The Ex-Box

Ah, the Commodore 64. How could a two-tone blue screen and just 64K of RAM have delivered so much fun? I know it's been superseded by the NES, the Super NES, the Sega, the Nintendo 64, the Playstation, the Dreamcast, the GameCube, the Playstation 2, the XBox, the Nintendo DS, the PSP, the Xbox 360 and soon the PS3, but there's something admirable about a computer that runs on 64K of RAM (since a brand new PC these days would have 1GB or 2GB RAM, and therefore up to 32,000 times the RAM of a Commodore 64).

I still remember the Christmas that my Mum bought my younger sister Becky & I a brand new Commodore 64 computer system. It was 1985, and I was 11, and for a family of 6 kids who lived week to week on a very tight income, receiving a present of this magnitude was absolutely astonishing (I hope I was as mindful of that generosity then as I am now in hindsight). Dad, who wasn't living with us at the time, even delivered a 1541 Disc Drive as his Christmas present to us, to complete the package. Not sure what we had done that year, but I'm guessing we must have been extra, extra good.

I distinctly remember playing River Raid and Frogger - the two games that came with the pack - right through Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and the following weeks and months. The C64 quickly became a big part of my life, and right through Grade 6, Year 7, Year 8, and Year 9, I was spending most of my after school time - and much of the weekend - in front of that "Ready" prompt. I played Ace & Ace 2 with my elder brothers, and my now-brother-in-law introduced me to Gunship, which we all played religiously for well over a year. I even managed to do some extra-nerdy things like some programming, and using Geos (think Microsoft Office...without almost everything) to prepare my school projects. Sure, I was a very pale, geeky, shy and overweight young man with very few social skills and even fewer friends, but I could get through almost every level of The Last Ninja AND my homework was neatly printed!

Somewhere in the early stages, I apparently negotiated (perhaps 'swindled' is a more apt description?) to buy out my sister's half of the computer for a multi-coloured woollen jumper that she liked. Now you might suggest that this doesn't sound like a particularly fair trade - and I would definitely struggle to disagree with you on that point. I actually don't remember the trade at all, but I've been 'reminded' of it on several occasions so I'll have to take Mum's word on that and make an unreserved apology to my little sister. Sorry Bec!! You're welcome to play as often as you like, whenever you like, and I won't even push in to have a turn. And yes, we do still have it - and boxes of games and joysticks - in our cupboard. Of course we do!

BUT... the reason for this post is to offer a brilliant substitute: now everyone can have a C64, even those people who were swindled out of their 50% stake by their selfish, mean brother back in the mid 80's... (but maybe that's why you have all the social skills now Bec? - I did you a favour!)

I came across a C64 'emulator' program today, which allows you to play C64 games on your PC. There are hundreds and hundreds of games available for download, and they play on the PC exactly as I remember them on the C64. They are also such tiny files, that it takes a few seconds to download all of your favourite games. Tonight I found heaps of old faves like Boulderdash, Pacman, Ace, Gunship, Pirates, Spy Hunter, Winter Games, Summer Games, The Last Ninja, Pitfall, River Raid etc etc. I realise how tragic this must sound to the uninitiated (eg. those kids who spent the 80's outdoors playing sport or socialising with friends), but it was great fun to be reunited with some blasts from the past. Mel has been gracious enough to humour me as I jive along to the very 80's, very-synthesized MIDI soundtracks (esp. The Last Ninja) - but it's not hard to know what she's realllly thinking.

Anyway, here's a link to the free emulator software, and below that is a link to some of the games. I'll also try to add a few screenshots soon to whet your appetite (or to remind yourself why you never got caught up in the C64 in the first place).

http://www.computerbrains.com/ccs64/
http://www.c64.com/

Matt

June? What June?

OK, let's just skip over the excuses very quickly. I was busy. Things came up. Priorities shifted. Blogging suffered.

I won't elaborate on the reasons for the busy-ness, since it seems to be a universal phenomenon that really needs no further explanation or elaboration. I'd love to meet someone who honestly felt that they had more than enough time in the day to achieve everything that they wanted to achieve, and even had some 'spare' time up their sleeve. I don't know if such a person, or such a situation, exists. Perhaps there's enough hours in the day when you're very young. Or when you're very old. Or when you find yourself serving time in prison. There's probably too many hours in the day then. But for the rest of the time, each day seems to finish 3 or 4 hours too early.

