All-in-one development environment – just a dream?

Yesterday, I’ve finished the last new episode of A-Team (The season 3 is better than ever!) and went right to bed thinking on my C64 game and all the hard time to edit the source code using my computer (renumbering lines, search, all very hard!), when suddenly I had a vision from the future (I suppose around 2012/2013) where we could do all our development using a single tool – from coding to debugging to renumbering to sprite and screen design to (add your dream here) – using a all-in-one integrated environment which I’m gonna call Integrated Development Environment, or IDE for short (I wonder if the name will stick, maybe I should register it).

In that epiphany , someone called Arthur Jordison created an application called CBM prg Studio that does all that and even more. Using my KoalaPad and KoalaPainter, I did some sketches of that application and its amazing functions.

KoalaPaint

Here is what it would look like (forgive the sketch, I’m not a very good artist!):

CBMPrg Studio

As you can see, it is all window-based – which I believe my subconscious took from an article I read about the new Apple Macintosh, release recently (Jan 1984). CBMPrg Studio wouldn’t run in our current Commodore 64 screen resolution or RAM available, but who knows what Commodore can release in the near future, right!? Anyway, this amazing application would allow you to type your code in one Windows, which would easily allow you to renumber or move your texts around. There would be other windows where you could draw your own character set, sprites or even an entire screen, and with a click of a button, the Basic or Assembler code would be generated for you, ready to be placed on your main window application.

You could also generate the program file to be save on a 5 1/4″ disk to be distributed to your friends.

It is really an awesome application, indispensable for those who want to be more efficient Commodore 64 Assembler or Basic programmer.

More details about this dream can be found here.

Author: Paulo
Site co-founder, Slack admin, web admin and fan of tinkering with BASIC and assembly language for old machines.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *