I am only learning to program my vintage computers. The things I like to do involve some kind of Graphics, even if its just text, partly because I like anything to do with TV, CRT's and VDu's and their displays. Also I like to see the computer doing something rather just crunching numbers and keeping quiet about it.
When I got my SOL-20 I knew nothing about the 8080 IC or assembly language programming, so I got a couple of books. Also, I mainly design & fix hardware which I enjoy, not too good at software. After I figured out the video memory map in the SOL, I was able to write and assemble a very primitive Walking Man program, it is kind of goofy:
I also built a replica Cromemco Dazzler for the SOL. For that one, to crunch the image files to make it work, starting out with an image from a modern computer, (I found this software side of it very difficult):
Also I got interested in early S-100 Matrox graphics cards, because of the video images:
And I built a Light Pen project for the SOL, finding the hardware very easy and the software very difficult:
Now I have a PET that is much more capable with graphics symbols and suited to animating and making video games and I think that will be fun. Recently I played a simple Aliens shooting game on it and I'm going to figure out how they did that and try my best to do something similar. I'm still reading up on how to program in BASIC.
I got interested in TV and video as a very young boy, hence the interest in CRT display technology. One thing I saw on an episode of Dr. Who in the early 1960's (one of my favorite TV shows) he was looking at an image on a monochrome TV, pushed a button and the image froze. Back in the early 1960's there was no way to do this with the home TV and if you saw something of interest on the screen, it was quickly gone. now its a piece of cake with live pause graphic card capture etc, video recording. So I decided to make one for myself one day a "Feeze Frame Machine"... only a 50 year or so delay from deciding to do it and doing it. The design works for PAL or NTSC color or monochrome and it is independent of a computer and contains no firmware, just logic gates & memory IC's and my own unique design: