The secret way every Little Computer People floppy disk was unique | Commodore 64 | Activision LCP

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Were tiny creatures REALLY living in 80s computers?! How were they all unique? David Crane reveals Activision's Little Computer People floppy disk secrets here! This Quick Bytes made possible by the supporters & our friendly sponsor PCBWay: www.pcbway.com...
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RECIPE INGREDIENTS*
• Play LCP: archive.org/de...
• Peri Plays LCP (tape version): • Live: Peri Plays LITTL...
CHEERS TO
• David Crane: dcrane.com
• Rich Gold & Sam Nelson
• Activision
• Julia and Dad Lee
• 6581punk
• All the Little Computer People
• Ladyfractic & Puppyfractic!
• Gardenside Prods. Clue Detectives Paradise Radio
SAUCES USED WITH THANKS
• LCP Song by Anthony Rother: anthonyrother.... | / anthonyrothercom | anthony.r...
• Thumbnail house by Mike: oldskoolpixels....
• Software Preservation Society: www.softpres.org/
• www.oldskoolpix...
• www.pac-attack....
• www.the-commodo... (no contact info could be found)
• mobygames.com - Quapil fathom Karsa Orlong S Olafsson NGC 5194 vermilion1 formercontrib Garcia
• Great Big Story: / @greatbigstory
• www.mathsisfun...
• Sanxion on Twitter
• Foone on Twitter
• Retro365.blog
• Wikipedia & Wikimedia Commons
• The Internet Archive
• Every attempt was made to contact copyright owners before including content. Very occasionally things can get forgotten in the excitement to release a video so please don't hesitate to let me know if that is the case & I'll put it right. All other media featured is marked as public domain on Google Images used with written permission or shown under fair use law.
🚘 With free Tesla supercharging/discounted solar your better half can afford to buy you more retro gear!: bit.ly/teslafra...
SOME INGREDIENTS BY
• MattGrandis.net - website design
• / _gazmarshall - some graphics
• / elwoz - colour palette cleanser
• Paul Kitching thetekken@ntlworld.com - some 3D models
©️ All music & content copyright Perifractic's Retro Recipes/Bideas LLC 1988-2020. All rights reserved.
*Some affiliate links may offer peanuts to support this retrochannel but all opinions are 100% unbiased.
#retrogaming #retrocomputing

Опубликовано:

29 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 241

@paraniomia 4 года назад

I have little Fractic people (and doggies) living inside my computer.. they visit me regularly and talk about the good old days of Commodore...

@Coffeeology 4 года назад

"I was talking to the dog." I died.

@freddiejohnson6137 4 года назад

I'm with you on leaving the game on for hours at a time. Like you I had the cassette version as obviously being in the UK they were the preferred method overall and as such most retailers stocked them. My parents weren't happy about it as they gave me a lecture about electricity bills or something you know grown up stuff that meant nothing to me and wasn't as important as saving a life.

@mickholling6819 4 года назад

I have a c64 boxed and a spectrum 128 plus 3 for sale both have a big bundle of tapes (and c64 disks)

@davedogge2280 4 года назад

Sadly I only had the cassette version of Little Compter People so no game saves and reduced content. Didn't stop me having the computer turned on for days to see what happens to the LCPerson with the transformer red hot and ready for melting.

@DrTofu83 4 года назад

Little Computer People, the ancestor of everything from virtual pets to the Sims ^^

@vinlacey 4 года назад

Great work, Perifractic! As a software developer, I do appreciate the geeky programming insights into these games. I had assumed there was some sort of procedural generation going on inside the code.

@kenthejanitor3134 4 года назад

I like the opening song-it’s got some major Kraftwerk vibes!

@geekwithsocialskills 4 года назад

Puppyfractic with the whistle was so cute! The David Crane era of Activision always made amazing games back in the day for the Atari 2600 and also the Commodore 64 computer.

@ColinJonesPonder 4 года назад

I think it was Zzap!64 that printed a program that could reset the LCP. It was in BASIC so easily reverse engineered. I created an "LCP Hotel" that could save LCP data and so house many different LCPs. From memory, the data was stored on Cyl 1, Track 4.

