Cover of the February 1985 issue of Your 64
Your 64 was a relatively short-lived magazine published in the U.K. that was dedicated mostly to the Commodore 64 but also included VIC-20 coverage. It started publication in early 1984 but was incorporated into Your Commodore by the end of 1985. The February 1985 issue includes:
Scoop Review!
- Singalonga SID - A review of Commodore's Music Maker, low cost synthesize software for the Commodore 64 which includes a (music) keyboard that attaches to the Commodore 64's keyboard.
Listings
- Routine Adventures - Short programming routines useful for creating adventure games. Routines include a color chooser, text formatting routine, a "thief" routines that demonstrates stealing objects, and a routine for displaying objects and inventory.
- Keyboard Kapers - Two type-in games for the Commodore 64. The first features an alien that reduces in power but increases in speed every time you shoot it. Sort of reminiscent of Space Invaders. The second is a type-in game called Slider which a sort of puzzle game that is an electronic version of the "shove a penny" game.
Programming
- Machine Code Tutor (part 5) - The fifth part in this tutorial series focuses on truth tables, using machine code from within BASIC, adding and subtracting, other addressing modes, logic arithmetic, and more.
- Language Lab - An overview of Fig-Forth, a version of the Forth programming language for the Commodore 64.
Table of contents from the February 1985 issue of Your 64
Games
- Ghostbusters - An Activision game based on the movie of the same name. This was one of my favorites on the C64 and a rare licensed game that was actually good.
- Action Replay - Brief review of new games including Flyerfox, Erik the Viking, Ancipital, Headache, Star Race, Exodus, River Raid, Cuthbert Enters The Tombs of Doom, Firequest, Storm Warrior, Zenji, Apache Raid, Star Eggs, Zim Sala Bim, and more.
Features
- New VICs for Old? - A detailed look at the new Commodore 16 and Plus/4. Commodore claimed these were meant for a different audience than the C64 but it isn't really clear to me what that audience was. The Commodore 64 could do anything the Plus/4 could do and overall had superior graphics and sound capabilities. The built in software was somewhat forward looking in that it was at least slightly integrated (e.g. you could create a graph from the spreadsheet program with the graphics program to use in the word processor program). However, the software was low quality and there were already a number of much better choices on the C64. These machines were a commercial failure as you might expect. I guess the C-16 was intended as replacement of the VIC-20 but without it never had significant software developed for it. The Plus/4 was for those perhaps interested in programming (it had a better BASIC anyway) but not necessarily games. Still, you could do all those things on the C64 and the price on the C64 was rapidly declining anyway.
Core Material
- Open Access - A look at the latest news and new products including The Penman Plotter, Pyjamarama, Compunet vs. Micronet, Valkyrie 17, a reset switch for the C64, the Intelnet 2046 300-baud modem, a Spectrum Simulator, the Datafax SCP-800 printer-plotter, and much more.
- Missives - Letters from readers about backup programs, adding an internal speaker to the C64, high software prices, upgraded BASIC options for the C64, and more.
- Choice 20 - A list of the top 20 games as determined by readers. At the top of the list is International Football. Other games on the list that I've played include Beach Head, Forbidden Forest, and Zaxxon.
Back cover of the February 1985 issue of Your 64
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Books I am reading or have recently read:
Red Sails Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
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I think this still has to be my favourite era in computing, a simpler time. I wrote a music program around the SID chip that was rather good. I recall learning machine code on the 6502 as I was able to do more with it. I was 13 at the time. Remember the magazine. Halcyon days.
I never got too much into machine code but I did write a lot of BASIC programs on my C64. And of course played a lot of games.
Same here. How about Impossible Mission? I loved that with its early speech synthesis effects. “Destroy him my robots!”
I never had a 64, but I know they were popular. I wonder if anyone made much music with that little keyboard add-on. I know the Amiga and ST got used by various musicians. I think Vince Clark used a BBC Micro to control his synths. People would experiment with whatever they had as pro music gear was really expensive.
The Commodore 64 was popular for music but it wasn't as popular for MIDI in particular as the Atari ST was.
While the Amiga was the better computer, it was more expensive than the ST and didn't have the built in MIDI interface (though you could add one) so the Atari ST ended up being a lot more popular for that purpose.