Updates:

• 2024-02-12 – Added image of Eggs, my first published program. Replaced Factory TNT screenshot with one that shows the proper graphics. Updated Meteor Clash screenshot.

…it was going to be Custom Programs Limited.

My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20 back around 1981 or 1982 (whenever it first came out for “under $300” – $299.99 is what my father paid for it, I believe).

But my buddy, Jimmy*, suggested “Unlimited” because then it would be C.P.U. (I had not even heard the term CPU yet). And thus, CPU Software  was born.

The letters appeared to the musical notes of 2001, one at a time, then the title screen would come up:

That was to be our startup for all our custom programs. It was going to be me writing for the VIC-20, and Jimmy writing for a Timex Sinclair ZX81, and another guy at school writing for a TRS-80 Model III (he didn’t own one, but had access to them at school). We thought we could custom write programs for people.

Our first program was a horse racing game, and it was written for each of these platforms, though I don’t seem to have a copy of it (or it’s on one of the tapes that is bad).

I don’t know why we didn’t pursue this, but I did write a bunch of small games for the VIC-20…

Eggs

I wrote a simple BASIC game called Eggs and it was published in the June/July 1983 issue of VIC-NIC News (issue #6).

It was a very simple “catch the falling object” game that used joystick.

Brick Layer

Bricklayer was a simple game based on the Atari VCS cartridge Surround. I apparently wasn’t date-aware back then, and the comments inside the program only list the title and author. Bummer. I really would like to know when I wrote these.

The game screen animated as it drew the black walls (with sounds), then the game began. Using a joystick (I think), you started “laying bricks” around the screen, trying to cover as much area as you could without running out of room or crashing.

If you got over 200, it would congratulate you. If you crashed, it would summarize your accomplishment.

Yeah. There was a time when this would have been considered a game. Interestingly enough, the movie TRON would come out a year later, taking the “draw lines” concept to a new level with the Light Cycles. The TRON arcade game featured Light Cycles as one of the four games it had, and this became my favorite arcade game of all-time.

I guess I had a thing for drawing lines.

Gold Grabber

Next up was a chase game.

You moved around the screen (you were the clubs symbol) trying to catch the gold (the diamond) while avoiding the bad guy (the +).

I have no idea what the “+” represented, and the game logic just had it wandering around randomly so I had to actually try to run in to it to see what it did.

Factory TNT

In my mind, this was called Factory TNT, but for some reason, the cassette was just labeled as TNT. This was a “Kaboom” catch the falling objects game. I had previously written a text version of the same type of game and called it Eggs. In it, you were catching falling eggs. This game was printed out in the VIC-NIC NEWS newsletter.

I almost had this program distributed by a company, but due to my very similar Eggs game being printed in a newsletter (which they also subscribed to), they decided to pass on it. (I belive this was the “FOX 20: the magazine for VIC 20 users” cassette-tape newsletter, published out of Pasadena/Deer Park, TX. (I lived in both those towns at one point, and recall going over to the house of the publisher – it was a home run operation – and meeting them once.)

The tape is bad, so the custom graphics are not loading, but it should look like a conveyor belt on the bottom, and pipes on the top. Classic round bombs would fall from the top and you moved your cup along the conveyor to catch them. If they hit the ground, they would turn in to a mushroom cloud. It has decent sound effects.

Apparently, it tracked high score (not saved to tape or anything, so it would reset any time you reloaded).

Apparently I had different rankings! Cool. I need to check the listing and see what all they were.

Thick Brush

For some reason, I did a blocky drawing program.

What in the world was this good for? There didn’t seem to be a way to save the “artwork” either. I guess I was, yet again, inspired by the Atari VCS Surround cartridge, which had a simple drawing mode (but the Atari version didn’t let you draw in colors – take that, Atari!).

