It might be retro now but 8bit was cutting edge back in the 70s & 80s.
Back when I was a boy, I always had an engineers mentality. My mother would buy broken wind-up clocks from the opportunity store and I would disassemble them, fix them up, and get them going again. She thought I had a real knack for it.
The first boom of home gaming with consoles such as the Atari VCS whetted my appetite for electronics and as soon as a cartridge became available for the VCS (complete with a dodgy keyboard) that allowed for basic programming, I discovered the joy of being able to put my own images onto a cathode ray tube. There was something special about being able to even print your name on the screen.
I had a few uncommon (especially for Australia) choices of computers after that, the Dick Smith Wizzard, TRS-80 MC-10, ZX Spectrum but it was the Commodore C64 that really pulled me in to the world of programming. I taught myself 6502 assembly language and started to create little demos. The one thing that really impressed me about the C64 was its amazing sound capability. I listened to the music in games and I wanted to be one of those game musicians. I instantly turned my assembly programming skills to writing a sound and music driver.
Much of the music I wrote on the Commodore 64 and Amiga has unfortunately not survived the years but with thanks to some of preservation societies you can find on web, I have been able to get back some of my lost work.
Here are some the tunes from years gone by when I fancied myself as an understudy of Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway & David Whittaker.
My vintage original Commodore 64 music is here.
My demoscene footprint on the Internet
My entry on CSDb
Other links to my demoscene profiles
- http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/author.php?id=11507 (Gazza)
- http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/author.php?id=11495 (Factor 4)
- http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/release.php?id=3943 (My first Amiga demo)
SYS 64738, LOAD “$”,8 and Enjoy!
Other cruddy links:
http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/release.php?id=6665
http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/release.php?id=3944
http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/release.php?id=3939
http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/release.php?id=20058