danwinslow Posted June 21, 2005 Share Posted June 21, 2005 (edited) I am a professional programmer, and have been for many, many years. I've worked on everything from old Burroughs 3500's through Unisys through Honeywell, Early PC's, Wangs, Perkin Elmers, and the whole spectrum of bizarre DoD computer stuff, many and various Unix/Solaris/Linux boxes....you name it, I've probably coded badly on it. Why, in this age of terabyte storage, gigaflop processors, and more RAM than the entire DoD had in 1975 on my frikkin calculator, would anyone still want to mess around on 8 bit computers? I have been having to explain this obsession to people. They don't quite understand. "He likes computers", they think. "He ought to like new, powerful ones, but he doesn't. He likes old crappy ones." Conclusion : "He's nuts". In thinking about this, I have reached the conclusion that the main reason for my interest in these older computers, aside from nostalgia, is that you can wrap your arms around the WHOLE thing in a way that is impossible with modern platforms. Anybody out there seen the ENTIRE windows API lately? Think you could memorize that? 1/10 of that? Anyone tried to learn every motif call? Anyone tried to punt Windows out of the way and take over the box? Anyone tried to write a new OS from scratch on a modern computer? There's just too much in modern computer systems to really handle as a whole. You have to specialize, and that means you are always at someone elses mercy in some regard. You have to put up with someone elses ideas. Hell, 'programming' in modern J2EE environments is not so much programming as using some kind of really complicated library of pre-written stuff. It's kind of like learning Word really really well; you get a lot of power but you live with the world as the designers of Word deemed it to be, and you won't get to optimize anything or to be clever in some low level way. You just stick glops of pre-written stuff onto other glops, and execution speed be damned. Buy More Hardware. It's cheap! It's kind of like people who work on old cars. Yknow, on an old car, you can take the sucker apart and rebuild it, optimizing, tweaking, changing, adding. Hell, a old VolksWagen beetle is practically a Go-Cart, more like a really big lawnmower than anything else. You can mod the crap out of them. A modern car, you get to hook up a computer and swap hardware modules as commanded to by the little diagnostic machine. Thats it. Attempts to modify things usually end badly, with the little 'Check Engine' light on. This light means that one of approximately twenty million different errors has occured. Engines don't 'break' any more, now they just won't boot. Working on an old 8 bit computer not only gives you the freedom and possibility to optimize, but it is also very hard. It takes skill. The 2600 guys out there, man you guys remind me of like Zen Monks or something, secretly practicing Really Hard Things in the darkness of the temple courtyard, then running out every now and then and kicking everyone's ass with Killer Ninja Assembly Hacks. Edited June 21, 2005 by danwinslow 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maibock Posted June 21, 2005 Share Posted June 21, 2005 Enjoyed the read! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 21, 2005 Share Posted June 21, 2005 What to say? Handling an 8-bit is to compare with "puzzling".... You can create pictures with some mosaic or play music with a piano or bottles. Or, you can do music and graphics with the capabilities of the 8bits.... having fun with the results... The capabilities of the 8bits brought a unique style of "art" which is somehow established today. Having a look at some Kylie Minogue songs, you recognize some "Super Mario" Sounds ( Slow ), or even a notation of a "Zelda" tune ( Believe in you)... And I remember a Song, played in Clubs, with SID style samples in it. BTW: http://gprime.net/video.php/nintendothemesacappella (perhaps it helps to explain, what I'm talking about) While, particular the A8, was extremely under-used, other computers like the C64 or even the nintendo entertainment system did their part of putting the "8-bits" into the "hearts" of the people. Another thing is the ability of "easy" learning how a computer works. Writing programs is as challenging as on the "high-power" machines. There is a big difference between managing an old car and to handle an 8 bit ... To get a car running, you need some screwdrivers and wrenches ..... to keep an 8bit running, you need "knowledge".... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted June 21, 2005 Author Share Posted June 21, 2005 Well, I have to disagree with your statement about cars. It takes plenty of knowledge to rebuild and modify an old car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted June 21, 2005 Share Posted June 21, 2005 In thinking about this, I have reached the conclusion that the main reason for my interest in these older computers, aside from nostalgia, is that you can wrap your arms around the WHOLE thing in a way that is impossible with modern platforms. Very nice posting. I tend to believe that the main reason is nostalgia. But what you say is definitely true. With modern platforms you can’t get “total control” as with vintage systems. This is even true with modern microcontrollers. Modern MCUs are usually programmed in C, not in assembler anymore. And even when you do can program in assembler if you want, you usually can’t do cycle counting because of issues such as prefetch, cache, pipe-line, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 21, 2005 Share Posted June 21, 2005 Well, I have to disagree with your statement about cars. It takes plenty of knowledge to rebuild and modify an old car. 878345[/snapback] Maybe it's in my worse english ... Ofcourse you need knowledge, to handle or rebuild a car... But, writing a "simple" game like "tetris" in machine language, needs a bigger knowlegde base already... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted June 21, 2005 Author Share Posted June 21, 2005 Ah, yes that's likely true, Emkay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted June 21, 2005 Share Posted June 21, 2005 (edited) I also enjoyed your post and I agree with your reasoning. I consider modern computers and their software, and Windows is a perfect example, to be "bloatware" with tons of unneaded stuff that does make the computer a major pain in the *ss for an individual to do anything with in as far as developmetn goes, not to mention the old saying "the more plumbing you have, the easier it is to clog up the works" and I find this VERY true with Windows and modern PC's. I never have the continual problems with my old 8-bit and 16-bit Ataris or commodores, or even my macintosh powerPC's and constant "blue screens of death" and multiple problems as I do with PC's and windows. It certainly is not all nostalgia for me either, I like the simplicity and USER FRIENDLYNESS (something that is non-existant in Windows machines) of the classic computers. I even hate doing digital art on PC's, even if they are lightyears in advance of the digital art that can be done on the classics, becuase they are too difficult to use! I'll stick to digital art and rendering on my 8-bit and 16-bit machines, and if I want something that is "photo realistic" I'll paint by hand on canvas! Screw Windows and the whole monstrosity that it is! I'd love to see microsoft burn to the ground never to re-emerge, and bring back the user-friendly OS's of yesteryear, even on newer technology. but I also agree with your "old car" analogy too, and couldn't agree more. I rather go out and buy a classic car that I can work on and upgrade, refubish and modify myself than worry about a modern car that I can't do more than change the oil and starter out becuase they are all computerized, which is mainly so dealers and "certified" technitions can make a fortune off of robbing you blind with computer parts that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars and labor bills that are outragious too. The same is true with the classic computers, I love to modify and upgrade them to the limit, but I wouldn't even dream of attempting modifications and upgrades on PC's other than slapping in the latest "card." it would only cost many, many headaches with driver conflicts and such anyway. you have to have a team of 20+ programmers and engineers to modify or program anything relevent on modern PC's and that sucks. Classic stuff you can work on all by yourself. Edited June 21, 2005 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamageX Posted June 21, 2005 Share Posted June 21, 2005 As an old computer and old car enthusiast I agree 100% with the original post. I've done a fair amount of programming on PCs but only in BASIC or asm running under DOS. At times I've tried to bring my skills a little more up-to-date only to discover that working with computers isn't really any fun if I can't do things MY WAY. (I also discovered that I hate programming languages which use more punctuation marks than letters or numbers) '82 BMW 528e w/ dinan chip, e32/e34 wheels, euro front bumper '84 BMW 318i w/ 325e disc brakes, 2.0L crankshaft, ROSS pistons, 3.73LSD Atari 800XL w/ internal MyIDE 2.5" 40MB harddrive, s-video, SIO2PC, Indus GT etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted June 21, 2005 Share Posted June 21, 2005 Atari 800XL w/ internal MyIDE 2.5" 40MB harddrive, s-video, SIO2PC, Indus GT etc. This kinda sums it up, surprised no RAM upgrade though For some reason the A8s just still don't seem to have met their potential. There's always something else we know they CAN do. E.g. be part of a TCP/IP network, utilize many USB devices My own Holy Grail is seeing Elite ported, Sheddy has Space Harrier, Analmux has Super Mario Bros 3, Heaven=Boinxx, TMR=Reaxion etc The others seem better able to focus on 1 project at a time than me though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindfield Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 I'd have to agree. As a matter of fact it is the very reason I have for quite a number of years now completely staved off getting back into the programming scene. Frankly, programming on the PC just frightens me -- it is an ordeal just to accomplish the simplest of things, and the simplest of things requires more memory and storage space than my entire 8-bit setup back in the day. (Which, to put it into perspective, was a stock 1050, doubled 1050, XF551, and a 320k-upgraded 130XE) But there's a more ephemeral reason that I loved programming on the old 8 and 16 bit platforms: the "black box" approach. The thing about modern computers is that everyone's setup is different -- different video card, sound card, modem, network card, processor, motherboard, BIOS, optical drives, etc, etc. It is therefore absolutely necessary to use levels of abstraction at the OS level in order to be able to "speak" a universal language to the OS that will then be translated to a language the various bits of hardware understand through device drivers. Programming under a Windows environment is being buried under levels of abstraction, each of which degrades potential performance of the application -- and this is on top of having to program in a high level language. The fun part about the old computers is that, at a fundamental level, everyone had the same basic hardware. With Atari 8-bits, pretty much everyone has an ANTIC, and everyone does have a Pokey and a 1.79MHz 6502 and the same OS, which is hardware-based anyway. (DOS notwithstanding) It was therefore granted that whatever you wrote would work on all 8-bit Ataris (pre-GTIA machines notwithstanding). You could even write routines to detect expanded RAM or multiple disk drives if you wanted. But the real fun was the fact that because everyone had the same hardware, programmers were free to explore its limitations -- and even find ways around them that may not have been entirely system-legal. And it would still work on all machines. Take