A BRIGHT SHINING STAR - Commodore PET demo by Genesis Project

[@The8BitGuy]

Very impressive!

[@AlessioCosenza]

thank you! I appreciate your feedback!

[@drlegendre]

@@AlessioCosenza Alessio, do you know David, aka 8-bit guy? Have you seen his latest game for PET (and others) "Attack of PETSCII robots"? It's really very good, imo!

[@AlessioCosenza]

@@drlegendre yes, it’s awesome!

[@drlegendre]

@@AlessioCosenza I definitely agree. I really hope we see a continued resurgence of PETSCII-based games for the old machines, like I've seen with AOTPR and Monstro Giganto on C64. Naturally I like the ANSI-ART-like visual style, but by avoiding bitmap graphics they can leave large amounts of resources free for game engine code, and still obtain excellent speeds on very nominal old hardware. Having seen these latest works, I'll never look at PET quite the same way again.

[@AlessioCosenza]

@@drlegendre I believe that monochrome PETSCII can be an extremely modern graphic mode when approached the right way…

[@pjcnet]

The first computer I ever used was a Commodore Pet in 1979 at the age of 10, I learnt BASIC on it at a young age, seeing something like this in those days would have been jaw dropping, it's amazing what you can get out of old machines when they're truly pushed to their full potential which is usually sadly long after they've become obsolete.

[@ikeyasector]

I'm a 64 fanboy (like most) but over the last few years, I've earned more respect for the PET other than a a simple business comp. I want more demos like this. Pushing the hardware to do things it wasn't intended to do. Kill the sky, ESI.

[@AlessioCosenza]

we all love the C64 :) thanks!!

[@MrMaxeemum]

Imagine how well they would have sold if Commodore used that as the demo back in the day instead of the christmas candle.

[@AlessioCosenza]

true!

[@boostermcblast2197]

I just tried it on my very early PET with chiclet keyboard and a black&white-Screen. Nevertheless, it performs a 32K 2001-N mainboard. Everything works great. I'm deeply impressed. A new era has begun! Please add some cool psychoactive sounds next time like you did in this video. ;-)

[@TheSlab24]

Awesome demo, and the way you filmed and showed it was very stylish. Thank you!

[@cybersed57]

I'm quite impressed by this demo, considering the capabilities of this venerable computer.

[@boostermcblast2197]

Incredible!!!! Hires graphics after 45 years waiting time! Cannot wait to get home and try it on real hardware!!!

[@raidersofthelostarp]

This is absolutely amazing

[@ExpressoMechanicTV]

Incredible, to have achieved this on a machine that it over forty years old.

[@Manwe_SandS]

Great

[@Craig-xw7ff]

I used to have a PET 8032. I also ran the C=64 demo group TDM (later changed to TDC when I added members) back in the 1990s. :-)

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Wow, that's AMAZING! I wish I had known about this back about 2 years ago when you posted it.

[@AlessioCosenza]

@@HelloKittyFanMan thank you!

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

You're welcome, @@AlessioCosenza!

[@phrtao]

Brilliant work. Efficiency in coding and inventive use of limited hardware will always have a place in pushing forward what computers can do. I just have to say the sounds of a PET (keyboard and disks) are just the best computer sounds ever !

[@AlessioCosenza]

It’s food for the soul :) Thank you for your beautiful comment, I really appreciate it!

[@CityXen]

Nice work on the presentation and backlight. Demo is very cool too.

[@AlessioCosenza]

thank you!

[@davidflorey]

My first ever computer was the Commodore PET - had no idea they were THIS capable!!

[@marcuswilliams3455]

Definitely, it takes a creative genius to pull this off. This is very impressive.

[@AlessioCosenza]

thank you :)

[@daveroberts4835]

Amazing, you had me with the hi def wave never mind the extended char set!

[@root42]

Finally! I managed to get the demo to run on my PET 3016, too. Upgraded to 32K and using BASIC v2 ROMs. Lovely!

