The good ol' days

[Steve]

x-no-archive: yes

====================


Living the 8-Bit Dream in a 32-Bit World

Jennifer Lee
NY Times 7/2/99


As a mathematician at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Steve Judd
harnesses the power of Unix work stations and Cray supercomputers to
detect and prevent the proliferation of chemical and biological
weapons. 

When he goes home, he basks in the light of his 15-year-old
Commodore computer, a one-megahertz machine with 64 kilobytes of RAM.
It can move chunks of data in the same size packages as a Nintendo
Game Boy and has 3 percent of the memory capacity of a Palm III
organizer. 

Judd creates three-dimensional graphics on his obsolete Commodore
and calls it a real programming challenge. "It's like building a
radio from scratch," he said. "You are designing from the most
fundamental level. You have to take advantage of every ounce of the
computer." 

Fender Tucker, who runs a Commodore software company called
Loadstar, said, "Commodores are for people who aren't all that sure
that the computer revolution has made our lives better." 

Thousands of people appear to have turned to old computers (or stuck
with them) out of a feeling of nostalgia, a desire for simplicity
and an appreciation for classic design. 

In the realm of digital machines, where today's computer is out of
date tomorrow, there can be great satisfaction in taking a digital
Model T out for a spin. 

Douglas Cotton, editor of Commodore World magazine, estimates that a
million Commodores are still in service around the world. Their
owners include people who remember their first computers more fondly
than their first girlfriends (most users are men), as well as people
who have handed them down to their children or have set up miniature
computer museums in their basements, much to the dismay of their
wives. 

And it's not only the Commodore. Old Apple computers and Sinclair
Spectrums are also popular. 

"Some people like to drive classic cars, like the 60's-era Mustang
or the original Beetle," said Scott Gamon, 24, who still uses an
Apple II GS. "I think the main reason is that the cars are classic
vehicles that made history. The Apple II computer is the same in the
computer world." 

Some owners are active users of the old computers, and some
participate in international programming competitions. These are not
people who can't afford a new computer or don't know how to use
them. Many actually own up-to-date computers that are hundreds of
times as fast and much more powerful than their old ones, but they
keep their eight-bit machines around to remind them how they started
with computers. 

"If I didn't buy that machine with my paper-route money when I was
11, I likely wouldn't have gotten into computers, a university
scholarship and a decent-paying job," said Robyn Harbron of Thunder
Bay, Ontario. 

Cotton, who is also technical director of Creative Micro Designs, a
Commodore hardware company, said, "We have a number of people who
have called us up saying, 'Windows is nice for work, but I miss that
old Commodore.' " 

A number of fans of eight-bit machines are sophisticated programmers
who praise the computers' timeless elegance and efficiency. 

"You don't say Mozart, Shakespeare or van Gogh are good for their
time," Judd said. "They are just plain good. I make the claim for the
Commodore 64." 

All software, whether Windows 98 or Lotus Notes or Doom, is based on
simple mathematical calculations like addition and multiplication.
Computers express information in binary numbers; each digit is a 0 or
a 1, and each place is a power of 2. Eight-bit computers handle data
in binary numbers that have eight digits. For large calculations, an
eight-bit computer has to break down the problem into simpler pieces,
and that is one factor that makes eight-bit computers slow, compared
with modern 32-bit machines. 

But the biggest reason for the sluggishness is that those old
computer chips did not have many transistors, or switches, and the
transistors they did have were far apart, lengthening the paths
signals had to travel. Modern chips pack transistors tightly together
to speed up processing times. In addition, internal clocks, which
provide the heartbeat for computer instructions, are several hundred
times faster in today's PCs than in yesterday's eight-bit computers. 

Many users insist that the eight-bit classics are on the verge of
becoming collectibles. Searches on auction sites like Ebay unearth
hundreds of items in the classic realm, like floppy disks, printers
and actual computers, for generally low prices. 

Proponents of trailing-edge technology have their own magazines,
conventions, weekly online discussions, Web sites and newsletters. In
Europe, dozens of programmers meet regularly for competition parties,
where they see who can stretch the capacities of the eight-bit
computers the furthest. Some are on a crusade, contending that the
old computers should be preserved for posterity. The Vintage
Technology Center, a computer nostalgia group in Santa Clara, Calif.,
recently announced plans to build a supercomputer out of Commodore
64's. "Sixty-four 64's" is its motto. 

