Commodore Free 18/Commodore_Free_Issue_18_2008_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.what time 1

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 9KB | 281 lines

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"What Time Is It?"
ReadMe for Commodore 64 Version (C)
Copyright 2008 Bill Buckels All Rights
Reserved.

Introduction - Apple IIe Version
"What Time Is It?" was (and is) an
Apple II program written by Canadian
Software Developer Bill Buckels and
was once distributed in the early
1990's by a publisher called Class
Software in Winnipeg, Canada in both
an English and a French Version. Class
Software is now gone.

"What Time Is It?" was intended for
use as "Courseware" in Canadian
Classrooms for teaching Elementary
School children how to "tell time"
using various analog and digital clock
representations.

The French Version of "What Time Is
It?" was (and is) called  "Quelle
heure est-il?".

Both English and French Versions for
the Apple IIe are available for free
download as emulator disk images at:


http://www.clipshop.ca/DiskImages/
http://www.clipshop.ca/c64/timed64.zip

Introduction - Commodore 64 Version
In early 2008 as part of his efforts
to produce an Aztec C programming
environment for the Commodore 64
(C64), complete with sample programs,
the developer of the Apple II version
of "What Time Is It?", Bill Buckels,
decided that he would create an
English-only version for the C64 as a
demo program in the C programming
language using an obsolete C64 compiler
program called "Aztec C". This was the
same language and the same make of
compiler that he had used for his
Apple II versions.

During the time years before when he
created the Apple II versions,  "What
Time Is It?" was one of the programs
that he had purchased the C64 Aztec C
compiler to produce. Due to an
unfortunate chain of events at that
time, programming the C64 version was
never started, although some C64's
were still in  use in Canadian
Schools.

Bill's partner on the project (and
friend and mentor) died of a heart
attack, was revived, and has spent
from that time to this recovering, so
was not capable of delivering the C64
portion of the project which he had
undertaken.

As many of us know programming is a
"team sport" and sometimes (sadly) a
game needs to be postponed or called-
off when one of the players (or in this
case half the team) gets hurt. Bill
decided not to produce the C64 version
at that time.

The Market disappeared for C64
programs almost immediately after.
(The Apple IIe followed and vanished a
year or so later from the Software
Budgets in Canadian Schools). The idea
of a C64 version of "What Time Is It?"
(and the compiler to create it) were
shelved and forgotten until recently.

Although it is now sometime in 2008,
and he had intended to have his
partner write the C64 version almost
20 years ago using a compiler produced
almost 25 years ago, Bill has finally
produced the C64 version of "What Time
Is It?" in Windows XP in less than two
weeks of his spare time including the
time required to prepare the C64
graphics and music.

It runs nicely in the WinVICE C64
Emulator in Windows XP (it has never
been tried on a real C64), and is as
complete in every way as the other
versions, accounting for differences
between the C64, the Apple IIe, and
the IBM-PC. It turned-out to be a good
choice for an Aztec C64 production
demo program.

Also, for Bill, this now answers the
question whether or not Aztec C for
the C64 would have been capable of
producing a comparable version of
"What Time Is It?" to that of the
Apple IIe. This was just one of those
things that had to be done or he would
never have really known the answer.

There is now no doubt that Aztec C was
the right tool for the job, and only
the fickle finger of fate that took
away the livelihood of his friend and
partner prevented the release of "What
Time Is It?" before today.

History - Apple IIe
"What Time Is It?" was originally
developed for use on the IBM-PC by
French-Canadian "Courseware"
developers Denis Coulombe and Robert
Boivin on behalf of Centre de recherch
appliqu pour l'ordinateur (CRAPO) in
1989 and marketed to schools across
Canada as part of a six program set
called "Collection Les Petites
espadrilles".

Note: Espadrilles are casual flat
sandals originating from the Pyrenees.
In Quebec French, however, espadrilles
is the usual term for running shoes.

The Apple II version was written by
Canadian Software Developer Bill
Buckels on the IBM-PC in the C
programming language using the Manx
Aztec C 6502Cross-Compiler for Apple
IIe  ProDOS 8. It was completed in
mid-1991.

Bill did not have the source code for
the IBM-PC version of the program and
it wouldn't have helped much anyway.
The IBM-PC was a much more capable and
sophisticated platform than the Apple
II, so producing "What Time Is It?"
for the Apple II required a complete
rewrite "from the ground-up".

The Manx C compiler provided a
rudimentary Graphics Library, but came
nowhere close to what Bill needed to
complete "What Time Is It?" and the 3
other programs in the "Collection Les
Petites espadrilles" that he had
undertaken to write. So he set to work
to create the graphics and the sound
routines that the Apple versions
needed to behave as closely as
possible to their IBM-PC counterparts.

The IBM-PC graphics of the day that
CRAPO used (4 Colour CGA Mode) were
vastly different from Apple II
graphics (which were a coarser
resolution), and each and every screen
and graphics image needed to be
redrawn, and reformatted for the Apple
II. Using the Graphics from the IBM-PC
version as a starting point, Bill
developed his own Apple II graphics
file formats and programmed his own
set of conversion tools which he ran
on the IBM-PC to produce the Apple II
graphics after creating and editing
these in IBM-PC format to suit the
Apple II display. He did this in
conjunction with writing his Manx C
graphics library, since both tasks
were complimentary. When the graphics
images and graphics and sound library
routines were completed he moved
forward to writing the program.

Not only did the Apple II have less
capable graphics than the IBM-PC; it
also ran more slowly with only 128K of
memory, some of it unusable, and with
slower disk access and a smaller
floppy disk size. To overcome all of
this Bill broke his Manx C Apple
programs into small modules called
"overlays" which ran in very little
memory, and he used the upper ram bank
of the Apple II to store his graphics
libraries and other data to avoid
loading from disk where possible.
Since the Manx C compiler translates
its programs into machine language
which runs as quickly as can be on the
Apple II, no optimization or
additional "tweaks" were required,
except to script the game levels using
external scripts (also of Bill's
design) which further saved on disk
space and program memory, and which
avoided slow processor intensive
operations that would otherwise have
been needed.

The finished result ran more slowly
than its IBM-PC counterpart, but for
all practical purposes, "What Time Is
It?" for the Apple II had all the same
functionality.

Recent History - Apple II
In mid-2007 Bill Buckels resurrected
the Apple IIe versions of his programs
from "Collection Les Petites
espadrilles". and released them as
Apple II Emulator Disk Images,
rebranding them "The Little Running
Steps Collection".

Although Bill is the sole author and
also the architect, the designer, and
the programmer of the Apple IIe
English and French versions of "What
Time Is It?" and the other 3 programs
in the "The Little Running Steps
Collection", he still includes the two
Quebeckers' names who wrote the IBM-PC
versions on his title screens, listed
in blue below his own.

History - Commodore 64
In December 2007 after resurrecting
his C64 Aztec C compiler, Bill Buckels
set to work to produce a C64 program-
ming environment that would provide
equal capabilities within the C64's
limitations and features as to what he
had prepared many years before for
Apple IIe programming in Aztec C.
After completing the C64 environment
in less than a 3 month period, he was
finally able to produce a C64 version
of "What Time Is It?" as complete in
every way as the other versions,
accounting for differences between the
C64, the Apple IIe, and the IBM-PC (as
noted above).

In fact the C64 Version runs at the
same speed as the Apple IIe version in
less memory, with equal or better
graphics, and better sound. Some of
the techniques that he used to save
space on the Apple IIe are the same,
such as the use of overlays & some C64
techniques are more efficient memory-
wise, like the use of compressed
graphics. He wrote additional tools as
well that were similar to the tools on
the Apple IIe that allowed embedding of
graphics, sound, and even font sets &
cursors directly in the program.

          CONTINUED IN PART 2