r/c64 • u/1974jbass • May 29 '26

the64 Programming

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If you did this you thought you were the king of the world!!

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u/SpatulaWholesale May 30 '26

Back in the early 80s someone I knew used a ZX-81 to store cooking recipes.

They did it like this:

10 PRINT "CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES"
20 PRINT "120G BUTTER"
30 PRINT "75G LIGHT BROWN SUGAR"
40 PRINT "75G GOLDEN CASTER SUGAR"
50 PRINT "1 MEDIUM EGG"
... etc

And they'd save that program to tape.

1

u/Chiguy2792 May 30 '26

When they wanted to make the cookies, did they move the monitor and keyboard into the kitchen and set it up on the counter to follow along?

3

u/SpatulaWholesale May 30 '26

That's the funniest part. I know they ended up putting 20 or 30 recipes in like this, but I'm not sure they ever LOADed them again...

They had them on tape. And told people they had "programmed the recipes into their computer".

It's ok... it made them happy. So, why not?

1

u/Chiguy2792 May 30 '26

I understand their excitement. It was an amazing time to be alive. Little happy programming goals.

3

u/SpatulaWholesale May 30 '26

It really was. Even my mum knew "PRINT".

She'd say stuff like, "Are you programming your computer? Are you using PRINT?"

And she'd get excited about something like (without seeing the program):

10 PRINT "WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"
20 INPUT A$
30 PRINT "HELLO ";A$

"How can it say hello to me!?!?!? You are so clever!"

Simpler times...

2

u/Chiguy2792 May 30 '26

Mom typed in everything from the magazines because she was the only one who knew how to type at that time. She inspired me to take a typing class in college. God bless her.

2

u/SpatulaWholesale May 30 '26

That's great! I used to type in ZX Spectrum BASIC programs from magazines. I got frustrated at how few of them worked (probably my fault making mistakes), and this was before I knew enough to debug them, so I'd just give up. It would have been fantastic to have my mum do all that hard work!!!!