Commodore Assemblers
Jun 12, 2021
This series on Commodore's Assemblers from pagetable.com is giving me flashbacks to hacking out GraphicsBASIC in my childhood bedroom. Good times.
Conny Torneus
Jun 12, 2021
GraphicsBASIC does ring a bell, wait... That was you? 😁
Conny Torneus
Jun 13, 2021
Correct me if I'm wrong Ron, but you never moved from C64 to Amiga at any point in time did you?
I don't recall you ever touching that subject, only that you/others used Amiga at LucasFilmGames/LucasArts for porting the games.
In my humble opinion the Amiga was not only a great successor to the C64, it was "THE" computer at the time. At least until Commodore managed to "F" it up in the early 90's.
I still believe that if the Amiga would have lived on, computers today would look way, way different.
I don't recall you ever touching that subject, only that you/others used Amiga at LucasFilmGames/LucasArts for porting the games.
In my humble opinion the Amiga was not only a great successor to the C64, it was "THE" computer at the time. At least until Commodore managed to "F" it up in the early 90's.
I still believe that if the Amiga would have lived on, computers today would look way, way different.
Ron Gilbert
Jun 13, 2021
I never really programmed the Amiga, just dabbled. The Amiga was never really popular in the US and at Lucasfilm we had moved to the PC as it was the large and up coming market here. The SCUMM engine for Zak was the last time I did C64 work. It was PC from them on out.
Michaël El Baki
Jun 14, 2021
That pagetable is a mine of info and greatness :) Special mention for their GEOS reverse engineering! Awesome all the tricks involved to get this kind of software running on a C64 :)
Conny Torneus
Jun 14, 2021
"I never really programmed the Amiga, just dabbled"
Thanks for clarifying Ron. It was always a bit of mystery for me. For me the Amiga was the logical choice after C64 so I spent countless of hours programming on the Amiga.
"The Amiga was never really popular in the US"
Well, the Amiga was never really popular in Sweden either 😀 (Yeah I'm Swedish). People saw it as a "Pure Gaming Computer" and "Business Computers" were more in demand. I later learned that it was really in the UK and Germany it was popular. Doesn't really matter to me though, I have plenty of fond memories from the "Golden Age of Amiga".
Thanks for clarifying Ron. It was always a bit of mystery for me. For me the Amiga was the logical choice after C64 so I spent countless of hours programming on the Amiga.
"The Amiga was never really popular in the US"
Well, the Amiga was never really popular in Sweden either 😀 (Yeah I'm Swedish). People saw it as a "Pure Gaming Computer" and "Business Computers" were more in demand. I later learned that it was really in the UK and Germany it was popular. Doesn't really matter to me though, I have plenty of fond memories from the "Golden Age of Amiga".
Maico De Blasio
Jun 15, 2021
I'm pretty sure the Amiga 500 gained a commercial foothold in Australia during the late 80s... so much so that I was disappointed in the Compaq 386 that I did have. I mean, you couldn't even use a boring EGA monitor to watch TV with, either!!!
Mainly, I was envious of the near-arcade quality game graphics and sounds the Amiga could achieve, with generally better and more diverse titles than those available for the PC between 1987-1990. This explains why I gravitated more toward parser-based (and later point-and-click) adventure games, which seemed to be stock-in-trade for PCs at the time.
It wasn't till many years later, especially after reading the 'PC Graphics Black Book' by Mike Abrash, that I discovered that the "boring old" PC was actually a gaming powerhouse just waiting to be unleashed by combining C programming with 'to-the-metal' x86 assembly to put the Intel on a par with 6500-based chips.
I suppose this is easy to see in hindsight.. but no-one - but - no-one could have predicted the rise of the PC as a gaming machine, aided with the advent of 3D-accelerator cards, DirectX/OpenGL 3D APIs, to the GPUs and programmable shader pipelines of today.
Although I'm enthusiastic for the graphics technology at our disposal today, a part of me does wish the world (at least on a computer screen) was still as simple as an 8-bit 320x200 pixel adventure. Why did those worlds achieve a level of immersion and reality that, ironically, the current standard of photo-realistic imagery makes difficult to emulate???
Mainly, I was envious of the near-arcade quality game graphics and sounds the Amiga could achieve, with generally better and more diverse titles than those available for the PC between 1987-1990. This explains why I gravitated more toward parser-based (and later point-and-click) adventure games, which seemed to be stock-in-trade for PCs at the time.
It wasn't till many years later, especially after reading the 'PC Graphics Black Book' by Mike Abrash, that I discovered that the "boring old" PC was actually a gaming powerhouse just waiting to be unleashed by combining C programming with 'to-the-metal' x86 assembly to put the Intel on a par with 6500-based chips.
I suppose this is easy to see in hindsight.. but no-one - but - no-one could have predicted the rise of the PC as a gaming machine, aided with the advent of 3D-accelerator cards, DirectX/OpenGL 3D APIs, to the GPUs and programmable shader pipelines of today.
Although I'm enthusiastic for the graphics technology at our disposal today, a part of me does wish the world (at least on a computer screen) was still as simple as an 8-bit 320x200 pixel adventure. Why did those worlds achieve a level of immersion and reality that, ironically, the current standard of photo-realistic imagery makes difficult to emulate???
Conny Torneus
Jun 16, 2021
@Maico De Blasio
"I'm pretty sure the Amiga 500 gained a commercial foothold in Australia during the late 80s..."
That is awesome 😁 I remember In Sweden between 87-90. It was mainly teenagers or people in their early 20s getting an Amiga. You would rarely see them beeing used for anything but gaming. When I got my first Amiga (Amiga 500) one if my first games on it was Maniac Mansion 😄 But i had it already on my C64 so if Ron is reading this " I'm a purist " I played through the original. Not the ports, not the enhanced or even a remake but the Original 😁
I remember utilizing my Amiga to the fullest, same thing for my Amiga 1200 but not my Amiga 600, that one turned out to be a bit of disappointment.
"so much so that I was disappointed in the Compaq 386 that I did have. I mean, you couldn't even use a boring EGA monitor to watch TV with, either!!!"
Yeah I remember that as well. Amiga was simply better than PC around that time and it sure didn't hurt that you could hook it up to essentially any TV you would happen to have nearby.
"Mainly, I was envious of the near-arcade quality game graphics and sounds the Amiga could achieve, with generally better and more diverse titles than those available for the PC between 1987-1990. This explains why I gravitated more toward parser-based (and later point-and-click) adventure games, which seemed to be stock-in-trade for PCs at the time."
Yes, Yes and Yes 😆 The Graphics was topnotch, oh and the Sound... Don't even get me started. Essentially you would purchase an affordable adapter that you simply hooked into the Amiga using the parallel port. Then you just acquired a good music software like "Samplitude" for example and Voila now you have your very own startup music studio without spending a fortune 😉 In my experience Amiga and point-and-click Adventure games went very well together which is why I was surprised a bit by Ron's answer earlier. But that's OK, I'm not bitter
"It wasn't till many years later, especially after reading the 'PC Graphics Black Book' by Mike Abrash, that I discovered that the "boring old" PC was actually a gaming powerhouse just waiting to be unleashed by combining C programming with 'to-the-metal' x86 assembly to put the Intel on a par with 6500-based chips.
I suppose this is easy to see in hindsight.. but no-one - but - no-one could have predicted the rise of the PC as a gaming machine, aided with the advent of 3D-accelerator cards, DirectX/OpenGL 3D APIs, to the GPUs and programmable shader pipelines of today."
That's interesting, I think I'll give a read 🙂
"Although I'm enthusiastic for the graphics technology at our disposal today, a part of me does wish the world (at least on a computer screen) was still as simple as an 8-bit 320x200 pixel adventure. Why did those worlds achieve a level of immersion and reality that, ironically, the current standard of photo-realistic imagery makes difficult to emulate???"
That is a very good question, I generally feel the same 🙂
"I'm pretty sure the Amiga 500 gained a commercial foothold in Australia during the late 80s..."
That is awesome 😁 I remember In Sweden between 87-90. It was mainly teenagers or people in their early 20s getting an Amiga. You would rarely see them beeing used for anything but gaming. When I got my first Amiga (Amiga 500) one if my first games on it was Maniac Mansion 😄 But i had it already on my C64 so if Ron is reading this " I'm a purist " I played through the original. Not the ports, not the enhanced or even a remake but the Original 😁
I remember utilizing my Amiga to the fullest, same thing for my Amiga 1200 but not my Amiga 600, that one turned out to be a bit of disappointment.
"so much so that I was disappointed in the Compaq 386 that I did have. I mean, you couldn't even use a boring EGA monitor to watch TV with, either!!!"
Yeah I remember that as well. Amiga was simply better than PC around that time and it sure didn't hurt that you could hook it up to essentially any TV you would happen to have nearby.
