Ode to the Commodore 64

My first hands-on encounter with a computer was in 1987 when I got a pre-owned Commodore 64. The 8-bit C64 was basically a fat keyboard that looked like a breadbox. It featured 64 kilobytes of RAM with sound/graphics performance that was superior to most IBM-compatible computers of that time and rivaled only the Atari 8-bit family computers. The C-64 had a built-in RF modulator and thus you have an option of plugging it into a television set (instead of a specialized monitor-- which was quite expensive at that time). I plugged my C-64 to an old black-and-white Philips TV (The first television I bought. I bought it in 1980 for P999.00 and came with a free clothes iron).

The C64, being pre-owned (-- there's that scary word again), didn't come with a User Manual so I had to figure out by myself most of what the C64 was all about. The C64 did come with a Datassette-- a tape cassette recorder/player with which you could save and upload programs. Like most home computers from the late 1970s and 1980s, the C64 came with an on-board (ROM) version of a stripped down/simplified version of the BASIC programming language (-- yup, that's Bill Gate's Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. Jack Tramiel of Commodore International-- maker of C64 was said to have paid US$25,000 to Bill Gates for a perpetual license for it and thus did not see the need to acknowledge Bill Gates, but typing "WAIT 6502, 1" would invoke an embedded easter egg that would make "Microsoft!" appear on the monitor screen). There was no so-called "operating system" then; the kernel was accessed via BASIC commands. The interface, unlike what is usually expected from computers nowadays, is an austere and unwelcoming blank screen with a blinking cursor on the upper left of the screen. I spent a lot of late nights punishing my poor eyes as I stared on the contrasty B&W television screen. Unlike nowadays where everything could be downloaded from the internet, documentation then was hard to come by. It took some work to figure out the C64 Basic Language and for a long time all I could do with it was to use it as a calculator and as a synthesizer.

It was by mere chance that I came upon a sixth copy of a photocopy of a copy of the User Manual (-- which, praise God, included a glossary of BASIC commands and a short tutorial on BASIC programming) in an obscure shop in Greenhills. And after much anguish, I came out with my first program-- a crude clone of the virtual ping pong game. From the same shop I got the MIKRO assembler-- which curiously came in a Game Boy-like cartridge (-- there is a slot behind the C64 console that accepts cartridges), and which integrated seamlessly with the standard BASIC screen editor. I also explored third party BASIC compilers. Then I discovered the SEUCK (Shoot'Em-Up Construction Kit) development suite which allowed wannabe-programmers like me to create original, professional-looking shooting games.

The C64 introduced me to Unix (-- initially via the Unix-like LUnix), and encouraged me to explore scripting via Python (-- and later AppleScript) and object programming via SmallTalk-80 (via its quirky dialect, Squeak), to look and think beyond the GUI that present day operating systems have forced down our throats-- and to confront the CLI. It taught me perseverance, patience, to think logically and not to trust what I see.

Gēmu Otaku San

Gunpei Yokoi (横井 軍平) is said to have hit upon the idea of the Game & Watch when, while traveling on a train, he saw a bored businessman pressing the buttons of a calculator to kill time. The Game & Watch triggered the evolution of mobile gaming and it wasn't just to "kill time" anymore, it had become a lifestyle. The Game & Watch also led to the mass production of Chinese bootlegged game consoles and culminated, in the 1980s, with the Brick Game craze when just about everybody lugged a Chinese bootlegged version of the game console; and for a time offered Filipinos a virtual respite from their miserable lives.

Mobile gaming was so-so and mainly served as virtual baby-sitters for dorky kids until the Portable Sony PlayStation (PSP) came around. Maybe more as a marketing strategy rather than anything else, game developers began to target serious gamers by porting the most popular PC and PS games into the PSP. This allowed hard core gamers (-- as against those who are casual gamers who only played simple arcade style games to "kill time") to be Solid Snake (-- and Gabe Logan in the Syphon Filter series; and Kratos in God of War; and Sam Fisher in the Splinter Cell series) even when they're on the road. I'm a Metal Gear Solid (MGS) fan and I've beaten every MGS reiteration on the Sony PlayStation (PS1/2) and now the PSP had snipped the umbilical cord that attached me to the PS. Although I was a bit disappointed with the first MGS on the PSP: Metal Gear ACID (Active Command Intelligence Duel), because the action-based game I enjoyed so much in the PS had morphed into a card trading/collectible turn-based system where you either draw a card or play your hand to control the character’s movements and actions, I still played it because I haven't played MGS for maybe three years and I missed it. Although Metal Gear ACID is not canonical, it retained the original MGS look. In the game, Solid Snake must retrieve the "Pythagoras" from the Lobito Physics & Research Laboratory. In the end, he will face the latest model of Metal Gear-- the Metal Gear KODOQUE.

