What was the difference between the 1980s homebrew environments of the Commodore 64 and TI-99/4A?

[+OLD CS1]

This brought up a good question:

 

So, what were the objective differences between the 1980s BASIC homebrew environments for the Commodore 64 and TI-99/4A?  Responses to this question do not require each respondent to make comparisons, but rather to describe the environment in which they worked.  We can make comparisons in matter of course.

[waynel]

It's a very hard question to answer.  Primarily because you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who had both computers.

 

Home computers were exotic and expensive.  A computer, disk drive, monitor, and printer was almost a month's salary for the average household in 1982.  That's why very few people had computer monitors, and used the television sets they already had, instead.  Also remember that aside from BASIC and machine code, you had to buy compilers to develop proper software.  A good Pascal compiler might run you $500-1,000.

 

If you could buy a Commodore 64, disk drive, printer, software, and monitor; and a TI-99/4A, printer, monitor, interface, software, and disk drive, you'd probably just buy a new car, instead.

 

It's not like today when if you don't have money, you just finance a big purchase like that.  Not many people had credit cards back then, compared with now.  If you didn't have the cash, you used a charge card, layaway, or your bank's Christmas club.

 

Also, unlike today, a printer and good paper and ribbons were essential. It's how you backed up your code and data.

Edited June 9, 2022 by Reaperducer

[zzip]

16 minutes ago, Reaperducer said:

If you could buy a Commodore 64, disk drive, printer, software, and monitor; and a TI-99/4A, printer, monitor, interface, software, and disk drive, you'd probably just buy a new car, instead.

 

It's not like today when if you don't have money, you just finance a big purchase like that.  Not many people had credit cards back then, compared with now.  If you didn't have the cash, you used a charge card, layaway, or your bank's Christmas club.

 

People financed cars back then too.

 

Credit cards may have been less common, but they weren't uncommon either.  I used to hate getting stuck behind someone paying with credit card in a store in the 70s/80s because it was a very slow, manual transaction and the cashier could easily spend 5 min or more processing each credit card that came through.

[youxia]

The whole point of homebrew / bedroom coding was that you didn't need a full rig to do that, it could be done on a basic setup with minimal spending.. I was writing proto-adventure games on my ZX Spectrum 48k with a B&W TV and an old battered tape deck for saving progress. Many of those who managed to sell games commercially didn't have much more than that either.

[+OLD CS1]

58 minutes ago, Reaperducer said:

It's a very hard question to answer.  Primarily because you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who had both computers.

 

Which is why I said this:

 

12 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

Responses to this question do not require each respondent to make comparisons, but rather to describe the environment in which they worked.  We can make comparisons in matter of course.

 

As a for-instance: @Eric Lafortune wrote Rock Runner, a TI-99/4A clone of Boulder Dash on a 4A console using the MiniMemory module, Line-By-Line Assembler, and a tape drive.

[+save2600]

Mid 80's, I was in my mid teens with 2 jobs and simultaneously had both a C64 w/ disk drive and a TI-99/4A with Extended Basic, Mini-Memory, bunch of games, Champ single joystick adapter, Gorilla-Banana printer and the program recorder. Along with a Sears 13" color TV that was an awesome Christmas gift. The C64 package was a trade from a friend that *really* wanted my NES system, else I wouldn't have bothered with a C64 at that time and there's certainly no way I would have wanted to spend $399 on just a 1541. Made that trade QUICK though, before he changed his mind!  ?

 

A school chum let me make weekly payments on his old TI system until the $250 total was met. Disagree about not many people having credit cards though. Most all adults I knew over 18 had at least one or two in the form of a gas card, a regular bank card AND a store credit card like Sears or Montgomery Ward. It's how and why we had such fancy appliances like washers/dryers, refrigerators, lawn mowers, TV's, VCRs, etc. ha

 

Anyway, the TI was my first computer a few years prior, and I had spent a LOT of time typing in stuff from books/mags and writing my own programs. Pretty much learned how to type, thanks to the TI's relatively nice keyboard. By the time I got the C64, and even though it's a more capable machine, never felt too compelled to program for it. Dabbled in its built in BASIC which felt fairly generic comparatively, but programming the TI was so much more fun, gratifying and easier for me since I was better versed in it.
 

Was cool you could basically type machine level code in the form of long and boring data statements with the stock C64 ala stuff like those Compute! Magazine submissions, but blech. And before long, the allure of typing programs in manually in order to play games was losing its appeal quick. Mostly thanks to expectations and quality software being more readily available for the C64 I guess. And moving on as a teen with other interests of course.  ?

[+save2600]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

 ...I used to hate getting stuck behind someone paying with credit card in a store in the 70s/80s because it was a very slow, manual transaction and the cashier could easily spend 5 min or more processing each credit card that came through.

Awww, c'mon now.  ?   
 

I've worked in stores where all we had was the manual credit card impression swipe thingy. Yes, had to manually write in the sale and tax figures, and have the customer sign the slip of course, but that's lightning fast compared to some old bitty writing a check at a store today. And they're never courteous enough to have the damned thing part-way filled out either. You know, while you're just standing there doing nothing... could write the name of the store, the date, and your signature down for crying out loud! haha  You'd think after 60-70 years of writing checks, you'd have that sort of system down, but nope. And then they're always surprised that they need to show their I.D., which is never quickly retrieved. Again, WTF?! And then there's the electronic check approval process itself which can tie things up further. ARGH!  ?

