Making Commodore 64 Software In 1983

From my archives - this excerpt from my 16mm print of the 1983 film "Making It Young" about young Canadians who are making their own way in the world. In this clip David Bradley shows his CBM setup for creating and mass producing his software for the Commodore 64. I transferred this reel with my own Eiki Telecine. Enjoy, eh!
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[@DRBradleyPhotography]

That was a long time ago...and indeed...I still have a vast Commodore collection...David Bradley

[@dentakuweb]

I'm assuming you were duplicating floppies six at a time?

[@VeganAtheistWeirdo]

This is one of those cool internet moments for me. 🤣 Did you even remember doing this spot before the video came up on your recommendations?

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@dentakuweb We had a number of disk drives connected to one computer and indeed, we were duplicating many disks at a time...that was in the office of the Toronto PET Users Group. I will have to have a look at the video more closely...as we, at times had more than 6 dual drives on the go...Some people liked other faster copy methods, but I do not remember us ever getting a disk back as defective when I was at the helm of the copying...if the drive showed any signs of an issue, the copy was done again...and in extreme cases, the output disk discarded...those were exciting times...the pioneer days, they were!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@VeganAtheistWeirdo I remember when it was filmed...and yes, they used film...not video and not digital, but I do not remember ever seeing it before...so, some perhaps 40 years later, it was nice to be reminded of those days working at the Toronto PET Users Group, before the politics, back stabbing and greed of some involved sent the club into some dark times...but it still exists to this day, and while there are many great people still involved, there have been some scoundrels over the years...here and there...from time to time...

[@user-yt1qs9jt6h]

Wow the phrase " not doing for the money but just to help someone" is not a phrase you hear much these days

[@sabercnc]

The C64 User Manual is the best introduction to programming.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

And after you got through that, move to the Programmers Reference Guide!

[@alzeNL]

@@DRBradleyPhotography that features chip design and timing of operations - thats how you make a manual for assembler ! lovely tome.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@alzeNL Indeed, they decided to share all that they knew at the time...which of course encouraged more people to write more software and then they sold more computers, etc, etc etc...

[@MarquisDeSang]

when computers made you more intelligent.

[@PamOrl]

My first computer was a C-64. I used the tape drive until I upgraded to the 1541 floppy. My friend, a CompSci major at U of Miami, gave me his Commodore 300 baud modem, which opened up the world of BBS. Those were the days 👍

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

BBS's did open us up to all sorts of online experiences...and eventually the internet was born...I know that is a twitter version of events, but still, really telecommunications has changed the world as we know it...for the better...sometimes...or worse...sometimes...I ran a BBS...and met all sorts of great people through it! And to this day, I still find people that I knew or knew of or they knew of me from those early pioneer days...

[@robertdaone]

Yep the same and I also had an Amiga as well. Yep BBS were like the pre internet back in the days. Took about 1/2 and hour to download a porn pic though.😆🤣

[@coldwarmotors]

Cool! My brother and I delivered a lot of newspapers in 1980-82 to buy a C64; still have it, actually! We used to buy the magazines and type in the programs to make games.

[@colinstables]

So did we in Warkworth nz, bought a dot matrix printer, disc drives and everyone had pirated games and yeah we used to use basic and copy machine language, good times

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Typing in programs was tedious, but a great way to learn...and sometimes, the programs even worked...sadly most of the magazines were too uppity to print the listing as it was printed from a printer and would have it re-typed and typeset which would of course lead to errors and corrections in issues down the road...sounds like you two enjoyed your time in the World of Commodore!

[@NuntiusLegis]

@@DRBradleyPhotography I could well imagine how tedious it would be, so I never typed in a program, but preferred the joyful process of writing my own programs - no matter how much worse they were compared to those in the magazines. ;-)

[@steviebboy69]

@@DRBradleyPhotography I remember typing in programs and some were very long indeed, I also remember using an assembler program to key in a program once. I am sure that was used with a box that plugged into joystick port to decode weather fax and RTTY. The other end went into a shortwave radio on SSB, it was an Australian publication that had this and the decoder was a kit.

[@8BitNaptime]

Wow yes I had a legit paper route and I also distributed those dreaded store flyer bags. But hey, it was a way to make money in the '80s as a kid. Also collecting empties was a big thing but messy. I was lucky enough to also get summer odd jobs at the garden center. I think I blew all that money on music and parts for my computer!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

That was a long time ago...and indeed...I still have a vast Commodore collection...I do remember when this film was shot, but I had never seen it until about 9 days ago when I got a message from a follower from my KZbin channel, and I was very pleasantly surprised to see myself, sort of like stepping into a time warp...as this was shot some 39 years ago! It was in the offices of the Toronto PET Users Group when their offices were on Avenue Road in Toronto, and as it happens, it was located about a block from where I grew up. I was already a member and had started my commodore collection, but I did not know it was a collection at the time...I was an avid user, and programmer, not a coder, and had a PET and had recently added a Commodore 64 to the mix... It was many years later that I got a Vic-20, sort of skipped over than for some reason and now, here it is 2022, and I have many Commodore and Amiga computers, but alas, the time has come to share some of the treasures, and yes, little by little I will be selling things off...in the past few days I have been tinkering with an original Commodore PET with a chiclet keyboard and the cassette tape drive beside the keyboard...not the greatest setup, but that is how the PET began! Thanks so much for FRAN for finding this footage and I will take some time to look at some of her other finds...before this, I have never heard of her or her channel, but I will come back often and answer and all questions that people might have...I remain, David Bradley

[@gorak9000]

That's you in the video? Are you duplicating disks to sell your programs? And who keeps pestering you on the phone before you lock the drives every time?

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@gorak9000 That was me...working at the Toronto PET Users Group...a club that is still around...not nearly as big as the glory days of commodore, but still active!

[@carlpencil5126]

Eri quello coi baffi?

[@captainmother1268]

Gotta keep those disk drives locked and loaded! You never know when one of those things will try to escape! It looks so dramatic and cool. Like he's getting a space shuttle ready for launch! Thanks Fran!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Lift off!!!

[@gorak9000]

Looks like he has to call central command every time before he locks the drives too. Odd that they showed the same clip 6 times from 3 different angles. Wonder if this is from something from the National Film Board - sure looks like it. Next look up "The Logdriver" "Flintabetty Floniton", "The cat came back", or the infamous "I smell burnt toast" films. After you watch enough NFB vignettes, you become an honorary Canadian.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@gorak9000 The backup command had to be issued and then the drives have to be closed while spinning to drastically decrease the changes of a bad copy...which would never get shipped, but would result in an error message...and the copy would have to be done again...indeed, we had to tickle the output disk drives...

[@flarfy9000]

"The recognition from writing something that helps people, is I think worth more than making a lot of money of of it" Beautiful quote! Notice how he repeatedly mentions the joy of helping people. David Bradley seems like a very nice guy 😊

[@salmonline]

I used to work at a recording studio in NJ called Sound Arts, in the 1980s. We did high speed tape duplication. We made tapes for Commodore 64.😁👍

[@punkisinthedetails1470]

Did you get to meet Lionel Richie? Or any of the rest of the band?

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

For a long time TPUG used a high speed duplication company...copying tapes was a very slow process using the actual Commodore computers...and the results were quite reliable and saved hours and hours of time and it meant that bunches of copies of the monthly tapes were ready to go for all the meetings...

[@lv_woodturner3899]

"The program never works the first time....." So true. I got a big smile looking at the space taken up by the nested floppy drives. Memory technology has come a long way since 1983. Thanks for the video flashback. Dave.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Great memories of those days of limited memory capacity...

[@mojav3dlab739]

Yep.... I always am a little leery when anything works the first time!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@mojav3dlab739 I can write a quick program that works...but I generally find things to refine...and tweak!

[@mojav3dlab739]

@@DRBradleyPhotography the refining and tweaking is the fun part, isn't it? Is for me anyway.

[@wv838]

I wrote games in the 80's (Dragon/CoCo) and remember a visit to the cassette duplication which was electromechanic heaven! I can still conjur up the smell of the chemicals used to adhere the labels. Very happy times.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Nothing like the smell of fresh glue! Those tape duplicating machines were pretty magical! They did not care if it was music or data...very fast, very efficient, and very reliable!

[@wv838]

@@DRBradleyPhotography It wasn't actually an adhesive, but a chemical that melted the plastic of the cassette such that the paper label would stick to it. The chemical was extremely volatile and so evaporated within seconds. The speed at which it all took place was astounding. I drove some 220 miles with about £15k (1985?) worth of games to a computer show. I got about 90 miles before I realised we were obviously high as kites and had to pull over for a while. The smell eventually dissipated. Computing was so much more fun then than it is now.

[@nyceyes]

My first computer was a Commodore 64, but I only had the keyboard (the computer) and nothing else, because I couldn't afford anything else. So every BASIC program I wrote was lost when I turned it off. 🤷‍♀️ But I learned things.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Learning is all important! Too bad you did not have a datasette...slow they were...but they did work...sometimes when you have to write something again it gets better...

[@steviebboy69]

@@DRBradleyPhotography After my C64, all I could afford was the Datasette , and a B&W portable tv and an old one at that. I fed the Luma signal into the video detector of the set and got it to work. Wasnt the RF out on UHF for the commodore? that may explain the video mod as the telly was VHF only.

[@ChrisM541]

I was very fortunate to be working during the summer college break that allowed me to purchased my C64 and 1541 disc drive...all 180Kb or storage, though soon learned about using the other side by cutting that 2nd notch. The '80s were certainly the 'golden age' of home computing.

[@springbloom5940]

The best was leaving it on for days, writing programs and then hand transcribing them into a notebook, so I could spend hours typing it in, whenever I wanted to use it.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@ChrisM541 Hello there...yes indeed, the golden age they were...glad you found out about the disk notching...the disk companies, who wanted to sell more disks strongly discouraged this and came up with all sorts of reasons that you should not do it...but of course, we all did it...and companies even started making disk notchers...so you could do it very accurately and safely! Indeed, disks were not cheap back in the day, and some of the best of the best such as what we used to run the BBBBS were in the range of $70 for 10 disks...they were Verbatim, and indeed, they performed very well! I hope you enjoyed your time in the world of commodore!

[@trainliker100]

Long ago at a local computer store, they had a kiosk promoting the IBM PC. It seemed to be based on a video disk and you pushed buttons and it would show a video of some aspect of the PC. I wondered what they used to control things for this and opened the door at the bottom of a cabinet. Yep. A Commodore 64 was running the show.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

The Commodore line of computers have been used to help and promote other products...because they were better...and more capable...hidden in the bottom of a cabinet...chugging away...

[@trainliker100]

@@DRBradleyPhotography Way back in the day of the Commodore, I was Engineering Manager of a company where we made products with embedded microprocessors and we had pretty good computers. But for fun, we all bought Commodore 64's just to mess with them. We thought it was, by far, the best thing for a young person to start with. You could do anything with it. The architecture and I/O and everything was very versatile and it used a 6502 processor which was pretty main stream and good for learning assembly language on. (At work, we were using the 1802 and later the 8051 series.) As an example, Polaroid had come out with their fanciest new camera with ultrasonic ranging for focus. Polaroid sold little kits of just the parts for this as they were trying to get people to use their technology in other things. We bought one of the kits and one of the staff whipped up something with the Commodore 64 in about 15 minutes and had it working and indicating ranging.

[@lsorense]

@@DRBradleyPhotography I remember the cable company in Bolton (Albion Cable before Shaw bought it) used to run the community announcements on a VIC20 just scrolling white text on a blue background. It was eventually replaced by an amiga which suddenly meant it got graphics and wipe effects and such (I think they might have used amiga vision).

[@DarkVain]

Love what you were able to recover and put on the web. My first computer was the Comodore Amiga. Always had drooled over the Vic 20, Atari 400/800, C64 and the C128. Ended up running the Amiga Based Users Group in Toronto. Got a honourable in one of the Amiga magazines for our booth at World of Comodore. Would have Jim Butterfield as one of our reoccuring guest speakers and loved his passion for the C64. Miss those days. Need to revive my Amiga. Battery damage and mice from being stored in the attic. Hoping it is salvagable. Thanks Fran!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Jim Butterfield was the master, the guru, the best teacher I have ever met...even though he was not a teacher...he could keep a room full of people hanging on his every word regardless of their level or lack of knowledge. He had a way about him I have never seen since...I knew him for a vast number of years and indeed, once we ended up speaking at a couple of computer shows in the USA...but I got to know him mostly through TPUG, but did get to see him not long before he left us, and his wit and charm were still intact...my brother and I spoke at his memorial service...and not long ago I checked in on his widow via a phone call of course due to covid...I strive to be half as good as Jim was...

[@NuntiusLegis]

@@DRBradleyPhotography He was also a great writer - a pity that his books are hard to find now (in paper form). With the ongoing retrocomputing trend, some books got republished - I hope it will happen with his book on machine language.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@NuntiusLegis Indeed, Jim was a great teacher be it in person, or if information was digested via the printed page of a book, or magazine! I suspect that he would have been an internet sensation had he not gotten sick and left us...he was a manly man, who did not know everything, but I always marveled at how he could keep a room of hundreds engaged on most any subject regardless of the level or difficulty of the material...and he had a great sense of humour...cadence...timing...delivery...might have done well as a standup comedian...I miss him everyday...and he inspires me all the time...

