On 10/27/2022 at 9:22 PM, Roy Eltham said:
I was 10 when I got a new Atari 2600 for Christmas. Playing games on there (and in the arcades) made me want to be able to make my own video games.
I learned BASIC via typing in programs from BYTE magazine and then modifying them.
Maybe 6 months later a friend of the family gave me a hand me down VIC-20 (they had gotten a C64), that's when I started learning 6502 ASM, writing out ASM on paper to figure out the bytes to plug into a BASIC program and then run. I also made a working breakout game for it.
I learned everything from books, magazines, and BBS postings/chats.
Atari 2600 was my first exposure to consoles, too. We had a 2600 since I had living memory, as my folks bought one for my two (much) older sisters before I was born. I asked profusely for an NES in 1990, and I got it, but until then I was hooked on the 2600. I'd say that the Atari 2600 was the only piece of "computer electronics" we had in our house when I was young, outside of the stray digital clock here and there.
I'd LOVE to get my hands on an old issue of BYTE, esp when I get my "init commit" project (which I am calling "TicP" for "The init commit Project") up and going, because I want to find some old BASIC games to write via magazine. They (BASIC game code) exist online, but that's not the "FUN" in it!, haha.
Breakout was avail for the very first Apple II, yea? I think it was one of the few pieces of software Apple released for the machine at launch, and little else.
I learned everything (in regards to (web) development, and now "dev" in general) via the internet. Stack Overflow, sometimes Github documentation, blog/website posts, a LOT of official documentation, and W3 schools and every so often going down a rabbit hole in "tutorial hell" (which people may want to be wary of - a lot of time can be wasted pursuing code examples that aren't 100% proven (and are also completely unofficial)).
Thanks for the response! ?