Commodore Free 18/Commodore_Free_Issue_18_2008_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.iv bill 2

Text File | 2008-01-01 | 10.1 KB | 332 lines

u
C= Free interview with Bill Buckels
Programmer & maintainer of the Aztec C
Museum

         CONTINUED FROM PART 1

Whenever I looked at languages like
Pascal which is as easy learn as any
other language, DELPHI & other Pascal
dialects, it was just to be proficient,
& I translated everything to C or C++
for consistency if I needed to
translate at all. I continue to use C
code that I wrote 20 years ago in
programs for today's computers with
little if any changes, & I also will
take large C++ methods & classes and
translate them directly to to the
similar grammar of VB.NET to use in an
ASP.NET application. It is all the same
to me.

However, for someone who does not
program in C, and who simply wants to
have fun on the C64, BASIC is the
easiest language to program in.
However since programming in BASIC on
the C64 can be quite "low level" to
get-at the fun stuff like sound and
graphics, generally speaking
programming effort is equal between C
and BASIC. If one then needs to
augment BASIC 2 with machine language,
C wins "hands-down" because native
machine language can generally be
mixed with C in the same program and
with arguably the same learning curve,
and C is for the most part portable
and efficient except for these machine
language pieces.C generally "abstracts"
a program design into more readable and
again arguably higher level concepts
and control structures that are
essentailly unencumbered by clutter
like line numbers. C is modular and
lends itself to writing larger and more
readable programs with more comments
etc. It just depends on individual
needs. The drawback of using C on the
C64 is that all the references are
written using BASIC and Assembly
Language examples. Translating this
into C becomes quite easy with practice
but it does take practice.

CF. What's your favourite bit of old
clip art that you've found and
converted?

BB. The 3 disk set of Mini-Pix by
Beagle Brothers for the Apple II that
I translated to the IBM-PC in the
early 90's was one of my favourites.
My all time favourite is the clip art
library that was produced by Don Joyce
for the original release of
PrintMaster. I haven't corresponded
with Don this millenia. However the
artist that produced perhaps the best
clip art library of all time had this
to say in 1999:

"When I first came upon computers in
the early 80s, I was impressed with
the then current philosophical
approach to creating graphics
interfacing which suggested that the
goal was to get the computer to act
like your brain does, to be
intuitively useable. Then this all
reversed and didn't seem to matter
anymore. Rather suddenly, we had to
learn with difficulty art programs
that had and have little to do with
how our art brains want to work. When
stuff like Adobe appeared, the goal
was then to force your brain into
compliance with distinctly unintuitive
graphic processes. Computers were no
longer trying to be like us, we were
trying to be like computers."

CF.. Do you draw much yourself?

BB. I compose rather than draw on the
computer mostly. I cartooned my way
through most of my school rather than
pay attention in class and produced
sales catalogue as well as engineering
drawings in my CAD days in the 80's.
It depends what you mean by drawing
really. I also do freehand and scan
the composition then clean-up in a
paint program. I don't really separate
composition from Art, and have written
many interesting screensavers and
other vector as well as bitmapped
graphics programs which makes me a
Graphics programmer rather than a User
of Paint Programs. However my skill
with the mouse is easily as proficient
as most I have seen in my time in
computing. I have produced countless
drawings in both Analogue and Digital
mediums in my lifetime.

CF. Can you briefly explain BSAVE
(graphics image format)?

BB. Not briefly but I wrote a large
article on Wikipedia which can be
reviewed for more detail. A BSAVE
Image (aka "BSAVED Image") as it is
referenced in a graphics program is an
image file format created usually by
saving raw video memory to disk
(sometimes but not always in a BASIC
program using the BSAVE command). This
format was in general use when the IBM
PC was introduced. It was also in
general use on the Apple II in the
same time period. The C 128 followed
with the addition of the BSAVE & BLOAD
Commands a short time later. On the
IBM, BSaved graphics & text images
could be created for any video mode,
with more complexity for the newer
modes. On the Apple II & C 128 BSaved
Graphics were generally all that was
used.

The BSAVED format is a device-dependent
raster image format; the file header
stores information about the display
hardware address, and the size of the
graphics data. The graphics data
follows the header directly & is stored
as raw data in the format of the native
adapter's addressable memory. There is
no file compression, & therefore these
LOAD very quickly and without much
programming when displayed in native
mode. No additional information (such
as screen resolution, color depth and
palette information, bit planes and so
on) is stored. Video adapters were
simple when this format was in wide
use and the other information to load
these could usually be inferred by
programs that loaded these.

