SuperCPU "Sky Travel" Easter Egg Hunt for Commodore 64

[@SYCHR0N]

The most common use for a switch on the 1541 among our little bubble was an override to the write protection sensor, so with the switch enabled, the floppy ignored missing cutouts. Saved us the disc puncher :)

[@8_Bit]

I should have mentioned that one too. I've heard of a lot of people doing it but never did it myself.

[@johnsmith1953x]

Wait, there was a software method to overide the write protection on the 1541?

[@SYCHR0N]

@@johnsmith1953x no, the switch bypassed the optical sensor.

[@TheGreatAtario]

I lost a disk of games due to a friend's one of these

[@csmall816]

Ahh. I have one of those on an old 1540. I wondered what it was all about since it seemed to work no matter what I set the switch to. I thought it would 'protect' the disk from writes but was the actual opposite :D

[@Psychlist1972]

"Slewing" is the term used when you move where your telescope is pointing, usually you "slew to target"

[@alexfooify]

Thanks!

[@AmigaLove]

One of my favorite videos in your catalog combined with the previous on the same topic, and that's not an easy thing to say as you have SO many excellent contributions. But when the eclipse came and went while in Seattle we sat under a blanket of clouds, your videos created an awe in me as if I were an awakening 5 year old and was told, clearly, how the universe worked. And that it could be understood even more easily with a powerful tool called the C64. I have a SCPU 64 (barebones early model, stock) and I just won an auction for a minty Commodore-branded version of the software, Sky Travel. I can’t wait to learn and use the software following your lead @20Mhz, and explore the small pocket of the galaxy around us that we can see from the warm glow of my 1702 monitor.

[@8_Bit]

We were completely overcast here in Thunder Bay too, so I'm extra-thankful for Sky Travel and to have something to remember the event by. And hearing from you and other friends in the same boat gives me an extra sense of community

[@vwestlife]

I bet that error code 73 means Commodore DOS was written by a ham radio operator. "73" is amateur radio lingo for "best regards".

[@8_Bit]

Interesting thought; it hadn't occurred to me that Commodore engineers would have a bit of fun with the error code numbering but it does seem very likely!

[@AureliusR]

I dunno, I think that's likely just a coincidence. I can't find any info about any of the designers being hams.

[@metalfoot7]

That is one seriously frankensteined 1541 drive; case one kind, mech another, special switch added in... great respect for that.

[@desertfish74]

"hey if it works it works"

[@vcv6560]

Thanks Robin, this was awesome, that you're able to show this in so many variations for us to share (and SuperCPU too). BTW my 'switch' which was for 8/9 was on the back.

[@DarkMoe]

I saw that Basil Fawlty reference. Also, Betsy Ross was known to me because she appears in Day of the Tentacle, in a very famous puzzle that involves changing the US flag design to be used as a disguise 400 years in the future

[@AndyDo]

As Jack Horkheimer said..."Keep looking up!"

[@50shadesofbeige88]

Ah, my favorite kind of episode.

[@drphilxr]

This is great stuff, and not just nostalgic- its exploring C64 minutiae, like Compute's Gazette did so long ago...(Bonnie Tyler ref was cute)

[@wim0104]

thank you for explaining the 2 hour mismatch.

[@robirenz292]

The removal of the head banging because of the protection is awesome, probably keeps your drive aligned for longer.

[@CubicleNate]

Okay, this was cool on more than one level. I watched other SuperCPU videos but this one, I felt, really illustrated how awesome it is and especially was for the time. VERY cool that there was this Sky Travel application too. I had NO idea this was a thing for the Commodore 64! Watching this, I can't help but think how cool it would be if there was a way to have a more "Super C64" reference platform for more applications to target. With all the new expansions and retrofitting tech out there, it would be great to see something... I'm just not sure what...

[@KAPTKipper]

Regarding drive head bumping, I had a USR program I got from a magazine, I think the letters part not an article. The USR program modified the drive code to go to track 18 instead. Bad sector copy protection still worked but no head knocks. I can not find the code. IIRC it was tiny. I used to load it from a disk with my Fastload cart everytime I reset the drive.

