Bill Budge Quotations

A quiet personality sure isn't what you need to attract attention.

The power of the computer is starting to spread.

It always helps to be a good programmer. It is important to like computers and to be able to think of things people would want to do with their computers.

After two weeks of working on a project, you know whether it will work or not.

You must know in your heart before anyone else does what is going to be good and then follow through.

Robots... I think that is a hot topic.

The program should know if someone is at the keyboard or joystick or if it is just sitting there idle. It should know if someone is proficient in its use or a novice.

All of the good stuff is going to be done in the future. The stuff we are doing now is crummy compared with what will finally mature.

You will be able to program a robot to follow a track on the ground and manipulate a hand. You can also write little programs that will give the robots goals.

On the robot kit, I can choose very boring parts or I can choose exciting and interesting parts. That is a reflection of my personality and the kinds of things I am interested in.

Everything is getting bigger. The way to go now is to program in a little more sophistication.

I really think it is amazing that people actually buy software.

I think a craft becomes an art form when the space of possible solutions becomes so huge that engineering can't carry you through.

To be honest, I look at my Pinball program and feel that it is old stuff. I could do much better.

Video games are engineered now, but the step I am trying to take, no one can engineer.

I can do whatever I want. They will tell me if what I am doing is stupid or a total waste of time. I may tell them that they are wrong, and we will come to an agreement.

When I am starting a new game, I have to program it for the Apple, because I want to get all of the markets.

Any artist always has misgivings about calling himself an artist.

Even though Raster Blaster was only a video game, I was learning about designing stuff. I got good at drawing.

I have a really powerful urge to see things work.

I know when something is kind of half-baked.

I'm a great coder. But I am not pushing that so much anymore because there are thousands of great coders.

I started on an Apple II, which I had bought at the very end of 1978 for half of my annual income. I made $4,500 a year, and I spent half of it on the computer.

The Apple has the fewest bells and whistles. It has simple sound and few graphics special effects. In a way, that is a weakness because markets for the other machines are getting bigger.

My interest is home computer software. I'm not in it because it is booming; I think the key is that the programs must tell you how to use them.

Right now computing can be hard. Machine language is somewhat inaccessible. And Basic is not quite so bad, but it still blows some people away.

I have sort of been swept along on the crest of this wave right from the beginning. It gets bigger and bigger, and I try to stay a stroke ahead of it.

I write my programs primarily for myself.

You can do things as a combination the way John Irving does. He writes a mass market book that is also literate. That is what I want to do.

Usually there is a lot of excitement about a project, especially in the middle of it. I have to force myself to go to bed at 2:00 a.m.

A lot of kids are simply users. They have no interest in programming. Others will figure out what programming is all about and get excited about it.