commodore 64

• Second Fridays: How People Connect, Presentation of Commodore 64 BASIC programming, Piotr Marecki and Erik Stayton, and event at the MIT Museum, February 14, 2014

From January 19, 2016 through April 21, 2016, The Stedman Gallery will host an electronic literature exhibition entitled “Electronic Literature: A Matter of Bits.” The exhibition is sponsored by the Digital Studies Center and was curated by Director Jim Brown and Associate Director Robert Emmons.

Since at least the 1970s, authors, artists, and computer programmers have been exploring the literary potentials of digital computing. The Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) describes electronic literature as having “important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer.” Much of this work might strike us as ephemeral or lacking the same physical materiality as print-based literature, but writers, artists, scholars, and critics have continued to question this commonplace. Silicon and bits are no doubt different from print and ink, but the “Matter of Bits” exhibition will demonstrate how electronic literature relies on any number of materialities for its existence. Featuring work from around the world, this exhibition displays works of electronic literature on a range of devices, from a Commodore 64 to a Microsoft Kinect to an Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset.

In addition to raising these important questions about materiality, this exhibition will also host the launch of the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 3. Published by the Electronic Literature Organization, this collection gathers together historical and contemporary works of electronic literature from around the world. “A Matter of Bits” will feature a number of works from this brand new collection, works that push us to consider how electronic literature helps us think differently about literature in the digital world.

(Source: https://digitalstudies.camden.rutgers.edu/electronic-literature-a-matte…)

Platforms have been around for decades, right under our video games and digital art. Those studying new media are now starting to dig down to the level of code to learn more about how computers are used in culture, but there have been few attempts to go deeper, to the metal — to look at the base hardware and software systems that are the foundation of computational expression.

Platform Studies investigates the relationships between the hardware and software design of computing systems and the creative works produced on those systems.

By choosing a platform, new media creators simplify development and delivery in many ways. Their work is supported and constrained by what this platform can do. Sometimes the influence is obvious: A monochrome platform can't display color, a video game console without a keyboard can't accept typed input. But there are more subtle ways that platforms interact with creative production, due to the idioms of programming that a language supports or due to transistor-level decisions made in video and audio hardware. In addition to allowing certain developments and precluding others, platforms also encourage and discourage different sorts of expressive new media work. In drawing raster graphics, the difference between setting up one scan line at a time, having video RAM with support for tiles and sprites, or having a native 3D model can end up being much more important than resolution or color depth.

Particular platform studies may emphasize different technical or cultural aspects and draw on different critical and theoretical approaches, but they will be united in being technically rigorous and in deeply investigating computing systems in their interactions with creativity, expression, and culture. While being addressed to readers without a computer science background, the Platform Studies books will drive deep into the workings of computers, opening an exciting new level for scholars, students, and general readers.

(Source: http://platformstudies.com/)

This book takes a single line of code—the extremely concise BASIC program for the Commodore 64 inscribed in the title—and uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture. The authors of this collaboratively written book treat code not as merely functional but as a text—in the case of 10 PRINT, a text that appeared in many different printed sources—that yields a story about its making, its purpose, its assumptions, and more. They consider randomness and regularity in computing and art, the maze in culture, the popular BASIC programming language, and the highly influential Commodore 64 computer.

(Source: Publication website)

The talk takes the audience through how a single one-line Commodore 64 BASIC program can serve as a Rosetta Stone, helping people understand the interconnected cultural and technical aspects of creative computing, practices of using the computer expressively and recreationally in innovative ways.