Hi, it's Robin. I'm a programmer, collector, and all-round enthusiast of vintage computers and video games. My videos focus on what I find interesting in the realm of 8-bit (and sometimes 4 or 16-bit) computing and gaming, whether it's about easter eggs, programming, bugs, history, game development, or whatever else. I usually go very in-depth with topics because I want to understand the how and why. There's still so much to learn and explore in these old systems.
Please note: you're of course welcome to email me, but the longer and less focused your email is, the less likely I am to respond. There's many of you, but just one of me, so requests to debug your code, or teach you assembly, or to phone you because "you just have some questions" all take a lot of time and energy that should be put into making more videos, and will probably not be answered. Sorry!
It's July of 2024, I am 54, and have loved Commodore machines from the PET 4032's that we got in Jr high in the early 80's on through the Amiga 500 I had at one point. Have been looking at x86_64 assembly and was not really all that excited about it, but just sat down and set up the same basic setup as you have here in C64 Forever. Great fun and I might actually manage to program something eventually. :)
Strange that with the high RAM prizes back in the days, They did not go for 48kB of RAM. The BASIC and KERNAL ROMs did not have to be in RAM. Also apparantly no banking. Our 8-bit machine had 256 banks of 8kB above the base 32kB of RAM (true RAM, not RAM holding ROM code). So you could make it use 2080 kB of RAM.
After i started up my C-64 when i was young i always used to start with POKE 53280,0 POKE 53281,0 i didn't like the blue screen, i preferred black everywhere then it was usually something LOAD "LA NINJA" [Return] PRESS PLAY ON TAPE and later LOAD "LA NINJA",8,1
Always good even when you are ROASTING my beloved Apple II. The Apple II input handler is clever, tiny, and extensible but not at all friendly out of the box. It's somehow even worse on older models. There are some obscure tricks you can use to ease the pain but nothing short of a dedicated program editor will let you reach the dizzying heights of the Commodore and Atari editors.
From my memory, none of the 8-bit systems of that era were ideal. It's hard to say any one was better overall than another -- they were all screwy in their own way. For example, the C64 had better line editing, but it also had pathetically slow disk I/O and a DOS that was quite weird. (What? To get a disk directory I have to load it as though it were a progran and list it? What were they smoking?)
I would've thought any of us who did assembly programming back in those days would get curious about interpreting multi-byte instructions starting at points other than the beginning. I sure did. Maybe because I never had an assembler and did all my machine code programming by poking instructions into RAM a byte at a time. Or maybe because I used to enjoy writing disassemblers in BASIC.
All those old machines worked differently with different quirks so there's nothing surprising for me. The base default was BASIC with a few OS-ish commands. Whether or not they had anything like an "editor" for BASIC, and if they did, how it works, varied all over the place. My first Commodore machine was the Amiga 1000. Before that I used earlier Apple 2s, TRS-80 Model 1 & Model 3, and original ZX Spectrum. Occasionally something rare and exotic, but never any PET, VIC-20, or C64.
At some time then, programming our VC20s, we found out to make the input prompt not too long, to avoid weird behaviour. But we were so much believing in the machine, we never dared to suspect it to be a bug. Nice to watch your revelations after so many years. Thank you!
Well, this is why normally each statement would be on its own line, and if you numbered your lines by 10s there'd be room to add additional lines in between them. Still pretty neat for a computer designed in 1977.
Great video. I had a IIc back when they were new and I currently have one, but not the same one. I'm still looking for a Koala pad w/software for it. Thanks for all your work you put into your videos. You are one of the best.
awesome. not disappointed by the lack of video capture as sound is also always cool. i love it. but i'm also very curious to see what this thing outputs in terms of video/graphics. keep making awesome videos! i watch every single one. <3
The computer came with a manual and disks that showed you how to use it. You’re accusing people of hating a platform while hating a platform. Everyone likes what they like. And every system has its quirks. (And that Apple BASIC predates the version on the C64 by at least 5 years.)
I'm sorry that I don't have the disks 40 years after the system was released; they weren't included when I bought this computer used. But I DID read the manual, or how else would I have managed to edit this program? Did I actually make any mistakes? I even used the new editor features that were introduced in 1983 with the Apple IIe, one year AFTER the C64 was released. Additionally, the BASIC and editor in the Commodore 64 is the same as it was in the Commodore PET in 1977. So rather than this supposedly unfair 5 year difference that you're quoting, it's the opposite: the editor in the Commodore PET (which is where I first learned to code, and where my expectations of editing features came from) from 1977 is better than this Apple IIc from 1984, with 7 years of technological improvements.
Thank you for this great video where I discover how to edit a BASIC program on an Apple //. Accustomed since my childhood to using the full-page editor of the Commodore 8bits, I would have been unable to get by on this machine. But in fact, this program is not really a one-liner! On the other hand, this 10 PRINT in high resolution graphics mode actually did it on a Commodore C128D (international AZERTY version) because on the 80col display, it does not take up more than one line (a line 10): 10 GRAPHIC1:DO:CHAR1,40*RND(1),25*RND(1),CHR$(205+2*(RND(1)<.5)):LOOP The domestic version is shorter: 10 GRAPHIC1:DO:CHAR1,40*RND(1),25*RND(1),CHR$(206+(RND(1)<.5)):LOOP But as on the Apple //, the high resolution is not achieved because the thickness of the lines is 2 pixels (because of the C64's font thickness).
The term "one-liner" generally refers to a single logical line of BASIC, that is, it only has one line number such as line 0, 1, or 10. This line limit is often 80, 120, or 256 characters in length depending on the version of BASIC, and that's why the many BASIC coding competitions usually have different categories matching those 3 values. One could decide on a physical single line limit, but it would vary very much from system to system: I have computers with 22, 32, 40, 64, and 80 column screens.
@@8_Bit Thank you, for all these excellent videos on a topic that means so much to me. As a teenager, I spent most of my time trying to program my C128-D in assembly language but without much success in understanding what was happening. Now, I have all the explanations about how it works. At the time, I didn't have the necessary documentation. No adult around me knew how to advise and guide me on the right path or show how to acquire the right manuals. I love following your videos; I find them very well explained and they provide answers to so many old questions that have long remained unresolved. P.S.: Concerning the "one-screen-liner", I was just kidding. My codes just take both two lines on the 40-col screen. :)
We used to have a beaver on the back 80 of our farm. He built a huge lodge. Look just like you would see in the movies etc. all the tree stumps looked like they were chopped down with a hatchet.
The Apple IIc startup is quite user friendly for people not so familiar with computers: most people want to boot up a program from a disk (or at least get to the point where then can run one), and if you forget to close the drive door the system makes it clear that something's gone wrong. This comes at the cost of making it slightly more difficult new users wanting to start up _without_ DOS loaded, but that's a pretty small segment of the user population. The rest of your comments about the Apple II's problems are pretty much fair, though it's worth remembering that this is one of the very first consumer computers ever (and the first with a composite colour display and relatively high resolution graphics), and a machine whose design predates the Commodore 64 by five years. Commodore more or less invented the microcomputer BASIC screen editor in 1977 but released the PET months after the Apple II was released, so unlike other companies Apple wasn't in a position to learn from that. (I suppose Apple could have improved their screen editor along with the release of Applesoft BASIC, but it's also fair to consider that perhaps they didn't want to deal with the BIOS compatibility issues that might bring.) That weird fading you're seeing in your capture is due to issues with where the capture device is sampling the signal and how it's interpreting colour. (Colour and small pixels--more than about 150 to 200 across, aren't actually distinguishable in NTSC.) If you want a nice solid image, try a monochrome capture (one that actually reads it as a black-and-white signal, not one that reads colour and converts). Or just use a monochrome monitor.