[@firstsurname9893]

I wonder how Jiffy does it, presumably just by setting bit 7 at $006a.

[@katho8472]

But if the drive mechanism is that of a 1541C, why not just open the jumper and activate the track 0 sensor?

[@stuartmcconnachie]

4:02 Isn’t that an “at” symbol? Ampersand is an “&”.

[@8_Bit]

Yeah, I made a couple weird/dumb mistakes in this video.

[@MaxWindshear]

I learned programming on a Commodore 64 by reading a "BASIC" book and teaching myself. It was some of the most enjoyable times of my life. Afterward, I got another book that detailed every byte's function in the Commodore computer. I used that book until it was worn out, and my programming skills improved significantly because of it. It's nice seeing someone else having fun with a Commodore.

[@donnierussellii4659]

This is pretty much exactly my story, falling-apart programmer's guide and all.

[@steviebboy69]

I would have never have known about the Easter Eggs hidden in this program, and we learn something new why there was the 2 Hr discrepancy. We only just went back to Standard time in my state in Victoria Australia. I guess when you said about the whole Country being the one timezone it must be a pretty small one. Also good to know that you can switch the Accelerator on and off on the fly without a reboot.

[@erbkaiser_]

Communist China is one big timezone. Not exactly a small country.

[@8_Bit]

A few large countries do the single time zone thing, most notably China (which should be 5 time zones!), India (3 zones) and Malaysia (2 zones).

[@Zucky2003]

I have 2 comments 1. Thank you for NOT saying daylight savingS, there is no plural, it is daylight saving time 2. Fawlty Towers...Basil....too funny thanks for that!

[@8_Bit]

Thanks, I made a couple goofy mistakes in this episode (like saying ampersand when I meant at symbol!) so I'm glad I at least got DST right :)

[@curiousottman]

Also worth mentioning is that for some daylight saving changed a while back from 6 months on 6 months off to 8 months on 4 months off. No possible way software in 1984 could have anticipated this.

[@8-bitwallofdoom]

Was not aware of this program, wow; and without CPU speedup, double or is that 20x wow; must have been painful. Amazing amount of research put into this one, Robin, I probably would have given up after being stumped by the first Batman-style riddle. Appreciated, and keep up the good work.

[@8_Bit]

Thanks! The speedup can vary with the SuperCPU because of the way the 20 MHz processor interacts with the 1 MHz bus for I/O. The SuperCPU runs at least 4x faster in the worst conditions (continual writing to mirrored RAM or I/O) but much faster under normal/best conditions. I'd guess we're seeing at least an 8x speedup but I'd have to figure out a repeatable benchmark to know for sure.

[@chrisdixon5241]

Thanks for sharing Robin! I wonder if "the bear" isn't a reference to Ursa Major - the constellation of The Great Bear (which also contains the asterism known as The Plough in the UK or Big Dipper for the Americans). Certainly Ursa Major and/or Ursa Minor seem to be in the field of view and quite low on the horizon in your video for the easter eggs where we saw their position before you look in a different direction. And Nadir gazing certainly beats Navel gazing :)

[@terryraymond7984]

when that eclipse happened at least in Riverton,WY it was 11AM was totally dark was awesome

[@Lion_McLionhead]

Glorious star charts in 320x200 high res mode. 320x200 is all we really need.

[@fnjesusfreak]

I noticed the DST thing when I used the Apple ][ version to show the eclipse from here in Niagara Falls on an emulated Laser 128EX/2 (for the same reason you're using a SuperCPU - since the EX/2 has a 3.6 MHz 65C02).

[@Mugenmasterman]

Awesome video! C64 is getting fired up today.

[@MonochromeWench]

Daylight savings and time zones are both politically defined and can change at anytime. To even accurately implement them for the date of release it would need to have a record of every country's borders and relevant internal boundaries in order to even begin to get it all correct. That information would have been difficult to obtain back then. The program is slow enough as is without mapping the long/lat to actual localities. Correct timezones and DST adjustments is too much to ask for considering what it already does. What it should have let you do is enter your own timezone as an override

[@ryancraig2795]

Or just display GMT and let the user account for their current time zone.

[@greatquux]

Lovely episode as usual. Would be interesting to know what programs are incompatible with jiffyDOS and why.

[@8_Bit]

That would be interesting. I've never seen a list of games that won't work but if I can find a few I'd definitely make a video about that.

[@Okurka.]

@@8_Bit The 1988 version of Sky Travel doesn't work well; it locks up when loading from floppy with the SuperCPU activated.

[@8_Bit]

@@Okurka. Interesting, I guess they remastered it for the Microillusions release and the boot procedure is at least somewhat different. Actually, I'm realizing I already knew that because they stripped out the various Commodore screens while loading, and put at least one new loading bitmap image.

[@Okurka.]

@@8_Bit It also locks up mid-program when loading from floppy. Must be something in the loading routine that got changed.

[@Geenimetsuri]

Amazing stuff. That thing is doing accurate stellar mechanics faster than real time on a 20 MHz CPU, and could run on the good ole C64 too.

[@Tommymang]

Thank you for this video. This was one of my favourite C64 programs back in the 80s. And it was one of the few software titles I bought with my own money, and it was worth every penny! Somehow I always found it a very mysterious piece of software... Btw I knew about the feet ;-) The rest of the easter eggs I can't remember though. Again thanks!

[@larryk731]

The apple 2 series also bangs the heads on boot.

[@steviebboy69]

Yes I remember that, we had 2 Apple 2 machines and it did bang the head upon switch on.

[@8_Bit]

Yes, both drives lack a sensor for track 0 (in Apple-speak) or track 1 (in Commodore-speak) so they do this brute-force method of positioning the head.

[@craftsman123456]

Wow after all these years I never knew any of that was in there. Only thing i ever changed was the x pointer to the starship. Still hoping to see a program hack to set the default lat and lon to a user set spot.

[@mikegarland4500]

Great episode! Thanks for doing this one. I love Easter eggs in classic software. My favorite astronomy program that I still use, SkyGlobe, has gone through so many iterations it's mind-boggling. But it's always been 1 hour or 2 hours off, depending on time of the year and what state Daylight Savings is in. And didn't Daylight Savings change when it started a decade or so ago and start earlier and end later..? Either way, "live events" like a solar eclipse or a conjunction of some sort, always requires a bit of error correction.

[@8_Bit]

Thanks Mike. Yes, apparently it's been since 2007 that DST was extended! Hard to believe it's closer to 20 than 10 years, as I would have guessed 10 as well. Neat to hear about SkyGlobe, I read a bit about it just now and apparently it's been around since the late '80s! But has seen more updates than Sky Travel :)

[@goddessesstartrekonlinefle3061]

Thanks Robin for more nostalgic adventuring! Cheers :D When looking at the "feet' said "looking at nadir" at the bottom; I wonder, was that the programmer or developer s name/nickname perhaps? though I guess you might just have been pointing toward something else called nadir, though if you where not heard of it before :)

[@0LoneTech]

Nadir is straight down (lowest point), the opposite of zenith.

[@goddessesstartrekonlinefle3061]

@@0LoneTech oh thanks! So definitely my ignorance of spacial references then.

[@PSjustanormalguy]

Robin did you ever run Elite on the SuperCPU ? Is it still playable or does the game not keep track of time so everything runs fast ? On the emulator if you max the CPU it's completely unplayable

[@8_Bit]

I think the original Elite doesn't run so well on the SuperCPU but there's Elite 128 2.0 (largely recoded by "Uz") that takes advantage of many different expansions including the SuperCPU. I don't believe it requires a C128 but will work better on a C128 as well.

[@PSjustanormalguy]

@@8_Bit thanks Robin 👍

[@furroy]

my fav drive mod was a funny little plastic tongue that you attached to the head and it stuck out through the gap in the case. it was marked like a ruler so you could physically see what track the head was currently on.

[@8_Bit]

Hah, I've never seen that one. That would be a neat one to demonstrate on video if it hasn't been already.

[@furroy]

@@8_Bit i've looked and not been able to find one. don't even recall where i got mine in the late 80s but would be a fun project for someone to make. it was literally just a strip of plastic a cm wide with precise markings

[@8_Bit]

@@furroy It'd be neat to even find an advert for one in a magazine, probably sold in the cheap black & white classifieds at the back of the magazine :) I assume it had a punny name that is both cute and makes it impossible to find in a search without knowing the exact name.

[@aresaurelian]

I remember this. Great program.

[@jdryyz]

The feet and legs was the only one I discovered unintentionally.

[@SteveGuidi]

16:50 I grew up watching the 1990s-era Heritage Minutes on TV in Canada, so when you were talking about time zones and Thunder Bay's contribution to adopting daylight savings time, I couldn't help but think of the Sanford Fleming PSA: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rpq3mKWeetaqa6M.

[@8_Bit]

Ha, that's great!! That does seem familiar now that I watch it, I had completely forgotten about it even though I read a bit about Sandford Fleming when I was reading about time zones while preparing for this video.

[@uomoartificiale]

Loved the poke at the end ;)

[@Thiesi]

11:05 - Hey Robin, can you please move the cursor to Berlin, Germany - as that's where I live - and then let me know here in the comments? I'm pausing the video until then. Thanks in advance!

[@customsongmaker]

I've moved it to Berlin on my C64, so please proceed with the rest of the video

[@byteforever7829]

Great program, way before google skymap. How did the SuperCPU start executing when you switch it in, does it somehow get the current PC and other registers from the 6510? It seems to be, well a seamless switch

[@8_Bit]

The SuperCPU's 65816 is active, and the 6510 is disabled the whole time; I'm just switching it between 1 MHz mode and 20 MHz mode. So only the clock speed is changing.

[@PieFights]

The Machine Gun sound effect returns

[@terryraymond7984]

interesting easter eggs I just about cant do without my Super CPU and Jiffy Dos

[@00Skyfox]

Hey Robin, I was wondering if you knew anything about the guy who currently owns the schematics, plans, etc. for the SuperCPU. Last I knew he lived in Michigan (not all that far from me) and about 15 or 20 years ago was still selling it, but shortly before I was able to get one he stopped making them available. I've tried sending an email a few times to inquire but never get any response. I would love to be able to get one even if it was a kit I had to solder together myself, and the ludicrous prices for the SuperCPU on Ebay are prohibitive.

[@8_Bit]

Yeah, as far as I know Maurice (pronounced "Morris") Randall is still in Michigan and still has all the info and a lot of parts for SuperCPU. He was always friendly and reliable back in the day. I know he found assembling the SuperCPU by hand to be extremely time consuming, and for whatever reason didn't / wouldn't / couldn't pursue other avenues for getting them made. Then he gradually disappeared, occasionally showing up with a little something like when he created VIC-20 JiffyDOS. I actually got to beta test it, and that was after he stopped making SuperCPUs I think. But then he totally dropped out. I haven't heard of anyone successfully contacting in years.

[@fredleckie5880]

Nit pick: The Bell is called "Big Ben", the tower is called the "Elizabeth Tower"

[@Okurka.]

Nit pick: The Bell is called "Great Bell".

[@terryraymond7984]

that copy protection head banging will that knock the drive out of alignment?

[@weedmanwestvancouverbc9266]

One thing I wonder about is there's also all occultations, where a planet will pass in front of another or in behind the Moon. I wonder if that software can calculate those

[@robjbowen]

You have to be a little careful about Arizona because as a state, they do not do DST, but the Navajo nation which covers part of Arizona does.

[@8_Bit]

As far as I could tell, this point in south-east Arizona isn't part of the Navajo Nation. I had read about that difference when I was trying to find a good spot to demonstrate.

[@allwaizeright9705]

Actually - In LONDON - Big Ben is the CLOCK. It reside in what WAS the CLOCK TOWER now renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012.

[@Okurka.]

Actually the CLOCK is called the "Great Clock of Westminster". The largest BELL is called the Great Bell and is nicknamed Big Ben.

[@BigDrahma]

59 secs versus 150 secs is ~125% faster (2.5x faster), even more impressive than 60%

[@8_Bit]

Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking when I said 60% ! I think I also said 40% of the time, which would be 2.5x the speed like you said.

[@markusjacobi-piepenbrink9795]

This is more than cool!

[@AS-ly3jp]

Great video!!!

[@danielgadze3920]

Amazing program!!! 😮😊

[@cpt_nordbart]

Using the Empire State Building for New York? The World Trade Center would have been more visible since it was the highest building. I guess ESB is more interesting to look at rather than two big blocks with an antenna.

[@l9day]

Sky Travel was an inside job

[@8_Bit]

Could be that, and I think the Empire State Building was just so iconic for so long that it still had mindshare for many Americans in 1984 when the WTC was only ~10 years old, especially if they weren't living in New York. Information travelled slower then. I'm just some random Canadian but I think in the '80s or even '90s the Empire State Building was still a name I heard more often than World Trade Center.

[@recube_games]

why is the functionality of the superCPU so difficult to replicate in with modern off the shelf components and FPGAs?

[@Okurka.]

I found the Microillusions version from 1988; it doesn't work well with the SuperCPU.

[@8_Bit]

Interesting. In case you didn't try it, you can leave the SuperCPU enabled but switch it down to 1 MHz and turn JiffyDOS off, and that will allow some things to boot with the SuperCPU that otherwise wouldn't. Then 20 MHz mode can be enabled once it's booted and past the copy protection checks or whatever messed it up. But of course some stuff just won't work at all because of "illegal" opcodes or the other more esoteric differences between the 65816 and 6510.

[@Okurka.]

@@8_Bit I tried it; it loads with the SuperCPU in 1 MHz mode, passes the copy protection and then i can switch on the 20 MHz mode and scroll faster in Sky Mode but as soon as it accesses the floppy to load something it crashes.

[@8_Bit]

@@Okurka. That's unfortunate. Trying it with JiffyDOS in the opposite state might make a difference since it's disk related. If you're running a .g64 of it, maybe there's a cracked .d64 somewhere that has re-written the disk access routines so they're more compatible.

[@donnierussellii4659]

This program is in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

[@thiesenf]

Ampersand != at symbol... & = ampersand @ = at I think Robin mixed them up... :-)

[@terryraymond7984]

Robin are you kind of in Toronto?

[@CallousCoder]

Those legs cracked me up 😂 and might I say Robin, you have some great looking legs 🦵

[@michaelcarey]

What? No Sydney Harbour Bridge / Opera House Easter egg? 🙂

[@8_Bit]

That does seem like a very major oversight!

[@robirenz292]

so, is Pluto still a planet in Sky Travel?

[@MichaelDoornbos]

0:22 Wow, that's just... 11:00 This is why pilots use UTC. Then there's no ambiguity about what time it is. 25:25 I've actually been there... it looks like that. It was in 1991, so I cannot directly confirm it's still there. 28:25 Imapenguin :-)

[@markjreed]

I'm actually kinda surprised the program doesn't have the option of showing date/time in UTC always, no matter where you have the location set to.

[@esvinyard]

If I were you, I wouldn't admit to living in the place that started the twice-yearly fiasco that is daylight saving time transitions! 🤣

[@8_Bit]

I don't like the time changes at all, but it's a very strange bit of trivia that was entirely on topic, so I couldn't let the chance go by. When am I ever going to talk about time zones again? :)

[@evileyeball]

Look Down, Look Way down, and I'll Call Rusty?

[@damien667]

It can get quite a bit more complicated than daylight savings! There's also leap seconds that were added the last 40 years and a bunch more nonsense. Tom Scott has a great video about this very real computer science problem: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y2baoaBjnMqmhbssi=UlT1NdFcNr0GEmfK

[@timokuusela2622]

but there was some time zones removed ?? program is old so it has old data need correction to make show it right

[@mikeloewen612]

oops. Not the ampersand symbol; the 'at' symbol...4:min in

[@Sinn0100]

Wait...wait...wait did that say 16MB of RAM on a Commodore 64?

[@8_Bit]

Yes, the SuperCPU can address up to 16MB of RAM. I ordered it unpopulated when I bought it as I figured I could get a better RAM price locally shopping around. So it was pretty funny going shopping for a RAM upgrade for my Commodore 64 in 1996 or 1997 at a regular store.

[@Sinn0100]

@8_Bit That's wild, man! I don't think you will ever use that much in a C64.

[@draketungsten74]

France in 1989? Look closely and you can see me waving! 😁

[@merman1974]

I didn't know that JiffyDOS had that ability to turn off the head bump, very interesting. Being close to the Greenwich Meridian, I am in Timezone Zero - in fact the line passes about 10 miles to the west of me. We call it British Summer Time here, and it changes on different weekends to Daylight Savings Time in the USA/Canada. The SuperCPU definitely makes that program work faster, and the Easter Eggs are fascinating. I wonder if there's anything hidden in Atari Planetarium? Ironic that it was written before the fall of Communism and predicted the fall of Moscow, but these little extras are very inventive. (Oh, and Big Ben is the clock. The tower is now named the Elizabeth Tower after the late Queen Elizabeth II.)

[@richardperritt]

Actually the reason James Clark Ross & Betsy Ross never married is because... "They were on a break!!!!!" 😁 IYKYK

[@terryraymond7984]

up by YR looks like a bird

[@ChrisJackson-js8rd]

notably soviet Russia used Moscow time across the whole country. From Europe to Japan.

[@csbruce]

1:58 It can go a little faster than 20× since it doesn't have cycles stolen from it by the VIC chip. 16:52 Most places should just switch to year-round DST. 33:13 What, your credits program uses a hard-coded delay loop?

[@8_Bit]

100 FORX=1TO100:NEXT :)

[@jakubkrcma]

👍

[@JGreen-le8xx]

🎶 "Robin,.. rollin' with Jiffydos 5.0, with his Super CPU so his C64 can flow!..... VICE , VICE BABY! Word to your 1541 other.. ,9,1" 🎶

[@poliveri0722]

@4:04 ... Ampersand = & ; At_Symbol = @ .... ?????

[@8_Bit]

I have no idea why I said that. Most days I know the difference :)

[@poliveri0722]

@@8_Bit 😆

[@jsvideos2261]

80 views in the first minute!

[@salonsospain]

01K

[@terryraymond7984]

Mc Donalds

[@joaovitormatos8147]

"some countries" China. Only China

[@8_Bit]

China's the most extreme example, but India and Malaysia also span multiple timezones but just observe one.

[@chainq68k]

"a total eclipse of the cart" - OK, I'm unsubscribed (not)

[@buserror1]

That eclipse pun was so bad I'm considering unsubscribing. That was totality uncalled for.

[@TheSimTetuChannel]

You're welcome! 🤣

[@Fanny-Fanny]

​@@TheSimTetuChannel🤣

[@Fanny-Fanny]

That pun was so bad, I'm considering subscribing twice!

[@8_Bit]

@@TheSimTetuChannel That was so terrible, I just had to use it, thanks :)

[@G1itcher]

A pun is only good if it makes someone angry.

[@salonsospain]

447

[@chupathingy5862]

0:18 I can't express just how furious I am lol

[@beatchef]

Apart from the one that says Big Apple and Fuji explicitly I'd never get those places from those clues. With such a tiny map I probably wouldn't place it correctly even if I did know. I am from the UK though

[@Okurka.]

I guess you flunked Geography in school.

[@beatchef]

@@Okurka.Because the cursor is big and the map is low res?

[@Okurka.]

@@beatchef Because you'd "never get those places from those clues".

[@beatchef]

@@Okurka. I'm not from USA or Canada and I feel like quite a lot of the clues need obscure knowledge about those places. So yes, I would probably fail an obscure facts about some American cities geography test.

[@Okurka.]

@@beatchef The first clue literally mentioned "green land" which is neither Canadian nor USA territory.