I credit the C64 that I had as a kid and magazines like COMPUTE! / Compute's Gazette for my career in software. I taught myself 6510 assembler and started writing some simple demo-like things on that machine, and got hooked on the feeling of creativity that it unlocked.
Funnily enough I'd been thinking that it's about time I tried (again, as an older person) to write a game or a demo for the old 64.
It's absolutely amazing what people are able to get out of these 40+ year old machines now, and I love that there's still a vibrant scene.
In addition to the tools specified in the article, I would also recommend "retro debugger", it's an amazing tool for single stepping through code and seeing what's going on, even letting you follow the raster down the screen to see what code is executing on given scaliness.
Also, there are some really good youtubers out there helping to demystify how various games/demos work.. Martin Piper comes to mind as a good example.
Funnily enough I'd been thinking that it's about time I tried (again, as an older person) to write a game or a demo for the old 64.
It's absolutely amazing what people are able to get out of these 40+ year old machines now, and I love that there's still a vibrant scene.
In addition to the tools specified in the article, I would also recommend "retro debugger", it's an amazing tool for single stepping through code and seeing what's going on, even letting you follow the raster down the screen to see what code is executing on given scaliness.
Also, there are some really good youtubers out there helping to demystify how various games/demos work.. Martin Piper comes to mind as a good example.