[@NuntiusLegis]

@@DRBradleyPhotography I never met him in person, but there is a C64 introduction video here on KZbin as evidence that he was a charismatic person and talented lecturer for sure.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@NuntiusLegis He did lots of travelling around the world after he quit his day job and dedicated himself to his writing, and speaking, and experimenting...we who lived in and around Toronto were spoiled as he would often come to the TPUG meetings, and there were lots of them around the GTA, and speak and chat with anybody and everybody...he was a great man and an inspiration to so many...he did not know everything about everything, but he knew so much and the real talent was being able to pass along what he knew in a way that was caring. helpful, and easily understood...a fountain of knowledge...with wit, charm, charisma, and a twinkle in his eyes...I did not know he was as sick as he was the last time I saw him...I really had no clue and would have tried to spend more time with him before he left us, but he assured me that he would be OK...

[@WaskiSquirrel]

In the 80s, I really wanted a Commodore 64. My family had a TI-99/4a, and I felt like I was missing out. Now, of course, I recognize that even so I spent many hours learning to program. And, at age 46, I'm even teaching students to program in ways I never could have dreamed up when I was their age. I'm living in what would have appeared to young me to be science fiction!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Learning to program is a great way to train the mind to break tasks down into individual steps...so nice to hear that you are passing your knowledge on to the next generation!

[@OldAussieAds]

I was the same. The TI994/A we had didn't even come with software and by the time it was handed down to us from my grandfather, TI was out of business. So every time I used that computer, it was running a BASIC program either written by my Dad or typed in from a book or magazine. The closest I came to seeing actual TI commercial software (Munch Man, TI Invaders etc) was looking at screenshots in the leaflet that came in the box. Yet the kid up the road had a Commodore 64 with 1541 disk drive and what felt like hundreds of games. While I wanted that system so badly, I wouldn't trade my childhood experience with the TI.

[@BirdYoumans]

My first computer was a Commodore 64. Started with the cassette drive for storage and when I finally got the disk drive I thought I had died and gone to heaven lol! Learned to program basic because there weren't many programs for it. Once I learned Basic, then I learned HTML because once you learn how a computer language works, it's really pretty much learning the commands any peculiarities of any new language to learn it. But as a musician I realized that you can only adequately serve one master and I soon let the big boys do the programming and by then there were lots more programs to choose from. But I have always loved computers and I'm glad I learned the Basic and HTML programming. It served me well with my early web sites.

[@BlakeC27]

The C64 was my family's first computer too. We were lucky enough to get a disk drive straight off the bat as they were released when we purchased it. And most programs were still on tape so it was pretty slim picking for a while.

[@seanhuxter6724]

I had some experience with cassette storage and refused to but my c64 without a drive. So good

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

All knowledge is good and indeed bits and pieces of things can come back to help us down the road...even if it just the way programming and taking things apart piece by piece can help down the road with critical thinking or planning, etc...the tape drive was slow and reliable...the disk drive on the 64 was also slow, but compared to the tape drive, lightning fast! Programming, not coding, is indeed a way of thinking...and the languages do become easier to learn once you know how to think...and indeed, eventually, when you find a great program such as a word processor like paperclip or wordpro, you give up your aspirations of writing your own, and go with something tried, tested and true...just like cars...anybody can check the tire pressure, but when it comes to a tune up, especially with all the computers that are part of modern cars, you go to the mechanic with the diagnostic tools and skill to interpret them...be it at a shop or at the dealer...but I can still add oil or check the window washer fluid level on my own...

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@BlakeC27 The disk drive was better and faster compared to the tape drive, but still would not set any speed records in the industry...and you could keep your lunch warm on the top of the 1541 over the vents! I hope you enjoyed your time in the World of Commodore!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@seanhuxter6724 There were lots of good cartridge games and programs out there...hard to save without a datasette or disk drive...

[@CARLiCON]

sweet, thanks for sharing...a lot of people don't realize how bleeding edge it was to have dual floppy drives back in the early 80s...there were no HDs so if you only had 1 drive, you had to load DOS into RAM first, then eject the DOS disk & insert the program disc...good times!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

With the Commodore drives, dos and everything was all built-in...the circuit board inside the disk drive was as involved as that of the computer...other systems did indeed need to load the dos, etc, etc, etc...Commodore did come out with two hard drives that had an astounding 5 or 7.5 megabytes of storage...they are still highly prized...but often they have failed after all these years...

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@user-ex7qx4pv2u The destination drive needed to closed after the backup command was issued to ensure that disk was properly centered...the 8050 and the 8250 and other commodore disk drives automatically did this...and later, very late versions of the 1541 did this...you could copy disks without doing this operation but the failure rate and thus the number of times you had to do it again and again increased...sometimes copies would fail even with the disk drive tickle...

[@CARLiCON]

@@DRBradleyPhotography you're right, I was thinking of the Apple II, which didn't have IDE at that time. Good catch, you rock!

[@NuntiusLegis]

@@DRBradleyPhotography We used to copy disks a lot with the 1541, using special copy programs, and I don't remember any problems ...

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@CARLiCON There were advantages to having to have DOS load...much easier for updates...with the PET's and their drives, you had to swap chips...but that did not happen very often...but in the end...with the internet and the endless updates of APP's, it seems that having things hardwired in has left the building...for the most part...

[@BobDarlington]

Sweet! Got to see this before some jerk does a copyright claim.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

So glad this footage was found...and shared...I was in it...but do not remember ever seeing it before!

[@deniswauchope3788]

The Commodore Amiga OS was the best OS I've ever worked with. Amazingly versatile, the computer itself was a wonder, and I miss the ease of doing things that are still difficult with Windows (selecting & renaming lots of files simultaneously, adjusting message boxes to actually fit the content, selecting files by a simple mouse click & scrolling, etc. etc.) I am also still frustrated that I can't use "special characters," i.e. colons & exclamation points, in file names, which the Amiga OS allowed without a problem. I'll always miss my Amiga 2000, and wish it were still viable!

[@rztrzt]

I think anybody that owned an Amiga misses it.

[@steviebboy69]

I miss my Amiga as well, I still have it but unfortunately the bloody Varta leaky battery problem showed up. I still have about 4 c64s and an SX-64. None of these are my original C64 purchase.

[@deniswauchope3788]

@@rztrzt Yes, the Amiga was way ahead of its time. Not only was it a computer that the user could set up the way they wanted it to work, unlike the PC or Mac, it could outperform them back then. I recall some friends with Macs, far more expensive machines than the Amiga, and yet my Amiga 2000 would run circles around them in speed (much to their chagrin.) I also had the PC emulator, so I could run some PC programs & read PC discs, and yet no PC could run anything Amiga! Yes, the Amiga will always be dear to my heart (and it's a tragedy that the owners of Commodore turned out to be scumbags who literally "took the money and ran.")

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

There were many a developer for PC programs that had their programmers write and edit on the Amiga and then port it over for testing, etc...It was a great machine...far ahead of the MAC and the IBM PC's, but alas, then there was the short-sighted Commodore Amiga management people...sigh...

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@rztrzt I suspect you are most correct!

[@BenjiMordino]

Oh, thank you Fran. I am just a young Australian born after this documentary was filmed, but I love that I am able to see it. A true documentary, documenting something that is I suppose not that important, but very fascinating.

[@tugaminhoto4969]

That was amazing time, i was programmer (BASIC, COBOL and CLIPPER for long time) and started in 1984.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

The various languages had their differences, but really programming is learning how to think...step by step...and there is nothing like a good subroutine!

[@Derpy1969]

Those drives! The sheer number of them! Nearly one MegaByte of storage at your fingertips!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Disks did not hold much back then...but then again...with much smaller memory capacities, we could still save lots of files to each disk...computers have certainly come a long way but still, the old things are a great way to take a trip down memory lane...

[@JacGoudsmit]

Actually Commodore had some floppy drives that could actually store an entire megabyte on a single disk. And they looked exactly like that. I think the type number was 8250 or 8052 or something. And keep in mind this was years before IBM introduced the PC with a measly 320K (later 360K) per disk.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@JacGoudsmit First commodore had the 8050 which was single sided and would hold about 500k, and then came the 8250 that was the same format, but double sided...much of this was done to help people who were using the PET for the databases that were growing too large for the 4040 format disks to contain...and then came the hard drives...

[@richardbrobeck2384]

Thanks for sharing this great video !

[@EricaJoy4444]

My kids were just old enough to enjoy leaning video games on our Commodore 64. I car pooled with a friend who's son was in High School and hung out with a crowd who traded bootleg C64 games with broken copy protection. About half of them worked just fine. Afrcan Adventure. A text game. "That's not ground! That's Alligator!" Bruce Lee. Animated video game. At the time you didn't even know it was way pixelated. It was just fun. Took a couple of months for us to get to the end. And what was that text game where you were in a system of caves and you'd get eaten by Grues if your lamp went out. Zork! I started writing my papers for English 101 on the computer. What a massive change in the way you could edit a whole paper in a few minutes instead of using erasers and white out and staying up until 2AM Thanks for the memories Fran.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Word processing was a great thing...mind you, the first thing I handed in that was printed on a printer was initially rejected...try to hand something in hand-written these days!!! And printers have come a long way!!! Just ask SHAQ!!! No more cartridges!!!

[@danielmkubacki]

I love your videos Fran.

[@frame_by_frame]

What a trip. I did assembler programming on a C64 in 1984 (but don't have any film of it).

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Indeed, if we had access to digital recordings then as we do today, there would have been lots more of those historic days and happenings recorded...film was expensive, and you might end up developing 24 pictures and getting one back that you could use or liked...and so, it was just not often used...I wish I had pictures of our BBBBS setup when we were in my grandmother's basement...etc...one picture exists and it is on the front of the tpug magazine...December 1984, but that is when we were in her house, but in the corner bedroom on the main floor...the basement came later if I remember correctly...still, they were interesting and educational days that live on in our memories!

[@RemcovanZuijlen]

That guy sure picked up the phone a lot and made sure the diskdrives were latched properly for some reason..

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

The drive doors had to be closed as the copy command was issued to make sure that the disks were properly centered...it was known as tickling the drives...down the road, and even at the time, some of the commodore disk drives automatically did a little spin when a disk was inserted...like the 8050 and the 8250, but the 4040 did not do it, and for most of the life of the 64, neither did the 1541...

[@cleanpowerelectric]

What a fashion statement! We all looked like that with our Long hair, Mac shirts and Dayton boots 😂

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I am not sure why I parted my hair in the middle like that...but I certainly still have long hair to this day...most of the time...might be time to cut it again...but I still have a red and black plaid shirt/jacket.

[@patthesoundguy]

I got my Vic 20 for Christmas December 1982 when I was 5 years old. Learned a lot about computers even then. Especially how to type because I would type in basic out of books at 6 years old

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Much was learned from typing in programs from books and magazines...it was a painfully slow sometimes frustrating way of learning...but learn we did!

[@d.blackwell6417]

I've been wanting to buy one again. I loved my c64!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

They are out there...millions have been sent to e-waste, but there are collectors and hoarders out there who have been saving them for decades...

[@NuntiusLegis]

I have two C64 C up and running, my old one with color monitor, and another one I bought a few months ago together with a green phosphor monitor, which I had always yearned for. I needed the green phosphor experience for my life being complete. :-)

[@d.blackwell6417]

@@NuntiusLegis that's awesome!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@NuntiusLegis I still have a green monitor that I used on one of my 64's...I liked it...reminded me of the PET...and was perhaps easier on the eyes...mine was a COMREX monitor...I think it was/is!

[@NuntiusLegis]

@@DRBradleyPhotography Nice. :-) And I found out that a monochrome monitor on the C64 delivers 9 luminances of the same hue which allows for nice nuances compared to a color monitor, which delivers only 5 luninances of the same hue (black, the 3 greys and white). If I ever get my game project finished, there may be a version optimized for monochrome. :-)

[@kewkabe]

Holy cow, that guy's youtube channel has hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of videos about Commodore computers and peripherals.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

There are more than 1100...and growing...I have been off the air for the past few weeks...but more recordings will soon appear...time to get back in the game and solve more mysteries, fix more old Commodore machines and experiment with all sorts of bits, bytes, and re-discover old interfaces, etc!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I started recording after being inspired by a visit to the computer museum run by Syd Bolton for the first time...within 3 months he was mysteriously dead...and the museum also perished...very sad it was...so I kept recording...intending to get organized...and sometimes it works...he had a shirt on that said...IT IS NOT HOARDING IF YOU ARE ORGANIZED...I am still trying to get organized...he was very organized...not perfect...but nobody is...

[@mojav3dlab739]

Great video. I was there in the era but on the Atari side of things. My brother started a memory board company and we sold our own 48k memory upgrade for the 400/800 systems. Intec Peripherals Corp was the company name and we assembled in a little office suite and wave-soldered and vapor-cleaned the boards in my garage. My Mom, my sister and another of my brothers all worked at it as well. It was a blast!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Sounds like a great enterprise! Those were the great pioneer days of computing!

[@mojav3dlab739]

@@DRBradleyPhotography they certainly were. Now, in the 21st century, I'm heavily into 3D scanning and 3D printing. And I just got back into the Atari scene on a large FB group. I think playing with the latest technology is one of the most exciting activities anyone could engage in.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@mojav3dlab739 I have not yet experimented with the 3D printer world, but have seen it a action and it is indeed quite fascinating, and is another great way to make the concepts on the screen come to life...and it is being used for all sorts of things that way back then we could not have even imagined...nice to hear you are still on the cutting edge! Every era is a pioneer era for those brave enough to boldly go where nobody has gone before...and push the new technologies to the limit...and then some!

[@TicklishPizza]

Thanks Fran!

[@classicgamer1968]

It was a very unique and exciting time when home computers were introduced. As a young teenager we had the Vic-20, then the Commodore 64 and the C64 was a valuable tool academically and recreation-wise. We had the C64, 1541 Disk Drive, Cassette player, Commodore 1702 monitor, and a Star Gemini 10X printer along with tons of software. We bought a lot of software and received many dozens of disks with pirated software which as we all know was a widespread phenomenon. From learning BASIC programming to using the Paperclip Word Processor for term papers and homework assignments to SAT practice software to games it was a great tool and my Dad used it too. Lots of great memories at an exciting time in history.

[@seekingagreatperhaps6391]

Thank you *so much* for this.

[@mitrooper]

Got my first C64 in 1985. Such a great time to have been a kid. I really miss those times.

[@JK_Chapman]

the C64 was my first introduction to computers around 1983-84.. love this!!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I got started on the PET in the late 70's...but have continued to live in the World of Commodore ever since!

[@JosipRetroBits]

An amazing little piece of history. Long live C64!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

They are still out there...on display...or playing games...or gathering dust...as long as they stay out of the e-waste bins!

[@robertdaone]

@@DRBradleyPhotography Also they were used in one of the John Wick movies.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@robertdaone Cool, I did not know that! Indeed, various Commodore computers have appeared on the screen, and indeed, some of them were used behind the scenes and in the post production part of the equation...I think fondly back to the toaster, etc...

[@robertdaone]

@@DRBradleyPhotography My bad, they were actually Vic 20s but close enough.😁

[@jeffmitchell289]

That was my first computer...I still remember getting Compute! magazine and copying pages of data for whatever program they had that month.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Those were the days...the endless typing...only to find that there was an error that would be fixed...in a few months! But still, even the typing was good for the fingers, and if you actually read what you were typing, you could learn and find new things to experiment with!

[@LasseHuhtala]

I'm instantly transported to the warm loving embrace of the 80's.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

They were magical times...in the World of Commodore!

[@rikardlalic7275]

I recall writing a Borland Pascal Proffessional Disassembler for 6502 processor, creating a Assembly source code transcript as txt file, from machine code stored in EPROMS and EEPROMs in 80s last century and erasing EPROMS with 24 hours sunbath exposure, when needed.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

EPROMS...oh yes...another exciting part of those days!

[@smd-tech]

Thanks Fran

[@Mr_Meowingtons]

it's been said that he is still closing the doors on them CBM Floppy drives to this day

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

It has been awhile since I did anything with a 4040 dual drive, but indeed, if I was to attempt a backup, I would tickle the door just as you see in this video...

[@DarkGT]

People use to help each other with technical questions? That's something you won't see today with Stack overflow.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

In general it was a very sharing time...learning...experimenting...dissecting programs and sharing the discoveries!

[@robertdaone]

I miss my old C64 and my Amiga computers also. Fun machines they were. Had both the external 5 1/4 drive and the cassette tape drive also.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

They were and are great machines...the tape drive was ok...but the disk drive made the entire machine much better!!! Even though they were not terribly fast, compared to a datasette, they were lightning speed! Machines are still available here and there...they have not all been scrapped...and they are making these mini machine things these days as well...not by commodore...but supposed to be modern versions that do some things...

[@cjhickspe1399]

I learned that programmer fashion has not changed in 40 years.

[@manonthedollar]

Hey Fran, how do you scan your 16mm film? It looks great. Do you have a scanner of some sort or do you send it out?

[@anders4u222]

Reminds me of my first computer.. couldn't afford the Commodore 64 so I bought the Vic 20 and the cassette recorder.. later I got some plug-in modules with extra memory. Learnt to program in Basic on it. Later on the pc I still learned Turbo-pascal, C, Cobol, C++ and C#.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

The Vic-20 was a great way to start...much the same as the 64...with less memory and 22 columns...any machine that anybody could learn to program on is good...it is a good way to learn the way of thinking around programming...I am glad you got the little brother to the 64 and it seems to have served you well!

[@DFDuck55]

I still have my C64 with two floppy drives. As well as a Vic-20 and eight Amiga (ranging from an Amiga 1000 (pre A1000), several A2000, a B2000 (made in Germany), and an A3000 tower.) I am one of the only people I know of that actually "paid for" ARexx before it was included with the OS. Then Commodore basically killed it by not paying William S. Hawes. Commodore did that to a lot of software developers. The A1000 cost me $1,200 in 1986, and that was the most I had ever spent on a computer till 2021 when I spent $1,400 on a DELL G5 SE laptop with a Ryzen 9 CPU.

[@deniswauchope3788]

What a tragedy that the owners of Commodore were such scumbags. I still carry a lot of resentment against those guys, who did such damage to Commodore and its reputation.

[@DFDuck55]

They did the same to Oliver Wagner too. He wrote Voyager which was the web browser that came with AmigaOS 2.0. They never paid him for it. I was one of his beta testers, you'll find my name (D.F. Duck) on the Voyager About screen for helping develop it's ARexx port. I'm sure the list of who Commodore Amiga screwed is quite long.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Sounds like a nice collection...indeed...Commodore management made promises to many that were never kept...and of course eventually they perished...

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@deniswauchope3788 Management often makes poor decisions...sadly...

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@deniswauchope3788 After Jack left, and he was indeed a character...the writing was on the wall...and managers from other industries that knew nothing about computers were brought in...and set about inflicting themselves on the creative processes...which indeed led to the demise...funny, some years earlier...Commodore almost bought Apple...when it was a new fledgling company...and the way things were run at Commodore, that would not have saved the 64 and other machines, but killed Apple...

[@kpkp2655]

Love it. Still have my C64 with all the trimmings since 1985. I wonder if the modem will work with my iPhone....hmmm.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I have not heard of an interface that would allow for such a hookup, but then again, I have never looked for one...I hope it works out...and I hope your 64 is still working well!

[@kpkp2655]

@@DRBradleyPhotography I was just being rhetorical :P . Everything works! 2 1541 drives, printer, datasette player, 2 joysticks monitor. My dad said school use only. Week later I was playing Summer Games. Had it in storage since 1990 and had it setup again last year, My wife calls it an eyesore, I call it a legend. heh.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@kpkp2655 It is a legend! I would bet there is a way to use the 64 with your iPhone...there is a wifi adapter that I have read about...do not have it, but that combined with a hotspot would likely do just fine...games are not a bad thing...Summer Games and others helped with hand eye coordination, and kept people off the streets...like everything, there needs to be a balance between work and play and studies, etc, etc, etc...and the Winter and Summer games programs were a great part of being in the World of Commodore...each time a new sport was coming in, the 1541 gave you a good chance to head to the bathroom...so glad your old system has survived, and that you can take a trip down memory lane...I find that spouses in general do not like things from the past popping up and taking away attention from them...I hope she comes to see the light before the old 64 is dwelling in a dark closet, or heading to the e-waste bins! Onward!

[@dbingamon]

I remember the Commodore days. I wrote a wrote a few articles for Compute!, Transactor, and a few other magazines in basic and machine language. I created disk copy protection that didn't misalign the drive like others did. My first printer was a KSR-33 teletype connected to the User Port on my C64 with 2N2222 transistor to switch the current loop. An ultimately, a BBS on ham radio that worked in CW (morse code) -- which means you didn't need a computer to sign-in to it. Fun stuff

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Wow, it sounds like you were very into the Commodore machines and adapting them to your unique interests! Bravo!

[@LexxAKonn]

Very interesting! I wish I still had my C64 and my programs.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

They are still around...and now you can get these interfaces that let you use SD cards to download files onto via your PC and then plug it into the SD 1541 device and load...I have not done it, but I have heard of it...and actually, I have one of the devices, but I have not tried it...yet! If you keep an eye, you might find one locally...check second hand stores, garage sales, estates sales, etc, etc, etc...or you can enjoy your youthful memories!

[@LexxAKonn]

@@DRBradleyPhotography Thanks so much for the reply! That's good to hear. I'm going to look into it.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@LexxAKonn You never know where you might stumble upon an old machine...and accessories...keep your eyes open...and search the internet...as well as local garage sales, etc...

[@deltaray3]

I'd love to see more behind the scenes stuff like this.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I wish we had filmed more things like this...and of course back then it would have been FILM...digital now as well as video way back when make such things much easier to save...I also wish we had taken lots of photos of those times...like the setups I had for the BBS we ran, etc, etc, etc...so much pioneer day history lost for all time...

[@Joel-qz6sd]

I would like those Commodore's game developers from the 80s and 90s to share some tutorials on KZbin. I am interested in learning about creating some racing simulator or flight simulators

[@mikefellhauer3350]

I went to high school with David (and Richard) Bradley back in the early 1980s in Toronto...they ran a BBS out of the school (Northern Secondary) called "The NORTEC BBS" running on a PET with a dual drive and an acoustic modem . David still does videos about Commodore hardware: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZ2aeHqZgrKCfbc

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Indeed, we did run THE NORTEC BBS out of the Northern Secondary School Library! It was an 8010 modem with a special answer circuit that had to be built...it sat on a multi-layer care on wheels and we got support from the Toronto Board of Education because their efforts to run a similar system always seemed to fail...we went on to run our own BBS called the Bradley Brothers Bulletin Board System (BBBBS) which eventually had 4 phone lines and 4 different set-ups...there was no way to have them be connected to each other at that time...no networking...I still have some parts of the old systems...

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

And yes, I have done more than 1100 Commodore videos...and there will be more to come!

[@musicmakelightning]

I remember when the term "high tech" was a foreign concept. Believe it or not, the "high tech" actually was a home decor style when the term was first coined.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I did not know that! Thanks for passing that along...I wonder how low tech the high tech designs of the day look now...fascinating!

[@goofyrulez7914]

The C64 was my third computers (I had the TRS-80 and Apple ][+ before it) but it was one of my favorites.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I knew a fellow I bowled with who went the same path as you, but never migrated to the Commodore way of thinking...oh well, even though our systems were vastly different, we still learned and shared with each other. One thing he liked was the commodore datasette...he used a radio shack tape deck and was forever having to tinker with the volume control...and sometimes, indeed, his programs were lost and he would have to start over...while the 64 system, while slow, was pretty reliable...and would report errors from time to time so that you at least knew you should re-save on another tape...sadly load errors were not out of the question, but sometimes could be resolved with head cleaner, or trying another unit...or rewinding the tape and then fast forwarding it a time or two...it was best to use shorter tapes as the longer 90 minute ones could sometimes pulse a bit as they loaded and saved...and then results were less reliable...all little bits of the early days living in the World of Commodore!

[@tiktokyt]

C-64 was my first computer. It was my life for a few years until I started playing guitar.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Good years they were I suspect!

[@erinwiebe7026]

Interesting way of coding - in between all those important phone calls & all that disc duplicating!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Before computers could multi-task, some people did it pretty well!

[@gorak9000]

I mean it's kinda how it still works - except now instead of people phoning you, someone is messaging you on MS Teams that some moron introduced weird unicode characters into the config files, and everything broke so you have to drop what you're doing to fix that immediately (true story from last week)!

[@phatcap976]

those are api calls

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@gorak9000 Customer service...I recently read an old article by Jim Butterfield and he did lots of things for free and released lots of program without asking for any money, because if you charge, you need to support and perhaps update...etc, etc, etc...which would keep you from moving farward with other things that you wanted to do...one of his programs was adapted by a software company, but then the support was in their domain!

[@djrmarketing598]

Commodore ViC-20 and 128 is what led me to choose software development as my career and hobby.

[@MrMaxeemum]

That poor VIC20 relegated to keeping the dust off the top of a disk drive. 😢

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I will have to look at the video closely...it has been a long time since it was shot!

[@MrMaxeemum]

@@DRBradleyPhotography I knew I had heard that name before. It was you The Dave Bradley. I see you used to dye your hair black back then.

[@CARLiCON]

ahhh yes, the good old 40 column days...1:36 Commodore Educational Softwar e

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

40 columns was easy on the eyes, but 80 was much better to do the old what you see is what you get when it came to printing, etc...

[@vwestlife]

I'm _sure_ those were all real phone calls. "Look how popular I am! The phone is ringing off the hook!"

[@apsdev]

Well each time before he picks up the white light at the right comes on, as he is making educational support he probably is doing support and order calls from schools and duplication at daytime at the same time. Looks like its a 2 men company as the room is packed with gear boxes and mail trays, so might be a spare room in a house. They might have to do the coding at night, remember thats in 1983 .. not many computers or C64's have been sold yet, and most software is just smallish basic programs. I wonder if those IEEE duplicating drives are connected to the c64 .. does seem to have a IEEE cartridge, or if the drives can copy themselfs .. as they have a 6502 CPU and 2 drives. Makes sense they are in copy mode , as he only seems to be operating the right drives.

[@zefallafez]

Hair salon calling to confirm his hair appointment.

[@JacGoudsmit]

More likely "my serial network drive is offline again. Can you put the floppy disk back in the drive?". Sure Bob.

[@mikefellhauer3350]

Back when that video was made TPUG (Toronto PET Users Group) could have had 20,000 members, and while there was the TPUG BBS, the only other way to get answers about the club was via phone. I actually went to high school with David (and Richard) Bradley. David still does videos about Commodore hardware, kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZ2aeHqZgrKCfbc

[@mikefellhauer3350]

@@zefallafez TPUG was a large Commodore PET/VIC20/C64 group and at its peak (about the time when the video was made) they had up to 20,000 members. There was a TPUG BBS, but the best way to get answers to questions about the club was via phone.

[@paulwomack5866]

How were those 4040 drives connected to the c64? I didn't think that was a thing.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

The 4040's were connected via some sort of IEEE interface...there were many eventually available...it was rather insane for somebody with a 40404, which they likely spent $1500 on, to get a 1541 when the 64 was introduced and there was much interest in such interfaces...I think Commodore even had one, but I never saw it. I am thinking that the one that was on this setup was the RTC C-CLINK...likely version 1...very small and compact, went in the cartridge port and gave you an edge connector to attach a PET-IEEE cable to...and away you went...the RTC model as well as others even added BASIC 4.0 to the 64, and all that was needed to copy a disk was to issue the backup command and the disk drive took care of the rest...Batteries Included also made such a device called a BUSCARD but there were others...being from Toronto, and with those companies being based out of Toronto, those were the two I knew the best...From what I remember, we eventually switched to a PET as I think the interfaces did not have the capacity to deal with more than 6 dual drives...but I could be wrong about that...it was a long time ago!

[@gregorythomas333]

Loved my C64 with a passion! I can still write in Basic and do it a lot...just in my head...to keep the ol' noggin like brass tacks.

[@starkistuna]

The games were just so good and creative to use all the little ram they had.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Learning tp program, I think, does help down the road with critical thinking...etc!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@starkistuna Some games needed parts to load in and out at various times...but many were all there once the 1541 finished a very long load after several minutes...magical times they were...

[@rickmellor]

I bought my first Commodore 128 yesterday to go with my C64. 👍

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

That is great news! 3 machines in one, but of course, hardly anybody uses the CP/M mode! I hope you enjoy it for many years to come!

[@patkelley8293]

I have a Commadore I'm working on right now. Who knows maybe this weekend I'll get to it.

[@butchc9226]

That brings back memories lol. I still have my Commodore Pet with a cassette drive and disk drive in storage. That got me started in programming. 6502 was fun 🤪

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Nice to hear that you are still spending a bit of time at least living in the World of Commodore...enjoy your PET...I hope it has the full sized keyboard...makes typing so much easier!

[@mojav3dlab739]

gotta love 6502!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@mojav3dlab739 The 6502 really did change the course of history...one little bit at a time!

[@meganjperry9489]

My first computer was the Commodore VIC 20, then the C64. Good old basic with its peeks and pokes (read & write) to memory. I remember switching the rom out to get at the shadow ram behind it for storage room. Mostly basic was very slow, i bought the 6502 assembler cartridge and programmed it in 6502 assy language. Much harder to write and read, but really fast. If i recall there were commands like LDA, LDX,LDY for loading accumulator, x register and y register and bit functions and all sorts, been such a long a time now i forget.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I suspect you remember more than you think you do...sounds like enjoyed your time in the World of Commodore...

[@the-luge]

Excellent

[@-jeff-]

C-64s! Ah those days of Peeks, Pokes and one thousand lines just to get that animation to tapdance across the screen.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Those were the days...mind you, sprites were part of the 64 and certainly could be created and made to dance in lots less than 1000 lines...but it was clumsy in Basic 2.0...

[@jwtfpv8957]

Now they were the days. 🌞

[@amigachris]

watched daves channel for years. thought he looked familiar!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

The hair has changed some!

[@caeserromero3013]

It was important to regularly caress the front of the disk drives...For some reason :)

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

The 4040's did not spin when a disk was placed into them...and such a quick spin was very helpful in getting disks properly positioned and seated...by caressing the drives as the backup command was issued, it ensured that they were in the best possible situation to make a good copy...some of the other disk drives that commodore made, did indeed spin upon insertion...for just this very reason...but not the 4040's or in fact most of the 1541's...until the end...some of the very last such drives did do it...we called it tickling the drives...and indeed, it meant that we hardly ever had a bad copy...

[@DaraM73]

Fran, what’s the music intro you use…so lovely.

[@punkisinthedetails1470]

Fran likely wrote and recorded it. Maybe copy and paste your question into a thread she has replied to at the top of the comments

[@o8thman812]

Love playin greyhound race game Hounded on my ol 64, there's 442mill in my betting account. Been trying for years to find the elusive Hounded II...

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I have never heard of that...but if you poke around, and search, I bet somebody has it or knows how it can be gotten...

[@wisteela]

That's awesome with all those 4040 drives.

[@mattnik]

Obviously there were people like this who used the Commodore to develop software, but I assume there were other environments and equipment used to program for the Commodore? Any clue what those were?

[@PicaDelphon]

Classics I Love them....

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

:)

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

David Bradley, @Dave Bradley 8-Bit Commodore Man just checking in...

[@epremeaux]

he checks the drives are closed and answers the phone a lot. I suppose If I had to manage all those drives and answer the phone from angry users, Id be paranoid too lol

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

We very rarely had any angry users...TPUG, at that time, was very good at taking orders, making copies and getting them into the mail quite promptly! And the drive doors needed to be closed each time we sent the backup command to the drives to make sure the destination disks were properly seated...hard to show the programming process in less than 2 minutes...and as is typical, I do not find the commentary to be totally accurate...I never got to see this way back then...only after 39 years did I manage to get to have a gander...

[@bsvenss2]

_All it takes is a little effort and imagination._ Amen to that! ;-)

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Those were exciting pioneer days!

[@8BitNaptime]

Love it! I wonder what IEEE interface Dave is using on the 64 and that nest of IEEE garden hoses behind the drives must have been a mess!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

As with many computers of the day, and still today depending, there are cables...oh yes, there are cables...I am not sure what IEEE interface was on that 64, but I think it might have been the CLINK from Richvale Telecommunications...where you could get a Commodore computer or an element for your stove! In behind the drives would have been one PET-IEEE cable and then 5 IEEE-IEEE cables...doing the daisy chain thing...with all the screws very securely fastened to prevent any slippage of the connectors...and of course there were 6 different power cables...but that was pretty much it...I think...as well as the power supply for the 64 and the power cable for the monitor...so yes, lots of wires...

[@8BitNaptime]

@@DRBradleyPhotography The IEC serial connection sure is neater. But sooo sloooow. At least until something like the Super Snapshot/Final Cartridge etc came along. Did your setup copy drive-to-drive like Fast Hack'em was able to do with 1541s? Or is there something weird about the IEEE bus preventing peripherals talking to each other directly?

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@8BitNaptime It was a very simple arrangement making use of many cables, all the drives were device 8 and the old faithful reliable backup command would be issued and all the drives would come to life and any and all work was taken care of within the disk drive...if an error light appeared on any drive, that copy would be redone, but each and every disk was checked by looking at the directory...this could be done by opening all the drive doors on the destination drives, but one and doing the catalog command...and that process would be repeated 6 times, once with each disk...only perfect disks were sent out...any hint of an issue meant another copy had to be made...and in rare cases, a destination disk was deemed to be defective and it was not used, and possibly it was returned to our supplier when enough were gathered together...but that did not happen very often... Some people thought we should do some magic where the device numbers were changed and one original would be turned into 11 copies, and some did try to do this, but it was very quickly found that while this might have been cool, that it would have taken lots more time...and so we just stuck to the old reliable backup command...we did not have any reason to be concerned with making or copying any protection schemes...so there was not need to attempt any use of the programs you mentioned...and indeed, most such programs were created to be used on a couple of 1541's...there might have been modifications by some using the 4040, but I was never aware of them, but did hear that somebody had a drive that was only used for copying, and that all you had to do was put in the disks and close the doors and the copy would be made...no computer involved...thanks for writing...stay tuned...David Bradley

[@simonbyrd6518]

That's nice, putting a big transformer (phone) on top of the monitor..

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

We kept the phone away from the disks...there was always that rumour that the magnetic field when the phone rang would or could harm the data!

[@phatcap976]

Nice api calls

[@curiousottman]

Wow what an array of dual disk drives. Wondering if he was running a BBS? I had a phone just like that in the 80s. Thanks for the memories.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

In later years at TPUG, we had more dual drives working together...but at the moment, it was 6 so we could make 6 backups at a time...those were great days...the pioneer days when everybody was making discoveries and sharing their finds and we all learned bit and pieces from each other...

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Those drives were used for making copies, but eventually my brother and I did run a BBS, called the BBBBS...Bradley Brothers Bulletin Board System...and we had a variety of drives connected including the cherished 9090 hard drive...

[@curiousottman]

@@DRBradleyPhotography : Copy Party! Good to hear about your BBS. Did you write the bbs software yourself?

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@curiousottman We did not write the program, but indeed we modified the one by Steve Punter as it had some things in it that left it open to being crashed by some inputs...that he did not think of and we did not think of until somebody crashed us...we also had a genius of a fellow, David Williams, who was also involved in TPUG modify the PET so that in case of a power failure it would auto-boot and when the BBS was not running, it would keep an eye on the machine and if something changed when it should not, due to what we called a cosmic ray, the machine would re-boot to prevent 99.9% of any and all crashes...we were always tinkering on it...for one thing we altered the very scary DIRECT SYSOP COMMUNICATION message to CHAT MODE...much more friendly...and welcoming...eventually we had 4 lines in different locations around Toronto and were part of the PunterNET that allowed different nodes to call each other and send messages via local calls by bouncing them from board to board...it was not always possible to avoid long distance charges, but in the Toronto area there were some parts of the big city that could not call without being dinged by Bell Canada, and the message could be sent in the middle of the night, when the rates were the lowest, but also, if a node in Markham say had a message for one in Mississauga, and that was indeed long distance, the message would bounce to Toronto first and then be send along avoiding any charges at all...it was nice to be able to save everybody some loot...somewhere I do have some of the original bits and pieces of the first BBS that we ran, on a small screen PET, but alas, I have much digging and searching to do...so many boxes, so little time...thanks for writing...David Bradley

[@flyguille]

Why so many diskdrives stacked? He is running a bbs out of that?

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

We were making copies...6 originals, 6 copies...no BBS there...just making copies...

[@vk3hau]

I remember when I had hair like that, oh the 80's.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

My hair has evolved!

[@ArgoPower]

almost 40 years before... wow!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Indeed, a long time ago to be sure...when the Commodore 64 was new...

[@bryandraughn9830]

Learning to program in BASIC during the 80's was a lot of fun, but I moved on and learned to play the guitar instead. OOPS!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Many people did both...learning to program the SID chip on the 64 to make music, and then picking up a guitar or other instrument...I once saw a fellow play his guitar and had his 64 playing along with him...oh so long ago!

[@KD2HJP]

I still think my Vic-20 was as geeky as I was in 1983

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

They were a great machine...paved the way for the 64, etc...

[@SomeDudeInBaltimore]

"Do something cool for the non-nerds." *Gracefully runs his hands down the banks of floppy drives locking each one in perfect choreography...*

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

To get the copies to work more reliably, the disks needed to be spinning so they would get properly seated...and so, the backup command would be issued and then as they drive spun but before anything was being written or the disks formatted, you closed the doors...it was called tickling the drives...and it did not mean that there were never any bad copies, but many, many, many less...maybe 1 in 100 times the error light would signal trouble when this procedure was followed...other models of the dual drives spun the disks as they were inserted as did the last version of the 1541...

[@CDP-1802]

LOL That was my same setup! C64 with an Amdek color monitor!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I am not sure where that monitor came from...I suspect it was got before the 1701 came out...I found the colours...OK, but the genuine commodore monitor with the separate chroma and lumn signals was better...I started off on a TV using the RF modulator...and I had a 64 that still had the sparkle...which was quickly corrected...

[@donaldjohnson394]

Feels like an old episode of 3-2-1 Contact.

[@sambrown9494]

Who is it who narrates this clip? I love the voice! Reminds me of the programmes I used to watch growing up.

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I have no clue who did the narration...they filmed, they left and I never did see this until now...some 39 years later...

[@sambrown9494]

@@DRBradleyPhotography amazing. Great to see! Thanks for the reply :) hope it's all going well!

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

@@sambrown9494 Life is always interesting and challenging...but it is indeed better than the alternative!

[@richardperritt]

👍Dave Bradley has his own channel on KZbin: "Dave Bradley - 8-Bit Commodore Man" @DRBradleyPhotography

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

I have not recorded much recently...but have more than a thousand Commodore videos up for your viewing pleasure...

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

Time to do some recording...it has been a tough few months...

[@mjp29]

I would have loved to see an entire show on this guy, but instead we get like a minute and a lhalf teaser to a video that apparently doesn't exist (?)

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

That was all it was...little bits on people...but if you pop over to my youtube channel, I am still making videos...some 39 years later...just made some yesterday...and will continue over the coming days, months, years...

[@hellochriis]

Looks so antique, but is only 40 years old. That's scary

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

40 years does not seem like a long time ago...but when you think about how far computers have come and how much power we hold in our hands when we pick up our smart phones, it is astounding to think how far things have come!

[@38911bytefree]

COOL !!!!!

[@Ashley389100]

Such a cool guy

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

The coolness has lasted a vast number of decades!

[@carlpencil5126]

ma la ragazza con maglia viola a 0:24 chi è?

[@leandrotami]

I had no idea you could connect to a C64 those double drives that were usually connected to PET computers

[@DRBradleyPhotography]

There were quickly IEEE interfaces made for the Vic-20 and the C64 as lots of the PET people had spent buckets of money on dual drives and were not really looking to spend many hundreds more on an inferior disk drive like the 1541, and so many companies and even Commodore, although I never saw one, made it possible for any and all IEEE PET devices to be used on the newer machines. I sort of wish they had made a dual drive for the serial based machines, but they never released one...there was another company that quick wonderfully came out with a single and dual drive that had both the IEEE and serial interfaces so their drive could be used on the PET's as well as the colour computers put out by commodore...it was so nice to be able to copy a disk simply by typing...backup d0 to d1!