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

Wow that's cool!

@JimBuschman 4 года назад

Puppyfractic really needs to find a new co-host. One that appreciate whistles more maybe and doesn't constantly try to steal the spotlight.

@javahigh 4 года назад

My LFP is still alive here in 2020. I booted my C64 up a few months ago to check on him. One thing that always bugged me as a kid was that he would never watch the TV. Thanks for this video and many others!

@DanOCan 3 года назад

David Crane is responsible for more lost hours of my younger years than anyone else. The man is a legend and I'd love to me him one day.

@dgstephens 4 года назад

I love this micro-series of stories delving into the how and why of game design! Thank you, thank you!

@paul1979uk2000 4 года назад

Yes I'll admit it, as a kid of around 5 or 6, I thought there was an actually real person in the computer you have to look after lol, got to love those innocent days when we don't know our arse from our elbow lol.

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

That's very sweet

@jecepede 4 года назад

I remember there was a 3rd party program called "Little Computer Evictor". You clould clean up the house-on-a-disk and start over even when your LCP had met an ahum unfortunate accident.... Think I still have it somewhere in my collection... never had the neverve to try it out :-D

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

That's cool, let me know if you find it.

@BBC600 4 года назад

@@RetroRecipes Agreed that would be good... :-)

@tim_nj_devil176 3 года назад

I have it as an emulator file if you would like that.

@RetroRecipes 3 года назад

@@tim_nj_devil176 Yes please! Can you share a Google Drive link or such-like?

@tim_nj_devil176 3 года назад

@@RetroRecipes I just emailed them to you.

@nematolvajkergetok5104 4 года назад

Peri, of course little people live in every computer! You're one of them. We're all watching you on our computers.

@aaronbrandenburg2441 4 года назад

Don't forget phones tablets and other devices but they are all computers nowadays mostly.

@necronom 4 года назад

My LCP was called Otis. I played the game for quite a long time, but when I sold my C64 I gave the disk to someone. I wonder what happened to him. A friend of the family asked about it a couple of years ago, as she remembered me playing it and thought it was great.

@IvanDSM 4 года назад

My avatar is from LCP! Got this little guy from the C64 version of the game :)

@aaronbrandenburg2441 4 года назад

Looks like you got that heart you deserved was also wondering what your avatar was as well. I always call it a user image but I keep forgetting what to call it. Thanks for accidentally straightening that out for me.

@6581punk 4 года назад

David loved his polynomial counters. It was how he did Pitfall.

@JustWasted3HoursHere 4 года назад

I was about to say the same thing! He used the polynomial counter because it could be reversed: You could feed it the number it had just spit out and it would then return the number from the previous seed. The layout of each screen for Pitfall was stored in one or two bytes, with each bit representing some aspect of the screen's arrangement. For example, treasure/no treasure, vine/no vine, pit/no pit, scorpion/no scorpion, logs/no logs etc. If you were above ground going to the right would advance the counter by one and then to go the other direction the counter would be fed the current number to get the previous one, etc. If you were below ground, this would happen 3 times (or was it 5?) for each screen so that going underground would move you along more than one screen. Using this trick he was able to squeeze over 200 screens onto a 4k cartridge. Genius! He talks about it in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6JGHgohIztY.html

@BenInSeattle 4 года назад

@@JustWasted3HoursHere I remember mapping the circular world that was *Pitfall!* -- including all the tunnel shortcuts -- so I could find the optimal path for the most treasure within the time limit. I had no idea it was algorithmic. I'll have to dig up my old PostScript map/program and implement "polynomial counters" just for fun!

@JustWasted3HoursHere 4 года назад

@@BenInSeattle Postscript? Wow, that's going back a few years!