"Mainly, I was envious of the near-arcade quality game graphics and sounds the Amiga could achieve, with generally better and more diverse titles than those available for the PC between 1987-1990. This explains why I gravitated more toward parser-based (and later point-and-click) adventure games, which seemed to be stock-in-trade for PCs at the time."
Yes, Yes and Yes 😆 The Graphics was topnotch, oh and the Sound... Don't even get me started. Essentially you would purchase an affordable adapter that you simply hooked into the Amiga using the parallel port. Then you just acquired a good music software like "Samplitude" for example and Voila now you have your very own startup music studio without spending a fortune 😉 In my experience Amiga and point-and-click Adventure games went very well together which is why I was surprised a bit by Ron's answer earlier. But that's OK, I'm not bitter
"It wasn't till many years later, especially after reading the 'PC Graphics Black Book' by Mike Abrash, that I discovered that the "boring old" PC was actually a gaming powerhouse just waiting to be unleashed by combining C programming with 'to-the-metal' x86 assembly to put the Intel on a par with 6500-based chips.
I suppose this is easy to see in hindsight.. but no-one - but - no-one could have predicted the rise of the PC as a gaming machine, aided with the advent of 3D-accelerator cards, DirectX/OpenGL 3D APIs, to the GPUs and programmable shader pipelines of today."
That's interesting, I think I'll give a read 🙂
"Although I'm enthusiastic for the graphics technology at our disposal today, a part of me does wish the world (at least on a computer screen) was still as simple as an 8-bit 320x200 pixel adventure. Why did those worlds achieve a level of immersion and reality that, ironically, the current standard of photo-realistic imagery makes difficult to emulate???"
That is a very good question, I generally feel the same 🙂
Brian Goldberg
Jun 18, 2021
Ron, if you are geeking out on C64 stuff right now, you should check out the youtube channel "8 bit show and tell" it's all kinds of fun with C64 programming, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3gRBswFkuteshdwMZAQafQ
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3gRBswFkuteshdwMZAQafQ
Conny Torneus
5d ago
C/C++ Is the way I've been rolling for decades, but seeing articles such as the one you shared from pagetable.com sure brings back fond memories of BASIC/6502ASM.
One of these days I'll dust off my trusty old C64 🙂
One of these days I'll dust off my trusty old C64 🙂
Conny Torneus
3d ago
Just remember when I would "dabble" in BASIC fir the first time. There was no way to have ;comments and so I had write things on paper. Was it the same for you @Ron? Or were you one of those who could easily keep everything in the head? 😄
Conny Torneus
3d ago
My bad, now I remember. Short "keywords" because it needed to be short and then I had it written down on paper with more information. Can't seem to remember what it was called though...
Ron Gilbert
3d ago
Commodore BASIC had the REM statement for remarks/comments. But I quickly discovered that my programs ran faster without them, so I stopped commenting. Unfortunately a practice that follows me today.
Conny Torneus
2d ago
That's it! Thank you Ron 🙂 REM statement, now I remember.
It was a friend of mine at the time, convincing me that I should add as little REM remarks/comments as possible, whenever I had a suitable line to add it.
Any kind of REM had an impact on the RAM so yeah it totally makes sense that you skipped it. Although, debugging must have been more painful. Remember that too now... ouch!
I generally tried to find a balance which is why I wrote things on paper while adding some REM statements. Those were the days 🙂
Not using comments at all, even today, isn't all that bad I think Ron.
I use C/C++ and although I generally have a structure of comments I often find myself in situations in which I simply Code without them. Somehow that's how my creativity gets triggered and I keep getting more innovative solutions to my problems 🙂
It was a friend of mine at the time, convincing me that I should add as little REM remarks/comments as possible, whenever I had a suitable line to add it.
Any kind of REM had an impact on the RAM so yeah it totally makes sense that you skipped it. Although, debugging must have been more painful. Remember that too now... ouch!
I generally tried to find a balance which is why I wrote things on paper while adding some REM statements. Those were the days 🙂
Not using comments at all, even today, isn't all that bad I think Ron.
I use C/C++ and although I generally have a structure of comments I often find myself in situations in which I simply Code without them. Somehow that's how my creativity gets triggered and I keep getting more innovative solutions to my problems 🙂
maxleod
22h ago
Conny, i would assume that since unlike BASIC, C/C++ is compiled, it doesn't change a thing. Basic is interpreted, C just produce machine code.
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