a look at the demo scene -- for fun, do it in chronological order, picking a few of the best from each year and watch them in order. You get to see a steady progression of new techniques and new methods that broke boundaries and made the machine do things no one -- not even the designers -- ever dreamed it was capable of doing. Y'know, when I first saw the Veronica demo on the 8-bit, I was floored. The bloody machine was playing 4-channel MOD files without disabling ANTIC, and even while displaying some graphics and a scrolltext. A 1.79MHz machine was doing this, when prior to seeing this demo the most impressive thing I saw was a demo for an audio digitizer that, among other things, played back a sequence of sampled passages from Nu Shooz's "I Can't Wait" that lasted like a couple of minutes. And that was with ANTIC disabled. But that's what was cool about it; pushing the envelope, making it do what no one thought it could. You don't get that on the PC because you can't "bang the hardware" like you could with those old machines -- you start trying to bypass the OS and you'll break it on 99% of the machines you try and run it on. Only one demo has ever truly impressed me on the PC. That was "The Produkt" by the Farb-Rausch crew -- and that was because they managed to encode their own music synthesizer, texture generator and 13 minutes of impressive 3D demo into 64k of compressed executable code. But it was impressive for the ingenuity of the programmers in creating a demo that did not rely on pre-sampled sound or pre-made textures or graphics -- not because it made my machine do things I didn't think it could. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 ...In thinking about this, I have reached the conclusion that the main reason for my interest in these older computers, aside from nostalgia, is that you can wrap your arms around the WHOLE thing in a way that is impossible with modern platforms. Anybody out there seen the ENTIRE windows API lately? Think you could memorize that?... 878313[/snapback] I have to agree. One of the reasons I love (and own - and still use) many of the classic platforms is the ability to know all there is to know about the machine. I've only recently started working with Microsoft's .NET framework, and it's given me a whole new appreciation of the classic machines... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec's Demise Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 Nice read. I know the feeling exactly. Everything gets more and more complex and less personal or individually controllable as technology advances. We used to get around by riding horses or in carts pulled by horses - what a drastic difference between a modern automobile and a living animal. A horse required taming, food, water, shelter and a little exersize. In contrast, what is the life cycle of a car, from the iron ore and oil dug out of the ground to the car that you are driving and maintaining today, to the wrecking yard where it is recycled - thousands and thousands of processes and parts and people all coordinating into accomplishing the same goal as what the horse did, which only required food and water. Just think, the beginning of the home computer era, where a computer and everything about it could be controlled and mastered by a single person will never happen again, short of a global nuclear war wipeout, and we were there to experience and usher it in. We were there, experiening a major shift in technology that will be recorded in histroy forever. That's kind of cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 Nice read. I know the feeling exactly. Everything gets more and more complex and less personal or individually controllable as technology advances. We used to get around by riding horses or in carts pulled by horses - what a drastic difference between a modern automobile and a living animal. A horse required taming, food, water, shelter and a little exersize. In contrast, what is the life cycle of a car, from the iron ore and oil dug out of the ground to the car that you are driving and maintaining today, to the wrecking yard where it is recycled - thousands and thousands of processes and parts and people all coordinating into accomplishing the same goal as what the horse did, which only required food and water. Just think, the beginning of the home computer era, where a computer and everything about it could be controlled and mastered by a single person will never happen again, short of a global nuclear war wipeout, and we were there to experience and usher it in. We were there, experiening a major shift in technology that will be recorded in histroy forever. That's kind of cool. 878710[/snapback] A lot of the PC technology can be traced back to something thaty Atari invented/designed, pioneered etc... like the following USB... based on Atari's SIO standards/protocols (and designed by the same bloke as well) Plug in memory modules (Simms/Dimms/EDO/SDr/RD and DDR ram)... Atari was the first company to utilize plug in mem. modules in computers XMS/EMS... Microsfts version of bank switching, a technique originally invented by Atari Sound/Graphics boards... Based on Atari's custom designed h/w chip set techology Nvidia/ATI PC video GPU's... based on Atari's Antic GPU (and less programmable) And from a design concept, the original 400/800 design pioneered the concept of plug and play, as everything replaceable like graphics/sound hardware, memory,os, cpu etc were given their own PCBs... somewhat similar to the design of the modern ibm compat. pc So... for a modern PC, look under atari 8bit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 simply because its fun... i love my 8bit & 16 bit computers... and my consoles...why? simply switch on and it goes... and from coding point of view... everyone has the same hardware...so only your skills depend... doesn't matter if it's from marketing or from coding point of view... when i 1st wrote my 1st piece of code on my hacked PSX1... it was cool simply because the R3000 is similar to the "risc" 6502... and i got the same feeling like i had with my 1st demo on 800 back 1986... why can i remember now for more than 20 years 54280 (the c64 colour register... but could be wrong... ) or 36879 (of my VIC-20)... I don'T know... I am not a professional programmer (and never will be...) but love to create & write demos/games... even utilities in Quick Language on atari machines... (sector editor which was able to handle copy protected discs).... for me its pure fun and after some work i feel "free".... if you know what i mean... i never had the feeling on my PC... i tried Java, C, C++ etc but even the simplest things are complicated (maybe for me... ) i tried blitzbasic to get this kind of "old feeling"... that's better but still complicated... so i stick to my 800... just my 2 cents... ps. PCs are not fun...they are working slaves without a soul... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybergoth Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 Hi there! Frankly, programming on the PC just frightens me -- it is an ordeal just to accomplish the simplest of things 878630[/snapback] Uhm... I don't get that part... I enjoy programming on the PC just like anything else. Can you give a real example of those "simplest of things"? Greetings, Manuel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analmux Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 (edited) Even for younger guys like me the atari gives that special feeling. When I was a kid my father bought an Atari 800 XL, while most other people already had 16bit intel machines. It was the first computer I came in touch with, and my daddy learned me to program basic and some simple assembly. That was back in 1989. I can't imagine I'd ever throw my a8 in the garbage. Edited June 22, 2005 by analmux Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 it would be interesting in schools...to have 8bits runnings in elementary school like LOGO in the past... so kids can't do things wrong, no harddisc crash etc... just fire up the machine and let them code... wasn't it fun to type in "BYE" and start the "sound test" in the selftest in shops? for me it was... or better poke 77,255 to start attract mode... "huj... colours are changing..." ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 I program for the A8 for similar reasons- because it's a machine that can be mastered. And although several early games blew me away, I always knew it could do more than it was doing. I think the best thing Atari could have done would have been to give away the hardware documentation, and release a butt-load of sample code. They thought they could create this microcosm where they provided everyting, so they really tried to keep the system closed and it cost them in terms of 3rd party support. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 I think the PBI bus is an example of an under utilized feature of the XLs, however that maybe because we like to keep things compatible as possible with our older brothers and sisters . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegamezmaster Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 I think part nostalgia and the games, at least the ones I have are still fun to play. Remember the play's the thing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 i would like to have an 800 in a chip like this c64 project... with a usb2native keyboard plugin... boxed like an 800-cart...on the other side you would have the 4 joystickports.... cool... and you could connect a standard pc keyboard to it... oh...and a sio port to connect drives etc.... ah... just dreaming... btw...it's cool how even nowadays things are discovered... the antic dual upgrade, the 65816 and all the USB stuff, even software wise... please remember g2f & TIP/HIP, RMT, crossassemblers, or think on the new trick used in Theta Music Composer 2.0 for a 40x40 display using the vscrol register and the internal antic cache.... and and and... all these things available back in 80s...and we had a same creative scene like the amiga scene was in terms of games etc... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 i would like to have an 800 in a chip like this c64 project... with a usb2native keyboard plugin... boxed like an 800-cart...on the other side you would have the 4 joystickports.... cool... and you could connect a standard pc keyboard to it... oh...and a sio port to connect drives etc.... ah... just dreaming... btw...it's cool how even nowadays things are discovered... the antic dual upgrade, the 65816 and all the USB stuff, even software wise... please remember g2f & TIP/HIP, RMT, crossassemblers, or think on the new trick used in Theta Music Composer 2.0 for a 40x40 display using the vscrol register and the internal antic cache.... and and and... all these things available back in 80s...and we had a same creative scene like the amiga scene was in terms of games etc... 878869[/snapback] You mention the ANTIC dual upgrade here which I currently have a thread about, are you refering to my thread only, or has someone else actually already done such and upgrade and if so, can you show me where to find the ifo on it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_bernstein Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 (edited) -> Double GTIA Upgrade I'm starting a new gig in October with supposedly better money and the Double GTIA upgrade will be among the first things I can finally finance. As I have little skills (and no time) for manufacturing the boards, I'll have them done in the Valley (at least a prototype). For the moment, I cannot say how much the final boards will cost "down the line". Hello Mux ! AB. Edited June 23, 2005 by andy_bernstein Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 gunstar, i was refering to an old thread of analmux where a dual gfx circuit was/is working in an 800... but could be double GTIA upgrade... for more colours... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.