Programming Like Its 1983!

I remember 1983, when the CBM-64 first appeared, Sinclair Timex were selling well and the home computer revolution really started taking off. Back then most home computers has 64Kb of RAM or less. Programming was a lot harder than today. You had to write games in assembly language (Z80 or 6502) on the computer itself and you didn't have a debugger. So you had to make sure you saved out to tape before running it, as a crash would need a reboot. Enhancements such as floppy disk drives and cartridge assemblers ( for the CBM-64) soon appeared but for computers like the Timex Sinclair it was tape only for a couple of years. By then of course people were using a second computer as the development computer and running the code down a cable into the target computer..

Just released, for $70 you can now buy an open-source, DIY 8-bit game console called the Fuzebox. Internally this is made up of just two chips and a few other components. You can even buy the parts and make it up yourself (see the uzebox project) or buy the fully assembled Fuzebox and for another $10 you can buy a case for it! The resolution is 240x224 or 132x208 with sprites. By contrast the CBM-64 was 320 x 240 but the Fuzebox runs about 26 x faster and you program it in C using open source tools on a development PC (Win, Mac or Linux) connected by a serial cable. You can plug in NES or SNES controllers and there's also a SD/MMC card slot. The video chip supports 32 simultaneous 6x8 pixels sprites with up to 5 per scan line.

Its a wonderful gift for an intelligent 10-15 year old or for anyone who wants to program something other than a conventional desktop, laptop or mobile phone.

• Link to C Tutorials
• Link to So you want to be a Games Programmer