Modern Tools for Commodore 64 Sprite Animation - Byron Stout

[@Kobold666]

2:30 According to his own lore, Dave Ackley was the inventor of the term "sprite" when he worked at TI. The man's got a KZbin channel, too.

[@vcfederation]

Wow! Very cool! Thank you for sharing!

[@MichaelBattaglia]

Great video! I have used CBM prg Studio years ago but it is a great tool to make games 😊

[@vcfederation]

Absolutely! A great tool for modern development of vintage games! :-D

[@MurderMostFowl]

I remember after I learned basic and had typed in more than a few programs from magazines, the epiphany I had about creating my first sprite. It was taking an existing game and changing the data lines but I thought I was so cool. lol. I also remember the first time I wrote my whole sprite routine by myself where I had learned move it around the screen and change colors etc. I was so proud of myself that I showed my mother and at the end she said it was really impressive, but when the program was over the sprite was still on the screen, and she said “OK how do you get rid of that. Will that be on the screen forever?” so embarrassed that I did not know the technical way to turn off the sprite, but I was briefly terrified that if I didn’t learn how to turn it off, I would ruin the computer screen lol ( mind you I was in fifth grade)

[@vcfederation]

LOL! That's such a great and fun story! Thanks for sharing! :-D

[@1stacbats]

Hi, nice video, thanks 👍🏻. Do you have a repo for the examples?

[@vcfederation]

We are glad that you liked the video! Try these links: Slides: vcfed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2023_Sprite_Animation_-_VCF_East.pdf Sample Code: vcfed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/BILLinSpriteLandDemo.zip

[@MurderMostFowl]

I always thought it was movable object block. Historically, I wonder if it has always been both depending on who you ask.

[@vcfederation]

It was originally called Moveable Object Block in the Atari 2600, but other microcomputer makers called it a sprite. I forget the reason. I'm not sure if it was because of copyright reasons or if it just sounded better. It may have been mentioned in one of the talks by the Commodore 64 creator Al Charpentier.

[@syntaxerrorsoftware]

I believe the C64 user guide or user manual mentions MOBs too in the appendix or similar?

[@klaxoncow]

Both terms were in use. And, indeed, even today, you can hear gamers talk about "mobs" in games like Minecraft. They're obviously not actually, technically speaking, actual "moveable object blocks" (MOBs) but players have picked up the terminology, applied it to any and all enemies in games they played and it's stuck around, with modern gamers often saying things like "Mojang's added a new mob to the game". But I grew up with the C64, so they've always been "sprites" to me (which is probably why I've picked up on this modern use of "mob" for game enemies because, ah, they're using the "wrong" word, as far as I'm concerned!)