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Before I can tell my complete Commodore 64 story and how I got into it we need to start at the very beginning. Since there isn't much photos available we have to use my old school stuff, like written stories, notes, scribblings and most importantly: Random drawings due to extreme boredom during school days.
Really. I was so bored, almost every story I wrote was something frustrating about school. During boring classes I much more preferred thinking creatively about inventions and computer related stuff.
Much to my annoyance of teachers apparently. HAHA! Well, I have a good job today in computer related stuff, and not to mention what I have accomplished on my free time, so up yours for trying to "control" and "steer" my mind and time. FAILED you did. Immensely!
Naturally things are mostly in Norwegian, as I'm 100% pure Norwegian. I'll translate bits 'n' pieces where I see the need for in English for you :-)
It should also be mentioned that it covers the years from 1987 to 1990, which is from 7th grade to 9th grade, and finally 1989-1990 which was my attempt at High-School within the field of Electronics and Mathematics.
Only one problem: Mathematics has no meaning for me, it's boring and most of the stuff totally useless, so I failed on the exam and really glad I did because it forced me into starting working and getting out in the "field" doing physical stuff with my hands as this is what I like to do.
You just have to find your place in space, and that rhymes, so it has to be good.
Anyway, below are some amusing stories and illustrations I could dig up, that proves my very early introduction and fascination of video and computers, especially Commodore machines!
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A random boring page of mathmatics turned into a nice drawing of Coca Cola can and bottle with 3D simulated shadows, now that's more fun to do than to scribble "x=y+4/34(7*6)%23" and that kind of useless crap.
You can tell it's from the 80's as the form of the glass bottle is classic design!
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Random school-daze boring hours and what appears to be the early designs of our demo and tool group "REDLINE".
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My own sprite sheet on paper, created in 1989 for a Commodore 64 game I planned in the style of Operation Wolf. Actually it was a proof to show a friend of mine (Kjell Inge) that we could turn paper drawings into real animated sprites on the C64.
The sprite sheet itself came from my first real programming book for C64 which was called "Step-by-step Programming for the Commodore 64 by Phil Cornes".
I had the Norwegian version which was called "Commodore 64 Programmering Trinn-for-Trinn".
It has been noted that this particular book is the only source that led me to start programming, and during late August 2014 I managed to buy this book second-hand here in Norway, in Norwegian language. That was a massive kick-ass experience!
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It never got finished and if there existed any code it is lost forever (unless I can managed to dig it up again). Naturally these drawings were created during school hours, what else do you expect?
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This is how it would look like if it was on a real C64 screen in multicolor sprite version on a white background POKE 53281,1.
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A formal humoristic letter we did in the school days of 1991. It shows my immense sarcastic and really ironic sense. It's written in Norwegian language naturally. You can tell I'm inspired by No.5 from the C64 game (and movie) Short Circuit as the main robot character was called "Johnny Five" (or as Johnny number 5).
I signed my name as "Stein Eikesdal, Nr. 5"
Hahaha. Bet the teacher didn't see that one snuck in there!
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The cover from a school notebook covered with signs of boredom during school hours. It features some shading done with pencil that looks like Raster Line effect very known on C64.
In addition we can see some PC DOS .bat file reference as well as a compression tests for Amiga crunchers.
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Yet another school book cover filled with old-school blocky logo's such as MTV (Music Television) and Amiga AMOS / AMOS 3D programming language, as well as a NRK (Norwegian TV-Channel) which is "=" as drit (shit). Haha. In addition there are some references to Star Wars in the form of R2-D2 language. A bloody hell mix of cool 80's stuff indeed.
A small rant of what happen to MTV: They used to be super cool in the 80's, then in the 90's they turned to shitty rap music filled with what is known today a trash tv in the style of Big Brother and real life tv-series of grey-brain youths trying to be like the next A4 standard guy mixed with EMO-teens that needs to be punched 100 times in their face before they wake up. After the 90's nobody cares about MTV. It's a brilliant diamond of tv entertainment turned into dust. Even diamonds can be crushed, as the producers of MTV clearly shows today. There isn't even a regular music video on it anymore, but what do I know, I stopped watching them like 15 years or more ago, just because of these factors I mentioned.
I wish someday they will go back to the start of MTV and re-send everything as it appeared back then day-by-day, every frame and second preserved, so old-schoolers like me can get a glimpse of the moments I missed. Well, apart from the lack of Music Video's played on MTV in the 90's, the Beavis and Butthead episodes were incredibly entertaining and amusing. They actually managed to take my own words of my own mouth when they commented certain music video's. Salute for that!
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Back side of the notebook cover from school got covered with probably a Simpsons style version of my self saying "OKEY!" ("Greit!" in Norwegian language). It means, "yeah, the school is so much fun. OKEY. I'm going home to play with my Amiga instead!".
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An awesome notebook cover again with a very nice handrawn MTV logo with light source shading, as well as a 3D bevel Amiga box logo, a Norwegian football match play listing (HUB, BUH...), and something that appears to be a design for a demo or music demo presentation I was trying to create, I can see the word "Stein's Hyperbox". A small REDLINE logo can also be seen here, all very Amiga oriented and most likely from 1990-1991.
Actually, I think the drawing eventually turned out to become my first Amiga Music Disk Compilation called "TechnoFX Volume 1 by FX - Amiga Music Disk" released 1993.
Or it could be my fasciation regarding one of the first music disk booted on Amiga ever, called "The Micro Mix Demo by Radical Systems".
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A random page in my Electronics and Mathematics notebook gets splattered with a bloody REDLINE logo. Yeah, that make much more sense than that boring school shit.
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A seamlessly innocent scribble of a Electronics Measuring device (all serious), but as always, I can't keep my boredom out of this page. Look closely at the "Operator" guy, he is smoking and even got a small rectangle where his head was zoomed up to show some kind of pixels or even just dust.
I guess I was missing working with Deluxe Paint on Amiga and wanted to zoom it up....only on physical paper instead!
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I have some very faint memory of this page. It was probably created in 1987-1988. If I remember correctly I draw the road from the main road and to our home. I was planning to make a Commodore 64 game in BASIC where a guy (me) would walk along the path and various hazards would occur, probably inspired by real-life events, haha!
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Naturally this entire two drawings were drawn during school hours.
Much like that mountain game on C64 called "Spike's Peak". Awesome game. The walking sound when he walks is so nifty, like plip-clok-pop-blip. You can see that in the next picture.
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C64 game called "Spike's Peak". It's most likely where I got my first idea to draw / pre-design my first ever C64 game as shown above...it never happend. haha
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This drawing (done during school hours of course) shows my invention fetish some years before I even owned anything in this world regarding electronic equipment or computer and video game consoles.
This is most likely from 1985-1986 and it shows how to make your own camera or projector. I was about 11-12 years at the time. Now, that's pretty cool!
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This drawing from my school book is most likely from 1985 and it shows a reference to Amstrad "Kung-Fu Master", Atari 2600 "Tanks" and a Commodore 64. I know this, because in 1984 or 1983, I was introduced to the Video Game System called Atari 2600 along with their cartridge games of "Tanks", "Ping Pong" and "Asteroids" through my sister Bente.
After that incredible expierence, I was introduced to my cousin Trond's (and his father Tor) to a unknown model of Amstrad with monochrome yellow/brown color. They had several games, but one stood out, and that was "Kung-Fu Master". After that, my interrest for computers and especially Commodore 64 ignited. That is why the C64 was drawn in there as a "wish I had it" event which eventually some years later turned out to become reality. You can even see the original Atari 2600 and the authentic equipment which I have preserved safely in my house below!
An amazing piece of history digging behind that drawing. Take note that in 2008-2010 I actually purchased the Asteroids and Kung-Fu Master on cartridges just because this moment of handdrawing had etched itself into my memory forever. You just have to listen to your inner voice and get those items in order to get peace in ones mind :-)
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These pages in the following list below are stories we were forced to write in school classes from 3rd to 6th grade (I believe). They are all in Norwegian language in a very bad handwriting style. I hated school and I hated handwriting, still do today.
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Anyway, these stories shows that my life consisted of VHS video's, SCI-FI, robots, technology, horror, splatter and action movies including computers, all TOTALLY ignored and supressed by the teachers!
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If they knew this back then, they would put me in a freaking X-MEN school for fuck's sake, due to my immense clarity, awareness, talents and innovative mind that I have become today (proof is all around on my websites).
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So, what did they do instead? They kind of told me they didn't understand it, that I was imagining things and that my material was way off of what they expected. Of course, they live in this A4 world where everything is like the next guy next to them. Totally unaware and incompentent teachers I must say.
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I was angry back then, and I'm still angry of what they limit me to do and achieve in school.
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What were a kid like me to do? They told us to write whatever was on our mind and write freely. Still they supress it, because they expected nothing like this at all.
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I'm happy that today teachers are more aware of this, and naturally I can't really blame the 80's teachers as we were all living out on the Viking land and mountain fields of gorgeous Norway. Oh, well. I managed to turn out completely fine on my own, anyway!
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If you can understand Norwegian, I'm sure you are already laughing your heads off...keep reading until the end, enough said!
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