[@AlessioCosenza]

great job!!

[@AlessioCosenza]

upgraded basic roms aren’t needed anyway

[@root42]

@@AlessioCosenzaNot for Bright Shining Star. But e.g. Bit Shifter's Infocom interpreter requires Kernal from BASIC v4. So I use a ROM Expansion with DIP switches to pick the BASIC I need.

[@commodoreclub]

Unreal 🎉 the Legend continues.

[@IvanEngler]

BEAUTIFUL! and very impressive.

[@cucho69]

Todos los que amamos a las computadoras Commodore deberíamos tener nuestro PET, pero son escasos e inalcanzables... deberían fabricarlos otra vez. ¡La demo es impactante y el equipo se ve majestuoso!

[@juda]

Assolutamente degno di nota e aggiungo nuova stima per il buon LRNZ, già più che apprezzato in ambito fumettistico, che con la sua partecipazione alla demoscene viola nuove vette di livello di stima.

[@Witek1976]

inPETcredible

[@uctumi]

awesome demo!!

[@AlessioCosenza]

thank you!!!

[@HutchCA]

Very nicely done.

[@AlessioCosenza]

thanks Chuck!!

[@BobbyCharlz]

This is beautiful art. Any chance you might have a tutorial or two on your process in achieving this level of graphic mastery on hardware like this? Better yet, do the authors of this work plan on turning this into a playable game?

[@kenobisboch]

Incredibile bellissimo grazie

[@KolliRail]

Wow, that's impressive!!!

[@ecernosoft3096]

This is AWESOME for the pet.

[@rpgspree]

NICE! Would it be possible to add sound to this with a userport sound mod? It requires a simple circuit connected to the userport. Not sure how it works exactly, but there's a few demos on youtube.

[@boostermcblast2197]

You can simply connect a normal little amp. via a resistor. Since 1980 (PET/CBM 40xx), a little piezo speaker was installed on the mainboard. Fully compatible.

[@johneygd]

Just mind blowing😁

[@S4M13LK4D1]

Che spettacolo!

[@makipri]

Cool to see other people doing PET demos as well. Nice graphics there! Gotta test this on my 4032.

[@AlessioCosenza]

thank you :) this demo will not work on the CRTC pet!

[@videobiginiletteraturaital7167]

Ma grandissimo!

[@deadstoned]

Pretty awesome!!! Thank you guys for sharing!

[@AlessioCosenza]

you’re welcome!

[@chandrab]

Impressive! I'd like to understand how you did the hi-res part of the demo

[@AlessioCosenza]

thank you! there’s a note file in the d64 image explaining the tech parts of the demo. grab it on pouet and check it: www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=91735

[@KieranShort]

@@AlessioCosenza care to post it here?

[@AlessioCosenza]

@@KieranShort there you go :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/envae6Z5d66EpLM

[@t3hav8r]

Never had one, never used one but very impressive. Like that PETSCII graphics and green monitors.

[@flynnnrg]

Awesome! Alessio, what equipment did you use for the recording? The capture is really good!

[@linograndi]

Oltre la commozione!

[@AlessioCosenza]

grazie di cuore!

[@ZombieGamer80]

Great 👍

[@pierelenigus8598]

very nice work!!!

[@AlessioCosenza]

thanks!!

[@back_to_basic]

Bellissima demo! Ottimo lavoro!

[@AlessioCosenza]

grazie di cuore!

[@back_to_basic]

@@AlessioCosenza Grazie a te per questa demo che permette, anche ai più giovani e neofiti come me, di apprezzare maggiormente l'affascinante mondo dei retro computer! Penso sia importante continuare a tenere viva la memoria di questi fantastici reperti di archeologia informatica e valorizzarli non solo, per esempio, tramite la preservazione e conservazione degli stessi e con la divulgazione, ma anche tramite la realizzazione di nuovi progetti e lavori come quello mostrato in questo video. Ancora grazie!

