During mid 2013, I read the book “10 PRINT” by Nick Montfort which took me back to the days of programming BASIC and assembly language on my Commodore 64. It got me interested in pulling my old computer out of the closet and revisiting some of the programming I did almost 20 years ago. I came across a note book, which contained hand written listings I had made for some games using BASIC and assembly language which further fueled my desire to sink back into the world of programming on the C64. A few months went by when I shown a link to the Syntax demo party – one week away. I never had the chance to attend a demo scene party back in the day, so couldn’t pass up the opportunity to attend one in my home town of Melbourne (Australia). Later I found out it had been running for 7 years, which I had sadly missed. I went along and had a blast at the party, meeting some great people and enjoying the creations on show. I walked away convinced that next year – Syntax 2014 – I would not only attend, but submit a demo of some kind.
It’s been almost 20 years since I last performed any sort of programming on the Commodore 64. I have set up this site – a blog – to track my progress towards relearning what I knew of the C64 architecture and expanding on that as much as possible to produce a demo for the next Syntax party here in Melbourne.
It’s going to be a shock to the system in some respects. I’ve grown used to using modern programming and scripting languages. Unlike in 1994 however, I have a lot more experience as a programmer now, having worked across multiple platforms, languages and industries. Hopefully, those skills will assit me in the coming 12 months and I work towards submitting a demo to a demo party – something I dreamed of over 20 years ago.
Update
Well, I made it to Syntax#14 with a small intro in hand. The event went down well and it was great to see my small production on the big screen. Now to set my focus on Syntax#15 and enter an even bigger and better demo..