Category Archives: Retro

River Software Down Under: Bringing British Adventures to Australia

Posted on August 7, 2024 by admin

1991. The home computer industry was moving fast — CD-ROMs were looming on the horizon, console gaming was muscling in on the market, and the golden age of the text adventure was flickering like a candle in a storm. I was … Continue reading →

Posted in Commodore, Retro | Comments Off

Rian Rookaby and the Quest for the Sun: How a School Work Experience Became a Professional Game

Posted on July 1, 2024 by admin

September 1986. I was a Year 10 student at a regional high school in New South Wales, and I was about to get my first taste of the computer industry. My work experience placement was at a local computer shop called RAMROD — … Continue reading →

Posted in ATARI ST, Atari ST, Programming, Retro, STOS | Comments Off

The Night the Modem Answered: How We Built a BBS from Scratch in 1986

Posted on June 22, 2024 by admin

Monday, June 30, 1986. The cursor blinked. The modem crackled. And then — it happened. A phone line in Umina, NSW, rang in the dead of night, and a Commodore 64 answered it. That was the moment everything changed. After six months … Continue reading →

Posted in 8 Bit Computer, BASIC, Commodore, Programming, Retro | Comments Off

Vital Message

Posted on August 25, 2020 by admin

My second BASIC to C conversion using the classic Usborne 1980s computer books which helped many of today’s tech professionals were inspired by the Usborne computing books they read as children. The books included program listings for such iconic computers as the … Continue reading →

Posted in BASIC, C, Commodore, Programming, Retro, Software | Comments Off

Robot Missile

Posted on August 24, 2020 by admin

Usborne 1980s computer books helped many of today’s tech professionals were inspired by the Usborne computing books they read as children. The books included program listings for such iconic computers as the ZX Spectrum, the BBC Micro and the Commodore 64, … Continue reading →

Posted in BASIC, C, Commodore, Programming, Retro | Comments Off

Retro Computer Kit

Posted on June 27, 2020 by admin

Early in September 2019 while on holidays in London I had a couple of free days available and decided to head north to Cambridge to visit the Centre for Computing History which was having an event day. Hidden away in … Continue reading →

Posted in 8 Bit Computer, BASIC, Hardware, Retro | Comments Off

An adventure in 3583 bytes

Posted on April 1, 2020 by admin

Towards the end of 1983, I wrote several text adventure games for the Commodore VIC 20. Inspired by the classic Commodore released cartridge-based text adventures by Scott Adams, especially AdventureLand and Pirate Cove, I started programming my series. I had … Continue reading →

Posted in BASIC, Commodore, Programming, Retro, Software | Comments Off

TheC64

Posted on January 15, 2020 by admin

A couple of years ago Retro Games released TheC64 mini. Basically a little C64 without a working keyboard. It was a lot of fun, especially playing some of the built-in games and of course adding some old favorites. For Christmas … Continue reading →

Posted in 6502 Assembly Lanuage, BASIC, Commodore, Programming, Retro, Software | Comments Off

BASIC wasn’t a dirty word

Posted on January 1, 2020 by admin

Why was the Commodore VIC 20 such a fabulous computer to learn to program? When you look back at the release of the VIC 20 in 1981 the word computer wasn’t in the vocabulary of the average person. Outside of a few … Continue reading →

Posted in BASIC, Commodore, Programming, Retro, Software | Comments Off

Metal Slug . . .

Posted on November 1, 2019 by admin

Over the past 5 years, I have backed via Kickstarter and purchase from specialist book publishers like Bitmap Books a number of extremely high-quality books about my favorite topic retro gaming and computers. With each new book, I await the delivery with … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Retro | Comments Off