10.31.2005
The Commodore 64/Monday thoughts
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PEEK, POKE, SPRITES.
What?
Remember programming the C-64? Using MS-Basic, you could access specific areas in the memory and change the color of a pixel.
POKE (53824, 1)
Wow.
A sprite was a data structure that allowed you to animate a block of pixels. Remember doing that balloon graphic? It was emblazoned with a "C" for Commmodore and floated silently across the screen.
You could also write a program to drive a telescope, or predict the position of Jupiter or Saturn in the sky sans epicycles.
It's amazing that Commodore was not able to capture leadership over the industry and instead this went to the company selling the MS-Basic floppy disks.
The lesson is:
Competition is everywhere. Today's leaders are tomorrows elephant fodder. So innovate, take risks. Make great services available everywhere at low cost.
What?
Remember programming the C-64? Using MS-Basic, you could access specific areas in the memory and change the color of a pixel.
POKE (53824, 1)
Wow.
A sprite was a data structure that allowed you to animate a block of pixels. Remember doing that balloon graphic? It was emblazoned with a "C" for Commmodore and floated silently across the screen.
You could also write a program to drive a telescope, or predict the position of Jupiter or Saturn in the sky sans epicycles.
It's amazing that Commodore was not able to capture leadership over the industry and instead this went to the company selling the MS-Basic floppy disks.
The lesson is:
Competition is everywhere. Today's leaders are tomorrows elephant fodder. So innovate, take risks. Make great services available everywhere at low cost.
