Some Assembly Required
The C64 extension cartridge Final Cartridge III contains a graphical user interface named Desktop . There are two easter egg messages hidden in the calculator (from the Utilities menu). By typing the numbers below followed by = (or return key), it will briefly show one of two messages. Number Message 60346409900 Megafold Software 1987 72930036200 Ineke, ... Read more
Commodore Business Machines: Commodore Disk Drive 1570/1571 Bedienungshandbuch 1985. (164 pages, 27 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. Inhaltsverzeichnis Kapitel 1 Allgemeine Hinweise 1.1 Haupteigenschaften 1.2 Lieferhinweis 1.3 Aufbau dieses Handbuchs Kapitel 2 Arbeiten mit der 1570/71 2.1 Inbetriebnahme 2.2 Hinweise zur Fehlerbeseitigung 2.3 Aufstellung und Pflege der…
Frank Kampow: Das gro e BASIC-Buch zum Commodore 128 D sseldorf: Data Becker, 1985. ISBN 3-89011-114-9. (466 pages, 40 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. Eine komplette Einf hrung in die Programmierung am Beispiel von BASIC 7.0. Bevor man auch nur eine Zeile Code tippt, wird man angehalten, DIN-66001-Programmablaufpl ne mit einer Plastikschablone aus dem ... Read more
Ralf Hornig, Tobias Weltner, Jens Trapp: Commodore 128 Tips Tricks D sseldorf: Data Becker, 1986. ISBN 3-89011-097-5. (450 pages, 40 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. VDC-Pseudo-Hires-Modus, gemischte 8502/Z80-Programme und jede Menge POKEs. Klappentext DAS STEHT DRIN: 128 Tips Tricks ist eine riesige Fundgrube f r jeden 128er Besitzer, der mehr ... Read more
Dietmar Froitzheim: Das Trainingsbuch zu TEXTOMAT D sseldorf: Data Becker, 1984. ISBN 3-89011-031-2. (222 pages, 19 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. Textverarbeitung vor WYSIWYG: Schriftarten wechseln per Hex-Code, Formulare bef llen durch Zeilenvorschub in 1/216-Zoll-Schritten, Endlosdruck durch Verkettung einer Datei mit sich selbst. Klappentext DAS STEHT DRIN: Das…
Axel Plenge, Norbert Szczepanowski: Das Trainingsbuch zum SIMON S BASIC D sseldorf: Data Becker, 1983. ISBN 3-89011-009-6. (394 pages, 70 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. Ein Trainingsbuch, das alle ber 114 Befehle der Simons -BASIC-Cartridge (jep, Data Becker setzt den Apostroph falsch!) systematisch durchgeht und dabei die zahlreichen Bugs dokumentiert sowie sieben ...…
Werner Vo : Das Statistikbuch zum Commodore 64 D sseldorf: Data Becker, 1985. ISBN 3-89011-102-5. (468 pages, 33 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. H ufigkeitstabellen, Regression, Korrelation, Zeitreihenanalyse alles in einer Sprache ohne Grafikbefehle. Jedes Diagramm wird Pixel f r Pixel per POKE gezeichnet. Geduld war 1985 noch eine Tugend. Klappentext DAS STEHT ... Read…
Werner Vo : Das Schulbuch zum Commodore 64 D sseldorf: Data Becker, 1984. ISBN 3-89011-019-3. (354 pages, 21 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. BASIC-Programme f r praktisch jedes Schulfach. Mit diesem Buch offen neben dem Computer konnte man immer behaupten, man mache Hausaufgaben. Klappentext DAS STEHT DRIN: Besonders f r Sch ler der Mittel- und ... Read more
Axel Plenge: Das Grafikbuch zum Commodore 64 D sseldorf: Data Becker, 1984. ISBN 3-89011-009-6. (305 pages, 28 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. Deckt alle Grafikf higkeiten des VIC-II ab (Hires, Multicolor, Sprites, Zeichens tze, Raster-IRQs, Lightpen), dazu durchgehend praktische Anwendungen: Sprite-Editor, 3D-Drahtmodelle mit Zentral- und Parallelprojektion,…
Owen Bishop: Das Commodore-64-Spiele-Buch Frankfurt/M.: Commodore, 1984. (Commodore-Sachbuchreihe, Bd. 4) ISBN 3-89133-002-2. (162 pages, 29 MB) Aus dem Englischen bertragen von Gudrun Breiter. Originaltitel: The Commodore 64 Games Book 21 Sensational Games (Granada Publishing, 1983). Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. 21 Abtipp-Spiele, jedes nur 1 3 Seiten Listing lang.…
Nikolaus Heusler zählt zu den produktivsten Autoren des 64 er Magazins: hunderte Beiträge zwischen 1987 und 1995. Heusler, Jahrgang 1969, hatte seinen C64 zu Weihnachten 1983 bekommen; heute arbeitet er beim Europäischen Patentamt in München. Er hat mir das komplette Archiv seiner Originalmaterialien geschickt. Aufbereitet befinden sie sich unter pagetable.com/docs/nheusler/: die Manuskripte von…
The HP C2089A PostScript Cartridge Plus , a 1991 add-on for the LaserJet II/III, adds PostScript Level 2 support through Adobe s own reference interpreter (version 2010.118) on a 2 MB ROM. Thirty-five years on, that ROM is still a current PostScript implementation: it renders the language correctly, and the language hasn t changed. We have Ghostscript today, ... Read more
PostScript came to the desktop in 1985 with the Apple LaserWriter, and within a year or two several other companies had joined Adobe s licensee list. HP was late — its own Adobe PostScript cartridge for the LaserJet II/III family didn t ship until 1991. Pacific Data Products started filling the gap in 1989 with its PacificPage ... Read more
Ilona Kwiatkowski, Peter Vogt: Lohnsteuerjahresausgleich? Einkommensteuererkl rung? Mein C 64 hilft mir dabei! Heidelberg: H thig, 1985. (204 pages, 16 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. Ein unverzichtbares Handbuch f r den, der noch schnell seinen Lohnsteuerjahresausgleich f r 1984 auf seinem C64 nachreichen m chte. Keine Spiele, keine Grafik, kein Sound daf r Mantelbogen,…
Werner Heift: Einf hrung in CAD mit dem Commodore 64 D sseldorf: Data Becker, 1985. ISBN 3-89011-067-3. (322 pages, 18 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. CAD-Beispielprogramme in SIMON S BASIC: parametrische 3D-Makros (W rfel, Pyramide, Zylinder, Kegel), Rotationsmatrizen, Explosionszeichnungen und Schraffuren. Klappentext DAS STEHT DRIN: EINF HRUNG IN CAD MIT DEM COMMODORE…
Rolf Br ckmann, Klaus Gerits, Thomas Wiens: Das gro e Drucker-Buch D sseldorf: Data Becker, 1984. ISBN 3-89011-020-7. (392 pages, 26 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner f r die Bereitstellung des Buchs. Besonders interessant sind drei Kapitel: Ein vollst ndig kommentiertes Disassembly des MPS-801-Drucker-ROMs die Autoren haben daf r einen eigenen 8039-Disassembler geschrieben, da keiner existierte. Ein…
This is a collection of 111 Commodore 64/128 disk images from a box of CMD FD-2000 high-density floppy disks. The disks came from the estate of Klaus Finke (1945–2016), a GEOS community organizer from Suhl, Thuringia. Klaus Finke Klaus Finke was born on January 16, 1945 and died on May 4, 2016. He ran the ... Read more
by Daniël Mantione Daniël contributed the commented disassembly of the FC3 freezer functionality to the reverse engineering effort at github.com/mist64/final_cartridge. Thanks to Eric Schlaepfer for his input on 6502 timing. Freezer cartridge theory One key reason why the Commodore 64 was so successful in the 80s was that it was able to do things it ... Read more
Michael Angerhausen, Lothar Englisch, Klaus Gerits, Frank Thrun:64 Tips TricksDüsseldorf: Data Becker, 1984. (4. erweiterte und überarbeitete Auflage)ISBN 3-89011-001-0.(386 pages, 26 MB) Danke an Dirk Wagner für die Bereitstellung des Buchs. Besonders interessant ist an diesem Buch das Kapitel über die C64 CP/M-Cartridge: Auf 71 Seiten gibt es eine Einführung in CP/M, eine Erklärung ... Read more
The 6502 s illegal opcodes were of intense interest to home computer enthusiasts, and analyses were published in various magazines. But one would have never expected a company like Siemens to document illegal opcodes in a programming manual from 1980. The PC 100 Assembly Manual The Siemens PC 100 is basically a Rockwell AIM-65 single-board computer ... Read more
The Siemens PC 100 was a version of the 6502-based AIM-65 SBC in a case and with slightly modified ROMs. Siemens offered a set of German-language manuals, which included translated Assembler (MOS Resident Assembler) and BASIC (Microsoft BASIC) manuals, but also a general manual ( Bedienungsanleitung ). This is the 1981/1982 version of the Bedienungsanleitung , describing the ... Read more
In Folge 017 des C64-Podcasts Brotkastenfreunde bin ich diesmal Gast.
Am 25. März 1985 kam das zweite 64 er Sonderheft mit dem Thema Abenteuerspiele raus. Genau 40 Jahre später ist es nun als HTML und PDF online verfügbar – im Kontext des Projekts 64er-magazin.de. Der Drachenreiter auf dem Original-Titelblatt ist der damals 18jährige Boris Schneider-Johne – wer genau schaut, wird auf der Website erkennen, dass wir das ... Read more
Zum 40jährigen Jubiläum des 64 er Magazins präsentieren wir das Kunstprojekt www.64er-magazin.de: eine Website, die so tut, als wäre 1984. Exakt 40 Jahre nach der ursprünglichen Veröffentlichung erscheint hier jeden Monat eine neue Ausgabe: 4/84: 20. März 2024 (Erstausgabe) 5/84: 19. April 2024 6/84: 18. Mai 2024 usw. Auf der modernen Homepage gibt es durchsuchbare PDF-Dateien ... Read more
This post is about an upcoming talk in German. Am Dienstag, den 06. Juni 2023 um 9:00 gibt es auf der Embedded Computing Conference in Winterthur (bei Zürich) meinen Vortrag zum Thema Apollo Guidance Computer im Kontext von modernen Embedded Systems und Echtzeit-Betriebssystemen . Beim Vortrag handelt es sich um eine abgewandelte und erweiterte Version des ... Read more
The Deutsches Museum in Munich (Germany) has a new art installation as part of the reopened Electronics exhibition: The Schrott-Tornado , a tornado-shaped sculpture made from scrap electronics. There is (at least) one item in it that is most definitely not trash. Here is a picture of the full sculpture: Let s zoom into the interesting part: ... Read more
I have created darmok.com, a website that lets you share common memes in the Tamarian language. Try it out, and fork at github.com/mist64/darmok!
We have recently dissected and dumped the Level 2 Plus version of HP s PostScript cartridge series. This time, we will look at the earlier Level 1 PostScript Cartridge . Article Series There are two cartridges for the HP LaserJet series that add Adobe PostScript support. They differ in the PostScript Level: Year Name Description 1991 HP ... Read more
The German company Scanntronik offered a lot of high-quality hardware and software for the Commodore 64 series computers, most in the space of graphics and desktop publishing. They are well-known for their Pagefox and Printfox software as well as their Handyscanner 64 hardware. This page offers most of the German-language manuals from across their product ... Read more
The Commodore 1650, also known as the “AUTOMODEM”, is Commodore’s first full modem directly connected to the phone line. It supports pulse dialing in software and 300 baud duplex connections. Historical Context Year Name Model Description 1982 VICMODEM 1600 connected to phone s handset connector; manual dialing through phone; Motorola MC14412 1982 AUTOMODEM 1650 connected to ... Read more
The 1963 book Robots and Electronic Brains (by Robert Scharff) from the How and Why Wonder Books series is an early children s book about computers. Let s look at some of the interesting contents – and how the German translation Was ist was: Roboter und Elektronengehirne from 1967 changed some details. Historical Context of the Books ... Read more
This article explains a setup and workflow for digitizing analog video (e.g. VHS, Beta, Video 2000, LaserDisc, ) using a Mac and digital camcorder – in high quality and with interlacing intact; optimized for archival. We will use a old-school digital camcorder (they are cheap!) to convert the analog signal to a high-quality digital DV ... Read more
Many pre-recorded MiniDiscs are rare and expensive. An extra rare special case is the dummy promo copy of Michael Jackson s Dangerous , which we will dissect in this article. Just looking at the case, the dummy promo copy looks like the regular retail MiniDisc: Instead of the inner pages with the song lyrics, the booklet only ... Read more
The Commodore 1600, also known as the “VICMODEM”, is Commodore’s very first modem (1982): It supports 300 baud duplex connections, and is connected to an existing telephone s handset connector instead of the phone line. This kept the price down, but required the user to dial manually through the phone. Historical Context Year Name Model Description ... Read more
The HP LaserJet III laser printer from 1990 used the Printer Command Language PCL 5 by default, but could be upgraded with the HP PostScript Cartridge Plus cartridge, which contained 2 MB of ROM with Adobe s PostScript Level 2 rasterizer. Let s look at the ROM contents and some of its hidden gems. Cartridge The cartridge ... Read more
CCGMS Future 0.2 was just released. It adds 80 columns support, a true ASCII charset (in 80c mode), and bug fixes. Release on CSDb Release on GitHub
