Man, been thinking ’bout Billy the Kid lately. Not the actual outlaw, you know? It was this name I gave to a little project I was fiddling with way back when. Feels like a lifetime ago, really.
So, the other day, I got this urge. I wanted to see it again. Just a silly little thing, probably wouldn’t impress anyone now, but it meant something to me then. The first step was figuring out where the heck I even saved it. My file organization back then was, let’s just say, creative.
I started by pulling out my box of old storage drives. Got a few ancient external hard drives and a stack of dusty DVDs. Remember burning stuff to DVDs? Wild.
The Great Search
Hooked up the first drive. Took a minute for the computer to even see it. Clicked around folders named stuff like ‘Misc Stuff’, ‘Backup_Maybe’, ‘Important_DontDelete’. Total mess. Found a lot of old photos, some terrible music I made, but no Billy.
Tried the next drive. Same deal. More digital archaeology. Then I remembered I had this one laptop, died years ago, but I kept the hard drive. Had to find an adapter thingy to connect it via USB. Plugged it in, held my breath.
And there it was! Buried deep in some obscure folder under ‘My Documents’. A folder just called ‘Billy’. Inside? A handful of files. Looked like some basic code files and maybe a few image assets I’d drawn. Pixel art, real basic stuff.
Trying to Make it Work
Okay, finding it was one thing. Getting it to actually run? That was the real challenge. The code looked like something I wrote using a tool I haven’t touched in maybe… fifteen years? Maybe more?
I had to:
- Figure out what language or program I even used. Took some guessing based on file extensions.
- Hunt down an old version of that software. Most of this stuff isn’t supported anymore, obviously. Found some archived version on a retro software site. Felt kinda sketchy downloading it, not gonna lie.
- Install it. Had to mess around with compatibility settings on my current computer. It complained. A lot.
- Open the project files. Crossed my fingers they weren’t corrupted.
Clicked ‘Run’ or whatever the equivalent was back then. The screen flickered. It crashed. Tried again. Tinkered with some settings I barely remembered. Changed a line of code that looked suspicious.
And then… it worked! Kinda. It loaded up. This super simple window appeared, and this little pixelated character, my ‘Billy the Kid’, was just standing there. Didn’t do much, think I only ever programmed it to walk left and right. Looked way more primitive than I remembered it in my head.
But seeing it move? Man. Brought back a flood of memories. Late nights, the frustration of figuring things out, the small victory of making something, anything, work. It wasn’t about the result being amazing. It was about the process, the learning, the trying. Spent a good hour just messing with it, watching that little pixel guy walk back and forth.
Yeah. Simple times. Good times. I guess that’s why I was thinking about it. I miss Billy the Kid.