In this video ill show you how to program sprites on the commodore 64, also known as c64, vic64 and cbm64. You can make single or multicolor sprites, rotate them, and even design animation sequences that can be viewed in a player. The many years you ultimately spend writing to those special boxes stick with you. It also allows a user to write programs in basic and contains a keyboard map that emulates the real commodore 64 system. I heard that there may be some good introductory books by some guy name. Since the input image may be larger than sprite dimensions for c64 12x21 in multicolor or 24x21 in hiresmode, several sprites may need to be tiled to depict whole image.
All combined, spritemate should start to feel more familiar if you are used to other paint programs like photoshop. Info 64, the first magazine produced with desktop publishing tools, was created on and dedicated to the. Set sprite pointer locations 20407 to where sprite data should be read from. Programming sprites on the commodore 64 is quite simple, even with commodore.
This tool allows you to create your own sprites that can be exported into the vice c64 emulator. As you know by now, it is a spectacular breakthrough in personal programming, offering more computer at less cost than anything commodore has ever produced. Sprites 128 64 32 oeimal values of sprite number each 16 8 4 2 1 sprite level number 21 4 7 4 3 2 o put 0. With the appearance of a number of free c64 emulators for the pc i. C64 emulators allow anyone with a modern computer, or a compatible video game console, to run these programs today. Along with the commodore vic 20 and bbc micro they were the first computers i learned to program. If you wanted to run something, you had to get a disk drive or cassette, or cartridge, but mostly disks and buy some software, or youd find a program. The commodore 64 programmers reference guide tells you everything you need to know about your commodore 64. This chip gives a variety of graphics modes, including a 40 column by 25 line text display, a 320 by 200 dot high resolution display, and sprites, small movable objects which make writing games simple. Mar 26, 2018 this article is intended as a companion to my previous article programming sprites on the commodore 64, a simple tutorial using basic v2. When this data area is created and a sprite is moving over the background, that data will not be erased. Youve always wanted to either create a c64 game or a demo, or at least figure out how they are made. This book was written with the beginning or intermediate programmer in mind. The program should render a solid square sprite somewhere near the center of the display, but i dont see anything being rendered.
When writing about retro programming topics here on bumbershoot, ive generally wound up oscillating between the absolute basics of getting. With the appearance of a number of free c64 emulators for the pc i have returned to these systems out of renewed curiosity. The sprite editor will soon be available as software program that you can load directly into your commodore 64. Welcome to the commodore 64 programming on windows tutorial.
As a result, poke instructions are required for sprites programming. How to program commodore 64 basic for beginners topics. Since it runs on any modern browser, spritemate can be used on mac, windows, and linux or virtually any device that has a browser that supports javascript. For example, there is an interesting example on how to program a splitscreen on the commodore 64 using raster interrupts.
A sprite has a width of 24 pixels and a height of 22. However, commodore, the main user of mos chips and the owner of mos for most of the chip makers lifetime, used the term sprite for the commodore 64. It also includes character, sprite and screen editors and a fully featured 651065816 debugger. A full c64 game in 20 general and gameplay programming. Like most of the computers of the time the c64 had a very minimal operating system but it came with basic and booted straight into it. Jul 24, 2015 i stopped developing for the commodore 64 in 1993. A similar program can be written for the y direction. Approximately 10,000 commercial software titles have been made for the commodore 64 including development tools, office productivity applications, and video games.
What you want is the programmers reference guide that and a copy of compute. In facts, most of the concepts you can find on that post will be used here. You do need a general understanding of how your computer operates, and how to write simple programs in basic. Jan 31, 2019 this repo contains the source from my commodore 64 assembly programming tutorial for windows. Compute s machine language routines for the commodore 64 topics.
The commodore 64 programmers reference guide teels you everything you need to know about your commodore 64. You can also import other commodore 64 maps for editing. I often visited the public library weekly to find a new commodore 64 book which came packed with. On the other hand the spectrum was clocked at approx 3. I have written a short program in 6502 assembler for the commodore 64 using the ca65 assembler and ld65 linker. The commodore 64, or c64, is a legacy 8bit computer system popular in the 1980s. If you start from scratch, you need to learn basic and assembly, figure out how to put sprites on the.
Ingo hinterding, known as awsm on csdb has released his browserbased sprite editor for the commodore 64 spritemate. The sid chip with its 3 voices, 4 waveforms and 8 octaves the vicii chip with its 16 colours twice what the sinclair zx spectrum had and 8 hardware sprites. By programming sprites in a basic program, the sprite datas should also put into data lines and read into the. I launched my first youtube channel and eventually maintained a strong focus on commodore 64 programming. Programming sprites on the commodore 64, a simple tutorial. I find it absolutely incredible that the commodore 64 development scene is alive and well. It started with a video by 8bit show and tell showing 10 rarely used commodore 64 basic features. New online sprite editor for the commodore 64 vintage is. Sca c64 software anthology, the titlemaker soundlibrary disk 2 1983sca 22 ko sca c64 software anthology, the titlemaker v0. If there are sprites on the screen, the vic needs even more cycles to fetch all of the graphics data. The perfect companion to your commodore users guide, this manual presents detailed information on everything from graphics and sound to advanced machine language techniques. The vicii, which is responsible for this feature of the c 64, supports up to eight sprites, but through the use of raster interrupt programming more than eight sprites may be. The developer manuals for the nintendo entertainment system, super nes, and game boy refer to sprites as obj s short for objects, and the region of ram used to store sprite attributes and.
C64 retro computing having fun programming the commodore. So, how many sprites can you fit into one vic bank. Advanced machine code programming for the commodore 64 1984. By programming sprites in a basic program, the sprite datas should also put into data lines and read. Programming sprites on the commodore 64 is quite simple, even with commodore basic v2 the builtin basic interpreter.