CF.  What C64 applications do you
really like?

BB. I am not so much into C64
applications written by others. We
used to have a saying in programming
that you are ether into input or
output, and that is the difference
between programmers and other users
like "gamers". Give me a good C
compiler, an application to write &
I am happy. I am currently happy with
my Aztec-C cross-compiler for the
C64 and with the WinVICE emulator,
both which run under Windows XP and
are not C64 applications at all. Not
meaning to be egotistical (that comes
naturally to a programmer) but I like
the work that I did on the various C64
programs that I wrote for my Aztec C
Museum Website.

CF. Do you follow the Commodore Demo
scene, if so have you seen anything
that amazed you and though "how was
this done?"

BB. I was into the demo scene a little
on the IBM-PC in the late 90's when it
spilled-over from the Amiga along with
the MOD files and I remember a really
good demo by Future Crew that my kids
enjoyed.

CF. Are you writing any other
applications related to the C64?

BB.  At the moment I am considering
porting my Aztec C C64 compiler
environment complete with all of my
graphics and sound libraries to the
C128. If I add additional function-
ality I will probably port whatever is
appropriate back to the C64. My focus
is not platform specific so much as
providing specific functionality for
various platforms. Having said this, it
would not be hard to write most types
of applications for the C64 using the
Aztec C compiler that augmented with my
many tools & routines. I am more
concerned as well with adding support
for additional C64 graphics formats to
some of my other applications and tools
for Windows XP and so forth. The simple
answer is no.

CF. Can you explain the history of
Aztec C, I see you have an online
museum

http://www.clipshop.ca/Aztec/
 index.htm#commodore

BB  Aztec C is a programming language
environment for a variety of older now-
obsolete platforms including the C64,
MS DOS, Apple II DOS 3.3 & ProDOS,
older Macintoshes, & Amigas. Manx
Software Systems of Shrewsbury, New
Jersey, produced C compilers beginning
in the 1980's targeted at professional
developers. Throughout the 1990's they
continued to make their Aztec C. As
their market share dropped, they tried
to make the move to specializing in
embedded systems development, but it
was too late. They disappeared
following the loss of market presence
of some of their target platforms.

CF. Do you dissemble other peoples
work to find out what makes the code
work?

BB  No. This is not usually necessary.
I will occasionally disassemble
portions of the operating systems etc.
to determine how they work but the
need to do so seems not to be present
much anymore with so much information
available on the internet. There is
not really much mystery in how programs
need to be written for me, or for many
programmers.

CF. I spend so much time on the program
design & flowcharting that once the
actual programming or coding has to be
done I loose interest in the project,
do you spend much time planning and
documenting?

BB  Yes, but generally in the areas of
business rules and time estimates, but
this is more project management than
programming. For the simple programs
that I write which is just about
everything these days I start with a
clean screen and write the program
narrative. The architecture and
everything in general conforms to
standard patterns and strategies that
are widely accepted in the industry
and second nature for me by now. A
plan like a road map is necessary if
one is just visiting, but after one
has driven the same road daily for so
many years it is not. The user
documentation is another matter and I
spend as much time on that and
commenting my code as I do on the
programming.

CF.. I notice you use Winvice do you
think emulation is important to
keeping machine alive, which would you
prefer an Emulation or a real machine?

BB  I would prefer a real machine for
using a program, but for testing and
programming an emulator works best.

CF.. What do you think about the new
hardware that is being developed for
Commodore machines?

BB  Since I am not so much into gaming
and even the Amiga I am not really
interested. But having said that I am
always keenly interested in virtual
environments but with only so many
hours in the day even I need to sleep.

CF.. Do you have a favourite machine?

No.

CF.. Have you any final comments to
add, or is there a question you would
have liked me to ask?

BB  Yes Nigel. If you ever run across
some software that will extend a 24
hour day to something longer like 48
hours please let me know. Then I might
have time to play with all the new
technology while I enjoy the old. I
have lived from a time when blocks of
ICE were delivered by horse-drawn
wagons for ice boxes for those in my
city who still did not have refrig-
erators to a time when computers
respond to voice commands. At Christmas
time I bought my lovely wife a Robot
vacuum cleaner to play with. What a
hoot! And thank you for a most
interesting interview.