Was a major pain but at the same time it felt like complete magic once you see the program running (even if, even for back then, it was often really bad). I didn't know how to program anything else than some BASIC yet, so it was a bit frustrating that these lines of data were just looking like random numbers, impossible for my 11 years old self to understand. Now because I was a bit evil, when on summer camp (without my Atari 600 XL) I'd create small BASIC programs and mail them (snail mail, obviously) to my mom with accompanying instructions and SHE had to enter my program. Then I'd phone her and ask her what the program did : )
- mech422 6y ago
  Compute! magazine had a similar system for Commodore machines..
pkaye 6y ago
I remember my sibling and I would take turns typing up pages of code and fixing the bugs to play a game. And then at the end of the night lose it all because we had no disk storage and the parents needed the TV.
- abrookewood 6y ago
  Wow, that is harsh! I suppose it helped improve your typing though and you probably got better at identifying bugs.
  - pkaye 6y ago
    Yes that is true. You get good at typing and debugging over the years. After a few years we did get a floppy drive so that helped a lot.
protomyth 6y ago
Yep. I learned to program on an Atari 400 using Antic and some other magazines. Gotta admit the amazement when I realized the power of changing a variable and it still working with new behavior.
mech422 6y ago
Compute! magazine had really cool stuff (really nice monitor/debug program for instance) in hexdump format with checksum bytes on the end. They had a custom program that let you enter the hex, then calculated the checksum and compared it to the check digits entered. Prevented a LOT of typos :-)
bluGill 6y ago
I remember trying. I think I even got one program typed all the way in. I spent months trying to get some adventure game typed in, but never got all the way to the end. Eventually I disccoered BBSes, which were great until I hit my download limit and I hadn't managed to download anything that wasn't already on all the other BBSes that I frequented and so I didn't get much that way. Eventually I found archives on the internet, but by then I had already moved onto BSD - I did something with emulators, but not much.
richardw 6y ago
And assembly, which I understood not at all when I was ten. So much effort and joy. I had a book with Eliza for Amstrad in it. Great fun.

andybak 6y ago

I hand typed apps on other 80s home computers. Credit to anyone who managed it on an Atari 400 which probably had the worst keyboard this side of a ZX81.

TacticalCoder 6y ago
There was one worse: the one that came with the BASIC on the Atari 2600. And this was actually my first "computer" on which I wrote BASIC programs: an ATARI 2600 console. The BASIC cartridge was coming with some kind of keyboard controller that you'd plug in the 2600's joystick ports. It was horrible but it allowed to do simple programs and even draw colored lines etc. IIRC.

luckman212 6y ago

Oh yeah! been there done that. Somehow typing those damn things in was usually more fun than the actual game. At least, that's how I remember it.

progmetaldev 6y ago

My dad had an Atari 800XL, and typing in the games is what got me interested in development as I got older. Even in my early forties, typing in code from a book gives me more understanding than just reading code already handed to me.

sokoloff 6y ago

I typed in pages of code for years, though mostly from Analog. At one point, they had pages of hex (or base36?) data lines and created a checksum process that would spit out the checksum after each line entry and you could check it against the magazine listing. Basically, you were typing in ascii representation of machine code for pages on end for these assembly games.

TacticalCoder 6y ago
This and GP: I do totally remember. Was a major pain but at the same time it felt like complete magic once you see the program running (even if, even for back then, it was often really bad). I didn't know how to program anything else than some BASIC yet, so it was a bit frustrating that these lines of data were just looking like random numbers, impossible for my 11 years old self to understand. Now because I was a bit evil, when on summer camp (without my Atari 600 XL) I'd create small BASIC programs and mail them (snail mail, obviously) to my mom with accompanying instructions and SHE had to enter my program. Then I'd phone her and ask her what the program did : )
mech422 6y ago
Compute! magazine had a similar system for Commodore machines..

pkaye 6y ago

I remember my sibling and I would take turns typing up pages of code and fixing the bugs to play a game. And then at the end of the night lose it all because we had no disk storage and the parents needed the TV.

abrookewood 6y ago
Wow, that is harsh! I suppose it helped improve your typing though and you probably got better at identifying bugs.
- pkaye 6y ago
  Yes that is true. You get good at typing and debugging over the years. After a few years we did get a floppy drive so that helped a lot.

protomyth 6y ago

Yep. I learned to program on an Atari 400 using Antic and some other magazines. Gotta admit the amazement when I realized the power of changing a variable and it still working with new behavior.

mech422 6y ago

Compute! magazine had really cool stuff (really nice monitor/debug program for instance) in hexdump format with checksum bytes on the end. They had a custom program that let you enter the hex, then calculated the checksum and compared it to the check digits entered. Prevented a LOT of typos :-)

bluGill 6y ago

I remember trying. I think I even got one program typed all the way in. I spent months trying to get some adventure game typed in, but never got all the way to the end. Eventually I disccoered BBSes, which were great until I hit my download limit and I hadn't managed to download anything that wasn't already on all the other BBSes that I frequented and so I didn't get much that way. Eventually I found archives on the internet, but by then I had already moved onto BSD - I did something with emulators, but not much.

richardw 6y ago

And assembly, which I understood not at all when I was ten. So much effort and joy. I had a book with Eliza for Amstrad in it. Great fun.