@MoosesValley 4 года назад

LCP = Little Computer Pooch 💖 Interesting to know about the unique code ... without knowing this, I would have guessed there was some unique ID inside the C=64 that could be accessed, or maybe even the date/time when the game was first run - or prompt the user to enter date, time, or their birthdate, etc - use those values to seed the RNG and save number to disk for use from then on. Writing a unique number to disk when the disk is created is just so over engineered it's wonderful ... from a time when companies would go the extra mile to make things more magical. And the Free LCP Disk Rescue service is awesome. Well done Activision !

@leejacksondev 4 года назад

Puppyfractic with that whistle gets me every time... And I think an EP should be released of her busting out a tune.

@jorgemtds 4 года назад

The dog's expression when he heard that Gary had killed someone... was PRICELESS 😂😂😂.

@Drarok 3 года назад

This channel is adding a new wrinkle to my brain! So many games I didn't know I'd just about remembered!!!

@peterbrandt7911 4 года назад

PCBWAY = Puppyfractic could be whistling at you. That gave me a good chuckle, thanks

@puzzud 4 года назад

When I was younger I imagined the door to my controls on my SX-64 was the door for my LCP house.

@robertomaximilianosilveira8768 4 года назад

I'm a lcp that come out from the Matrix Saying hi ... 40 years later ... Yes's from the futureFractic!

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

Woah!

@cpace123 4 года назад

Little people in a computer. I think that is called Tron. And I think the politically correct name is not "kill", but "derezzed".:)

@OmeedNOuhadi 4 года назад

I love Tomogatchi’s, Tomogatchi’s are my life!

@EV-olution 4 года назад

Great video. I forgot about LCP. Thanks.

@CubicleNate 4 года назад

I never heard of this game until now. Would it be wrong to run it in VICE on my modern computer? I feel like it would. And does LCP know LGR? I'm asking for a friend. ;)

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

Haha nothing wrong with that at all! I'll ask Clint ;-)

@metalheadmalta 4 года назад

I spent months on end exploring this 'game'... I loved it... did my homework while letting little Alex get on with his life... ah... youth...

@RamLaska 3 года назад

Edit: Dates redacted. This is the internet, after all ;) 7:05 Dude, we're the same age! I was born on M/D/YYY. Or D/M/YYYY for Europeans (boo, hiss! Use ISO 8601, people! YYYY-MM-DD! Plus, it looks like stardates (if you don't use a delimiter), and it sorts in a file listing!) 7:29 Wait, wasn't the dog a sprite, too?

@madcommodore 4 года назад

The tape version is heavily cut down in uniqueness and the disk version does not work with an SD2IEC even now due to weird loader not being cracked/removed. It's really sad you need to go to so much trouble to play it on a real C64.

@MudSluggerBP 4 года назад

My Grandfather was called Fred Young and he had big ears ... How weird!!

@zdanee 4 года назад

Well of course he did, you are a little computer people on my screen, obviously your granddad was one too!

@tedw7193 4 года назад

LCP!! Would try and leave it running for days to see how long I could keep the little fella going

@AlienWacker 3 года назад

Came to see this video because of the current-day version of LCP - The Prepper.... lol I've always wanted to program a newer version of LCP that took "plug-ins", pieces of code that would add new actions... But alas I never got around to it... Love your idea of them saving the data in the toilet, but isn't the dog a sprite too?

@epromenator 4 года назад

Damn! That song! Little computer people! I haven’t heard it since decade! By the way. Love your content. Keep ot going!

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

Thank you ! I hope to!

@JohnnyZoltar 3 года назад

I remember buying this game at KMART back then, and it would not work. Its strange how SOME of the store bought software for the commodore 64 would not work.

@heathwellsNZ 4 года назад

Wow! I well remember the hubub around LCP when they came out. The mazagines I subscribed to had feature articles and even school mates were excited about it as it seemed something revolutionary (at the time...) Cheers once again for the memories Christian!

@upstairsroomsoftware4143 3 года назад

I had this on the C64 and Amiga 500... the C64 version was much smoother. Seems like the little dude in my Amiga walked slow as Fudge.

@groenevinger3893 4 года назад

"Little computer people" Anthony Rother. Great choice!