Sky-Ape-Er

In a previous post, I mentioned my Donkey Kong inspired game, Sky-Ape-Er. Actually, it was really inspired by a VIC-20 game I bought that was inspired by Donkey Kong. I remember seeing it at the only VIC-20 store in Houston (I had my grandmother drive me across town to go to it), and they were out of stock, but they made a copy and sold it to me, and said I could get the real tape when they got more (I never did). On the label, they hand wrote “Krazy Kong”, so it might have been this one, or this Super Kong one. They appear to be the same game, but with different colors.

The important breakthrough was that they solved the problem of ladders and such by just making the level wrap around and go up. I had been working on a Donkey Kong style game and planned to use teleporters so you would stand on a spot and it a button and be teleported to the level above (I guess I had no idea how to make the climbing work then). When I saw the Krazy Kong approach, I knew I could do that, and make it better.

I worked on a few versions of this, with some graphics that looked like Donkey Kong girders, and some that looked like bricks. I think the brike

It turns out to be a very difficult game! I finally cleared the first screen and found out there were multiple levels! I wonder how many are in there??? This is level 2 (using the prototype graphics):

And the “continue” screen was kind of snarky. I seem to have put some work in to these things.

I don’t know what my intentions were with this game, but I expect I was trying to sell it as well. I had no idea that an individual could just make tapes and put ads in newsletters and sell copies back then. I wish I did — I probably could have made some money in those early days.

Maze Gobbler

I was annoyed with Pac-Man games not looking like Pac-Man (I’m looking’ at YOU, Atari VCS), so I started working on my own. I replicated the Pac-Man maze very accurately, but by the time I had done that, I was out of memory on this 3.5K computer. Nothing exists from that maze except a title screen, as far as I have found:

Meteor Clash

My attempt at a Defender-style game (maybe – I’m not sure that game even existed yet) was Meteor Clash. You moved a spaceship up and down and dodged endless meteors that headed to you.

This game had an intro that printed out text letter-by-letter like a typewriter, with beeping sounds! Fancy.

Spell checkers did not exist for the VIC-20, apparently.

I don’t know how to use those cursor control keys on the emulator yet, so I wasn’t able to play it. I was able to fly for a bit until a meteor hit me.

Oops. This screen shot was taken when the meteors were being redrawn, so it’s just the ship. It wasn’t much of a game yet, anyway. It did have sounds, and an explosion, though! Maybe that would have been enough to be a game, but I hadn’t even customized the graphics yet. (Maybe that’s “Meteor Storm” I keep remembering.)

Rover

I seem to recall that this was going to be a Moon Patrol style game, but all I can find is a test of the title screen.

I found a few other things, too, including stuff written for the Super Expander cartridge which I cannot run on the emulator I am using. I need to figure out if that is possible in another emulator, since I have some games I wrote for it (enhanced graphics commands and such).

I also did a bunch of video titles for a booth at the Houston Boat Show for my father. I remember having an animated fish that swam back and forth on the screen in one of them, and drawing blue water waves. I later did graphics using my TRS-80 CoCo 1, and my dad was never impressed with it since the colors were so much worse than the VIC-20.

Interesting stuff, even if most of the tapes won’t load in 2016.

Man… I was, like, 12 years old when I was doing this. I really should have done more with it, but who knew computers were going to become such a part of life!

To be continued…

*Jimmy J was a kid I met in 7th grade. I had seen a listing in TV guide for “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” on PBS and had watched it. In English (?) class, I quoted a line from the show, and he turned around and said something like “you watched that to?” We became friends, and I think he’s the one that let me know about Douglas Adams and the book versions of Hitchhikers. He also introduced me to computers. He had a book on programming and we would go down to Radio Shack to type things in on the TRS-80 Model III. He’s likely the one that introduced me to BBSes too (again, we’d go down and get online at Radio Shack before we had our own computers and modems), and he was also the one that introduced me to the concept of hacking and phone phreaking. Fun times! Beyond my parents, I can’t think of any other person that had such an impact on the direction of my life at an early age. Thanks, James!