All of that would be mere nostalgia, or a hobby like collecting Pez
memorabilia, except that the eight-bit die-hards actually use their
computers. In a sense, their devotion to the simple machines is an
active refutation of the Wintel world of quick obsolescence that
frustrates many computer users. 

In the early days, programmers looked for creative software solutions
instead of glitzier hardware. "In a way it was simpler back then,"
said Lane Denson, a Nashville farmer who has set up a computer museum
in his basement. "You didn't have 20 or 30 sound cards and you didn't
have to worry about upgrading every other week." 

At a time when mega, giga and tetra are the popular prefixes, the
software available for the kilobyte clunkers is surprisingly
sophisticated. Commodore users can send faxes via modems, use laser
printers and use a mouse to maneuver through an operating system that
looks a lot like Windows. And their computers can act as hosts for
Web pages. Accessories that increase the capacities of the old
machines are also available, including one that speeds them up by a
factor of 20. 

Maurice Randall, who has an auto repair shop in Charlotte, Mich.,
uses his Commodore for all facets of daily computing, for things like
designing newsletters and writing HTML pages. "If you don't need to do
a lot of high-powered graphical work, they're perfect," Randall said.
"They don't crash. They don't have viruses, and they don't break down
as often." 

The most popular eight-bit computers are the Commodore 64, of which
20 million units were sold from 1982 to 1992; the Sinclair ZX
Spectrum, which was the most popular computer in Britain in the
mid-1980's, and the Apple II line, which went on the market in 1977
and became immensely popular for its educational software. Production
had stopped for all these models by the early 1990's because of
pressure from the I.B.M. compatibles. 

Now as then, the various computer camps are fierce rivals. European
Spectrum fans periodically invade online discussion groups of
Commodore users, and vice versa -- each group engaging in the
electronic equivalent of nose-thumbing. 

"You can talk about my mom all you want, but don't insult my
computer," Judd said. 

Many programmers insist that the limits of the old machines force
programmers to be more resourceful. Many of them, like Randall, who
spends 40 to 50 hours each week programming, write in assembly code,
the most fundamental programming language, because it takes up less
space than higher-level languages. 

"Using assembly language, I can make the code real tight and small on
a Commodore," Randall said. The program he uses to send faxes via
modem is only 56 kilobytes in size. His software releases, including
a fax program and an updated operating system that looks much like
Windows, earn him more than $20,000 a year. 

For some, eight-bit programming represents a return to computing as a
personal experience and a move away from being a technodrone in an
information economy. "Before, it was very much discovering and
experimenting for your own benefit," said Mark Lair, 40, of Dallas.
"Now we're in a service industry. Most of us programmers are
providing for other people rather than ourselves." 

But others acknowledge that there is not a high demand for eight-bit
programmers. "Yes, I'm a Sinclair fan, but to earn a living, I need to
remain up to date in a rapidly evolving industry," said Richard
Jordan, 26, a programmer in Britain who owns several Spectrums.

Eight-bit computers draw their biggest chunk of fans because of the
classic video games they play. Fans say the older games, unadorned by
fancy graphics and sound effects, focused more on game play. The
result, they contend, was games that transcend their technological
simplicity. 

A few times each month, Jeff Lewis, 35, goes into his basement to play
some of the hundreds of Commodore 64 games he has accumulated. His
wife, Dianna, refers to the computer, which is still connected to a
working dot-matrix printer, as a "Commodore shrine." "She actually
thinks I'm kind of nuts for keeping it up," said Lewis, who lives in a
suburb of Cleveland. "I just tell her it's part of my childhood." 

For all those who actually own old computers, there are hundreds of
thousands more who pretend that they do by using a generation of
emulators, which allow the 32-bit PC's to imitate primitive
Commodores, Spectrums and Apples. Thousands of old games are available
for downloading on the Web. 

Despite the number of eight-bit admirers, the most dedicated
enthusiasts sometimes bemoan the skewed demographics of their ranks. 

Oyvind Vevang, 20, of Haugesund, Norway, meets many friends though a
common interest in classic video games, but they are almost all male.
Vevang lamented, "If more girls were interested in this, I'd have one
hell of a pickup trick!" 

Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company 





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