The sequel, Metal Gear Acid 2, the protagonist is a clone created from tissue samples of Solid Snake. The game had become totally unrecognizable, gone are the gray and green theme of the original MGS series, instead the in-game models are rendered in stylized anime graphical style that looked more like colorful, clearly-inked concept art. It was disappointing.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops is the first canonical outing of the MGS series for the PSP. It again featured Naked Snake (introduced in MGS1 as "Big Boss", Solid Snake's C.O. in FOXHOUND and who is later revealed as the source of Solid Snake's cloned genes and that of Liquid Snake as well; and who was also Solid Snake's main antagonist in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake). It also went back to the series' action-based game play from previous PS1/2 console iterations, but instead of Naked Snake doing solo missions, the game has a squad-based approach, with Naked Snake having to recruit allies and form a team. It is set in 1970 in South America, six years after the events of MGS3:Snake Eater. It is nowhere near previous PS reiterations, but it was way closer than the ACID series.

Snake has yet again returned in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The first MGS title for the PSP directed by the series' creator Hideo Kojima. I look forward to beating it; as eagerly as I look forward to finally getting a PS3 so I could beat “Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots”--which features an aged Snake clone (The only other MGS game I haven't yet beaten).

In the meantime, I alternate between "New Super Mario Brothers" on my Nintendo DSi and "Splinter Cell: Essentials" on my PSP2000 (and my trusty Sony Reader PRS300:-- repository of my "walk-throughs" and e-books).

A well meaning friend once told me to get a life.

"Hey, I don’t need a life....

... I’m a gamer. I have lots of lives!"

Ang Huling Tikbalang

Chapter 5: Omas

"Kung iyong ipahihintulot ay gagamitin kong kasangkapan ang bertud upang ako ay magkaroon muli ng pag-asa na makabalik sa aking mundo”

I willed myself to think. Within me is some kind of Bezoar stone-- a stony concretion that have been embedded, cultured and somehow passed down through generations in our bloodline; that this Mutya or Hiyas or Bertud-- or whatever it is called, is now “ripe” for harvest; and to "harvest" it is to surgically extract it?

He desperately needs it for something really important; but, he’s not forcing it. He could have ripped me apart to get it. But, somehow he didn't. It seems he can’t force it. That’s it. I have to “give” it to him-- or, at least, to acquiesce in to a surgery.

Folklore has it that deception and lies are second nature to his ilk. Deception is the game we are playing right now, but how much is deception and how much is the truth I could not sieve through. Everybody lies. It is not so much as telling an absolute lie as not telling all that is true. Truth is that which is true or in accordance with facts or reality, but sometimes the facts or reality could be unacceptable or incredible to us and for which reason even the truth is rejected and that which is untrue is embraced. The truth, I guess, is what we would like to believe in. Facts and reality are solid rocks we could anchor unto and walk upon, but we need faith to fly.

Humans are generally assumed to tell the truth in their dealings with other humans, but lie at every opportunity that would benefit them. His kind generally lie; does that mean he tells the truth for the same reasons and motivations we tell lies?

I need more time and a calmer place to think. But, all things considered what do I have to loose? Other than a few drops of blood and a wound that would eventually heal-- not much; in fact, nothing.

And so, I let him do what he had to do.

He told me to take the contents of one of the vial first, which I did. I felt slightly lightheaded. Then he deftly made a small incision on my chest. I felt pain. I felt blood oozing from the wound. It felt warm. But, it was over in minutes. Something like a sneer quivered over his gaunt features as he held up the bertud. He held it up in the air like a priest consecrating the Eucharist. Then he unceremoniously took one vial from my hand and poured its entire contents over the wound. It felt cold on my skin and in a minute a gel had formed over the wound. He said I should drink the contents of the last vial only if I experience pain.

"Para sa iyo..."

He tossed over what looked like a cylinder made of interlocking gold mesh; and as with most of his gadgets, it is studded with precious stones. It looks like a small telescope. I could grasp it in my hand with just a little of it sticking out of my fist. I looked into the eye hole. It’s a kaleidoscope of some kind. I rotated the tube and the rubies, diamonds and other precious stones within the tube interacted with the mirror-like surface inside the tube. It seems to do the reverse of what a kaleidoscope normally does. Instead of seeing changing patterns when the tube is rotated; it puts the Tikbalang in sharp focus. Through the eye hole I could clearly see the Tikbalang-- even with his camouflage turned on.

