Next Without For

Randy and Earl share the results of our listener survey on retro computer development, favorite languages, and more!

• News/Personal Projects
• AtariAge Forum post on CubeDot for Atari 8-bit systems - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/387935-cubedot-fuji-do-fuji-poo-dr-love-and-total-recall/
• 15th Edition of BASIC 10 Liner Contest for 8-bit computers has started. The Deadline for submissions is Sunday, March 22, 2026 - https://t.co/eeno5J8fak
• ABBUC (Atari Bit-Byter User Club) Game and Application Software Contests:
• ABBUC - https://www.abbuc.de ABBUC Application Software Competition 2026 - deadline for submissions: March 1, 2026 - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/387745-abbuc-application-software-competition-2026-has-been-launched/ ABBUC Game Software Competition 2026 - deadline for submissions July 31, 2026 - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/387744-abbuc-software-competition-2026-has-been-launched/
• Show Topic
• No links related to the main topic. Thanks to everyone who submitted responses for our survey - this show wouldn't have been possible without you!
• Other Links
• Join the NWF crew on Discord! https://discord.gg/XAWv7PAFH4

Randy and Earl discuss the various options for modern programming on Atari 8-bit systems, including the Atari 400/800 and their successors!

• News/Personal Projects
• RP2040 Geek - https://www.waveshare.com/rp2040-geek.htm
• z80pack on Waveshare RP2040-GEEK/RP2350-GEEK - https://github.com/udo-munk/RP2xxx-GEEK-80
• Comp.Sys.Sinclair Crap Games Competition - https://csscgc2025.blogspot.com/
• Article about the Crap Games competition on The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/jul/06/people-competing-to-make-the-worst-computer-games-possible
• Show Topic
• Action! programming language - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Action
• FastBASIC programming language - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=FastBasic
• ATR disk image for the Atari 8-bit computers and binaries of the cross-compiler for different platforms for FastBASIC - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/378307-fastbasic-47-is-here/
• Visual Studio Code extension for FastBASIC - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=EricCarr.fastbasic-debugger
• FastBASIC manual - https://github.com/dmsc/fastbasic/blob/master/manual.md
• Getting Altirra Running on macOS Sequoia 15.x (Andy Diller) - https://www.atariorbit.org/2024/12/26/altirra-arm-and-sequoia/
• MADS Assembler and MADS Pascal - https://mads.atari8.info/
• WUDSN IDE - https://www.wudsn.com/index.php/ide
• YouTube WUDSN tutorial with MADS and Atari 8-bit - https://www.wudsn.com/index.php/productions-atari800/tutorials
• Interview with Peter Dell, author of WUDSN - https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-27-the-atari-8-bit-podcast-peter-dell-wudsn
• General information on 6502 - http://6502.org/
• Various online books for Atari, including De Re Atari and others - https://www.atariarchives.org/
• AtariAge 8-bit programming forum - https://forums.atariage.com/forum/51-atari-5200-8-bit-programming/
• Lots of great info on Atari 8-bit, including reference cards - https://gury.atari8.info/index.php
• ca65 assembler - https://cc65.github.io/doc/ca65.html
• Virtual 6502 Assembler - https://www.masswerk.at/6502/assembler.html
• Milfork Assembler - https://github.com/KarolS/millfork
• Mac/65 Assembler - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Mac65
• Atasm Assembler - https://github.com/CycoPH/atasm
• Xasm Assembler - https://github.com/pfusik/xasm
• Atmas-II Cross Assembler - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Atmas%20II
• Notepad++ - https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
• UltraEdit - https://www.ultraedit.com/
• 8BitWorkshop online IDE - https://8bitworkshop.com/
• TurboBASIC XL - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Turbo-BASIC%20XL
• BASIC parser for TurboBASIC XL - https://github.com/dmsc/tbxl-parser
• Other Links
• Join the NWF crew on Discord! https://discord.gg/XAWv7PAFH4

Randy and Earl cover the history of the BASIC programming language, including its origins, and the wide adoption of BASIC on 8-bit systems in the 1970s and 1980s!

• News
• BASIC 10-Liner Contest - https://gkanold.wixsite.com/homeputerium
• Show Topic
  • https://www.dartmouth.edu/basicfifty/
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxo9LVIgOiI
• "Fire in the Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer" by Michael Swaine, Paul Freiberger (associate link) - https://amzn.to/3EzdPCp
• Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
• "Sophistication & Simplicity: The Life and Times of the Apple II Computer" by Stephen Weyrich - https://amzn.to/4hFGkNy
• "iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It" by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith - https://amzn.to/42ZhBzc
• "Commodore: A Company on the Edge" by Brian Bagnall - https://amzn.to/4gHvfdu
• "101 Basic Computer Games" by David H. Ahl - https://amzn.to/3QitZTg or "101 BASIC Computer Games: Microcomputer Edition" - https://amzn.to/4hABxwT
• "BASIC Session":The ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages (HOPL) conference In Los Angeles, CA, June 1-3, 1978 - https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/800025.1198404
• 2006 Salon Article - Why Johnny Can't Code - https://www.salon.com/2006/09/14/basic_2/
• Microsoft Small Basic - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Small_Basic
• Basic-256 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic-256
• Quite Basic - https://www.quitebasic.com/
• Dartmouth held a 50th anniversary celebration for BASIC on May 1st, 2014. A short documentary film was produced for the event:
• Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal By Harry McCraken in Time magazine - http://time.com/69316/basic/
• Other Links
• Join the NWF crew on Discord! https://discord.gg/XAWv7PAFH4

Randy and Earl talk about ugBASIC, and Randy interviews the author/creator!

• News
  • BASIC 60th birthday!: https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/basic_60th_birthday_releases/
  • AMSCII-Compo: https://logiker.com/AMSCII-Compo (Amstrad CPC AMSCII)
• Show Topic
  • ugBASIC main site: https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/
  • ugBASIC IDE: https://spotlessmind1975.itch.io/ugbasic-ide
  • ugBASIC keywords: https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/#collapseKeywords
  • ugBASIC examples: https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/target/to8#examples
  • ugBASIC forum: https://forum.ugbasic.iwashere.eu/viewforum.php?f=8
  • Soko64 - fun puzzle game written in ugBASIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwuryS6pvKU
• Other Links
  • 101 BASIC PROGRAMS FOR MICROCOMPUTERS: https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/
  • Floppy Days Podcast: https://www.floppydays.com
  • ANTIC Podcast: https://www.ataripodcast.com

Randy and Earl explore programming of the CHIP-8 family of interpreters!

• News!
• No news this episode!
• Z88DK, C compiler and assembler for 8080, Z80, 8085
• https://z88dk.org/site/
• CHIP-8
• Wikipedia:
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIP-8
• Joseph Weisbecker:
• http://www.cosmacelf.com/history/joseph-weisbecker.html
• Joseph Weisbecker's introduction of CHIP-8 in Byte Magazine, Dec. 1978
• https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1978-12/page/n109/mode/1up
• CHIP-8 Technical Reference:
• https://github.com/mattmikolay/chip-8/wiki/CHIP%E2%80%908-Technical-Reference
• IDE for creating CHIP-8 programs:
• https://johnearnest.github.io/Octo/
• Writing programs for CHIP-8 using Octo IDE:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-G6Dm5AX3I
• Awesome CHIP-8 - list of CHIP-8 resources
• https://chip-8.github.io/links/
• CHIP-8 program archive
• https://github.com/JohnEarnest/chip8Archive
• CHIP-8 Computer
• https://chip-8.com/
• CHIP-8 Extensions and Compatibility
• https://chip-8.github.io/extensions/#a-note-on-modern-implementations
• EZ-Pack: Convert large images into CHIP-8 Sprites
• https://beyondloom.com/tools/ezpack.html
• EZ-Writer: Compose text strings to fit a CHIP-8 or SCHIP display, with a variety of fonts
• https://beyondloom.com/tools/ezwriter.html
• EZ-Bake Animator: Pre-generate Octo-compatible graphics programmatically
• https://beyondloom.com/tools/ezbake.html
• C-Octo: Develop Octo programs from the command line
• https://github.com/JohnEarnest/c-octo
• For MacOS and Windows - Dorito
• https://github.com/lesharris/dorito?tab=readme-ov-file
• For Windows - CHIP-8 emulator on Github
• https://github.com/massung/CHIP-8/releases
• Octojam
• https://itch.io/jam/octojam-10
• https://beyondloom.com/blog/octojam.html
• Emma 02 emulator
• https://www.emma02.hobby-site.com/index.html
• Can use RCA tab, COSMIC VIP option, for original CHIP-8 emulation

This is the 2nd episode in an update on what it's like to build a dream home in Mexico and my experiences so far.

If you have been listening to me for any length of time, you know that I’m currently developing a large property in central Mexico.  Well in this episode I’ll do an update on where I’m at, what I’ve learned so far in the process and the trials & tribulations of doing what most people would fear to do, but to keep an eye on the epic results you can achieve if you are careful.

After selling our rental real estate, we were left with few forms of smart income.  I began searching for alternatives.  I realized that for the next few years, much of my time would be spent outside of the USA, so I needed something that didn’t require me to be physically present to manage them, but paid me a tidy sum each month.  This led me to dividend stocks, and so far I am very happy with the results.

In 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis in the US, I was heavily exposed to real estate debt due to some deals that had been done in the prior year, and ran the risk of being entirely wiped out. If it wasn’t for having assets in another country and sold them to fund the underwater position I found myself in, I would never have survived it. In this episode, I want to fast forward to 2023 and explain why you MUST have an international diversification strategy for your assets if you wish to mitigate the risk of an adverse event in your country.

Central planners are at it again. The fear of a ‘housing crisis’ has empowered government to create government housing by proxy. By using building regulations as a weapon, AZ government has created a trajectory towards 1970s style ghetto housing reminiscent of the low income apartments of Brooklyn. This model seems to be a reflection of the California model, which didn’t work either. Is this what we want in America and how is this happening?