I fired up my art app and sculpted on a canvas the size of a retro-computer’s text character (8 pixel wide and 8 pixels high). I had to struggle, because the app wanted it to look nicer than it really was.

I suppose you can already guess what it represents. You can do a lot in 64 bits of data 👨‍💻🎨

Okay, I have a Basic loader with M/L code that enables a screen buffer and has a handy relocatable M/L routine at $C000 that copies 1024 bytes. Bits 4 - 7 of $D018 control which part of memory is used to display the screen. Now I have all I need for moving a block of characters in C64 Basic, right? 👨‍💻

In my previous post in which I moved a box across the screen with a Basic program, I wanted to use a screen buffer. The default screen location starts in memory at $0400 (1024 decimal), and we can move the screen in units of 1024 bytes. The next location would be $0800 (2048 decimal), which is where … read more

With all the blogging I do daily, I wanted to automate correct capitalization. I reworked an shortcut that no longer worked to a working state. Select text, share, pick one, paste.

• all lower case
• UPPER CASE
• Title Case in Case You Want It
• Capitalize A Okay
• Sentence. After each. Sentence.

I was wondering how to move a collection of characters (e.g. a box) across a Commodore 64 text screen. It’s rather easy to do this destructively. In Basic, I wrote something that horizontally moves a 3-by-3 character rectangle constructed out of PETSCII characters. 10 rem *** 11 rem *** setup … read more

I wondered if a sprite rendered as a text character would make sense. It would have to move to one of the 1000 positions on a text screen of 25 lines and 40 columns in a C64. The character is 2 by 2 text characters, has 3 walking poses, and two extra text characters for the SFX. It could work 👨‍💻

I found this video game poster via an image search, which clearly isn’t from a C64 (size 640 x 400 pixels, different 16 colors than C64). I thought about recreating it in C64 multicolor for self-education. The first step in my analysis was recoloring it into the Colodore color palette, an idealized version of the C64 color palette(s). It seems to be drawn for the Amiga. It has 3 shades of red and of green; the C64 has only 2 of those. Plus, it has a flesh color, which the C64 sorely lacks.

I found an interview with the mentioned Peter Johnson on Codetapper’s Amiga Site. And it appears he rewrote the C64 version for the Amiga. No mention of who drew the poster. Peter did draw the game art, I assume. Alas, there’s no date stamp on the article, but judging from the copyright notice it’s probably from 2020, but it could be as early as 2016.

Now will I recreate the poster? Probably not, but it’s a good reference to have, to see what good illustrators were able to whip up in a short amount of time. Even back then, the games industry was brutal. Games did last as long as they were popular. There was always something newer and better to draw the attention of gamers. Time was a-wastin', always.

🎮

Luckily, the SPEEDLINK SL-650212 BKRD Competition EXTRA Joystick I bought off Dutch Amazon works with VICE C64 on my Raspberry Pi-400 computer. I read a review somewhere that it did, but reviews can be wrong, high ratings bought by the manufacturer. So I took a chance and it paid off 🎮

I would prefer owning a Mac, but I simply can’t rationalize the “Apple tax.” I used to be Mac or Die. A computer is more like a way to access the Internet nowadays, anyway 👨‍💻👾

It’s all very technical, this Commodore 64 multicolor mode. I made a special 2x1 grid in my iPad pixel editor to help me, but still I need to check in an actual multicolor editor if I made a mistake. Anyway, I’m improving as a C64 pixel artist, and that’s very cool 👨‍💻

Since I took the picture myself, I can copy it, I guess.

Creating something colorful that can be displayed on a Commodore 64 by loading and running a file involved a lot of (impossible to automate) creative steps. It took me around 4 hours for this simple drawing of my cat Aziz. 👨‍💻

I wondered what “chord progression” was, did a search and found this website by a single person who offers free music theory education. Sweet!

For most of these concepts of music theory I had no idea they were a thing, what they meant, nor how they related to each other.

So there’s another side-project before I can actually understand enough to be able to write my own tracker music.

I found an image editor that is able to draw Commodore 64 multicolor images. It can load PNG images, so I could draw on my iPad and color in this Java app on my Raspberry Pi-400. Yay!

I’m still learning, though. Also found a SID tracker to compose music on the C64, and my musical knowledge is meh.

Some kind of drawing, not quite pixel art, not quite traditional art. Yeah, limited time to draw today…

Realizing how little to nothing I know about music theory, I started watching videos on the subject recommended to me by YouTube. Apart from that those videos aren’t really vetted, I don’t know how useful those are, even if they’re accurate. So there’s my caveat to you, the … read more

I realized I needed four extra characters to be able to create lines that are 4 pixels wide. In the 6-pixel wide versions I already had them ($59 - $5B), rounding corners. So I added them to my existing modified character set, at $75 - $78.

Tools: PETSCII editor, VICE.

👨‍💻 day 2/366 days of coding

It’s day one of a year long self-challenge to code a video game for the Commodore 64. It won’t be all spent behind a keyboard and monitor. There’s a lot of study ahead, reading books and articles, playing retro-games, etc. Also making pixel art and chiptunes. It’ll be a blast 🥳 👨‍💻

My retro-computer∗ powered best wishes from the Netherlands!

May all your best wishes for 2024 come true.

👨‍💻

∗ (V.I.C.E. actually, and a little after effect with my iPad)

Took some effort, yet I have my character set of programmable characters to draw a design I’ve been working on lately. I wrote a Basic loader, which when run puts the character set in memory, so I can be used. Still lots to do, though. I’ll write a longer piece about it in the New Year. 👨‍💻