The Amazing Programming Language Lost For 40 Yrs: C64 Microtext | Retro Recipes

[@RetroRecipes]

Thanks for watching! If you like the music you can download the single version of _northlight_ free with a 7-day trial and you'll also get ad-free early access to our videos 👉 www.patreon.com/posts/112114149 🚀By supporting ЯR you help us keep the lights on in the studio & nostalgia alive ✨ Thank you.

[@RetroRecipes]

@@yootoobnz8109 Probably the YT spam filter, unless the comment broke the usual rules. Pay it no mind.

[@nettlesoup]

@@yootoobnz8109 I've experienced YT comment "deletions" before. There seems to be a bug in the app where if you start writing a long comment and then switch away to another app, by the time you switch back, complete the comment and post it, the app has lost track of something. The comment successfully posts (no errors) but you won't see it in your view of comments. Others may or may not see it (you can verify by visiting KZbin from a browser in incognito mode). If your comment was in response to another comment, while your comment does not display, you still get email notifications of all replies to the thread. Very bizarre and weird that this bug has existed (on Android) for so long (several years).

[@gaggleweed]

The music is awful and makes the video hard to watch.

[@RetroRecipes]

@@gaggleweed Whilst tastes differ, thank you for sharing your opinion prominently in the pinned comment.

[@gaggleweed]

@@RetroRecipes I don't think it's so much about taste. The best tune in the world would still get tedious after repeating for 40 mins. For me it spoiled an otherwise interesting video because I had to skip through it.

[@andythedishwasher1117]

I really love the fact that you remembered the smart guy upstairs from your childhood well enough to track down his work as an adult. It motivates me to continue trying to be the smart guy upstairs. Thanks for this.

[@RetroRecipes]

Well put

[@konsul2006]

This guy should have governmental funding! Digital archaeology at its finest❤ Wish you had a picture of the creator.

[@sutorippuwebmaster8783]

This is insane! It's amazing how much forgotten stuff is out there even for popular systems. This just proves we need to preserve computing, gaming, and technological history as best we can!

[@henryvanweeren7233]

We had such a place in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. All the machines worked and all had running OS systems. When the owner died, all the stuff was relocated. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Computer_Museum

[@typingcat]

I wonder what Microsoft have been doing with project silica. That sounded really promising for preserving data.

[@xys007]

IT muses me how mane things we take as a modern inventions are not so modern. This thing is like game engine for text games. I thought game engines are strictly PC thing. Imagine how many kids would become game developers if it was more popular back in the days.

[@r.l.royalljr.3905]

This feels very much like a text version of HyperCard on the old 68k Macs.

[@jinchoung]

@@r.l.royalljr.3905 totally thought the same. I wonder if there was some kind of zeitgeist of the card/page/screen analogy back then that was the prototype for these implementations....

[@theParticleGod]

This software is old enough and the field is small enough that the authors of Hypercard might well have heard of, or even seen this software before. It wouldn't surprise me if this helped to inspire hypercard or had a common source of inspiration. Through an academic paper perhaps?

[@cossackpatrol]

the moment he said “like a webpage”, i immediately said “or 68k HyperCard.” nailed it. high five ✋🏻

[@mjeromee]

I was just about to say that here, we spent a bunch of time with Hypercard in school on the old b/w Mac classics. I remember making a Jeopardy clone with it.

[@mikeh_nz]

Agreed - very much like HyperCard - though which came first? I remember HyperCard on the mac

[@nicholas_scott]

Microtext works like Gopher. Gopher was a early way to use the internet, before the web, and it used frames. If you mixed gopher and Rexx, you would have something very similar to Microtext. Facinating. For most of us, programming the C64 was brutal. Either you used assembly, or basic.

[@mattgraham4340]

I had forgotten about gopher before your comment. I remember using gopher on a modem. Local university had some kind of service available over modem. You could break out of the service and get a command prompt on some computer that had Internet access

[@kevinfisher5492]

Forth was a very viable alternative, and was bloody fast as well.

[@TheUAoB]

Gopher was a good protocol, much better for interactive menu driven content than HTML. It was completely focussed on content over presentation though so didn't have the wide appeal of web pages. Mozilla web browsers actually natively supported it for a long time until policy was unfortunately dominated by those pushing agendas.

[@absurdengineering]

Gopher was great. Dissatisfied with what was preinstalled on a university CP/CMS mainframe system, I wrote my own client in Rexx. It was such a nice protocol to make a client for. Changing the terminal from line to character mode was fun. If you messed up, you had to go back to CP and restart the CMS session.

[@NorseGraphic]

@@nicholas_scott Used basic. Was 16 at the time.

[@cvdm9663]

The C64 is the reason why I studied and chose to make programming my career. I would have had so much fun with this software as a kid. Thank you for bringing this back into the world.

[@epremeaux]

@6:33 second paragraph: "A run-time only system is also available at a low rate.." This would imply that they also had a stripped down runner to be included in commercial releases to allow distributing stand alone Microtext based software without distributing the full editing features.

[@RetroRecipes]

Good eye!

[@carbonmolecules4504]

Your Commodore 64 videos have been a blast to watch. I’ve never gotten the opportunity to use one, and I never really gave it any thought before this series(I’m 30). Thanks for giving me a new appreciation in tech by expressing your love for it. Can’t wait for more!

[@Rezmason]

I can't imagine a better process and reception for recovering a lost software environment. Maybe all this time, it was Microtext that was looking for you?

[@MK-of7qw]

or maybe the real microtext is to friends we made along the way?

[@tmbrwn]

It's this kind of mystery, discovery, recovery, and exploration that made me subscribe to your channel in the first place. Thanks for always digging for treasure, and letting us all tag along!

[@antonrr90]

By the looks of it, NPL was literally developing HTML Precursor.

[@CraigHyatt-it4gk]

I really enjoyed this. I was a programmer in the 1980's (my career went from 1973-2013). I was fascinated by languages like Prolog, LISP, Forth, Turtle, SNOBOL, and object oriented languages like Eiffel. At that time our company was transitioning from assembly language to C (C++ wasn't a thing). At that time computer science students used the Pascal language. Resurrecting this lost language is a gift. Than-you.

[@DysoniaMultiverseNews]

Thank you for archiving this. Make sure to have secondary backup archives so it isn't solely on one venue. One thing that is sort of an internet constant is, websites do come and go for any number of reasons. This way, this piece of Commodore 64 history is not lost. Even if it isn't the most "exciting" thing in the world of Commodore history but none the less, its worth preserving that history. Even the history about the author(s) would be worth it. Part of preserving and fact checking that Commodore history, which unfortunately, there is some stuff that many of us may remember like the myths and rumors and gossips that were false but believed to be true. This isn't one of those cases, thankfully. Anyway, thank you for doing your part in preserving the history. This could have easily gone down into forgotten pieces of Commodore 64 history that people could easily have forgot ever existed. Many, never knew to exist at all.

[@iamdinkel]

Drawing a circle on an Apple II in the early 80’s same joy you woke up the raw programming feeling I had at 10, hugs. Very HyperText and maybe a little Swift 😊

[@LarryRobinsonintothefog]

The Hotel Fire option sounded like an 'adventure game' that were in Basic in the 1980s in computer magazines to type in and play (which many people did).

[@more.power.]

What a blast Perifractic thank you for the demo. Cheers

[@limerickey]

Awesome! This would have been such a powerful tool to have back in the day for those of us who wanted to create something on the C= but found the programming part to be challenging and tedious. Microtext could have been a big hit with adventure game makers, perhaps they could have licensed it then included the interpreter with the game.

[@CaptainPanick]

The modern equivalent of this seems to be something like Renpy (for Visual Novels) and Twine for Interactive Fiction.

[@SuperWabo]

Amazing. Thank you for rediscovering Microtext and sharing your test. What a precious little gem. I imagine a Microtext compo in the wild category of a demo party would be a great success.

[@KennethSorling]

Chris, did you compose all of the music we heard during this episode? If so, I'd like to convey my admiration. This is some great music!

[@RetroRecipes]

Yes sir, thank you! Single of "Northlight" coming soon.

[@SalvadorButtersworth]

I thought his name was Percival

[@TalmidAndy]

There have been many weird or single purpose programming languages over the years. I went to college in the mid '80s where we were taught BBC basic and CESIL. CESIL was developed as part of the Computer Education in Schools program in 1974 and was originally entered on punch cut or tape but later could be entered via keyboard on the BBC Micro which we used in the college in 1985.

[@Mrshoujo]

Microtext should be on Cartridge & include a compiler to make standalone software. Back in the day, users would use Fast Hackem & Epyx Fast Load to zip off a copy. And with 2 drives, that would be called a Double Hackem.

