Beginning Programming Using Retro Computing: Learn BASIC with a Commodore Emulator

by Gerald Friedland

Learn programming using the Commodore 16/Plus 4 system. Following this book, you and your children will not only learn BASIC programming, but also have fun emulating a retro Commodore system. There are many ways to bring the fun of learning to program in the 1980s back to life. For example, downloading the VICE emulator to a Raspberry Pi allows for the classic “turn on and program” experience and also provides some retro computing project fun. Many parents learned programming in this same way and can have fun helping their children follow the same path.

You can also use this book as an opportunity to dust off your computing skills or learn programming concepts for the first time on a system that’s easy, approachable, and fun with a nostalgic twist.

Commodore computers were the most sold computing devices before the iPhone. Nowadays, the Commodore system can be run using freely available emulation on modern computers. This book uses VICE, which is available for PC, Mac, Linux, as an online app, and on the Raspberry Pi. Beginning Programming Using Retro Computing offers simple programming concepts to give children and adults alike a sense of wonder in seeing that words they write have the power to do things, like play sounds, draw graphics, or finish math homework.

103 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 10, 2018

Reviews

[Fedogo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up the paper version of this and I gotta say I LOVED it. It's short, sweet, simple and to the point. It's good for an adult or a child. This book and more-so BASIC offers something that you just don't get with modern programming languages. You pick up a beginner book on C++ and my god there is no sleeping pill on earth that can put your lights out quicker. Meanwhile with this in not even one day you can finish the book and will have actually programmed the machine to do cool stuff like drawing and playing music. This is how it should be not 200 pages before you touch on the topic of graphics. This is just to get your feet wet with programming but it's an excellent starting point. If I have to write some criticisms though it would have been nice if the author put a little more detail into using the emulator. I figured out most of the quirks but I could see how non techy folk could have some challenges. Particularly how the original commodore keyboards are different than modern keyboards so some keys have to be remapped but then some of those keys like RUN/STOP program dont really work unless you switch from positional to symbolic which is a pain having to do every time you wanna end a program. Regardless good book.