Commodore Free 10/Commodore_Free_Issue_10_2007_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.iv codebase

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 12KB | 428 lines

u        Interview with Frantic
             Codebase 64
       http://codebase.c64.org/

Q - Please introduce yourself to our
readers

In the c64 demo scene I am known as
(not necessarily well known) Frantic.
Member of a demo group called Hack'n
Trade and sole organiser of the C64
parties known as LCP (Little Computer
People) from 1998 to 2005, and then
together with other people, organiser
of BFP (Big Floppy People) last year,
and also this summer, in July. I live
in southern Sweden in a city called
Lund. I spend my days as a PhD student
in Linguistics /cognition /interaction
(working with gestures and such
things), being with my wife and kid,
and coding C64.

Q - What is your first experience of
Commodore

I've had a C64 since I was a kid. I
think I bought it 1987. Playing lots
of turbotape games and so on. Later on
I bought an Amiga 500 when that was
hot and fresh, and it was first on the
A500 I started creating my own things,
like music and some simpler code.

Q - How did you learn to program

I didn't start coding "seriously"
until later on when I moved from A500
to PC, and eventually got quite bored
with the sterile feel of the PC
computers. That's when I kind of
turned back to the computers of my
childhood with a new take on them.
This time around I din't play games on
them but rather all the other things
that I never did back then and never
really understood how to do until I
got a little older.

Q - what advice would you give would
be programmers

Take your time to think about what you
are interested in REALLY. For example.
If you think about coding some RPG
game for the C64. Are you just longing
for that perfect RPG that no one else
never did, or are you actually longing
for travelling the road that leads to
this game? That is, the actual coding
part of it. If the answer is no to
that, I think you better stay away
from coding. Although you get a kick
out of finished products of course I
think the main drive behind coding
necessarily needs to be fondness of
the activity of sitting by your
computer and just code.

The same thing applies to the process
of becoming a coder. Again you can't
just long for the "finished product",
that is, being a skilled coder. You
have to like the road leading there
too. Beginning with simpler things and
moving one step at a time. Reading
some docs, some tutorial, trying out
some assembler, and so on.

Q - From various users feedback, it
seems actually getting the time to sit
down and read about coding is
difficult with real world (jobs,
children etc) can you comment

Well, in one sense I don't this has
much to do with me or with C64 coding
per se, but of course people have
"real lives" to. But you gotta decide
what you want to do in life. Do you
want to spend time coding c64 or not?
Or do you rather focus on something
else? (Little of everything = nothing
done at all.) If you want to do that,
it's up to you to make it happen by
prioritizing and so on, and you can't
blame the wife/work/kid for that.

Q - Do you still own any commodore
machines

Yes.. 6-7 C64 (among them the original
machine I got as a kid), my old A500
and a A2000. I also had an example of
that rare C65 machine, but sold it
since I rather needed the money than a
rare machine. I am satisfied with the
common ones... C64 primarily.

Q - Please tell us about the website
and project "C64 Codebase" what do you
hope to achive

The codebase is a wiki (a site users
edit themselves, like wikipedia) on
the topic of C64 coding. I think a
place like this has been lacking
before, and thus I decided to set it
up when a discussion on the CSDb forum
made it clear for me that a lot of
other C64 coders also thought that was
a good idea and actually felt inspired
to add content to such a site.
...which they did too. I am quite
satisfied to see that so many
different people actually involved
themselves to add some coding
routines/articles already.

Of course there is the website called
the The Fridge, which is very nice and
a bit similar to the codebase wiki.
There is also some forums and various
coding articles spread all over in C=
magazines and so on. All these forms
of information structures have their
pros and cons, but I think a wiki have
some possibilities lacking before. For
example it is a better way to store
focused information, compared to
forums which are nice and very useful
but tend to spread information all
over different threads/posts and
interleave the relevant information
with a lot of small talk. The wiki
concept is also a bit more flexible
than "static" magazine articles which
are not improved upon after being
published in case someone finds errors
in it. Wikis got all this. Focused
information spots, but still the
dynamics of forums and other editable
media. Also, the overall information
structure on a wiki is editable, which
makes it possible to make sure that it
won't just grow into a mass of
information where it is impossible to
find what you look for. I do not have
a clear goal with the site other than
trying to keep it in shape. The
content is supposed to come from all
of us, rather than just from me. (Even
though I of course encourage people to
add things every now and then.) I will
probably put up a forum there, so
discussing specific articles/sources
become possible. I think that is
needed. It will not be a general
coding forum though. I think the
coding forum on CSDb is more suitable
for that.

Q - How many people are working on the
project

Just me, concerning the site itself.
However, I guess something like 15
people have contributed contents so
far. Also thanks to Icon for the web
server hosting and to Slaygon for the
URL.

Q - Is this similar to "the secret
society of commodore coders website"

I guess there is some similarities,
but obviously one of them is a forum
and the other one is a wiki. Forums
are needed too of course.

Q - Will this website teach people how
to code

It will do whatever people make it do.
So far there is no coding tutorial
there from step A to Z, but on the
other hand there is a good collection
of selected links on the external
links section that may prove valuable
for beginners. As the wiki grows I
think everyone will find something of
value there, beginner or expert..