I did read somewhere once (come to think of it, it was actually in a first year Psychology lecture) that in studies where a person is isolated from other stimuli (daylight, clocks, alarms, television etc) their body appears to revert or switch over to a 25 hour internal body clock. If that's true, and our 24 hour "day" is a flawed and arbitrary construct that is perpetually at odds with our biology, then I guess that would go part way to explaining why there's never enough time to achieve everything you set out to achieve. Mind you, I'd be happier if their findings indicated a 27-28 hour default, since that would explain my 4 hour daily deficit. Still, it's a good theory, and I need all the justification I can get.

So what's happened since I last posted all those weeks ago? Well, quite a lot actually.

Jessica keeps getting more beautiful each day, not to mention bigger, brighter, happier, louder and more active. She turned ".5" at the start of this month, and on the same day made a start on her first solids (Rice Cereal). She had been gearing up for solids for a while, often grabbing at our spoons and shoving them in her mouth, and tracking intently as we'd move a forkful of food from our plates to our mouths - desparately wanting to join in. She's now up to 3 meals a day, with Avocado, Apple, Potato and Sweet Potato now added to the menu. Her favourites seem to correspond with the colour and general messy-ness of the options: bland, white Rice Cereal is by far her least favourite, and apple & avocado, with which she can paint her white wondersuit bright green, seem to be the pick of the bunch. Mel has posted some great shots of a messy, green dining experience on her blog, so rather than post those photos here, you can just visit Mel's blog by clicking here. Perhaps her daily avocado and apple facemask is the real secret to Jessica's youthful complexion??

Mel, as her blog will attest, has been very very busy too (probably far busier than me). Her consultancy business is in great demand with several clients, who thinks she's just about the greatest thing going. The standard of her work (and her diligence, skill, integrity, courtesy etc) is pretty legendary in industry circles, so much so that she's had to turn down some lucrative offers for further work. We've joked before that maybe I should leave my job and work for Mel, but every week that idea seems less and less silly. On top of her consulting work, she looks after Jessica bautifully and even manages to get along to Mother's group and as of last week took Jessica to her first swimming 'lesson' (water awareness, I think it's called). Apparently there's a DVD on it's way of Jessica in the pool for the first time: I'm looking forward to seeing it and will try to post some stills here in the coming weeks. Not sure how someone was allowed to film other people's children at a swimming pool in this day and age (I'm sure I wouldn't be allowed), but I'm glad they did in this case.

On my work front, not a lot has changed except that it's more hectic than a few months ago. It's not uncommon to work from home of an evening, or sign in on a weekend to get caught up on some looming deadlines, although I don't for a moment think I've got a rough deal. From what I hear and have seen of the workload of some others, I could almost be considered a part timer by comparison. There's also no update on the DVD proposal, as the General Manager who needs to approve or reject it has yet to find time to watch te presentation (did I mention it's been a busy few months?). I did (only yesterday) submit the User Story that Ulead asked for, and that's likely to be published in the near future on their website. Curiously, in response to my User Story submission, Ulead made a very unexpected request which Mel & I were only too happy to oblige. I won't say any more at this stage - just in case something comes up - but suffice to say it's all a bit surreal (in a very nice way!). Watch this space, I guess.

I haven't gotten to one tenth of the things that I wanted to cover here, but it's 12:30 and it's a 'school' night, so I better get off to bed and leave the rest of the catching up for tomorrow (or the next day, or the next day). I will attempt to post one lovely photo of Mel & Jessica taken last week. Mel hates it - sees too many flaws in herself - but I think it's beautiful. Once I've posted that picture, I'll turn off the VCR an head to bed. The VCR has been on to tape the only two shows that I watch these days (we've turned the TV off again): Scrubs & Arrested Development. It's a bitter-sweet one tonight, as it is the absolute final episode of AD ever to be made and screened. It was one of the most intelligent comedies I've ever seen, but the American audences didn't take to it in sufficient numbers, hence it was cancelled by Fox part-way into the third season. It's a real shame there won't be any more episodes coming, but at the same time it's probably a good thing to 'go out on a high note'. It's sad when shows drag on and on, long after they cease being funny. I guess it's the same for blogs, too, in which case I should probably have stopped writing quite a while ago. It's in that spirit that I'll sign off for tonight right now. Without writing anything else. After this. Well OK...after this, and the "Cheers, Matt" bit.

Cheers,

Matt