Burgertime 7/26/2015: C64

[@jammerc64]

If you're interested how people program C64 nowadays and you're not familiar with this website: csdb.dk/ Magic from demoscene community that squeezes last juices from all chips inside that machine :D You'd be amazed how fast serial disk loader are nowadays :D I have a pleasure to be withing that community and do some magic as well (in SID department :P). Cheers!

[@trisht299]

Becky, I'm a CS Grad who listens to these as I go to sleep, but also when I'm doing other things. These are so great to have. Thank You.

[@VRShow]

THANKS Becky!!! Much appreciated.

[@geoffreyanderson2285]

I never owned a C64, but I used one. I was an Atari man, and I even keep an 130XE just to play MULE. Listening to your description of the C64 disk drive brings back memories. Love these tales!

[@ChrisP872]

Becky, your Burgertime series is such a delight to watch. Thanks for putting these on youtube since I might never get to catch it live on Twitch.tv. I'm looking forward to the next episode about your work on BT and to the games as well. I already pledged for BT4 and I plan to play your 3 games first.

[@NuntiusLegis]

Apple-II-person using a C64: Ignores the glorious screen editor and types in the same command twice. ;-) I always thought it makes sense to use only four bits for the color on a system that has 16 colors, because only four bits are needed to code them. LOAD"*",8,1 does not auto-run after loading (unless the program runs itself, which can be done), but loads the first file it finds on the disk. To auto-run any program after loading, you can press the RUN-key instead of the RETURN-key. In the most popular C64-emulator VICE, loading is way faster with "True drive emulation" off and "Virtual device (traps)" on (but there might be issues with fancy copy protection on a disk image). There are key-stickers available that turn a PC-keyborad into a C64-keyboard. I cut some of the stickers in half to put them beside the original labels, resulting in a dual-use-keyboard. If I remember a speech by Bil Herd correctly, the CP/M-cartridge for the C64, which had a Z80, wouldn't work on the C128, so they decided to put a Z80 into the computer to make it run CP/M without a cartridge. According to what I heard, the 1541 was not slow because it was cheap, but there was a hardware bug in the first versions that required software workarounds, and it was never fixed by Commodore in order not to break compatibility. But then alternative loading routines got faster, like your work. A convenient solution is a fast loading cartridge that speeds up any loading process. The Commodore hardware couldn't help being cheap to Commodore/MOS because they had their own chip plant, while the other companies like Apple had to buy the 6502 CPU from them, and then there was a profit margin of course. Commodore/MOS not only made their own CPUs, but also most of the peripheral chips for graphics, sound, I/O, etc. Another reason Commodores had more value for money compared to the competitors was Commodore boss Jack Tramiel's mantra "Computers for the masses, not the classes", which meant they took a way smaller profit margin per machine than, let's say, Apple, in the hope they would make their profit by selling more machines - and that worked out.

[@Colt45hatchback]

Yeah from memory it was a bug in the kernal on the.. Vic20? Maybe the pet i cant remember, but they used the same basic os so they didnt have to pay microsoft again so the bug continued to exist for all the future generations.. At least thats what my memory has told me, might not be accurate. Its been a while haha

[@NuntiusLegis]

@@Colt45hatchback I looked it up now, it was during the VIC-20 era indeed, to work around a fault in the early MOS 6522 VIA chip. Microsoft made the early Commodore BASIC (which later was improved by Commodore), but did not contribute to the KERNAL, as far as I know.

[@Colt45hatchback]

@@NuntiusLegis cheers for finding out exactly what it was, I hadnt thought about it in quite a while haha, most of the games i have/had for the c64/128 were bootlegs by crackers and had 3 games on a disk and loaded fast, so as a kid (i got a 128 dcr in 1998 when i was 7 so i was late to the party, but that meant it came with 9 of those disk organiser boxes full of software, so i didnt need to buy any) but i always thought the tape and original disks didnt work, as they took so long to load so i never played any of them 😂 wasnt till about 8 years ago when i dug the 128d out of the shed that i started youtubing about the system in detail

[@Colt45hatchback]

Actually there was one original game i did play often, it was called 4x4 offroad racing by epyx, i loved that game, but for the life of me i cant find the disk anymore. I remember the glossy white label with thick blue text, but its vanished

[@ChrisP872]

I bought Bard's Tale 3 just after it was released for my C64 as a 15 year old with great excitement. I thought it was one of the best games ever made and could tell the programmer was exceptional and did a fantastic job. The only thing I didn't like about BT3 was the copy protection although there were much worse schemes. I probably would have only been happy with no copy protection but I understood why it was there.

[@TheJaRoDoNe]

your video of 3do doom was featured on a swedish website, really interesting to listen to. The C64 was the computer I learned to program on with a friend since we found the games a bit boring

[@1luarluar1]

very interesting, it is a pleasure to listen to your stories and anectodes...by the way, if you need some music for your projects, feel free to use my compositions, in youtube.

[@johnathanstevens8436]

Hehehe .. "Chase the Chuck wagon" 😀

[@norbertofernandez7710]

Hi Rebecca! From argentina

[@Mviews-hb4ib]

I started learning basic at about 13 and I always used ascii for my graphics .. fun fact a violent uk 🇬🇧 murderer entered my house while I was in front room on my belly programming .. he wasn’t a murderer then , he did that about 19 years old and Is still in jail Ahh the early 90s

[@danem2215]

I bought a working C64 10 years ago for $15. The whole setup. It doesn't work now but I still dabble in Basic using an emulator. Man That's a fun little system

[@nicwilson89]

It's probably easy to repair if it's broken. I fix a lot of 'retro' machines if you wanna go fixing it yourself, I may be able to help :)

[@fnjesusfreak]

ProDOS-8 on a Commodore. That's hardcore.

[@chaoslab]

6502 & Z80 at the same time would of been interesting. :-)

[@bierundkippen720]

would have!

[@raulpeiroten-ayuso7553]

I enjoyed this vid a lot. Such a pleasure hearing you talking about technology.

[@anthonyortiz7924]

Hey Rebecca! How would you compare programming on the SID vs the Ensoniq? Any pros/cons to each?

[@RebeccaHeineman]

The SID is a tone generator, which means the code to manage it is complex due to the realtime nature of manipulating the registers and you're limited to what waveforms you can generate. The Ensonic 5503 is a pure digital playback device (With 64K dedicated audio buffer RAM) that allows you to create any waveform you want and it will mix it for you. The code on the IIgs is simpler than code I wrote for the C64 mostly because all of my effects were done by generated sound samples that were multiplexed and processed by the Ensoniq chip with little to no CPU intervention. End result, I like both chips, but I do prefer the Ensoniq.