Jim Butterfield's 1986 Computer Diary - Commodore Reference Diary

[@ScottHiland]

I say some form of this every time someone posts a video mentioning Jim Butterfield, but he really was a good guy, very generous with his time, and kind.

[@3vi1J]

Absolutely. You gotta admire how that guy had such a patient and friendly demeanor while teaching us noobs back in the day.

[@mickez3993]

True man he was someone i guess went on to work with silicon valley

[@RadRat78]

John Candy is Canadian too, makes sense

[@Lion_McLionhead]

Remember poking random addresses back when time was unlimited & seeing those effects. Thought 1 lucky poke would unlock some magic no-one heard of before.

[@mortvader]

I remember exchanging pokes with a classmate back in the day ^^

[@frankiii9165]

Hi, time ago I watched Jim's C64 video tutorial. He really looks like he was a great person. One of a kind. I have no personal connection with 8/16 bit computers whatsoever, I'm a young boy (I'm 25 at the time of writing this), but I have the opportunity to enjoy them now (I have an Apple II myself), they have a charm, simplicity, transparency… Jim is like a personification of those computers and he will live forever. Greets from Spain❤

[@guybrushthreepwood3054]

Jim Butterfield was such a great author. There was nobody better at explaining the assembly language and all the low level stuff.

[@mickez3993]

Is he alive today? it be good if he reminisced the old days in todays times

[@guybrushthreepwood3054]

@mickez3993 Unfortunately not, he died some years ago. There's a lot of his old videos on KZbin, like C64 user training... but his best works are his books on machine/assembly language for Commodore.

[@mickez3993]

The sid chip is another area i dont think butterfield was into but he knew his assembly machines after all commodore was designed as a business machine@@guybrushthreepwood3054

[@hammondeggsmusic]

I distinctly remember our junior high school computer lab in around 86/87 had a room full of PETs and the mupet system to share the disc drives..!

[@cosmicavatar773]

Cool video, I was just watching an old video the other day from the early 80s when Jim was giving a demonstration on how to operate the C64. He did a really good job making that video. I wish other companies would have done the same thing with the other 8bit micros etc.

[@_r.m.]

@8Bit Is it possible to share it in pdf with the public? It looks like a very handy thing :)

[@Marcus-Leach]

A "diary" is used in both senses in Britain. A daily planner or a personal journal.

[@nils9853]

So if someone says "I did find your diary" you have short tense moment to figure out if you should feel thankful or shocked?

[@BillAnt]

"Diary" evokes memories of the great Yazoo song "Nobody's Diary". :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z6LUaJ2KhdCdjMk

[@TheUtuber999]

Gonna have to watch Nobody's Diary by Yazoo now...

[@daniellomblock6216]

@8_Bit started following you recently and only just realized that you also do these book reviews. Awesome! Also loved your Programmer's Reference Guide deep dive. More of those please! Seeing new books coming out recently that'd be interesting to hear about. Keep it up, love your channel!

[@retroandgaming]

It kinda looked like a boring topic and then it was just very cool and brought me right back to my younger years when I doodled down commands to remember. Thanks for another great video and nostalgia trip :)

[@1stacbats]

This was a great nostalgia trip, some may think this pointless but back in the day :)

[@3vi1J]

Wow... If I'd seen that back in the day I would have snapped it up; such a handy little reference in such a small form-factor. I was familiar with Butterfield's name from SuperMON and Transactor articles... he was an expert in the days when we were beginners. Thanks for making this video and sharing this bit of nostalgia, Robin!

[@baardbi]

Very interesting video. I love these little hidden gems I can't seem to find anywhere else on the net. Thanks for documenting these little historical Commodore nuggets.

[@georgeh6856]

Dear diary, today I PEEKed and POKEd for the first time. It was amazing.

[@goddessesstartrekonlinefle3061]

Not a Commodore owner, but was fascinating to see a glimps into another world. Thanks for making the video! Hoped to see "unnew" in action, back in the day (owned an Atari 800XL) I would have loved an unnew!

[@MegaFonebone]

Truly your cleverest thumbnail, ever! 😂 Jim Butterfield's salacious "diary" Jim dressed like Hef 😂 🤣 "Many POKEs" 🤣

[@ChrisCromwellHP]

Hey Robin! A great video, eh! Nice to see you again on KZbin with Show & Tell! A few days ago, I completed my first ever build of a new (to me) Commodore 64C computer. Actually the Commodore 64 Reloaded Mk 2 from Individual Computers. I tried many times to see if my new Commodore 64 will boot to JiffyDOS 6.0, the sign on message appears, but there is no cursor and no Ready prompt. In the forums, someone described this same problem, in his original C64 machine. He eventually tracked down the problem to be a bad PLA chip in his Commodore. It seems JiffyDOS is dependent on the PLA chip to function properly. Since my Commodore 64 Reloaded Mk 2 doesn't have a PLA chip, (PLA Free), as it was reversed engineered back into the main controller chip from Individual Computers; maybe that's why JiffyDOS won't boot to my machine? Individual Computers says it should boot fine, but I downloaded a fresh ROM image of C64 JiffyDOS with the same frozen screen result. Someone else on the forums say, they were able to have fast disk access using JiffyDOS just on their 1541 drive, and not have to use the ROM in the C64; perhaps I will try that next. I also tried to flash and run SuperROM on my C64 Reloaded Mk 2 several times. Unfortunately, the SuperROM is not recognized as a legitimate ROM by the C64 Reloaded Mk controller chip, and completely ignores it. When I try to boot directly to the SuperROM kernal, the C64 instead skips over it, and boots back into the root C64 kernel ROM. It seems I need a new genuine C64 machine to use JiffyDOS and SuperROM correctly, which is a different project for another time. I'm looking to buy a brand new C64 circuit board from PCB Way, and build my own C64C with mostly new electronic parts. It will be more expensive than the C64 Reloaded Mk2 costed me, but it would be an interesting build project someday. In the meantime, I am enjoying all the other cool things this C64 Reloaded Mk 2 can do, one of which is running dual SIDs in stereo! Pretty cool! I bought the C64 Reloaded Mk 2 primarily for reliability reasons, and not have to worry about a logic or RAM chip suddenly dying. I am also using the newly redesigned keyboard for the C64, so I won't have to worry about the original C64 keyboard suddenly going out.

[@Busholog]

34:40 min (reset on save): 226 + 252*256 = 64738 (sys for Kernal Reset)

[@TimStCroix]

37:20 - Length of Program is wrong. Commodore DOS uses 2 bytes in each sector to point to the next one storing the program so the multiplier should be 254, not 256. And, of course, it ignores that the last block is, most likely, only partially filled.

[@0x007A]

Jim Butterfield was a familiar name during the 1980s in Commodore related magazines and books. My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20 because I could not afford a Commodore PET. I still have that computer along with the cassette recorder/player, dot-matrix printer, MODEM expansion, joystick, floppy drive, and several games. I doubt any of the cassettes onto which I saved programmes are readable due to age (40+ years).

[@ApoplecticDialectics]

I bet that MUPET stuff was used to link the PETs in the classroom scenes of the very Canadian, very Commodore, Hide and Seek. It stands to reason that they found some actual classroom to film in for these scenes, but I'm guessing. In any case while watching this I was fascinated with the idea of a school computer lab of networked PETs. I get that it's a movie, but in theory the actual classroom they used might have used this.

[@75slaine]

The Secret Diary of Jim Butterfield, Aged 50 3/4

[@75slaine]

I really enjoyed this exploration Robin, thanks for sharing.

[@stevethepocket]

31:42 OK, I looked register 120 up in _Mapping the C64_ and it turns out this is a hack to the CHRGET routine, which is loaded into RAM at boot instead of being called straight from ROM. Modifying this routine (to branch to new, also-RAM-based parsers, I assume) is how disk-based wedges were possible, and I can only assume this was done on purpose by a forward-thinking programmer who realized users would want something more powerful than the stock BASIC and didn't want to have to buy a ROM-replacement cartridge to get it like Atari users would. So it's kind of ironic that the "mindless printing machine" is basically the "memo pad" mode that Ataris drop into when there is no BASIC cartridge.

[@mechaform]

I _had_ his signature on a WoC brochure from the 80s. Sadly it didn’t survive one of my many moves.

[@DX064]

The strange tall and thin booklet format is in the style of the old IBM System/360 and /370 Mainframe reference booklets - a must for any Assembly programmer.

[@CallousCoder]

Oh sweet! Everything Jim Butterfield is great. Wait what?!?! Did you know Jim personally?! Wow!!! You lucky man!

[@haweater1555]

Jim is from Canada, and so is 8BS&T.

[@CallousCoder]

@@haweater1555 I knew that but that’s like saying: I am Dutch and so is Rutger Hauer and we both worked in entertainment (even with the same production company) but I’ve never met Rutger. 😉

[@Okurka.]

@@CallousCoder Rutger who?

[@larryh8072]

My first experience with the 6502 was when we purchased a Rockwell AIM at work.The intended use was to develop a battery tester for testing various battery types. As I recall we found Jim’s name buried in one of the ROM’s so I was led to believe he was involved in the development. In the years to follow we grew to worship Jim as my circle of computer geeks were members of TPUG. I never got to meet Jim unfortunately so I have to say you were very fortunate indeed!

[@eugenetswong]

Did you ever make the tester?

[@larryhuff3383]

@eugenetswong We used the AIM for several set ups. The battery tester we developed was 8 channels. Essentially we were testing hearing aid batteries to determine their true capacity. I can’t recall the circuit exactly but I remember each channel had an eight bit D/A in order to set the discharge rate. We would discharge the batteries down to a predetermined voltage and measure the time. We also used the set up to discharge batteries to a predetermined state to test their performance in hearing aids that were under development.

[@eugenetswong]

@@larryhuff3383That sounds *really* cool, because you seem to have had a well designed testing environment, and because it is good to see old tech being useful.

[@Okurka.]

27:08 Strange to see they used Germany (FR) instead of West Germany.

[@AndyG-_-]

Haha... I fired up VICE and tried PRINT CHR$(14) as soon as it appeared on the screen! 😄

[@faenethlorhalien]

Butterfiled? Imagine a field, but covered in butter! Ye gods! The stench! And so slippery!

[@moehoward9473]

Noticed there was a POKE command noted in that diary that turns off screen for programs running faster. Seems this could be used in the BBasic episode to get the fastest runtime? This and the POKE command that makes the cursor run really fast.

[@suvetar]

Fascinating content! Already found myself browsing the first few issues of the Transactor! I do recall that they Combo book/Diaries being popular then ... I had the Adrian Mole one 😀 Edit: Watching a wee bit further, I've got to say that this seems more like an Almanac than a Diary! Such a wonderful little thing to own though, I'm really quite jealous 😀

[@suvetar]

I know we have blogs, and Vogons and Wikis and so-on nowadays but I do think there's a lot of charm to the effort and detail put into these type-writered fan productions!

[@Okurka.]

34:44 I wish I knew POKE 818,226:POKE 819,252 back in 1984. Much fun could be had.

[@csbruce]

2:34 I assume it's generally hard to trademark a TLA. 2:42 We had CBM-8032s with MUPET controllers at my high school. 7:12 Huh? There's a road in Toronto called "Avenue"? 11:21 How many people are on team Exclamation Mark/One? 14:02 I assume that Shift-RUN + Restore will also do a soft reset. 14:14 The Reset vector is common to all 6502-based systems. 22:54 The same TED diagram is in the Anthology. 31:15 You can also get this using «OPEN1,0:INPUT#1,A».

[@8_Bit]

Yes, Avenue Road is a major road (avenue?) in Toronto, parallel with perhaps more famous names like Spadina Rd. and Yonge St. D'oh, I should have realized that 65532/3 was $FFFC/D; that vector that sits between the two I actually use: $FFFA/B and $FFFE/F. Somehow the decimal value seemed a little too low to me, but I was just being dense.

[@mickez3993]

from what i remember peek was sound poke was colours onscreen there was a hack you could reset the machine with a basic momentary action push button hooked up to two chip legs during a program like a game punch in a poke on the ready screen and the game returns hacked because it held its whole memory. basic days man looking back but it was cutting edge back in the mid eighties

[@RudysRetroIntel]

Very cool! I remember using the MUPET in school with the PETs. Wish I had one now. Thanks for sharing

[@BillAnt]

Can you imagine the havoc mischievous kids could have done on that shared drive? Like deleting files or formatting the drive, or loading a drive sound/music program to amaze the teacher. hehe

[@br33ch]

BMB Compuscience rang a bell, they made the original Sopwith game for PC.

[@MrKurtHaeusler]

Surprised he didn't list the Amiga (1000) as it came out mid 1985.

[@fu1r4]

It is called RUN/STOP key at 11:45 in chapter 8. 😄

[@8_Bit]

Team STOP is okay with RUN/STOP as long as it includes the slash between the two separate functions :) Just like CLR/HOME or INST/DEL.

[@SteveGuidi]

Aha! I caught you! @15:58 you say "Disable Run/Stop and Restore"! 😛

[@8_Bit]

As long as there's a slash between Run and Stop I'm okay with it ;)

[@MattKasdorf]

?PEEK(65532)+PEEK(65533)*256 C64 = 64738 PET2001 v1 = 64824 PET2001 v2 = 64721 PET2001 v4 = 64790 Perhaps an easy way to determine which revision of firmware your PET is running?

[@Hounddoggy33]

Hey Robin, Do you have a c128? There's a He-Man game that doesn't work on it, even in c64 mode. The title is Masters of the Universe, from 1987 by US Gold. It's the arcade version, not text. I bet you could figure out what's preventing it from working on the c128. Cheers!

[@BeyondWrittenWords]

Holy eternal artifacts, praise the lord

[@noland65]

PEEK(65532)+PEEK(65533)*256 is actually the 6502 reset vctor at $FFFC. This is not only guaranteed to work with any Commodre 8-bit, but with any 6502 (and derivatives) machine with BASIC (for PEEK). (It's defined by the hardware and is what the processor looks for, as it comes out of reset.)

[@gregornu]

Some software stay resident after the reset with this PEEK combination. Just like with many 'hardware' reset buttons built in the C64 or an external equivalent (like for the user port): some software seems to stay resident in memory 🤔. After 40 years still no good reset for the C64 than using the power switch. Is it so difficult???

[@noland65]

@@gregornu The bit-pattern, we usually see in empty memory arreas, is a result of the hardware implementation. I don't think that there is routine like "reset all memory to zero" in ROM.

[@DavidYoud]

Where did you pick up that little treasure? It's a bit like finding an old copy of "Advanced Poke-Making", and seeing "Property of the Half-Butter Prince" written inside :D One of my favorite parts of collecting old 8-bit RPG games is finding all the previous owners' graph paper maps and notes inside.

[@8_Bit]

Yes, it's a neat little find from eBay a few years ago. I've got a few used RPGs with all those hand-made maps inside too, they're fun finds. I also love little hand-written notes in books. In one book I have, the previous owner frequently argued with the author with his pencil in the margins.

[@mikegarland4500]

@@8_Bit well, if the author was wrong.. Haha! I've been known to make snarky remarks in my books as well. Such as "Does not work!!" or "Try this instead; works much better".. Oh no, I'm Snape. 😢 Another great episode-thanks for showing us this.

[@stevethepocket]

"I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain."

[@DavidYoud]

@@stevethepocket Ha! well played. :)

[@customsongmaker]

He probably autographed all copies. Or some copies.

[@joechevy2035]

What's the reason the remove the line numbers? Cleaner listing of code? Save RAM space possibly? Any thoughts?

[@eugenetswong]

Thanks, Robin.

[@luminousfractal420]

Its diary in the uk too. Just not secrets specific. Just a record of a days events.

[@phil2768]

Wow, this is super rare. Maybe you have the only one as I could not find it anywhere using the ISBN search. Where did you get it from?

[@rog2224]

ICPUG as a physical meetup closed in 1998, with a tail off represented by Stevenage Computer Club (which Covid-19 seems to have finally killed) Jack Cohen, the membership secretary for 12 years, resigning the post in 1993, passed away August 12th 2010. The webstite seems to be extant, but I can't see much updating since late 2022.

[@aresaurelian]

The MUPET looks interesting.

[@jirisutera8793]

Nice video, nice handbook. A long time ago I also wrote routines for DEC->HEX and HEX->DEC conversion (shown at 25:00). They were significantly shorter :-) In case someone uses it today, here is the code: ``` 0 rem dec->hex 1 ?"dec";:input a:o$="" 2 x=a-int(a/16)*16:o$=chr$(x+48-7*(x>9))+o$:a=int(a/16):if a>0 then 2 3 ?"hex $";o$ 0 rem hex->dec 1 ?"hex:";:input a$:l=len(a$):s=0:p=1:for i=l to 1 step -1 2 v=asc(mid$(a$,i,1))-48:v=v+7*(v>9):s=s+v*p:p=p*16:next i:?"dec:";s ``` Thanks for your, always interesting, videos.

[@ShawnBofenkamp]

December 31, 1985 - should be sys 64760

[@TheHighlander71]

I was surprised to see the "national holidays" for the Netherlands. March 28, 31 and May 8, 19 are not (and never have been) national holidays. Strangely enough may 4th and may 5th, which are national holidays related to the liberation after the second world war aren't mentioned. Maybe Jim didn't feel like doing research the day he wrote that table.

[@gregornu]

I think that someone else wrote the non-technical section of the diary.

[@TheHighlander71]

@@gregornu I would imagine Jim to be the kind of fella who would credit another author. He probably copied the wrong line somewhere. No biggie.

[@what-uc]

Easter, Ascencion and Pentecost, all listed on Wikipedia

[@TheHighlander71]

@@what-uc They're not on fixed dates

[@TheHighlander71]

@@what-uc in 1986 easter was on march 30. The Netherlands have a 2nd easter day which was marc 31st. May 8th was ascencion so that's correct but may 19th again is our 2nd pentecost...It's still a mess

[@it5190]

Hmmm… the challenger blew up on poke 808,234

[@CoLD.SToRAGE]

Still have that!

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

That is nuts!

[@haweater1555]

No references to the Amiga?

[@phil2768]

I wondered about this too with the Amiga coming out in 1985 it should have been in there I guess

[@NuntiusLegis]

"When I think of the Amiga, I don't think of Commodore" - Leonard Tramiel. I agree to that, perhaps JB as well.

[@ingolf17]

Thought "usefull adresses", were pokes :-P

[@klocugh12]

Whoever wrote in that diary must have really liked playing poker 😅

[@Electronics-Rocks]

I have some hydra cards for C64 which shared drives & printers which if any viewers have info on these would great

[@haweater1555]

Not familiar with "700" series here in the Great White North; were they the European flavours of the "CBM-II" series, which were severe flops in North America?

[@igork3522]

If someone could recreate this, I would buy it!

[@djstrum3946]

POKEmon, catch them all!

[@JGreen-le8xx]

If the MUPET devices are for networking, you can LAN ASCII DOOM over the Commodore PETs. 😄

[@Chexsum]

MICROPET?

[@TheSudsy]

M ulti U ser PET

[@johnps1670]

Day planner? Not an agenda?

[@it5190]

Who else still watches this video to go to sleep?

[@mickez3993]

The thing about commodore that amstrad language hade over was CLS clear screen command could never figure the code on commodore. back in the day a lot of commodore code branched over to BBC and Amstrad language that wasted a lot of time punching in the codes on the commodore. shame. the commodore was the ultimatate benchmark of home computing we will never see again especially the MOS SID chip Man that chip is god

[@absmustang]

This feels like click-bait, haha