[@zro_dfects]

Hats off to you with your excitement over this nostalgia software for the C64, I have seen billions of PC users in my time, and have never seen anyone with much if at all any excitement over a PC or MAC etc, your excitement is how I feel every time I am near an Amiga, I love the Amiga more than anything in the world, my eyes light up like it's a dream girl lol, even to this day, people can have their Xbox is better than PS or PS is better than Xbox fight, but I will just ruin their days with Amiga kills both in a heartbeat, the music is like no other, the endless fun games of pixellated goodness can never be matched today. Commodore, the best brand name in the world, it was heartbreaking when it all went south many years ago, and I give my full respect to all C64/Amiga lovers that help keep the dream alive today, if anything, I believe the C64/Amiga community is even bigger than it was when it was alive and kicking in the 80's and 90's.

[@GJ-mn9ly]

Microtext was a really cool machine language for the time, very ahead of its time.Great video as always👍.

[@rabid_si]

This is not in any way machine language. It's not even assembly. It's as high level as you can get, to the point it's more like markup than an actual programatic language.

[@BlizzetaNet]

Bro, this is giving me canned heat with those sounds and amazing graphics of the past ❤❤❤

[@dukeofearl8078]

Another absolutely wonderful lost, 40-year-old C64 language is Promal. It was a joy to use .. .very much like Python today (including indentation being part of the language).

[@syntaxerror9994]

I think Bob would be very pleased with what you've done. I'm surprised it didn't come with a compiler that merged your code with a base engine and saves it in assembly. Different era I guess. Also, thank you for sacrificing the condition of your manual for preservation. o7

[@PatrickJFurlong-c6z]

Perfect video thanks! Amazing you've finally found this program after so many years - looks something that can be made very good use of.

[@dtecmeister]

Thanks! This brought back so many memories of my early teen years when i was first learning to program using the Programmer's Reference Guide. I was trying to learn all the tricks if making games like Ultima 3 including graphics and waveform manipulations. Fun times and great memories.

[@darrenhunter2324]

Used to be a speci owner in the day, but I love your Commodore Videos, gives me Insite in to a system I never had when I was a kid. (47 now) so remember the Spec and 64 Arguments in the playground as a kid.

[@mUbase]

Absolutely fanastic ! Strong "The Quill" vibes from the text adventure program and sharp nostalgia hints flashing thru my brain. Excellent :)

[@TraineeTeacherSupport]

Love the fact this meant so much to you as a kid and it still does, love that you found it, love your pleasant easy manner and honey-smooth voice...yeah, glad YT suggested you 🙂

[@MurderMostFowl]

So very cool! It definitely seems like it was a low volume production of the disks, since you can clearly see the tape on the write protect notch. ( for those who do not know, if it were a commercially produced disk with a high enough volume printing to justify it ) it would not have used disks that did not have any notch on the side at all instead of the piece of tape.

[@brianh2771]

It's really too bad they didn't call it "HyperCard" and introduce it on the Amiga in 1985!

[@crookedmouth1971]

Thank you for this Peri. Great work, as always. This might have been lost to time and now we all can enjoy it.

[@marcschuyesmans]

once again a fabulous episode technology down memory lane, I love it ! Thanx a lot, best regards, Marc

[@mercster]

This reminds me vaguely of the 'dialog' program on modern Linux systems. 'dialog' doesn't have any graphics/sound capabilities that I know of, but it is sort of an easy way to use shell scripts to present menus, allow navigation, etc.

[@fischX]

For the Amiga there was a similar innovative hyper card ish software called Helm by eagle tree. It's lost software at this point only a demo version is saved - it's amazing though

[@antonnym214]

I never heard of MicroText, but what struck me was that it is more a name I would expect of a word processor than a programming language. I designed a programming language, too, called LIM. for Limited Instruction Model or, Less Is More. There are only 25 keywords. It's great.

[@ChrisLeeW00]

Anton Nym Designer of LIM

[@benholroyd5221]

​@@ChrisLeeW00I'm going to go out on a limb, and ask, do you know him?

[@ChrisLeeW00]

@@benholroyd5221 no i just read his username and realized it rhymed 😅

[@Niiixxxx]

So you were trying to keep the language trim or possibly slim whilst keeping it's capabilities full to the brim. I could go on but that could be grim

[@2000jago]

I saw that cool dog and IMMEDIATELY clicked thumbs up. Like a reflex action really.

[@Coffeeology]

Dear internet friend. Congrats on finding your grail. I smiled so much in this episode. I feel we are about the same age and due to life events I’ve been thinking about my early days in front of computers. I think we’re about the same age and played with very similar systems. Thank you for uploading the software to the archive. I wish you and your lovely family nothing but happiness and peace.

[@wiredmind]

congrats on being the one sponsored advert i chose to watch very relatable BC I can't do heat

[@shawnpgorman]

It's the "Choose your own adventure" of programming.

[@pjcnet]

Excellent for education, something the C64 was less often used for however. Back then as a mid teen I'd learnt 6510 machine code and was also playing around with BASIC compilers, Microtext would have been interesting, but not advanced enough for me like Logo. Incidentally I got published in Zzap!64 on a few occasions with cheats for games, some included tiny machine code loaders to break into the games.

[@eskey691]

I love the fact that you found it after all these years. It's always a feeling of pure joy when you boot up something that you haven't used or seen for many years. Have to say the disk was in excellent condition and yes the first thing you should always do is make a copy of it. Great show as always and i love the look of joy when running parts of the program and i hope LadyFractic will go easy on you after that poem 🤣😂. As always looking forward to what you bless us with next time so until then you all take care and have a great weekend 🙂

[@RetroRecipes]

Thanks mate, I'm still drying off! Have a good one!

[@paulwesterman]

Wow interesting birdfractic at 2:57!

[@Wanton110]

the sprites remind me of the old asci art.. imagine running a BBS on this

[@greyship1341]

I had a copy of Microtext!!!! I don't even know how it ended on my side... Probably it's somewhere in a landfill now 😢

[@jeddak]

This concept of frames, the way you describe it, reminds me of how HyperCard programs were written on the old Macs.

[@wanyman]

Great video. Nice to see the arcade game in your background where I spent a great deal of time and allowance as a youngster.

[@originalbrucesmith]

Love seeing your passion for this, keep it going. Love seeing content like this. ❤

[@marshalleq]

You made me excited to see that even though I never used it! Only a friend had a C64, I was stuck with a ZX81 and Sinclair QL. I do love this archiving aspect, very important.

[@fredjones100]

The weirdest thing happened while watching this... at 35:38 when the "woof" noise played, an AH-64 opened fire at that exact moment on the weapons range ten miles away. This, despite it being a quarter to 11 at night on a Saturday and there having been no firing for an hour or so previously... I was very confused for a moment! The SID gets a lot of praise but it wasn't quite _that_ immersive...

[@RetroRecipes]

Ah I forgot to mention the Dolby Atmos 4D spacial audio feature of Microtext

[@rickr530]

I'm very happy for you that you were able to obtain your lost software. It's wonderful to be able to reconnect with the past.

[@rhysun]

I wrote a lot of text adventures in BASIC on our C64 back in the day. It was a very tedious process, and even more tedious for my brothers and friends, whom I forced to play my games. I would have loved Microtext. I think I have a vague memory of the existence of Microtext, but it may be a false memory. I'm at an age where most of my memories are probably false.

[@RetroRecipes]

Me too. I wish I'd kept them. One you had to explore secret tunnels under Stowe School. It was very atmospheric, or at least felt so then.

[@The-truth-is-valuable.]

Perry, beside the point: Are you still planning on doing some "visit the location" vids on Airwolf, etc.?

[@RetroRecipes]

Absolutely! These things can take a while but it's inching closer.

[@hadtopicausername]

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of subtitling Airwolf for TV (no one had the old Norwegian files, or the rights to them). The first seasons were as awesome as I remembered them, and the final season was every bit as dreadful :)

[@NozomuYume]

@@RetroRecipes Will this be coupled with a "Teslawolf" segment where you modify a Model Y into a supersonic helicopter?

[@bennysh]

I never had the c64 (my parents got me an Amstrad) but the memories of the joy in drawing lines and circles on the screen are quite similar..

[@adroharv5140]

I'd be handling the disk and manual with kid gloves if this was something this special. Thanks for preserving this

[@mdrake42]

The amount of software that was in use at thousands of locations in the 1980's would boggle the mind. 99% of them are not found today. Its a shame we didn't have a software museum registry service, in operation back then.

[@basfinnis]

That's a great find. Looks like a really cool language.

[@ZanyCat]

I love how you still have the light sucker from your other video on your Commodore 64!

[@MK-ge2mh]

Very interesting! The frames in Microtext are very similar to the block files of FORTH.

[@unmanaged]

Love this format please continue 🤩

[@RetroRecipes]

Yup plan to once a month 👍🕹

[@bluefunkt]

Absolutely fascinating, what a great find and very informative video!

[@ianatkin542]

John Barry’s theme from The Persuaders at 33:34. Hands up if you’re old enough to remember it.

[@plan7a]

A-ha! I was going to mention that it was this theme; glad to see I wasn't alone in recognizing this music!

[@SatumangoTheGreat]

@@ianatkin542 I don't remember the theme, but I am old enough to vaguely remember The Persuaders.

[@martinda7446]

Great music. Tony Curtis and Roger Moore. Tony, Danny Wilde, Ferrari - a Dino? And Roger, Sir Brett Sinclair, had an Aston Martin DBS, er, not the V8? I didn't look a thing up. So may have messed up, but don't think so - The opening was so memorable. Such great music in lots of the 60s/70s TV. Even us kids had the greatest music that ever blessed a TV speaker from Barry Gray. UFO, Joe90, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, etc. Man in A Suitcase, The Avengers was amazing music. The Saint too. Blimey I'm off on one...

[@SimonZerafa]

Might be a good idea to see if Crown Copyright still applies to Microtext and see if it can be released under an Open Government Licence 🙂🤷‍♂️

[@RetroRecipes]

Oh interesting. I wouldn't know where to start, but for now it's on the Internet Archive.

[@Photon3d]

Wow, back then as a kid I tried to write text adventures in basic. When I would have this frendly programming language, would be cool. I see myself playing with it like weeks long. Thank showing this!

[@johna8509]

What a great story... loved it. And Microtext seems like a pretty amazing system, even by today's standards.

[@Capt.Marco-Hawk-L.L.A.P]

Love to see what people come up with when people really push the programming language to the peak of what it will do, it's great that the software has now been saved big thumbs up Christian... This would of been great in the day if Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone of Fighting Fantasy wrote their game books for the c64

[@RetroRecipes]

Well said

[@FFrrEEddRRiiKK1]

So fun to watch. The enthusiasm and knowledge. 👍🔙

[@ASHdemoREEL]

super cool! LOVE your guys videos, a huge THANK YOU for all the work you do. Any chance there is a chat gpt for c64 basic or perhaps even assembler?

[@RetroRecipes]

Thanks! Yep we actually showed ChatGPT on The ЯRetro Show maybe 6 months ago ish.

[@toddtrann88]

Amazingly thorough video, thanks for all of that!

[@82andymac]

Does anyone remember a quiz on channel 4 teletext called bamboozle? This would be perfect for a c64 de-make. I think it had 20 general knowledge questions and had 4 answers per page, this was in the UK.

[@andykeys74]

@@82andymac wow, yes! With the slick presenter pictured on each screen!

[@joshuaheathcote2116]

Excellent report for 14 years old. Most 14 years old today probably couldn't spell one quarter of the words shown there. Whats going on with the justify though, you could fit a double decker bus in there.

[@RetroRecipes]

Explained later in the vid :)

[@OneSwitch]

Fascinating stuff. The brilliant NPL had an earlier programming language (I'm sure they had many) that seems a little bit related, PLUM (Programming Language for Users of M.A.V.I.S.). The Microprocessor Audio Visual Information System, aimed at Disabled users. That used a paged system of displaying screens of text/graphics. This one used Teletext style graphics.

[@TronixGuy93]

In 1986 I saw a rough "alpha" of the code at the local codeshop challenge. Since I had a handfull of tapes in my trapper keeper, I started to make a few copies. I remember using TT64 or FCIII. I almost got caught, but made it back home where I continued to tinker with it for years. It was unique because nobody had ever heard of it, at least amongst the 5 or so other people I copied from routinely back then. I wish I still had those copies. I mustve made dozens of copies over the next 6 months. I started to loose interest in qlink & c64 as I was starting to get heavy in to Nintendo porting at the time above c64.

[@cyberhawk99]

LOL! My wife and I was laughing so hard over the "sweating scene". Well done. :)

[@RetroRecipes]

🔥😅🔥

[@rnater7145]

She's a keeper!

[@IanM-id8or]

You got off lightly for that poem. Lady Fractic was being far more forgiving than you deserve. You need to write her a new poem, and create an animation using Microtext to accompany it

[@alancarr6314]

I used Microtext on the BBC for creating some interactive displays in a museum with a touch screen. The BBC version required a rom. In addition Microtext could also control lazerdisc. I think I may have some Micro text info etc

[@RetroRecipes]

Oh wonderful to find someone who actually used it (albeit the BBC version) back in the day!

[@TheSeasonedRunner-qn2cb]

What is this freaking amazing channel the algorithm has sent me to and why didn't I know about it years ago!

[@xredhead7135x]

I love the "press space to speed up" - I can either work /and/ update you, or just let me work and trust me.