The Punter file transfer protocol ( New Punter / Punter C1 ) is an alternative to the XMODEM family of protocols, which was and still is very popular on BBSes for Commodore computers. It is notorious for being badly documented. Let s fix that. I quickly developed quite a distaste for the badly designed punter protocol. Especially with the awful ... Read more
The user port of the Commodore 64 exposes a TTL-level RS-232 serial port that supports up to 1200 baud1. In 1997, Daniel Dallmann came up with a very sophisticated trick that allowed sending and receiving at 9600 baud2, using slightly different wiring and a dedicated driver. This UP9600 wiring has become the de-facto standard for ... Read more
The Commodore 1670, also known as the Modem/1200 , is Commodore s first Hayes-compatible modem: It connects directly to the phone line and supports pulse and tone dialing for 1200 and 300 baud duplex connections. There were two revisions, the original 1670 and the new 1670, a.k.a. CR-1670. (The unit in this article is the later revision.) ... Read more
The Commodore 1660, also known as the Modem/300 , is Commodore s first full-featured modem: It connects directly to the phone line and supports pulse and tone dialing for 300 baud duplex connections. Historical Context Year Name Model Description 1982 VICMODEM 1600 connected to phone s handset connector; manual dialing through phone; Motorola MC14412 1982 AUTOMODEM 1650 connected ... Read more
The CCGMS Terminal Program for the Commodore 64 is maintained again, and there is a new version: CCGMS Future 0.1, with bug fixes and new features. History CCGMS has a rich history: It was originally written in 1985-1988 by Craig Smith, then binary patched by many people over the years, and finally maintained again by ... Read more
This article explains how to convert a “Competition Pro Extra USB” (which you can still buy new) to work with a C64, Amiga or Atari. For the conversion, you need a joystick extension cable like this: I have a huge amount of them, with the wire colors described in the article, and I am happy ... Read more
I updated the instructions to a USB Competition Pro to DB9, so you can use it with a C64, Amiga etc. They now include the new “V3” and V04T pinouts and were updated with the use of a joystick extension cable.
This is the video recording of “The Ultimate Commodore 1541 Disk Drive Talk” at VCF West 2021. As always, if you think it s too fast, try watching it at 0.75x speed! I will post the slides in Apple Keynote format later. If you enjoyed this, you might also like my talks “Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer ... Read more
After The Ultimate Commodore 64 Talk (2008) The Ultimate Game Boy Talk (2016) The Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer Talk (2017) my fourth talk from the “Ultimate” series will take place at the Vintage Computer Festival West 2021 in Mountain View on 2021-08-08 at 12:00. This talk discusses floppy disk drives, with the 5,25” Commodore 1541 ... Read more
In the series about the assemblers Commodore used for developing the ROMs of their 8-bit computers, this article covers the 1989 Commodore 6502 Assembler (6502ASM), a cross-assembler written in C that ran on VAX and PC. Series Overview Part 0: Overview Part 1: MOS Cross-Assembler Part 2: MOS Resident Assembler Part 3: BSO CY6502 Part 4: HCD65 Part 5: 6502ASM ← ... Read more
In the series about the assemblers Commodore used for developing the ROMs of their 8-bit computers, this article covers the 1987 HCD65 assembler that ran on the C128. Series Overview Part 0: Overview Part 1: MOS Cross-Assembler Part 2: MOS Resident Assembler Part 3: BSO CY6502 Part 4: HCD65 ← this article Part 5: 6502ASM History To build the ROMs for ... Read more
In the series about the assemblers Commodore used for developing the ROMs of their 8-bit computers, this article covers the 1984 Boston Systems Office (BSO) cross-assembler running on VAX/VMS. 6502 relocating cross assembler version 20.53.12 Copyright, The Boston Systems Office, Inc. 1978 (617) 894-7800 TWX: 710-324-0760 Type /H for help Series Overview Part 0: Overview Part ... Read more
In the series about the assemblers Commodore used for developing the ROMs of their 8-bit computers, this article covers the 1976 MOS Resident Assembler that ran on a variety of 6502-based computers. Series Overview Part 0: Overview Part 1: MOS Cross-Assembler Part 2: MOS Resident Assembler ← this article Part 3: BSO CY6502 Part 4: HCD65 Part 5: 6502ASM History MOS ... Read more