Paolo

Oh, boy! You can't believe how anxious I was about this delivery. It took forever! I must tell you, I logged in today just to check the status, and, surprise! Now, @CaptainBreakout and @chicgamer, may I have a badge for "latest Secret Santa ever"?

I've just seen this record, so do you think it is worth the cost? I am a little uncertain...

Hey! I DO NOT collect, I PLAY (well, a couple of hints were given to the "connection manager", hehe, but anyway the blame is on ME, with my bad timing. I didn't even *hope* to be thrown in, so, all is good! And who knows, maybe I'll get a 2600 sooner or later) BTW, about the cultural exchanges, I noticed that on the other side of the pond you have always SUGAR as first ingredient... 😄

Oh, boy! OH, BOY! Santa manged to reach this extremely late participant. I can't believe it! I must say that I have been punished for being so late: to be more specific, EU Customs are E-V-I-L !!! But now, to the merry side: I can't believe how many things have been packaged in that box... first, booklets and cards, wow! next, ooohhh! GAMES! (Now I'll have to find a Jag adapter for those paddles, or I'll have to use them on my Falcon...) Wow! Timekeeping, the Atari way! (I realize I know nothing about what's happening in the Atari Hardware scene...) 64-bit Coin YUM! Snacks! (I am so sorry I was worried to send edible stuff abroad, maybe it would have gone through the borders without problems)

I had an 800XL and, well, as anybody is saying, it blew me off! But I (a couple of year before) already played the VCS version at a friend's house with that additional controller, and it was incredible. (of course the 8-bit version was even better, but you can imagine the wonder of playn'it on the very same machine that gave us pacman... hehe)

Let me chime in. I know it's a very long shot, but let me ask anyway... Amongst the dozens of type-in games I played back in the day, one still bugs me: it was called "The Wall", I can't even remember which magazine was it from, but the point is that I never managed to run it because there was (I still remember it) a GOSUB to a line that wasn't in the list. After a full 3-4 pages of typing I realized the missing subroutine. That stupid thing didn't even complete the main screen! Does anybody remember it?

I had Radar Rat Race on the VIC20 and I always wondered why-oh-why they could write a whole game and miss one in a 9 notes riff (of mostly similar notes, and that should be equal to the very first three notes)

Hi all! I would not have believed it possible to do it, especially since I was entered well after the time limit (thank you @chicgamer and thank you to my Secret Santa that made himself available for this) I understand that some trickery had to be done to enable my enrolling, but here I am, announcing that the sleigh is ready, and just after a couple of days needed by much deserved reindeer rest, this extremely late Secret Santa is GO! Hopefully, my recipient's mailbox will be hit in time for Epiphany.

NOOOOOooo!!! How did I miss it???

Yes, to learn the fundamentals. Great advice! Interesting insights, thanks!

Hmm... I think he almost took your suggestion, but heading to the Gameboy route instead. He decided that your solution would have steered him too much towards the "let's solder wires and transistors" approach 🙂 (he said he doesn't want to build a Pong cabinet, hehe) Now he is examining how to put stuff onscreen, since in the "pure" programming department he seems quite comfortable. Any advice on that?

Aaawww! Too bad you lost the code! But thanks for the memories of the good ol' days 🙂

Yup! It's a search he's doing about how old-style stuff works, and Unreal/Unity step in the way of understanding it... It's too much of a black box to let him understand low-level things.

My son thanks you for all the answers and the insights.

The goal is "acedemic". Just to understand at which point using a library is needed, being a PONG program a pretty straightforward task. Hence the question about drawing the line between using a library vs. creating a your own set of functions. I think the ultimate goal is to understand the mechanics of a graphics library. (I confirm, I just asked him :-D) BTW thank for your time and answers!