Robert Hampton

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20th January 2013

Game, Gazette and Match

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am something of a fan of the Commodore 64 8-bit computer.

The C64 was an all-round home computer with a wealth of productivity software – at least, it was in America; in the UK it always seemed to be primarily marketed as a games machine. There was also an active hobbyist computing scene, with many people trying their hands at writing their own programs using the built-in BASIC.

For reasons too dreary to go into here, I have been researching C64-related matters and have stumbled across the wealth of old computing magazines available on archive.org – including the magazine which was considered something of a bible for US Commodore users: COMPUTE!’s Gazette.

COMPUTE!'s Gazette

Thanks to the Internet Archive’s diligence, the entire collection of the Gazette is now online. It’s a fascinating time capsule giving an insight into the US computer industry, as it stood in the early 1980s.

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12th August 2012

PRESS PLAY ON TAPE

In my previous post I waxed lyrical about the C64 as it celebrated its 30th anniversary.

But what made the Commodore 64 so popular? A big factor must have been the huge library of games. There’s no way of knowing the exact number of games released for the system, but it almost certainly numbers in the thousands.

Here I list some of the key games in the system’s history.

Jupiter Lander (Commodore, 1982)

This was one of the very first C64 games and it was a straightforward port, with enhanced graphics, of an earlier VIC-20 game (which was, in turn, a rip-off of Atari’s Lunar Lander). It was made available on cartridge, despite the extra manufacturing expense compared to tape, as Commodore believed (incorrectly) that long load times from tape would put off consumers.

It’s a straightforward game – land your ship on one of the landing pads. Guide your ship into the opening while applying the correct amount of thrust. If you come down too fast, you will miss out on bonus points.

Although fun (and of some historical interest), it’s an incredibly simple game. Once you’ve got the hang of landing the ship, there isn’t really much more to it. However, things would get a lot better for C64 gamers…

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6th August 2012

READY.

Commodore 64An icon of computer geekery turns 30 in August. No, not me (that’s next month). I’m talking about one of the most popular home computers ever built – the Commodore 64.

The late 1970s and early 1980s were the time when computers finally moved out of university laboratories and corporate payroll systems and into people’s homes, as computer manufacturers – including Apple and Atari – introduced the first generation of microcomputers. These small self-contained systems could be connected to a TV set, giving Joe Public a window into the world of computing, in a limited fashion. By 1980 the Apple II and Atari 400 were well-established, although with a price tag of circa $1,000 they were still rich people’s toys.

Commodore were, perhaps, slightly late to the party – their earlier computers, the PET series, were mainly used in small businesses and schools. That policy changed in 1981 with the advent of Commodore’s first machine targeted squarely at home users, the VIC-20. Its capabilities were limited even by the standards of the time: only 5K of RAM and 176×184 screen resolution, meaning some very chunky graphics. However, at $300 it was substantially cheaper than its rivals and in its first year on sale it sold over 1 million units. This was partly thanks to a memorable TV ad campaign featuring William Shatner, who implored parents to buy this proper computer for their kids instead of a mere video game.

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29th February 2012

Pi in the Face

The tech world is getting excited about Raspberry Pi, a new low cost computer, which has launched today after several years of development. For under £30 you can have a simple but capable computer – just add a keyboard and plug it into your TV, then boot it off an SD card.

The Pi has been created with educational purposes in mind. The device’s creators want to get it into schools, so kids will have something they can tinker with to their heart’s content. They will be able to write their own programs and, hopefully, learn that there is more to computing than Facebook and cutting and pasting Wikipedia articles into their essays.

In many ways, this is an attempt to turn back the clock to the 1980s and the heyday of hobbyist programming. The computers of the day were very different beasts – turn on a Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum or BBC Micro and there were no fancy icons or windows to click on, just a text prompt and a flashing cursor. To make it do something useful you had to type something.

C64 boot screen, showing READY prompt and blinking cursor

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18th August 2010

I like computers so much, I changed my name to Computer Jones

Followers of my Twitter feed (those who aren’t spambots selling diet pills, anyway) will probably be aware that I have been clearing out junk from my loft. This is not due to some sudden financial crisis, nor am I desperately trying to feed an addiction (unless you count my weakness for Haribo Tangfastics). It’s simply because we’re getting a loft conversion done, and an empty loft facilitates that. Therefore selling some old crap is a good idea.

Amongst the stuff up there is a veritable museum of computer history: twenty years of accumulated electronics, including my Commodore 64 (top right), Acorn RiscPC (top left) and Acorn A3010 (bottom). Also up there but not pictured: my Super NES.

Computers

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