Hmm .. 416 comments and no one mentioned " _Apple Basic one liners on the last page_ " (page facing the inside of the back cover) of one of the Apple magazines. I cant remember if it was Nibble, A+ or Compute magazine. - It also seems no one noted that A) both 1st Apple and Apple ][ _do boot to BASIC_ (changed with Apple ][e), and B) the original BASIC was written in 1975 (the year before creation of the Apple-1), and probably fitted into less than 2K of RAM (of the 4KB Apple-1, after being loaded from tape via the monitor)
The PET 2001 was the first computer I used and I was completely BAFFLED that people were capable of using... no, TOLERATING other computers such as the Apple II and TI 99/4 that had no obvious way to even start typing a BASIC program. To me they seemed completely useless without the convenience of the editor. By the way I think your video grabber gets confused about whether the signal is interlaced or not.
There's a reason anybody who was writing any serious basic program (yes, it's an oxymoron, i get it!), used a different editor. There were some truly good line editors out there that were basically TSR. You loaded them when you booted up, and then commenced to writing. And the continual use of reset is not the smart move. CTRL-C would exit basic, like pretty much all basics. And to exit the graphics mode, i think all you needed to do was type TEXT.
Using two FOR NEXT loops is slightly faster: 0 HGR2:HCOLOR=3:SCALE=1:ROT=0:POKE 201,0:POKE 202,0:POKE 203,0:POKE 204,0:POKE 205,0:POKE 232,0:POKE 233,3:FOR X=768 TO 782:READ Y:POKE X,Y:NEXT 1 FORY=0TO189STEP3:FORX=0TO276STEP3:D=RND(1)<.5:DRAW D+1 AT X,Y:NEXT:NEXT:DATA 2,0,6,0,10,0,21,21,5,0,18,12,12,12,0
@@8_BitYes. Apple added shape tables and 2 commands to draw them to Applesoft but never really made any tools for them. Thankfully Beagle Bros. _Apple Mechanic_ lets the layperson create shapes very easily. The shape tables and shapes themselves are pretty trivial to understand. There is a shape header consisting of: * 1x 16-bit value that is the number of shape entries, and * N 16-bit offsets for shapes. The shapes data is 3 bits each: 2 bits for which direction to move, and a flag if drawing or moving the cursor. A shape entry ends with 00. The 232 and 232 zero page locations is the 16-bit pointer to the shape table.
There are also 2 commands to * SCALE up the size (sadly there are no diagonal directions so anything > 1 is probably not what you want.) * ROT to rotate the shape. It uses an unconventional 64 rotational units instead of 256 or the expected 360° degrees. The shape system is actually pretty impressive considering the small amount of ROM it uses.
I love your Commodore videos but this one was really difficult to watch... This weird editing of the program was a tough time! I wonder how anyone could work that way back in the day?... Apple sucked, sucks and will suck! ;-)
Apparently most Apple programmers bought or otherwise obtained improved development environments back in the day. Which is fine, but nobody told me! :)
There's still a lot of snobbery from the Apple crowd these days. Truthfully, from the Windows crowd too. I do wonder if this would've been easier for you to prototype had you not started with it as a one liner, and maybe you'd agree given how awful the editor was. I think I'm going to see if I can do a hi-res version using RayLib, test out its line drawing functions.
