Programming then and now...

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Being born in '87 I never really had much of a chance to program some of the earlier computer systems. I just want to know if it was any more easy or difficult back then in the early days of programming. It seems like there would be fewer libraries to fiddle with but then again I could be completely wrong.

[hellfire]

The machines I learned programming on were a Commodore Plus/4 and Amstrad CPC 6128.
On the one hand it was much easier and "natural" to get into programming since the "operating system" was also the programming language (basic).
On the other hand it was rather difficult to get deepgoing information (anything beyond the basic-command-reference). You either had to get it from books or magazines or disassemble other people's code.

[Rbz]

For me it's more easy to program today, just because one word -> "Internet"

In the beginning of 90's when I bought an Amiga500, one of my big dream was to program intros/games for it, but the lack of information put me down and it was impossible to find anyone who already have experience with it. And the same for MSX 1/2+ (8bits), I never coded anything than basic on it. So, I became a simple gamer

Today we have forums like this one and all sort of webpages and documents about almost everything, for me the good days is now

[combatking0]

I used to enjoy programming in BASIC on my C64 any my friend's Spectrum 48K, but when IBM PCs became popular, I found that they weren't easily programmable.

That is, until I discovered JavaScript, which I have butchered ever since.

[benny!]

Cool topic.

Yes. I think programming was harder in the 80's. As the others
already mentioned - getting information about certain languages,
the hardware and so on - was way harder to get than today.

Also, libraries, frameworks and IDEs we have today didn't exists.

Everyone coded his own spaghetti code and a lot of ppl re-invented
the wheel over and over again.

But being an oldschooler - I also liked that time. A lot of things
were unknown - and that made exploring the unknown universe so
attracting.

[Shockwave]

Even in the days of the Amiga you had to figure more out for yourself because there was not the resource of the web at your fingertips.

Basics were clunky things, I learned by changing peoples listings at first and typing things in from magazines, a few mags like Your Sinclair had some great columns, there was one by David Maccandles where people would send Z80 lisitngs into the mag to do various stuff.

Most mags carried listings of games to type in, there were books for sale, most were notoriously full of typos!
It definately sorted out those who were dedicated, on the other hand though you could quite feasibly develop a game in your bedroom and sell it to mastertronic or firebird, amongst others and they'd pay good money for it

[hellfire]

and typing things in from magazines

Oh yeah! I think it was in 1987 (I was 9 or 10 at that time) when my dad bought an CPC and a german computer-magazine published really short basic-listings whose purpose was nothing more than drawing a single funny picture.
In one issue they had the famous amiga-ball which was even rotating using colour-cycling!
That was kinda setting it off for me.

[Shockwave]

In one issue they had the famous amiga-ball which was even rotating using colour-cycling!
That was kinda setting it off for me.

Hehe, did it make you want to buy an Amiga to see the real thing?

[Shockwave]

Btw, Karma Up Hellfire.

You just gave me an idea for a future challenge.....  There must be hundreds of effects that are possible with colour cycling.

Plasma, starfields, chess boards, bobs, dots.....

[Jim]

I think the thing that made those old home computers so attractive is how accessable they were.  After I'd played the one game we could afford to buy and typed in the rubbish examples in the manual I immediately started writing my own programs, even if they were just

Code: [Select]

BEEP .1,10
BORDER 4
BEEP .2,15
BORDER 6

There you go, graphics AND sound!

Jim

[combatking0]

And I thought

Code: [Select]

10 PRINT "TONY"
20 GOTO 10
was impressive.

[Aeko]

I always post the same super-code when we go back in time:

Code: [Select]

10 FOR L=0 TO 15
20 POKE 53281,L:POKE 53280,L   
25 REM I will never forget this numbers
30 NEXT
40 GOTO 10

For C64 of course 

By other hand, is it more easy to code nowadays ? It depens. Depends if you want to do the same thinks as before (i.e. draw triangle and rotate it) or not. Obviously, the same old-effects today are more easy to program, just think about coding it on C64, but try to do a cool demo as Atrium in 4K ..

One other think I found in the past was the next. I was young (about 15) the first time I went to Paris. There, I purchased a really interesting book "Inside Amiga graphics". Then, I smashed with 3 main problems: I didn't know C, I didn't know English as now and I didn't have a C compiler !! 

[Shockwave]

One other think I found in the past was the next. I was young (about 15) the first time I went to Paris. There, I purchased a really interesting book "Inside Amiga graphics". Then, I smashed with 3 main problems: I didn't know C, I didn't know English as now and I didn't have a C compiler !! 

When I was also young most of the programmers I knew thought that C was a lame language and everything was done in asm. How times have changed!

[StatMat]

When I was also young most of the programmers I knew thought that C was a lame language and everything was done in asm. How times have changed!

I still do! j/k

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I think the thing that made those old home computers so attractive is how accessable they were.  After I'd played the one game we could afford to buy and typed in the rubbish examples in the manual I immediately started writing my own programs, even if they were just

Code: [Select]

BEEP .1,10
BORDER 4
BEEP .2,15
BORDER 6

There you go, graphics AND sound!

Jim

All without using 5 million libraries.