Diary

Saturday evening, after 4:00 Go to gym. Come home, clean up. Pickup bob. Dinner at Big Eddie's. See "Angry Housewives" Go to Bob's to change clothes + snort crystal + drink wine. (I wear maroon shorts) FUN. We did 1st avenue. Big Eddie's, Jugs, Vogue. Patrick H let us into Tugs free. Shawn got us into Vogue free. Aaron was there. (Doorman nearly didn't let me in: "We have a dress code") After closing we went to Neighbors. A wonderful evening. Bed at 3:30. Stayed at TP's. Played fraternity brothers. Drank his scotch, used his lube + dished him!

Next day 12-23:0 Brunch at Lion O'reilleys 2:30 - 3:30 Got Chuck's harness 3:30 -4 Site-see Volunteer Park. Beautiful trees. 4-5 Fitting at Rick Ulrich's + go to Bon for Guns + tights. 5-6:30 Go to photographers Dinner at Bloch's, run out of gas, pickup glasses at Big Eddie's, + read VIC stuff.

MONDAY, OCT 17

Go to Microsoft. Go to Fred Meyer. They have both VIC + Commo 64. Identical keyboards + box, but I found out later that the VIC has been discontinued. Go to Southcenter. Wild goose chase. Go back to Microsoft. Call around for Simon's BASIC. Not released yet. Receive copy of Creative Computing. [red ink] It had review of that BASIC! And what a strong review. It REALLY set me thinking. It REALLY does have a broad set of features, even PLAY + sprites + loading/saving hires screens + printing screens! Just like an IBM PC!

The point is that it has something for everyone. It is not just a games language but has broad enough coverage that it will be strongly promoted. Even if people don't use all of it, everyone will find something useful, and it will probably become a new type of STANDARD. THIS ALL HURT! WHY? EGO, MONEY, EXPERIENCE?

I don't know why it should hurt so much except that I'd like not to be so confused + surprised.

As far as experience goes, there is nothing new in it I haven't coded, except sprites and music are done better than they were in Atari BASIC. And so there's nothing I'd like to code except for sprite + music. But last night I realized that the only general music stuff to do would be like on PC but with 3 voices. Most piano songs have notes + chords but no set scheme. BUT AN EVEN BIGGER PROBLEM IS THAT [red ink] VERY FEW PEOPLE CAN WRITE MUSICAL NOTATION, AND ITS JUST A FRILL ANYWAY, SO ITS NOT SUPERIMPORTANT "TO THE WORLD"

SO THERE'S ONLY ONE THING IN THE WHOLE PACKAGE THAT I WOULD'VE ENJOYED CREATING: SPRITES. AND THAT IS JUST NOT VERY TOUGH. [/red ink]

AS FAR AS EGO GOES: I could've been more prolific.

But I have sofware on every Commodore 64: [red ink] regular BASIC. [/red ink]

So the only stuff I didn't do is the extensions, and I wouldn't have enjoyed that. I liked Atari work. I enjoyed creating it. And now I realize it didn't even need MUSIC + PLAY, since few people could notate it. (SOUND is enough for sound effects.)

But Atari was then. Not now. I have to move on from the 6502 world. Atari helped me get over LA, and learn how GW BASIC works, and it was the first software project I'd done for over a year (since leaving Cobol to go to HBS). [red ink] and Atari had no Microsoft BASIC before. [/red ink]

SORT was much more important for me to achieve in so many ways. [red ink] SORT can be used by a programmer of any language, and it does stuff that is truly difficult any other way. It is a VERY high level language, handling record, not just data items, so for me it caps off my advanced work on (Atari) BASIC and (IBM) Cobol. And SORT was done in C.

[red ink] I WANTED TO DO SOMETHING FUN (A GAMES LANGUAGE FOR A POPULAR COMPUTER) THAT WOULD MAKE ME GOBS OF MONEY. [/red ink] BUT clearly its not that tough if some 16 year old can do it! Knowing Jack Tramiel, the kid didn't get much for it. And it's hard for me to think ISV's would write much specifically for it, since its biggest claim is graphics, but all of that can be done much more cost effectively with POKES. No, the big market will be educational, or home use. There is a market, but big sales are in question.

[red ink] A GAMES language should be an extension of BASIC. So it's been done, for Commodore. Forget it! [/red ink] The part I thought may be fun is music, but now that I think about, not too many people can appreciate it. Maybe IBM was right in only putting one voice in. [red ink] Doing anything besides sprites would be a step back 2 1/2 years!