a lot of the oddities comes from the original designs of the apple I and II by woz being woz in the 70's ... for the most part a program written for the apple II in 1977 would run on your brand new ][e platnium or //c in 1991. It took some serious nipple twisting back in the day to get my dad off the Apple II platform as he had over a decade of business data in appleworks and by the end of it I was in high school and basically shoving ram chips in our applied engineering card and got it maxed out with 2MB, quite a capable office suite machine, but yea games were the suck
The Ti was a terrible machine ... first my father bought me a VIC20, then he purchased a Ti for himself ... tried to program some graphics on his machine and it was terribly slow ... it ended up collecting dust in a shelf in the living room 😁 So whenever a Ti-Owner express he has made the superior choice I begin loughing. Same goes with people spending an unnecessary amount of money and therefore have to make their purchase superior downplaying other computers ... today I am a skilled developer earning a lot of money because I learned on toys instead on some pretty jewelry😎
The Apple II never ceases to amaze me. If you've ever tried doing graphics routines in assembly on it you'd know how insane the video memory addressing is (in high res mode anyway.) Yet you can easily get BASIC to calculate sine waves on a machine that has no floating point CPU
The Apple IIc you have went through 4 revisions and the experience of "no disk in drive" behavior changed between revisions. My Apple IIc is the same behavior you have, at least the 3rd revision I'd guess. I think the earlier revisions of the ROM would do as you want--drop to the BASIC prompt. Google "print peek(64447) rom versions" to learn more. I would guess over time Apple felt that disk drives were more common and did what they did for that reason. BTW, this is better than the first Apple IIs that had no auto start ROM and would drop to the machine language prompt.
Uhh, this Apple editor is really a pain in the a**. I now like my C64 editor much more. Thank you. 😊 And about your journey, I like your videos and the way you present very much. Please keep it. 😊
Let's put a few things in perspective, shall we? First up, the c64 was what, a WHOLE 5 years later then then the Apple II. I mean, from 1981 to 1986, we went from the 8888 to a full x32 bit 386. And out of the box in 1977? The apple II came with analog paddles - not just on/off, or left/right joystick, but a true proportional game paddle. And out of the box, you could write BrickOut in BASIC (it was at that time integer Basic, not the MS version). And on top of above, you had expansion slots, and a incredible "Red Book" of documentation. And on top of that? Out of the box, you had bit mapped hi-res graphics. So, if we going to compare things and capability, we better compare to the original PET, and not some MASSIVE giant leap forward in time of 5 years for the C64 to arrive on the scene. As I stated, 5 years in computer history amounts to centuries - and in that time frame we went from a lowly 8088 to a x386 - hence a MASSIVE timeframe 5 years amounts to. Out of the box, the Apple was 2nd to none for that year compared to the TRS 80, and the PET. it was not even REMOTE close to compare the abilities that the Apple II had out of the box at that time. Apple soft BASIC came out next year in 1978, and once again, no one had anything remove close to supported hi-res graphics in BASIC. None!!! And as for the crap editor (which I agree)? No on in their right mind writing any amount of BASIC did not install some in-line editor utility. We ALL used them, I can't remember the one I used, but I think it was from Beegle Brothers. So, yes, editing BASIC was a pain, but anyone with a functional brain would then install a utility to fix that issue. So, it would suggest those attempting to compare a 5+ year older computer? What is next, comparing the original IBM PC to 5 years later and running a 386? No kidding sherlock!!! The simple matter was for that "home run" year of the 3 computers being released, the Apple II was so far ahead in a league of its own, it not even funny. Next time, include the fact that you ranting and raving about a computer that arrived fully 5 years after the Apple II. And next time, try installing one of the many available editor utilities that worked side by side with the BASIC editors for the Apple II. So, was the built in editor for Basic a cruel joke for the Apple II? Yes, it sure was, but then again, back then I failed to meet anyone trying to write BASIC code without some helper editor utility. And don't mean the ones that sent the basic code to a text file for editing - I mean the in-line editors that were written in assembly, and loaded before you load any basic program from disk (or tape). And speaking of disk drives, exactly how long did it take other folks to get a real nice working disk drive? (oh, wait!!!!!). Now, it is possible that those here are new to retro-computing, and thus not aware of the history of computers from 1977, but next time, do remember, the c64 was a astounding 5 years later then the Apple II. And I suppose, to be fair, Apple soft basic arrived in 1978, but that still a good 4 years before the c64. So, yes, we all installed some in-line editor utility that made editing of such code a breeze.....