Then he tossed over a mechanical contraption with a jumble of miniature dials, gears, knobs and levers. It's face is a cross between a bejeweled clock and an intricately designed compass but with several dials. It looks like some kind of a multifunctional steam punk analog computer cum navigational instrument on steroids. The device looks remarkable for its level of miniaturization and for the complexity of its parts and is comparable to that of 19th-century clocks. It has more than 30 gears with teeth formed through equilateral triangles. The Tikbalang flicked a hidden lever and it revealed a dial resembling a clock with a round dial with symbols rather than numbers on them, it has only one hand and it's pointing directly at him. An analog GPS? Cool.

“Kakailanganin mo mga iyan kung nanaisin mo muli akong makaharap. Hindi na kita muli matutunton ngayong natanggal na ang bertud sa iyong dibdib.”

I stuffed them into my pocket with the Zippo.

It seems that the thing inside me is also some kind of beacon that he tunes into to track me. That is how he locates me. Without it, he cannot track me. And now he would want me to be able to track him?

Suddenly, he cocked his head slightly to one side as if he had heard a muffled or a distant sound-- a sound not unlike that made by a intruder in the night as he stumbled on furniture, and he is now straining to confirm it.

What happened next was a blur: he strapped a leather and metal contraption around my waist and torso; then he connected what looked like a cable unto it. He grasped me by my shoulders, looked into my eyes and said:

“Ako si Omas. Sa muling pagkikita.”

Then, without warning, he pushed me out of the door. Instinctively, I grabbed on to him-- I caught a leather pouch that hang on a string around his neck. A blast of white powder sprayed forth onto his face as I my hold tightened on the leather pouch. Anguish and confusion flooded his face.

The sight, smell and sound of the night enveloped me once more. I felt a rush of air. I could see the ground rushing up to me.

I'm falling...


itutuloy...

Death of the Tiger Moth

I stopped flying RC planes sometime in 2004. I wasn't exactly sure why-- considering that flying RC planes is one weekend activity I truly enjoy more than anything else. The Tiger Moth had since been a wall adornment.

For six years the Tiger Moth hanged on my wall. In February 2010, I took it down and noticed a crack on the Tiger Moth's cowl. Somehow I felt compelled to repair it though I was not sure what I'd do after fixing it. Stripping the Tiger Moth of its landing gear and wings brought back good memories. I gutted the fuselage of its electronic innards; filled in the crack with epoxy; and touched up the yellow paint.

The Tiger Moth's lower wing had been broken three times in three crashes and had been glued together from what was left of the original and later from a discarded half of a wing I've salvaged from the garage of a fellow RC flier; the upper wing, on the other hand, had been broken two times. The nose had survived two major surgeries: one involving the replacement of the motor mount and the other from a crack brought about by a hard landing. The Tiger Moth is now a Frankenstein monster with lots of character.

After the nose job, I oiled up the motor and fired it up. Interestingly, it whirred to life. Smelling the hot oil and hearing the little geared motor gave me a thrill. Can it fly still? Something stirred within me.

I could feel the thrill of the build and the joy of flight sucking me in again-- now I felt even more compelled to see the Tiger Moth fly again. That's the thing with this hobby. You could scratch build anything that resembles a plane, balance it, trim it and make it fly. The fun to fly your plane a thousand feet away then make it come back and land it on your feet is as fun as the challenge of building (or re-building) a monstrosity from scraps that defy the forces of gravity. Or, building and flying an accurate scaled replica of your dream plane.

Early the next morning I went to a vacant lot; plugged in the Li-Poly battery pack onto the Tiger Moth and fired up my old trusty TX (-- a Hitec Flash 5 System X at FM 72.250/channel 23). I gave the motor a full throttle. Nothing. I checked. Fired it up again. Still nothing. I checked it one last time. Nothing. The motor had died*. It was a noble death for the Tiger Moth-- it died on a flying field.

I hanged the Tiger Moth on my wall again and looked at it as I sip on a cup of coffee. It really looked good on the wall.


Later in the evening, I felt an itch coming on...


* The kit motor for the Tiger Moth is no longer available; upgrading to a "brush-less" motor equivalent would entail nose "foam surgery" to replace the motor mount and an upgrade of the ESC as well.