me Christmas time the
machine would be sent to Farther Christmas and then delivered under the tree for me to open up.

In the mean time I had access to a type writer and retyped up every game listing from magazines, (even none commodore listings) of course I didn't have all the character set the Vic had at my disposal but I think it impressed my father that I was so dedicated to work so hard retyping out magazine pages.

10 print"heart"
20 print cursor down
30 print "hello"

Once Christmas arrived, I spent hours on the machine, typing in all the listings from the manual and then wishing I had a disk drive as tape was to slow. I FINNALY managing to get "merry Christmas" to play from basic, and thought it was a good achievement, although I think from memory I didn't
manage that until new year's day! the disk drive of course came later, as did my progression to the Commodore 64 and then onto the Amiga 500 and finally I purchased an Amiga 4000 (although I was very disappointed with the Amiga 4000 as it wasn't what I had hoped it would be, I really wanted a 3000 but by the time I had saved enough money the 3000 was out of production and as rare as hens teeth, of course the 4000 was basically Commodore trying to sell anything to stay afloat)

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Q. So you still use the Vic and I know you use the Commodore 64 what about the Amiga?

Well my experimentations with the VIC as a programmer led to a conclusion (I
am not going to be a programmer as I am quite rubbish) I seemed to be good at problem solving but not actually coding anything, so I tried art on the computer and found I was rubbish at that, then music and wasn't too hot on
that either, the music followed me to the c64 and I learned about music in games and Editors or I guess people call them tracker style programs, I think the first one I played with was something like Wee music by Tony Crowther, the trackers all seemed complex at the time especially to a classically trained pianist (yep that was me) I preferred to see the dots and the tails, I dabbled with Midi on the C64 but this all really took off with the Amiga 500 and a program called Drt`s kcs level 3 I think it was ported to the Amiga as it wasn't very Amiga friendly, I found the Atari version here tamw.atari-users.net/omega.htm which looks very similar, bet it was out on the Atari then ported to the Amiga.

Also a video of the software loading on an Amiga 3000 in less than 1 minute here www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OSfv1q8XqI

then I purchased an add-on called the copyist that let you write manuscript it was a very clever system as the data was copied into memory from one program
to another, as they all multi tasked you could easily dabble from one system
to the next, adding notes on a music stave then edit the timings manually
under Drt`s.

Drt`s also had a programming language where you could do things like (printed here in English). Every middle c if it's a snare drum and the note after it is a base drum then change the volume by 20%. Not the best example but you get
the idea.

It was very comprehensive and powerful for its day, heck it still is! I remember I went to a music shop and they wanted £1000 to train me how to use the system, of course I didn't have that much money at the time and I just dabbled and basically trained myself slowly over time, with limited success I didn't really find anyone who used this part of the software. The program seemed to fit how I liked to work it seemed very intuitive to me anyway, I did produce some music however it wasn't really designed for others to listen to, more experiments in the programming language than anything else, after some persuasion I did release some tapes for sale a couple of my tunes were played on the radio and I managed to sell over 500 copies! I was quite shocked!

I remember seeing a write up where they said the music was repetitive and boring, maybe so I don't think that was too harsh a review of my music at the time I think they gave me 6 out of 10 , as time passed I gathered more and
more synthesisers to midi up and had quite an array of equipment and mixing desks, now I just play with Cubase on the PC where everything is virtual, I hate it but don't have the space to devote to all that equipment. I also miss being able to dabble and twist knobs and sliders, ok I can virtually do it but it's not the same is it?

I still plan on one day hooking up 16 x Commodore 64 systems via midi to
create a performance SID system, Yes I really loved Drt`s software.

Anyway to answer the question then, as I seem to have strayed; yes I use the C64 and the Vic although the Amiga has been shelved recently, again it's all
to do with space and lack of time to devote to all these systems, as well as working and being a farther, something has to be put on hold.

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Q. So why create Commodore Free what drove you to create a free magazine?

Ah an easy question for a change. Well I was goggling and looking for others who loved Commodore machines, I was then quite shocked to see that other
people were still using the machines and I wasn't as I had suspected the only person who still loved these "old systems", this must have been about 17 years ago when I had my PC connected to the internet for the first time via a modem! I thought I was the only person who stilled loved the VIC the c64 and of
course the Amiga.

So as the shelf bought Magazines had slowly dwindled out for these systems and the support and number of companies selling products moved to other areas I carried on using the machines.

I then found a website Run by Allan Bairstow called "Commodore Scene" it's
here or it was here the last time I looked www.commodorescene.org.uk this was
a paid for printed magazine about Commodore well more realistically more about the Commodore 64 and 128 than anything else, I wrote a few articles that appeared in the magazine but slowly members died off and so did the magazine, soon it closed although a final issue was planned but to this day was never finished, Pity I think we should do a final Commodore Scene issue as a
gesture, I did try to arrange this with Allan but nothing ever came of it, I think a final issue designed solely in GeoPublish and printed out on a colour laser or as a PDF would have been very cool. At the time I thought that many users would still want a magazine, maybe Free to read was the way to go, so I started work on a very poor issue 1 of the magazine and setup a website it started growing and many people emailed to say they wanted more, so with a small team of helpers it is what it is now (if that makes sense) it may not be well written and contains many typos but it's from the heart and hey its Free! I think I started back in 2007

Here is Alan's official Comments taken from Commodore Scene website.

1995 ~ 2002 - Computer Scene (as it was originally called) was first produced by Richard Bowen in May 1995 when all the commercial magazines were leaving
(or had already left) the newsstands. It was a dark time for the Commodore 64 and people needed somewhere to go for all the information and innovations that were still around for our beloved computers. Richard originally wanted the magazine to be monthly, which it was for a time. This soon became unworkable
as the magazine grew from its original 16 black and white photocopied pages to the full colour cover, professionally printed and bound magazine that it is today.

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Q. How many readers do you have?

Well it all grew quickly, I think mainly thanks to people like Robert Bernado who spread the word and even printed out issues for various clubs he visited,
I regularly started to receive over two thousand downloads these are unique
and of the PDF version, now of course we have various other versions of the magazine like the text and D64 image where you can actually read the whole magazine on a Commodore 64 if you desire! I also know of clubs that print out the magazine and distribute it for free at meetings, then of course people
copy the text and relay this

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