Did you miss the fact that I'm using an Apple IIc released in 1984, and the C64 has exactly the same editor as the PET from 1977? So instead of your "5 years after" comparison, this is actually a "7 years before" comparison. Yes, the 1977 Commodore PET has a vastly superior editor to the 1984 Apple IIc.
@@8_Bit Well, if you going to tell me that the IIc did not receive editing improvements? Yes, you are 100% correct. As I stated, at that time frame, and even years later the Apple II built in editing was terrible. But, it was still out 5 year before the C64. As long as this point is front and center, and as long as you respect history that all Apple soft developers installed utilities to address the the poor editing of the Apple II Basic environment? Then we are all fine and dandy.
I'm learning that many Apple Editor Apologists hear the word "Commodore" and incorrectly think "Commodore 64" every time. I am comparing the 1984 Apple IIc to "Commodore BASIC" which is essentially the same right from the Commodore PET, through the VIC-20 and C64. While the C64 is the first Commodore computer I owned, the Commodore PET is the first computer I programmed, and that is where my expectations come from.
I'm glad developers found ways to cope with what Apple supplied. My understanding is that Apple *did* improve the editor in 1983 for the Apple IIe, and I even researched and demonstrated those "escape" features. Again, the C64 argument is totally irrelevant. The Commodore PET was contemporary with the original Apple II.
@@8_Bit 100% agree the compare time frame is the PET. And even later on? The Applesoft basic should have received a upgrade - and it did not. (so, there is no way to spin the poor apple showing in this regards). However, I suspect Apple never bothered to update the basic editor since by that time so many add in utilities existed, it would provide little benefit. There was a VERY clumsy set of esc sequences to move the cursor over a existing line of code - but really, we can't sell that as anything good in regards to the Apple - those difficult esc sequences were really only a last resort if working on a machine that was not mine, and a machine without any add-in editor for basic. but yes, the c64 argument is most certainly relevant, since you have to take into account the landscape in that time frame, and in that timeframe, the use of add-in utilities for the Apple was well established - it was not the case for the first year 1977. So, yes, 5 years later, everyone used add-in's for the Apple, and in 1977, they did not, and thus that's why the compare applies to the PET timeframe, and not the c64 timeframe.
So much of Apple BASIC, especially Integer BASIC, is inherited from the Apple I, which treated the screen like a video teletype. There was no provision for moving the cursor around; there wasn’t any kind of graphics capability. All of the screen editing capability of the “advanced” ROM is essentially just some weird hacks glommed on top of the TTY-style interaction that everything prior to that had used. Even the TRS-80’s line-oriented editor function via the EDIT command makes more sense. But it’s very rare that I see any of you retro tech channels cover any of those. Adrian did a whole series on a Model II and sometimes I’ll see some of the channels that RU-vid doesn’t seem to want to promote, take part in #SepTANDY with a Model I… I seem to remember VWestlife doing something with a Model 4 a few years ago. But they just don’t seem to get a lot of love when compared to the 6502-based systems on the more popular channels.
I wish I had a TRS-80 Model I; I've been on the lookout for one for years. But most of them seem to be in terrible shape and unknown functionality, and I've never been the high bidder on the occasional good one. I do have a Model III that I showed in one video. Of course, the RIFA cap blew while I used it!
I have no banned words. RU-vid seems to randomly censor comments and I have no control over it; they just outright delete or "lose" things and don't even let me review it. Sorry that it's happening, I'm unhappy about it but can't do anything about it either.
To make this deterministic you can clear RND SEED. Change line 0 to line 1, and insert this line 0 0 POKE 201,0:POKE 202,0:POKE 203,0:POKE 204,0:POKE 205,0:REM RNDSEED $C9..$CD
The reason this works is because while the Apple is waiting for input it advances a 16-bit seed RNDL and RNDH at $4E, $4F. However *Applesoft uses a 5-byte floating-point value RNDSEED* at $C9..$CD for RND() instead.