@chriscowey7464 3 года назад

One of the best games ever. Loved it. Only had the tape version. Did not realise the disk version had more content. Still I was more than happy with my version :). Great Vid as always.

@crewsayer 4 года назад

I let it run for days without feeding it *trying* to kill it, but it would just get sick and stay that way. And yes, in Roller Coaster Tycoon I would pick up park guests and drop them into the water to drown, or put them on a coaster then remove part of the track etc. Didn't everybody do that?

@TheOGFirechicken 3 года назад

Activision Little People Organization? Puppyfractic might love that!

@laureven 4 года назад

And also in this video, You perfectly explain why IPv4 is doomed :) (6:25)

@AtticusStount 3 года назад

I remember seeing this on a market stall - yes, they still sold computer games back then - alongside Arctic Fox, and the Empire Strikes Back. My dad bought Arctic Fox for himself, as though I'd never play it!! He didn't like the sound of Little Computer People, and it might be because of the price.

@baardbi 4 года назад

This is my favorite piece of Commodore 64 software. I have two copies of the casette, though only one have the instructions.

@KRAFTWERK2K6 4 года назад

I'm pretty sure Little Computer People was also inspired by Steven Lisberger's film "TRON".

@guystevens162 4 года назад

wow yes remember it cant think if i played it but was cool. Oh they was the good old days back then.

@BilisNegra 4 года назад

Wow, the code trick in Ghostbusters was already clever, and we see the update of it in here!

@dougbergen8157 4 года назад

The math and the hardware behind this is awesome. Thanks.. little people rule. Lol

@BrainSlugs83 4 года назад

@3:00 you connected a strange thought in my head -- ... did you know they made Star Wars Tamagotchis? -- I had the Rancor one in middle school. -- It's that monster that Jabba tries to feed Luke to. -- You could do all the regular stuff with it, but the animations were much more colorful. -- for example, when you went to feed it, you could do choose between pig men, and Twi'lek "dancer" girls. Both of which were very entertaining to watch. -- Oh, and at the start, when you very first set it up, there was a little intro animation where it was dropped off via a spaceship onto the planet for you!

@ScoopDogg 4 года назад

I forgot all about this software, brought back a memory : ) Yeah I'm old too

@nefaurora 4 года назад

I only played LCP once or twice...but I had no idea that every LCP person was indiginous to each specific Activision 5 1/4" Diskette. Fantastic info! Quite a feat for the day... I'm 49 (soon to be 50!..Ouch!) and really enjoying your videos and RU-vid! channel. David Crane was a C64 God back in the 80's.... I get a lot of great and interesting info from your channel among others. Great job Perifractic & Puppyfractic....! :o) Tony K. , Melbourne, Florida.

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

Thank you for your kind words. Means a lot! 👍🕹

@LurgsHowToGuides 4 года назад

They really did push the limits of computers back then. Great video, really interesting. My fav games of all time we’re probably Atic Atac on ZX Spectrum and Uridium\Revs on C64.

4 года назад

Anthony Rother song. 🖤

@00Skyfox 4 года назад

I have this game on the original disk but unfortunately the disk is corrupted and it won’t load. It was one of a bundle of stuff I bought off eBay. At least Ducks Ahoy works!

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

Sorry to hear that. Normally I'd recommend using a utility to copy a D64 back onto the disk, but with the copy protection and the special data held on an unwritable track, that just wouldn't work.

@SuperFurry68A 4 года назад

Another fantastic episode, Perifractic. I really like the episodes that delve into the inner working of games. These are both really interesting and informative.

@zorko8920 4 года назад

Love how you have one of my favourite Anthony Rother songs in this episode. That’s Perryfantastic

@lurkerrekrul 4 года назад

I quickly got bored with LCP as there was never very much variety to it. It asks you to enter the time at the start, but the LCP never sleeps. No matter what time you enter, he'll still just wander around doing all the same things. I always thought that they should have had him sleep at night, get annoyed if you wake him up, etc. Also, maybe have him go out at times and be gone for a while. And it would have been nice to see him have company come over occasionally. All of these things could easily have been added to the program at the design stage and would have really added to the illusion that the LCP was truly alive. As for them dying, I once tried to kill an LCP by not delivering any food or water. He turned green and stayed in bed, but he never died. BTW, is this video a re-upload? I could swear I saw it a couple days ago under a different title.

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

I changed the title a little to better reflect the subject matter so that's possible. As for the game, you may have had the tape version where many things were simplified.

@lurkerrekrul 4 года назад

@@RetroRecipes My copy was on disk and I don't think it was cracked into files. I can't be 100% sure what version I had though. I've seen the issue discussed on the net and it seems that they had the same experience as me, he just turned green and stayed in bed. One person said they left it running in WinVICE on Warp mode for a day or two and he still never died.

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

@@lurkerrekrul Well, in a way I'm thankful ;-) I am wondering if later versions removed the "ability" of death because the hospital got too expensive for Activision to continue providing for free. Typical American healthcare... ;-)

@andrewdunbar828 4 года назад

So the disk duplicators were based on 1541? It would be great to see a story on one of the retrocomputing channels about those machines. Even greater if one of them still exists.

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

I don't think the duplicators themselves were, but the hospital one was

@ColorMeMozart 4 года назад

This episode will self destruct in 5..4..3..2..1...🧨 Great episode! I grew up on the C64 but never heard of the Little Computer People, wish I would have.

@telephony 4 года назад

Same here. :-O

@interlace84 4 года назад

9:43 completely misheard that, wasn't looking.

@MartinFarrell1972 4 года назад

Hi Puppyfractic! You're the star

@Yoofaloof 4 года назад

Didn't the tape version, which I had, just have a generic LCP. You only got a unique LCP on the disc version?

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

Correct

@Tarim06 4 года назад

The "sims people" seem so fragile against an LCP .... I recall that to "accidentally" kill your LCP took forever - whilst a "sim" just has to not use a phone for a day and they are unhappy and leave food all over the place..

@theannoyedmrfloyd3998 3 года назад

It's pronounced tah mah goh chi. Long O, because tamago is Japanese for Egg.

@RetroRecipes 3 года назад

I should've realized that as I order tamago all the time when I get sushi. 🤦

@zooropaforever 4 года назад

Great Perifractic! Same age here! Seems to me I lived the same life of yours in the late 80s! Same games, same reviews, same memories. Cheerio!

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

Small world!

@crewsayer 4 года назад

So is there a way to mod a disk image of LCP to choose from the available options? That would be a cool hack.

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

Not yet. One website I found did try, but it was deemed too complex. David Crane still beats us all!

@trotzflocke 2 года назад

Oh I didn't know the LCP could die o.o

@poorman-trending 3 года назад

Anyone know how to reset the game? If I buy a used disk on eBay, I’ll like to start over instead of continuing the previous owner’s game.

@RetroRecipes 3 года назад

There is a program out there that can do that for you

@poorman-trending 3 года назад

@@RetroRecipes I’ve read that but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. The single link I did find no longer works.

@RetroRecipes 3 года назад

@@poorman-trending Here you go. I’ve added to programs that can help you to this folder: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-2IobXfpRkWdDIdMXr18Yz05FgZSs2OT Have fun!

@poorman-trending 3 года назад

@@RetroRecipesThanks! I guess you’re not that bad.

@yannisgk 3 года назад

the game i never had but wanted it so much !!!

@alexcochrane1966 4 года назад

Loved LCP, though it was a great idea.

@adrianmardianto7681 4 года назад

More PCBWay jokes dude!

@adrianmardianto7681 4 года назад

Brandon Taylor Heeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

@user-vz7tj4hq8b 3 года назад

still wild and most can't best a cailc bite I love it

@stefanocrespi5424 4 года назад

I would love to see Ashley play LCP ❤

@CanuckHam 3 года назад

Reminds me of the show reboot form my childhood.

@DaveF. 4 года назад

So - what happened to the dog sprite when the LCP went to the toilet and, err, flushed his state to disk?

