💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › posts › 513 captured on 2024-05-10 at 12:43:07. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
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I've re-discovered my first computer an Amstrad CPC 464 in the form of the "Retro Virtual Machine", a Spanish coded emulator.
And boy, it's nice! Locomotive Basic allows you to get pretty close to bare metal, as in having to check for EOF when reading files.
464 goes the processor speed 4MHz and its memory 64kb, of which 42kb or so are usable, so, as I'm trying to write/code a gamebook in the Fighting Fantasy tradition (not a clone, just to set a parallel) I decided to move the text to text files.
It's cute to see the old friend struggling to read and display text line by line as for the code
10 OPENIN "test.txt" 20 WHILE NOT EOF 30 INPUT #9,a$ 40 PRINT a$ 50 WEND 60 CLOSEIN
I found an emulator and was fussing around it, last time I saw a C64 was in 1982 in middle school until now. Of course, I've forgotten the syntax so I didn't get any enjoyment, just now but oh well, it was fun seeing it.
10 REP = 0 20 PRINT "cool " 30 REP = REP + 1 40 IF REP < 5 THEN 50 GOTO 20 60 ELSE PRINT "!" 70 END
Good for you, that'd great fun. My friend had a 464. Our local museum had an online BASIC Workshop on Saturday. So much fun. It was based on the C64 but the difference wouldn't be that much.
I really like leaving the emulator running for a handy calculator. It means I can see every line that led to the answer!