When the commodore 64 became popular, teams set out to design software that could emulate a commodore 64 real time. Aug 23, 2002 this was mostly true for the venerable commodore 64, too. The commodore 64 features hardware sprites, and some vicii registers are used to control them. This encouragement led to the founding of access software just four feverish months after bruce had first set up his commodore 64. This is because the sprites are located in a different area of memory that do not conflict with the screen data. While the 1541 disk drives slow performance made the commodore 64 mostly unsuitable as a business computer, it was still widely used for many important tasks, including computer graphics creation, desktop publishing, and word processing.
The perfect companion to your commodore 64 users guide, this manual presents detailed information on everything from graphics and sound to advanced machine language techniques. The commodore 64, also known as the c64 or the cbm 64, is an 8bit home computer introduced in january 1982 by commodore international first shown at the consumer electronics show, in las vegas, january 710, 1982. The commodore 64, it turns out, has very little in the way of what you would later learn is called an api. Witzel, who would become a lifelong friend, knew very well how software distribution and sales worked, and was thus able to help bruce get a foot in the door of the software. Programming sprites on the commodore 64, a simple tutorial using. You can move your creations anywhere on the screen, even pass one image in front of or behind another. Id like to learn basic, assembly and machine code, starting with the basics and then working my way up to more advanced things. Below is a screenshot from the book commodore 64c system guide, which came bundled with the earlier commodore 64c computers. We will now demonstrate how to create one in memory. Diskmags scene commodore 64 disk magazines, selfcontained executable issues with writings, sound and graphics, often put out monthly, and covering items of interest to various scenes. Read on for further details of the c64 system and how the game turned out. How to make multicolor sprites on commodore 64 in basic old.
Commodore 64 sprites the commodore 64 has the ability. Dec 08, 2017 programming sprites on the commodore 64 is quite simple, even with commodore basic v2 the builtin basic interpreter. On this page you will learn how to program in commodore basic by watching the videos below. Thanks to companies like psytronik there is still a healthy stream of games arriving on the c64 25 years after i first got my machine in 1990. Commodore software sprite graphics for the commodore 64. This video shows how to manually draw a multicolor sprite and enter it into a basic program on a commodore 64. Compute s reference guide to commodore 64 graphics topics. This book is a must for everyone from the beginner to the. It has been listed in the guinness world records as the highestselling single computer model of all time, with independent. Commodore 64 sprites the commodore 64 has the ability to generate sprite graphics over a character background. With these you will be able to dial into old school c64128 bbs that have been converted to telnet from dialup. A sprite, also referred to as a movable object block abbreviated to mob in commodore literature, is a piece of graphics that can move and be assigned attributes independent of other graphics or text on the screen. Sequential music mate for the commodore 64 youtube. But seriously, its hard because programming a computer to perform any complex task is hard when you dont get anything for free.
Make the proper sprite s appear on the screen by pokeing into location 21 a 1 for the bit which turns on the sprite. Dec 21, 2015 hey folks, im looking for pdf scans preferably, of commodore 64 introductory programming books. Through a loop, update x and y coordinates to move sprite around. Jimjim codes 004 beginning assembly language on the.
I did all my coding using the commodore 128s monitor command that means no text editor, no compiler, no linker. Since most things are the same on the commodore 64 and the commodore 128, the book is valuable even if you just want to program on the commodore 64. Commodore development utilities for windows cbm prg studio. This is because the sprites are located in a different area of. Infiltrator disassembler for c64 this commodore 64 software tool. Handling sprites collisions and scrolling from basic. Scan lines are time divided so that there is enough time for all action during one line.
It can be used to run any type of commodore programs and games. For each sprite it needs to fetch 3 bytes one line of sprite shape for each scanline. Below is a simple sprite example program extracted from the book commodore 64c personal computer system guide. Mar 08, 20 this is an example of some of commodore 64 basic programs i typed in back in somewhere around 1991. Cbm prg studio is a windows ide which allows you to type a basic or machine code program and convert it to a. Line 20 sets the sprite pointer to where the commodore 64 will read its sprite data from. However, the little vicii graphics chip that controlled the display had a neat feature. This tutorial will get you up and running with the tools needed to build c64 programs on windows, and teach youtm the basics of 6502 microprocessor programming using assembly. Why is programming the c64 so hard commodore 64 c64 forum.
It also supports the most common file formats for the. Basic programming on the commodore 64 by the time you read this, the commodore 64 will be on your dealers shelfif he or she can keep it there. Well why would one use software sprites when hardware ones are available. For example the basic command sprdef in basic 7 of a c128 or in super expander 64 runs the sprite editor. Vicii sprites are hardware controlled graphical objects that can be displayed and moved around on a layer above the usual graphics or text display. I started on a commodore 64 in 1987 and published my first game in loadstar magazine around 1993.
Written by british programmer david simons in 1983, who was then just 16 years old at the time, it was distributed by commodore in cartridge format it is widely, but incorrectly, called simon s basic, because of confusion between the first name simon and the surname simons. By programming sprites in a basic program, the sprite datas should also put into data lines and read into the ram with a fornext loop and the basic commands read and poke for example. Controlling the commodore 64 mostly involves writing to memory addresses that have been given special meaning by the circuitry. You wont each sprite level is represented in section 21 of the sprite memory and. Jul 29, 20 this article is both introduction and partial post mortem on a series of journal posts that detail the development of a commodore 64 game over the period of two years, including required assets and code source. On each line, the sprite image pointers are fetched during phase 1. Sprites and raster timing on the c64 bumbershoot software. Sprite 0 is set at 2040, sprite 1 at 2041, sprite 2 at 2042, and so on up to sprite 7 at 2047.
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