[zzip]

13 minutes ago, save2600 said:

I've worked in stores where all we had was the manual credit card impression swipe thingy. Yes, had to manually write in the sale and tax figures, and have the customer sign the slip of course, but that's lightning fast compared to some old bitty writing a check at a store today. And they're never courteous enough to have the damned thing part-way filled out either. You know, while you're just standing there doing nothing... could write the name of the store, the date, and your signature down for crying out loud! haha  You'd think after 60-70 years of writing checks, you'd have that sort of system down, but nope. And then they're always surprised that they need to show their I.D., which is never quickly retrieved. Again, WTF?! And then there's the electronic check approval process itself which can tie things up further. ARGH!

It wasn't just the swipe thing, and the writing numbers,  I remember they also had to pull out a book the size of phone directory to compare the card number against cancelled/bad numbers I assume?   And they had to get on the phone sometimes too.   Maybe it depends on the store,  but it was more of a holdup than the check-writers  Check writing for purchases was a lot more common then, but it was done by younger people who had places to go and were more efficient about it.   But yeah it has flipped,  credit/debit purchases are now super quick, and check-writers now hold up the line   

[+save2600]

2 minutes ago, zzip said:

...I remember they also had to pull out a book the size of phone directory to compare the card number against cancelled/bad numbers I assume?

Oh wow, don't remember that process at all. Even observing parents using their cards when younger. Yep, that would have done it for sure!  hahaha 

[zzip]

10 minutes ago, save2600 said:

Oh wow, don't remember that process at all. Even observing parents using their cards when younger. Yep, that would have done it for sure!  hahaha 

I think it was more for Mastercard/Visa and similar cards.   I don't remember it for store cards like JCPenney.    But it was common at stores like Kmart and similar places at least through the early 80s.   Tech gradually improved the process.

[TheDevil'sCompass]

The TI 99/4A was my first computer. I picked up every book and magazine I could to learn BASIC. Couldn't afford the official TI Program Recorder, so my grandpa bought me a portable cassette deck and the TI cassette cable so I could save everything I typed in. Then I picked up a copy of SAMS Entertainment Games in TI BASIC and Extended BASIC and saw a game called "Home Bound" which was a Frogger clone. It required Extended BASIC, so I decided that was the cartridge I had to get to further my programming. The extent of my TI environment ended up being the TI 99/4A, the Extended BASIC cartridge, a pair of joysticks, the cassette deck, and a 13" B/W TV. With this setup I wrote a few games, one of my best being a Q*Bert clone.

[+OLD CS1]

48 minutes ago, TheDevil'sCompass said:

The extent of my TI environment ended up being the TI 99/4A, the Extended BASIC cartridge, a pair of joysticks, the cassette deck, and a 13" B/W TV. With this setup I wrote a few games, one of my best being a Q*Bert clone.

(Emphasis mine.)  Do you happen to have a copy of this game?  Was it ever distributed?

[TheDevil'sCompass]

1 hour ago, OLD CS1 said:

(Emphasis mine.)  Do you happen to have a copy of this game?  Was it ever distributed?

Unfortunately, I don't. It was never distributed. I didn't even send it to any of the magazines for consideration. However, I have been thinking about picking up another TI and recoding the game. At the time it meant a lot to me because my cousin helped me with it over Thanksgiving break. We had the basics to the game: drawing the pyramid playfield, the jump mechanics of the main character (Bubble Man), changing a square's color, and scoring in about 3 days. We spent a fair amount of time getting the math and visuals right to translate the sprite coordinates (think this was pixel based) to the playfield coordinates (believe this was tile based). I later put in some arrows that acted as enemies similar to the bullets in Jumpman and added sound effects. I started adding in traditional enemies like in Q*Bert, but for whatever reason didn't get this version finished. A little while later my parents sold all of my TI stuff in a garage sale and trashed all of my cassettes, but that's another story.

[Goochman]

On 6/9/2022 at 12:27 PM, zzip said:

I think it was more for Mastercard/Visa and similar cards.   I don't remember it for store cards like JCPenney.    But it was common at stores like Kmart and similar places at least through the early 80s.   Tech gradually improved the process.

I worked at Sears from 83-86 and we never had a book.  By then you could get a quick approval check via modem - the swipe machine.

 

On store cards - the Sears credit card was huge - you could only use a Sears Card at Sears until the mid 80s.  It was harder to get a Sears card than a new Discover card (Sears attempt at going after Visa).  I was in HS and got a Discover card before finally getting approved for a Sears card!

Edited June 10, 2022 by Goochman

[MrMaddog]

Homebrew enviroments for BASIC programming?  You'd just type in the code on the home computer itself and save it on a tape recorder (or disk drive if you were lucky to afford it).

 

It was the commercial programmers that used cross assemblers on more powerful computers, Atari used VAX minicomputers, but eventually PC's surpassed everthing else so it was back to doing it all on the same machines.

[waynel]

On 6/9/2022 at 11:15 AM, save2600 said:

Oh wow, don't remember that process at all. Even observing parents using their cards when younger. Yep, that would have done it for sure!  hahaha 

There's a scene in the Steve Martin movie The Jerk where he catches the guys using Mrs. Nussbaum's credit card by looking it up in one of those phonebook-looking things.

 

I remember them.  They were the super-thin phone book paper, but the size of note paper.  A new book of stolen credit cards came out every week or two.