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

I believe the dog would disappear. It turns out that the version I was using for the screen recording was the tape version even though it was from a .D64 file, so my dog stayed on screen. (I inserted the disk drive close-ups later to tell the full story.) #Editing #ArtisticLicense

@andrewbeasley 4 года назад

Eek - was it really that long ago?

@sheep1ewe 4 года назад

This was awsome! You realy should hawe at least 10X more subscribers to Your channel!

@jackkraken3888 4 года назад

That makes complete sense! That's why for example Windows 10 doesn't like DOS based software, there's a little person inside that hates DOS software and games and refuse to allow me to run them. BRB I need to know how legal it is to kill that person in my PC.

@vpupkoff 4 года назад

Um.... Replacing it with Windows XP should be easier solution = )

@jackkraken3888 4 года назад

@@vpupkoff Or using Windows 7 32bit. Unless you need full screen Did..But let's not forget Dosbox.

@cappaculla 4 года назад

Awesome video... Thanks

@VariXx 4 года назад

They got to him. Peri is now part of the cover up that they don't really live in your computer.

@kozkidz1613 3 года назад

Omg I was starting to think I had imagined this game as I was only around 6 or 7 when it came out. THANK YOU!!

@kozkidz1613 3 года назад

Also: you have a super relaxing voice, like soothing ASMR. =D

@RetroRecipes 3 года назад

You’re welcome! Thank you for your kind words! Means a lot 👍🕹️

@LavaCanyon 4 года назад

Every Game is Personalized.

@gmirwin 4 года назад

Excellent video, but I hope that Puppyfractic got that walk that you promised.

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

She actually did!

@gmirwin 4 года назад

@@RetroRecipes Good Perifractic!

4 года назад

Puppyfractic is so cute ! I love!

@shanebumpurs 4 года назад

I totally don't recall this I guess I missed it when it came out.

@eskey691 4 года назад

Puppyfractic and her whistle cracks me up big time haha and that music went so well with it as well. Still need a bit of work with your dad jokes, am kidding ofc would be wrong not to do them. Great video as always guys, keep up the great work and roll on the next video. Take care 🙂

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

Hehe thank you pawfully much

@LandNfan 4 года назад

My “kids”, now 39 and 45, loved Little Computer People on our Atari 1040ST. It was the cleverest piece of software I had ever seen. Heck, I even liked to go spends hour with him.

@andrewchudyk8518 3 года назад

Love these little behind the scenes peeks into how & why a game is the way it is. When I was a kid, this sort of stuff was just mind-blowing. By the way, Puppyfractic is the best co-host ever! Sorry, Ladyfractic. Actually, she's pretty good too.

@merkyuk 4 года назад

I spent far too long playing little computer people when it came out. Making them dance was the good bit.

@theannoyedmrfloyd3998 4 года назад

Tah Mah Goh Chi Long O I'm sure a lot of people made a Fast Hackem copy before playing. Sadly, there's no Atari 8-bit version.

@vader0ne 7 месяцев назад

I lost my copy of LCP but I did find copy on line,Also I did find in my collection Little computer people Hotel so I can change my person. It is cool on how each person is different some like to play games more than others or just love to play the piano. thanks for the memories but I am going to buy the game again.

@FlyingSurprise 4 года назад

Did the tape version also have unique copies?

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

No, it was pretty limited and didn't feature save either.

@GazMarshall 4 года назад

Puppy had me in stitches with that whistle!😂

@RetroRecipes 4 года назад

She's multi talented!

@davedogge2280 4 года назад

The thousand yard stare at the end was best, the dog went to Vet-nam. 8:36

@pyiffer 8 месяцев назад

With the advancements in AI, I think it would be kind of fun to have something novel like this again, maybe a modern remake that you can truly interact with your little computer person.

@UnholyTriforceDelenn 4 года назад

I honestly had no idea this game existed, but then again, I was a '90s kid and missed out on all the coolest stuff of the '80s! Well, I didn't miss out on the Turtles, thankfully! :)