[@CelticSaint]

I don't usually warm to KZbinrs. But I've warmed to you. By the way 'These are my poems I write them in crayon' is a nod to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

[@therealyogibear2k225]

I was slightly disappointed that PCB way wasn't sponsoring you this episode because, of course, PCB stands for Perifractic Cuddles Baby, Still, an amazing find, Chris. Just watched your old video when Lady Fractic was pregnant and she was reviewing the Nintendo Sewing machine. Great episode (as they all are.) Keep up the great work. The U.K misses you! (I know, I live there and I do!) Also, one quick question, I don't know when you left the land of the gods to go to some unknown country call América,, but I am sure you remember the Speccy. Anyway, when I first saw Minecraft I immediately thought of an onld Spectrum game that I used to play. Now, am i mis-remembering or do you remember it too? Obviously it wasn't called Minecraft but I am so positive the Speccy had something like it.

[@RetroRecipes]

Thanks! Hmm I don't remember what that could be sorry.

[@nettlesoup]

Are you thinking of Ant Attack maybe? Me and my big brother used to play that endlessly.

[@rick-deckard]

Thank you for preserving this treasure

[@pasixty6510]

In the 80s some of my classmates and me were crazy about everything programmable. Microtext would have been the next level for us. Unluckily we left school in 1986 and shortly after got our hands on bigger machines. So none of us ever experienced Microtext. I think, we would have given it a try, although we we were more into solving mathematical problems than in graphics or sound.

[@AdamKadmon-cg5qs]

Brilliant! Congrats on finally bringing this software back from the shadows.

[@janak132]

I remember Microtext being mentioned in an article in a Norwegian computer magazine back in the 80's. I'm a '78 model myself so this would have been in the later half of the 80's. I also do think it was in stock at my local computer store. Never having been a programmer myself I didn't purchase it. (Programming is counter to how my adhd works; I keep forgetting where I was going with what I were writing.)

[@JohnGladden-camokub]

Your experience closely mirrors my experience learning HyperCard for the Mac back in junior high. Sounds like MicroText and HyperCard are similar in structure.

[@Syngekhoomei]

Seeing so many people share their positive HyperCard experiences makes me wish Apple had kept it alive

[@lurkerrekrul]

Thank you for finding and preserving this piece of Commodore history. :)

[@DoctorOnkelap]

Love the contrast of an old programming language on old hardware explained by an AI on modern hardware!

[@JrgenFrderbergTvedt]

Pretty sure there was Microtext for the Amiga computer as well, but perhaps that was a different creator 🤔 Anyways this was an awesome to see and really cool program

[@metatechnologist]

I actually worked *hard* on this one!! I'm truly glad you found it and didn't end up bidding against me!! Edit His name was Robert Watson!

[@SimonClarkstone]

3:42 If you are covering up your house address, you should probably cover up that 2D barcode stick at the top, which has some of kind of address information in it.

[@SiAnon]

When you think about all the games we have today you still can't beat an old 80s text adventure where you had to imagine the scene yourself. Even had some really good ones on my ZX81 many many years ago.

[@JJFX-]

It doesn't take much to entertain a kid with an imagination and modern games are so over-stimulating it doesn't leave much room for it. Not to mention the simplicity of these old systems inspires people to to tinker around with it. Really makes you think about the path we're on.

[@imacmill]

Shout-out to _Action!_ programming language on my Atari 400. Back then, I was in my late teens, and I used Action! to make my first cash as a programmer. I was working as a short-order cook in a resort town, and the restaurant owner asked me to write a program to organize his inventory system. I did so, and in return, I got a free month's rent in the staff housing house he also owned. I was thrilled.

[@mdrake42]

Microtext appears very similar to how many late 80's / early 90's 4GL's worked for UI control with the frames. Dataflex was somewhat similar, where not only frames for full screen were defined, but also popup frames etc. it was cross platform, so your compilation program files would often work on different platforms simply with different runtimes. Some did need a recompile with code to handle any OS calls made in code, but the languagee itself was fully portable. You would use underscore characters to denote fields, and control it from code later after all the frames were defined. Obviously micro text didn't handle database interaction, but it seems the design is similar to micro text. I love seeing those old languages. its interesting to see the language progression over the years.

[@pikuma]

Very cool! Thanks for the video.

[@killianlobato27]

Cool! I worked at the NPL as a undergraduate student for a year back in 2001/2!

[@rolandrick]

Wow, that explanation at 16:01 sounds like Microtext is kinda primordial A.I. 🤩