JVIC: New web-based Commodore VIC 20 emulator

[davepdotorg]

Guess it’s time to finally type this out again: https://www.davep.org/misc/grid-bike/

[Eggpants]

Young me remembers fondly poking and peeking system memory locations to see what happens. The manual, if I remember right, had a table of memory locations to system settings. Things like font and background colors.

I made a “punch out like” boxing game in basic where the background color blocks was the opponent and the font lines was your character via poking memory locations.

It was slow but I was just a kid at the time. It definitely told me what I wanted to do for a living at an early age.

[lance_ewing]

Exactly the same story with me. I got my VIC 20 when I was about 10, in the mid 80s, and that is how I learnt how to program and how I knew what I wanted to do as a career.

[pipo234]

Nice to have this, though I personally find Matt Godbolt's web-based BBC emulator more exciting (and useful)

https://bbc.xania.org/

[lance_ewing]

Yeah, that one is a great online emulator. I've played around a bit with that one. I have fond memories of the BBC Micro from my school days, especially the game Castle Quest.

How does it handle being run on a mobile phone? My main focus with JVIC was to try making it as easy as possible to use on mobile devices, although I'll admit that my testing has only been on Android so far. I haven't tried it on iOS yet.

[lance_ewing]

The code and instructions on how to use it are here: https://github.com/lanceewing/jvic

[aenis]

Nostalgia overload.

I got a Commodore/PLUS 4 - With almost no games (just Saboteur, Jet Set Willy and Booty), and my father taught me how to program in Basic 3.5 - and before I was 10 i was making trainers with 7501 assembly learned almost by trial and error. I knew back then what I wanted to do in life and followed that path to the fullest extent.

[harel]

Like many others who commented, this was my first computer. I received it as a hand-me-down from a french aunt. Manuals were all in French. The C64 just came out and was all the rage. Couldn't find games to save my life. All I had left was to learn how to program. Still doing that 40 years later.

[bitwize]

Ah, the VIC-20, my actual first computer. By making the PETSCII birds fly how I chose, I learned the elements of composing and modifying software.

You can play with an emulation of my other early computer, the TI-99/4A, at https://js99er.net

[B1FIDO]

  THI5 1Z A WAY-K00L BBOARDZ D00DZ!!1!

  B1FF
    ...B1FF ... B1FF ?!

   ... ... B1FF B1FF B1FF BB0ARDZ!1

   B1FF ... ... ... B1FF!

  D0EZ THI5 MEAN MY BR0THER CAN KEEP HIZ OWN Vic-20 NOW??!?!????!!!


   ... BIFF B1FF B1FF D00DZ!!1!

[bitwize]

If I were dang or tomhow, I'd give this a pass just this once for the USENET nostalgia. What good is Hackernews if it's all CxO-wannabe bait and not stuff that resonates with actual hackers?

[TYPE_FASTER]

That brings back so many memories! The Vic was our first computer. 45ish years later, here I am, still writing code. Thanks for making that and posting it here.

[p0w3n3d]

So everything is web-based today I guess? But why? Is this about programming language? Packaging?

[pjmlp]

Delivery, and not wanting to target each platform individually.

The Chrome OS Platform (given the browser engines left) is the most successful WORA since UNCOL was introduced as idea in 1958.

I would rather that we kept Web for documents and everything else native with networking protocols.

This isn't new however, Applets, ActiveX, Silverlight, Flash, NaCL and PNaCL, asm.js, plugins,...

Running LibGDX on the browser has a certain Applets revenge feeling to it.

[pjmlp]

In LibGDX, that is great!

[lance_ewing]

Yeah, libGDX is my go to now for web-based emulators and interpreters. JVIC is the third one I've written now. The other two are JOric and AGILE:

https://oric.games/

https://agi.sierra.games/

They all use the GWT html target. I realise that there is now also a TeaVM target. I might try converting JVIC to use TeaVM at some point.

[empressplay]

Neat, but crashed when I tried to load Frogger

[lance_ewing]

In what way did it crash? What browser and device did you try running it on? - There might be an issue where its possible to start typing before the program load sequence has finished, e.g. where it has queued a "RUN" command for when the disk load has finished, but if you start typing before that, it might interfere with that RUN. I have an idea on how to fix that, if this is the issue. Just need to ignore key presses until all program load commands have been processed.

[drzaiusx11]

Sounds authentic

[waldrews]

That's one maxed out RAM configuration. Back in my day, we had 4k RAM, about 3500 bytes usable from BASIC, and that was enough, unless you were rich enough to have a 3k memory expansion cartridge. But really, if you need that extra 3k, you're just not writing code efficiently enough, right.

[lance_ewing]

Back in the 80s, I was lucky that my father was an electronics design engineer, so he built a 24K expansion cartridge for us. I agree that there were some great games for the unexpanded VIC 20 though, such as Rockman. I loved that game. So many levels for a small game.

[drzaiusx11]

I had a home brewed ram expansion board (still do actually, in a box somewhere...) I powered everything up a couple years ago when my kids found it and asked what the heck it was. Still works