The evolution of 8-bit
As you can tell from looking back over previous Dec/Jan postings, I tend to get a little nostalgic for the good old days of working with computers. I once had an entire bedroom (named the '8-bit room') that was full and I mean full of just Amstrad CPC related micro-computers and peripherals. I even had all the modern gadgets hooked up to do a variety of things. Why the Amstrad? Well, that's what I received as an xmas present back in 1985 and sort of set me off on my IT journey.
I even taught myself Z80 assembler and wrote a computer game (in 2009!), I have the .dsk file knocking around someplace. It was fun and something I never achieved as a kid. Here's a couple of screenshots from the PiCade (I still have the .DSK file, but I have no idea where the original code went or even how to compile/build etc... I think all that has been lost to time). I had to plug a keyboard into the PiCade as the genius that I am, I required you to press the central key on the keyboard "G" to start the game (rather than 'fire' or something else that could map to a joystick), but once started I realised how much of a b'stard I was writing this game, it's hard! I did manage to get up to level 4, I think there were 10 levels, I even put in a backdoor keypress that could allow you to jump screens, but hell if I can remember what to press now!
Anyway, here's the photo's of the good old Amstrad CPC days:
I then decided one day that I should stop looking backwards and should focus on the future. I sold the entire lot of about £800...which was eye-watering as I'd spent something north of £5k on getting all the hardware, software and gadgets and it was just gathering a lot of dust.
I suppose I could have just boxed it all up and stored it in the loft, but y'know, I do the occasional irrational thing and then wonder what the hell I was doing. A few years back, I dug out an Atari ST that I had in the loft (that I have kept since 1989/90-ish) and hooked it up with a new USB drive, even got it connected to the internet and got it sending/receiving emails too.
Again, something I never got around to back in the day was writing code for the Atari, so I managed to get hold of some C compilers and wrote some code and had a little bit of fun. I controlled myself and only bought 1 or 2 "spare" Atari STs that I cobbled together to make a decent one, as y'know 30year old parts tend to fry themselves and go pop/bang. That very same Atari ST is actually still in my "home office" and sits about 5ft behind my head and can be seen behind me in any webex/zoom conference calls I'm on.
I've recently been playing around with Raspberry Pis (okay, I've been doing that for about 7-8years now!) and I've been playing around with Arduino boards for about the past 15years, which requires coding in C. I've been fiddling around with the Raspberry Pi and coding in C, (rather than python like everyone seems to do doing).
Then on xmas morning, whilst wandering through the wondrous world of YouTube, I stumbled over these 2 videos.... and this guy echo'd exactly what I've been expressing for the past 15+years. What was so special about the "old" 8-bit computer days, what made them so special and magical? (no rose-tinted glasses needed). The ability to just turn the computer on and have the ability to create something, your only limitation was your creativity and also your access to the right software to help with that creativity.
Anyway, long story short - I believe 'The 8-bit-guy' has embarked upon a wonderful journey that hopefully will not just be purchased and used by us old guys (45yr+) for nostalgic purposes but used by the younger generations who can learn to create something and have fun doing it. Yes, they could get a Raspberry Pi and do some stuff with it or install Unity and create a 3D game that is state-of-the-art, but, y'know there is something different about writing 50 lines of BASIC code and typing RUN and having your simple creation execute and run....anyway, I'm rambling now.
I'll let you watch the 2 videos:
Then you can go visit the associated web-site. The web-site is going to be the source of all future information, so check back regularly.
I'm going to distract myself for a bit (as usual) and even though I never owned a Commodore 64 (I do have a couple Amiga 500's, with HDDs and extra RAM modules etc.. in the loft and a huge stack of software, but I never really used it, it was something I was going to "come back to" at some point in the future? maybe this will be the year?), it might be fun to learn/figure out how to use/code something for this platform?.... I think I'll make a start by downloading the emulator and see how I go from there. I mean, there's no deadline / rush or anything. You can even access the emulator online too.
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