[@AlessioCosenza]

@@back_to_basic grazie a te e continua cosi' :)

[@Thingumybob_C64]

I just downloaded it and tried it on my PET 2001-32N. It ran perfectly. I didn’t write protect the disk. The demo wouldn’t load a second time. I recopied it and write protected it. It loaded multiple times after that. The only difference between the KZbin demo and the one I ran was the system didn’t reboot at the end. It just went blank and I had to manually reboot. Does it have sound if you have a piezoelectric speaker mod?

[@AlessioCosenza]

thank you for trying the demo on real hw!! in the video i’m manually resetting the machine at the end (I added a reset button to my PET) so the behaviour you’re describing is normal. Also, the demo doesn’t access the floppy disk at all once being loaded, so maybe it has just been a random issue due to an old disk..

[@AlessioCosenza]

also: no, the demo doesn’t have any sound!

[@julienbraudel7109]

Très beau.

[@boostermcblast2197]

The picture with the astronaut's face at 3:42 looks as if the hi-res area is wider than 80 pixels. How did you do that?

[@AlessioCosenza]

you can rewrite up to 8 chars, but they can be separated by “normal” petscii chars!

[@boostermcblast2197]

@@AlessioCosenza 8 redefined chars per line wherever you want, right? That's very cool!

[@AlessioCosenza]

@@boostermcblast2197 10!

[@boostermcblast2197]

@@AlessioCosenza Thx!

[@ValorosoIT]

Molto bella, complimenti!

[@AlessioCosenza]

ciao, grazie!!!

[@TheClassicsCoder]

Love it ❤

[@AlessioCosenza]

thank you!

[@gargaj]

Strange, but I noticed the darkened vertical blank bars on the CRT are there before 0:51 and after 4:30, but not during the demo...

[@AlessioCosenza]

they have been removed from the video. however, you can download the demo and run it on your PET here to check if it's real or not: www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=91735

[@hernansaez5475]

this is amazing! does the NAVE word on the spaceship have anything to do with the game NAVE Arcade?

[@AlessioCosenza]

gotcha ;) it’s a tribute of course!!

[@hernansaez5475]

ohhh! such an honor

[@AlessioCosenza]

@@hernansaez5475 my pleasure :) congrats for your game! wish I could play it live once!!

[@hernansaez5475]

@@AlessioCosenza where are you based? we have the plan to tour around the world in the future, slowly but surely, so maybe there's a chance!

[@AlessioCosenza]

@@hernansaez5475 me and LRNZ are waiting for you in Rome, Italy!!!

[@Thingumybob_C64]

Unfortunately, I just showed this demo to my 9 year old daughter. She plays Mario Kart on a 70” OLED TV. She was thoroughly unimpressed. :/

[@AlessioCosenza]

argh!! she is so young, so there’s plenty of time to change her taste :)

[@ikonsgr]

Try an amiga platform game on the 70" screen and then we shall see if she will be impressed :-)))

[@pasromano75]

Good! But why no sound ?

[@AlessioCosenza]

the original PET 2001/N has no built-in speaker or sound capability. You can add one and connect to CB2 line to obtain sound, but the demo is for the original, non modified machine!

[@verlidesouza]

How did they do that? There is no way that is text mode, right? My guess is that they are changing the text character every scanline, but I don't know a lot about the pet. Great demo anyway!

[@AlessioCosenza]

Thank you! Yes, I am changing the characters pointer every rasterline. Further detail about the restrictions here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/envae6Z5d66EpLM

[@listis1975]

My friend i have the same pet model but i cant understand how to transfer to a real pet is it exist any tap file...thanks and happy new year

[@drlegendre]

Now that's clever! I just *have* to know more.. =) Any reason this shouldn't run on a bone-stock 4016 that's been upped to 32K by populating empty patterns on a stock Universal board?

[@AlessioCosenza]

Hi! The 40xx series PET sports a CRTC chip, which has a completely different logic to display characters. You can actually program it to create an effect like the ones I did in this demo but it’s a different code routine!

[@drlegendre]

@@AlessioCosenza Ah, I see that now.. it's in the README before the demo starts. My eyes are getting older, and I first watched it on my phone where I couldn't read the small text. Turns out it was important after all.. ;-)

[@thenoblerot]

WHAT IS THIS SORCERY!?

[@x3picknicker]

great demo.. could it work also at a original old PET2001 (not 32N?) but with DOS4.0 and optional 32k RAM?

[@AlessioCosenza]

DOS is irrelevant, but this demo needs the 2001-N (32k) to work! The 2001 has a bug in the video circuitry (fixed in the -N version) that makes this screen mode impossible to use without glitches.

[@x3picknicker]

@@AlessioCosenza Thank you for the tip... and you are of course right, the demo works, but occasionally creates stronger disruptive effects. Is there a MOD or bug that can also be implemented with an old 2001 so that this video glitches error is fixed? Thank you very much.. great DEMO!!

[@AlessioCosenza]

@@x3picknickeras far as I know there should be an hardware fix for that, but i would not modify an original 2001! It deserves to remain as it is..

[@pickoftheglitter]

That's absolutely awesome! Does it work with a native PET 2001 without any other hardware? I can't believe you can get a graphic mode in a computer that has no graphic mode, it's totally insane!!!! BTW any way to release a .TAP version?

[@AlessioCosenza]

thank you!! Here is the note file with some tech info! kzbin.info/www/bejne/envae6Z5d66EpLM About the TAP: There’s a .t64 file in the archive, also. Since the demo is onefiled, it should be easy to convert it to tap anyway

[@pickoftheglitter]

@@AlessioCosenza I opened the zip file and I didn't see the TAPE folder 🤦, sorry for that!

[@MXB2001]

,8 Guess it was BASIC. : ) Superb. Wonder if it would run on a C=128. Mine for example.

[@AlessioCosenza]

well, no :)

[@johansmolinski]

Just tried on my blue label PET 2001 chicklet 60 Hz with an EXPANDAMEM board for 32k. It boots and plays for a while, with glitches, then eventually jumps out to the memory monitor (with the datasette motor running!). I am not 100 % sure the memory of the expansion board is fine, so it might caused by that and/or 60 Hz.

[@AlessioCosenza]

2001N is 60 hz as well. I suspect that your ram expansion has some issues :/ glitches on the 2001 are normal because if you write to the data bus while the screen ram is accessed garbage is printed on screen. this issue has been fixed in the 2001-N board.

[@johansmolinski]

@@AlessioCosenza Ok, good to know! Is the garbage bug in hardware or in rom?

[@AlessioCosenza]

@@johansmolinski it’s the hardware itself!

[@merman1974]

Very clever

[@chojintheorig]

super nice ! good coding job

[@jakubkrcma]

😱❤👍

[@Bernard_Ashtree]

👍

[@ProBloggerWorld]

Very cool, nicely done! I liked the sound of silence. 😉

[@ikonsgr]

considering that this demo uses no actual crtc or video chip, it's really impressive! In fact it reminded me how impressed i was when i saw what a CRT 6845 chip REALLY can do: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r3m7qWalp7Nma7s

[@AlessioCosenza]

I LOVE 8088mph! Being compared to it is the best compliment I could ever receive :) thank you!

[@n057828]

We had a micromation at tech but later on we had Apple iies

[@SellamAbraham]

What the hell is a "non-CRTC"?

[@AlessioCosenza]

earlier CBM Pet 2001 and 2001-N models. Later ones (40xx series) have a CRTC chip for the video

[@SellamAbraham]

@@AlessioCosenza Thank you.

[@CommodoreGreg]

Is this real? This doesn't even seem possible.

[@AlessioCosenza]

it is: there’s a link in the description, you can download and try it on your PET :)

[@auletes]

Witchcraft!

[@andromedaone3640]

The computers then were far more interesting than the one's now and cheaper software and extras.

[@AlessioCosenza]

ditto

[@Nookdashiddole]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz