Jim Butterfield Commodore 64 Training Tape - FULL Length C64 

How fun seeing this today. I am one of the camera people listed in the credits.. Glenn Schafer

As a 15 year old kid in 1986, my C64, 1541 drive, MPS 802 printer, and 1670 modem made me feel like the king of the world.

I met Jim only once, at a TPUG conference. He had recently published a book on learning Assembly which I bought and brought with me to the conference. Timidly, I approached him and asked him to autograph the book. The people with him cajoled him for being an "author" and celebrity. Jim remained unphased, signed my book, and asked me a few questions about my experience with the C64. He remained a perfect gentleman.

I would have watched this over and over, if I had this on tape when I was a kid. Instead, I had to figure it out on my own, along with guesswork, and a handful of magazines. Also.. It is 2022 and I am watching this and am fascinated that I am learning things that I didn't know at the time. 40 years late, but what can you do, eh?

I had the pleasure of knowing Jim and working with him. I met him after I bought my first Commodore PET. His knowledge of BASIC and 6502 Assembly and Machine code was genius level. The fact he could talk to you as an Educator, Evangelist and Marketing rep here shows just how vast his knowledge and passion for the craft. RIP Jim

Came for the nostalgia and stayed for the quality. This presentation is remarkably well written and produced. Butterfield explains so much and yet he does it in simple, clear terms. An example of excellent education.

I was also about 15 when in 1986 I bought his book on Machine Language programming. Today I am a senior software engineer, with dozens of published software products. How bits work, how bytes are represented, how a CPU works, all of that , I learned from this guy right here (his books). Thank you Jim!

Sometimes during RU-vids algorithm you hit a Gem nicely done Jim Butterfield

This guy was doing unboxing and teardown videos a few decades before the rest of the world caught on!

Spent countless hours playing and programming on the C64! It was an AMAZING era! Crisp autumn night, in the cozy but mildly disorganized basement, playing Maniac Mansion, an Halloween movie playing on the CRT tv in the background, the smell of fresh pop-corn made by my parents upstairs... HEAVEN :) Truly HEAVEN!

RIP to Syd and Jim, bittersweet to discover these two guys years after they both respectively passed.

What an amazing era. The eighties were truly something else.

That was the golden age of home computing. Spending hours typing in programs from magazines, then debugging!

Man, I wish I had this video back in 84, to help my sales pitch to my parents for a C64.

So nice of Columbo actor Peter Falk to agree to play "Jim Butterfield" in this video series.

The commodore 64 was gonna be my key to learning programming to get a headstart in computer science, but I got hooked on the games and DIDN'T LEARN A DAMN THING!

I briefly met the guy in December 2006 only a few months before his passing away. Really nice and brillant guy.

“You might have something classier called a monitor”. Love it!

I remember as a kid buying the “Computer Gazzette” magazine. Spent hours and hours typing in basic programming and saving to tape. Then, waiting till the next magazine issue to get the fixed coding so the programs would work. My best friend at the time Joe lived right around the corner when I was young and lived in Gresham OR. He had all the upgrades. So fun!

The love I have for that machine is immense!

It's incredible how much powerful and versatile the Commodore 64 is shown here.Jim is a marvellous teacher and popularizer but a bit of magic is also the video editing:everyting is quick and on the spot.But we all remember that we spent half of the time waiting the tape loading apps and games....

The antenna switch box! The struggle was real and I loved every minute of it!

It is amazing to know that so many people like myself share the same love and poignant nostalgia for the Commodore 64. I had the original machine with the tape drive and the TV adapter. At some point I purchased the 1541 drive and the 1702 monitor and had THE OFFICIAL Commodore desk that had the drawer and the slot to put the drive in and a workspace on top and a place for the monitor. My brothers and I would sometimes stay up until 4 or 5 in the morning playing a game like Sammy Lightfoot or I remember one night starting a game of Lode Runner and playing a single game ( you gained lives as you completed levels ) for hours on end. I learned 6502 machine language through Jim Butterfields assembler and wrote my own programs and sent them to the computer magazine for publishing. When I went to teacher's college in another city, I took my Commodore 64 with me to my dorm room and used it every night for hours with my new friends. When I began teaching, I taught classes that used the c64 and networked with students in many schools sharing knowledge and games with them. I have had every incarnation of computer since those days, programming them and building them, and have taught JAVA and object oriented programming to many students over the years, but, there is no compare to the joy of those early years with the Commodore 64. I suppose in some way for us, it is looking back to a time where the Commodore 64 was such a radical change in entertainment from both a gamming and intellectual learning perspective, that nothing since has ever or will ever replace those Magical times. I Love My Commodore 64 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

he's like bob ross only with an 8-bit

"Hi I'm Jim Butterfield, lets say you want to have a guy whacked, let me show you how it's done."

"A huge amount of memory!" How times have changed! This was the computer I spent programming during my summer break in college and it was so much fun I switched to computer science as my major... Still doing it over 40 years later! Loved this computer!

Very easy to listen to. No wasted words and straight forward. The production crew did a great job with showing the right amount of screens, keys, and such. What a great tape, thank you Jim!

Possibly the world's first tech unboxing video? Sadly, we didn't get this VHS in the UK, so great to see after all these years, as Jim Butterfield was known as something of C64 genius, especially in teaching machine code. In the UK, some of the Commodore C64 packages came with an audio voice tape supplied to help with the setup of the computer. I learnt Basic back then mostly from the manual, and a few of Jim Butterfield's books, and spending days trying to figure out why the Basic game listing in the magazine I'd just spent hours typing in didn't work!

I have Jim Butterfield's assembly language book. One of the best ever. RIP Jim.

Jim’s genuine enthusiasm and calm explanatory manner are still so strong today, that watching this made me install a C64 emulator and look for my old C64 which have stored away somewhere.

Crumbs, Jim Butterfield helped me into a 40 year career in Programming with his articles in CBM User. Genius fellow....

This is priceless, it’s like a retro computing ASMR

A hand-me-down C-64 and an awesome Jim Butterfield book about every aspect of it launched my career.

Irresistibly charming in its dorkiness. That unmistakable squeek of the Styrofoam. I could watch for days.

What you have here is textbook textbook classic presentation presentation. Extremely well-thought-out each lesson building naturally with a sturdy camera instead of a horrible camera work you see on so many RU-vid instructional videos.

I worked for the same company that Jim was working at, he was in the engineering department way back in the 70's, and I was working in the computer maintenance department. We only had main frames from Collins and some PDP 8's and 44's, huge disk drives with 39 inch disks, and had just installed a new Phillips system at the time ... all this was for switching messages and telex and early implementations of data switching X25 and SDLC protocols .... WOW brings back memories of all the guys that I worked with at the time (TORONTO --- Front Street )

I was so extremely lucky to listen to the wonderful Jim Butterfield when he visited our ICPUG computer club in the UK around 1984/85. Thank you for posting this video!!

Thanks for this blast from the past. I spent countless hours programming my commodore 64 and I loved it.

This is incredible. My parents split the cost with me to get the top line accessories that were available. It was and still is an amazing machine.

I'd long forgotten the name Jim Butterfield. Here in 2022 almost 40 years later and this computer is still relevant! There are hacks to connect this computer with an HDMI cable to a monitor instead of a TV set. There are devices you can plug into one of the ports that contain every Commodore 64 game you would ever want to play! Still have mine from October 1982 that I gladly paid $595 for. Its still working! I only use it at Christmas to play the Christmas song disks on my 1701 monitor. I have five others that I can use if I want to play a game.

I wish I could have met and thanked Jim personally.My first computer was a second/hand vic20,which I want to resurrect.Before I got it,I would visit any shop that sold them and program simple games/demos on their display models.The staff would need convincing that I hadn't plugged in a cassette deck.(I never needed one😸)Naturally,they loved it when I did this,as this demonstrated to customers that they were NOT just a games console,and that THEIR KIDS,could do similar stuff.I have a c64 which I still write games on in basic.If I saw a game I liked,I would just design my own,in basiic.I helped sell so many devices,that they kept offering me a Saturday job until I accepted.I love Jim's simple explanations.Thankyou for sharing this😸

Watching this video it has been a blast in the past... wow good memories 🥰

I got my Commodore 64 during the Summer of 1985 and I loved that machine. I wish I would have had this video then. Seeing it now I realize my C64 did many things I did not know it could do. I miss the 80's.

I bought one of these new. So many memories. Not all good. The 1541disk drive was a beast that took forever to load some games. Anyone remember worrying about the disk drive overheating? We had the cassette recorder too. The sound of the dot matrix printer meant you couldn’t print anything at night for fear of waking up the whole house. Remember the 300 baud modem and having to access bulletin boards systems (BBS) at night due to long distance charges? People now days have absolutely no idea what effort it took to use a computer.

RIP Jim Butterfield. Forever a legend!

Wish I had access to this video back in the 80s. I wanted to do more advanced stuff with my C64, but it was hard to find out how. There wasn’t really any information in my local library. Magazines which were very few in my country were hard to come by and there was obviously no way to inquire about questions or issues. It took a lot of dedication. But the struggles made me the professional developer I am today. I am extremely persistent and will not rest until a problem is solved.

I have made a good living as an IT professional for the past nearly 30yrs. I owe it all to my C64. Especially, typing in programs from magazines, then debugging when they often did not work properly. I learned SO much that way.

I meet Jim Butterfield teaching me the Commodore PET computer at the Batteries Included story at the Village by the Grange when I was a wide-eye Grade 9 student. Spent every Friday there!

Jim was instrumental in helping many C64 users like myself learn the power of our computer. I was alway thankful for his efforts.

I miss these days. It seems like it was another world, a happier more innocent one.

I still have the Commodore 128D I bought at the Nuremberg PX when I was stationed in West Germany back in late 80s and it still works! I played Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" on it last year!

This is awesome! Thank you for preserving this for all us to see. There was a time when I lived for Compute! magazine. I'm reading 'the Home Computer Wars" by Michael S. Tomczyk, the marketing Commodorian for that period.

This is very cool to see this vintage set up instructional video for the Commodore 64. Thanks.

It's just incredible where we are now vs where we were in the early 80's. I remember these vividly, but myself and most of my friends all wanted the atari 2600 or the atari 5200. In any case, i count myself lucky to be in the group that saw the world both before and after all of these incredible technological achievements. Thanks for the posting the vid!

Amazing how far we got, even back then it was very cutting edge

I love these old pieces of history. A great nostalgic touch for the soul.

It really is as relaxing as a Bob Ross video but for 8 bit enthusiasts. Very nice and comprehensive. :)

I still have my Commodore 64. Spend many hours poke and peek on it .. Thank you for sharing .. Good memories ..

When i was five, my father which we lost 14.03.2022 bought one of these machines to my brother and sister. I was learn how to read and write while i try to open games:)

omg this reeks of the 80s and I love it

This was a magical experience ✨

I remember these days learning. I may be older but glad I was part of all of this. It may sound so dumb to people young these days but this is exactly how it was.

I loved my Commodore 64! I loved using this computer growing up, we had such awesome games too! My commodore broke years ago but I still do have the monitor and it is the best old school monitor a person could buy, love it for my classic gaming. Load “*” ,8,1 RUN

Wow! This would have been wonderful for me to see back in late 80's. I enjoyed the games and attempted one basic program but never really got the full C64 experience. Thanks for uploading!

Wow, teenage memories. Was my first computer I owned in the 80s. Nostalgia.

36:01 Commodore 65! Love this video. I had one of these and now I don’t feel so bad that I only used it for flight sim and Olympics. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one that didn’t have patience to type all those programs in. Thank you!

OMG! This is where it all started for me!!! Salute for sharing this video!!!

Well, this is amazing! Thanks for digitizing this and keeping it on cloud storage! In twenty-thirty years I'll get back to this with the same kind of relaxness, making me feel calm! Thanks!

This is so cool... Jim's books were excellent, learned so much from him/them and his articles in Compute!/Gazette.

I had a Jim Butterfield book and never forgot the lessons about BASIC. IT was spiral bound with a beige cover and computer on it. Good memories

I still have mine in its box and play very occasionally. Spent hours learning basic and managed to programme it to play Othello and a couple of other games. You could send off by post to rent games for a week or two here in the UK instead of buying them. Up to an half an hour of audio tape loading every time you wanted to play. Those were the days!

64K of RAM. Wow! I love watching these old computing vids. This was such an impressive machine in its day.

I used to read Butterfield religiously. He was a regular contributor to commodore magazines.

40 years old, but generally still relevant. Looking back I am amazed how much is still recognisable in today's pc's.

I'm grateful people are preserving this kind of documentation.

Really enjoyed this. Jim was good at explaining things in a common-sense way. This would make a good intro to personal computing in 2022, almost 40 years later. Never had a c64 but I had something similar called a Sinclair Spectrum.

He's a very good instructor

You want to talk about a legend in home computing? Mr. Jim Butterfield is *that* and even more!

This is the most amazing thing I have watched since the Commodore 64 came out. The best computer of it's time so happy I was part of so many firsts in life. I was born at the right time. I still love the Commodore 64 tho many hate it.

I had one of these as a teenager, happy times :) I started programming basic on a Vic=20 but the "Commode 64" (as it was often called in the UK) opened my eyes to the joys of assembly programming. Three and a half decades later and I still get a kick out of coding :) Gotta admit though, I don't miss having to put line numbers on everything !

I remember upgrading my C64 from a cassette drive to a floppy drive. Those were the days!

What a wonderful video. Thank you. I remember getting my C64 as a child. Loved writing simple programs and showing my mum; she thought I was a child genius. Happy memories.

One of the earliest unboxing and tear-down videos ever recorded Wow

Jim was great, I leaned so much from him and his articles. My first computer was a Commodore 64 way back in the day!

i watched the whole thing and i never owned a C64. Its fascinating how things came to be.

oh my, i initially thought that this was Peter Serafinowicz's Butterfield and was slightly hoping for 2 hour retro computing satire. This should still be gratifying to watch. Cheers!

I remember getting one of these for my freshman year. So many days and nights learning, debugging in assembly.

OMG, I remember those days!!! I had just gotten out of the Navy in 1982 and was working as a computer technician in a main-frame computer operations center at a local community college. When the Commodores, Tandy's and the IBM clones started rolling out, they literally revolutionized everything from travel to the office environment.

i wish I could go back to the 80's. Amazing memories. Miss those more honest times and not this shit hole we live in now.

Jim Butterfield aka "Commodore Columbo" He always reminded me of the TV detective,

I got my C64 in the same year this video was done, 1983. My (kind of rich) aunt from Hawaii visited us in Germany and bought it and the floppy disk drive for me :) I spent so many hours with this thing.

Wish I had this video when I bought my C64. Eventually got the black screen. Was going to replace it with the Amiga but found that all my 64 hardware was not compatible so I settled for the 128D. Just powered it up a few days ago and it still works.

The thing I really loved about the c64 was the amazing sid chip. The music was amazing on some games (the human race & the last ninja)

This is better and more informative than my current IT studies (2022)

Jim Butterfield: A Canadian genius. BTW, If the opening music sounds familiar, Don Cherry's "Coach's Corner" segment on Hockey Night In Canada also used it.

This is real nostalgia! I had one too, long ago!

I never owned one we had a trs 80. But I started watching this video and couldn't stop. What a great piece of history this video is. Jim is great. Now I want to go back in time and buy one. Sure I could get one now but it wouldn't be the same.

Love it! The first ever unboxing video made in 1983.

Man, we've come a long way. I used one of these in the late 90's, the stock system at the shop I worked in was all running on the grubbiest commadore I've ever seen. Never broke or stuttered, even after all the years we used it and the dust flying around. It's probably still there today lol.

Gosh, they really used to go in depth with these things, didn't they? There was never any mystery about what you were buying or whether it's right for you, they give you all the information you could ever need to know. I feel like these days, people announce things but never give you the information you need so you have to go hunting for it. Not in the 80s. Great little slice of history here.