Q - Is the website purely assembler
and machine coderoutines or are Basic
programmers welcome

Basic programmers are welcome too,
even though I guess most serious
programming on the C64 is actually
done in machine code for obvious
reasons.

Q - Do you think there is really a
need for people to Learn Basic anymore

Not really.

Q - Some sample routines are available
on the website are these copyrighted
or can anyone use them

The contents of the site may be used
in your own productions. People
wouldn't add the contents there if it
was secret or non-useable for others.
The wiki concept is all about sharing.

Q - the items on the website have they
been contributed by the authors or did
you contact them or they contacted you

The wiki concept builds on users
contributing material themselves, and
that is what they have done. However,
in some cases I have asked people for
stuff, and in some cases I helped a
little with the process of adding the
material.

Q - Who can contribute, lets say our
reader has something how would they
contribute to the project

Everyone who feels they have something
C64 coding related that at least one
other person in the world may find
interesting is very welcome to add it.
I don't see it as a huge problem if
people start adding a lot of contents
not interesting for the broad masses.
That is better handled by having a
good structure on the site, than not
adding the stuff at all. With a good
structure it is easy to find what is
there and to find what you look for
anyway. So, don't hesitat. Go there
and contribute! It may really be
anything from small snippets to
complete programs or articles about
this and that.

Q - I notice most of the example are
turbo assembler, is there a preferred
assembler

Historically it is the most used
assembler on the C64, but in these
days more and more people use PC cross
assemblers of course. This has had the
effect that most turbo assembler
sources work with minimal
modifications in other assemblers, as
a kind of prototypical middle point of
asm syntax. (ACME use a ! instead of .
as the beginning marker of directives
such as .byte and .word, and
KickAssembler uses // for comments
instead of ; and so on. So the
syntactic distance between ACME and
KickAssembler is larger than the
syntactic distance between Turbo
Assembler and these two.) However,
apart from that, I think that actually
quite a bunch of the sources on the
site ARE written in other assemblers
like ACME, CA65, KickAssembler and
others, so I am not sure I agree with
you.

Q - What subjects are covered in the
coding is the site designed for
anything c64 related

Yes, for example it is not only
intended to cover demo coding. Tools,
games and other things are also
welcome. But, as said before, the
contents depend a lot on what people
contribute, so it is open ended in
that sense.

Q - Do you follow the Commodore demo
scene

Yep I do, and as I said before I am
the organizer of the previous LCP
parties and one of the organizers of
BFP, so I guess I am quite involved in
the demo scene.

Q - Some coders want to hide there
code only giving out various demos why
share code with others?

I can understand this. It is part of
the competitive aspect of the
demoscene I guess, which is kinda fun.
However, I think the kind of tricks
and code that you find on codebase is
more of the kind that is in the
frontline of the VIC trickery, and
thus most people wouldn't feel like it
was "giving away" something secret to
add this stuff there.

Q - From looking at some of the recent
Commodore demos like the crest
"krestage 3" it appears there is still
a lot to learn about the machine would
you like to comment

Yes, I guess there will always be more
to do/find out. However, at the same
time I think that most of the new
tricks uncovered tend to be less
useful for general purposes than
tricks discovered longer ago. For
example, opening the borders are a lot
more useful than adding two extra grey
pixels to a sprite as in Krestage 3,
even though its a nice hack.

Q - Will Codebase 64 look into some of
the various VICbugs, that are used in
new demos

Once again.. It is up to the users
what information that will end up on
the wiki. In case people are
interested in it and want to
share/discuss it, I guess it will
appear there.

Q - Do you think anyone can write
computer code,

Most should be able to learn at least
a bit.

Q - So what next for the website more
code snippets and hints or are other
changes due to happen

Hopefully the contents of the site
will continue to grow in the same
speed as it did until now, and I'll
add a forum there too, so people can
discuss specific articles/sources
there. Ask questions or discuss them
in general.

Q - Some reader may be put of by
websites that are best viewed with
this and that browser can you
commenton codebase website design

Basically it is just the default look
of the DokuWiki engine, slightly
modified colorwise and a logo was
added. It should work good in all
mozilla browsers and also in internet
explorer, and I guess that covers 99%
of the internet users. Although the
wiki has some layers and such things
it is mostly text based contentwise,
so I think it should look the same in
all browsers as it for all practical
purposes.

Q - final 2 questions, if you were
given an unlimited amount of time and
money what would you create, this can
be none computer related

I think I would just take it quite
easy. :) Continue doing roughly what I
do, but in a improved way. ;) But I
dunno. It's hard to say really. I
guess a lot of ideas would pop up if
things were as you say. Maybe I would
save the world!

Q - If you won 1 million Uk pounds
what would you spend the money on and
why

I would not buy a lot of things. I
would start working half time and such
things instead. That is quality for
me. I already got most of what I need
I think. A dishwasher would be nice. I
don't have that. ;)

Q V Have you any comments you would
like to add

Thanks to everyone who contributed to
the codebase so far, and to the rest
of the world, go there you too and add
what you've got lying around hidden on
your harddrives so that others can
benefit from it.



...end...