Commodore Archives

30 years after its release it’s time to re-kindle with my first computer spirit – the C64. This was my first computer which changed my life forever. Thanks to VICE we can now enjoy the little guy again on modern hardware. Here are all my notes on how to talk to him, and his other friends from the 8 Bit Age.

How to enter C64 Mode on a Commodore 128

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The Commodore 128 was marketed as being “three computers in one”. I guess technically they were correct when they made that statement. Although I’m very find of the native 128 mode, the system saw its uses mostly as a games machines in C64 mode. I don’t recall anybody ever looking at CP/M mode longer than half an hour (if that).

There are three ways to put the C128 into C64 mode. Two of which I always knew about, ever since my friend Frank Jagow bought himself a whole C128 system from his paper route money in 1986. But the third option’ve only recently learnt about – after over 30 years of being a C128 fanboy. How exciting!

Here are all three options.

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Discovered: Commodore 64C used in an auto repair shop (2018)

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I’ve recently discovered a tweet that showed a Commodore 64C complete with green monitor and 1541-II drive, heavily dust covered, but still working and being used in a Polish Auto Shop. The picture itself was fascinating enough, but I’ve also discovered that it was a screen grab from a video – which I’m including here … Read more

How to write a text input routine in Commodore BASIC

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In this screencast I’ll show you how to write your own INPUT routine in Commodore BASIC. This comes in handy when you want to reject certain keys from being used when asking users for keyboard input. In my example I’m going to allow all alpha characters (A-Z), as well as SPACE, RETURN and the DELETE … Read more

Flashing Border Colors on the Commodore 128 in Machine Language

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In this episode I’ll show you how to create the iconic flashing borders on Commodore machines. Back in the day, when the system was loading, this was a nice way to indicate that the computer is busy doing something rather than being dead. I’ll show you the principle both in BASIC and in Machine Language … Read more

Programmatic Loops in Commodore BASIC

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In this episode I’ll demonstrate how to use programmatic loops in Commodore BASIC. I’ll show you how to use the FOR/NEXT loop (available in all versions of Commodore BASIC), as well as the DO/WHILE loops (available on the Plus/4 and C128). Enjoy! https://wpguru.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Loops-in-Commodore-BASIC.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 11:33 — 10.6MB)

Flow Control in Commodore BASIC

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In this episode I’ll explain the concept of Flow Control in Commodore BASIC. It’s kind of a video update of a post I did a while ago. In essence, it means that we can tell the programme to take a different route in the code depending on a condition that’s met. We’ll explore the IF/THEN … Read more

How to run Commodore BASIC as a Scripting Language on macOS

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Did you know you can run Commodore BASIC v2 on your Mac and Linux systems as a scripting language? It’s true – thanks to the marvellous efforts of Michael Steil and James Abbatiello. They’ve adapted the original BASIC v2 as featured on the VIC-20 and C64 with additional routines so that it works natively on … Read more

Writing HELLO WORLD in Machine Language on the Commodore 128

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The Commodore 128 has a built-in machine language monitor which makes it ideal for ML development. However, most (or pretty much all) documentation on this subject is geared towards the Commodore 64, making it slightly difficult to get a head start in writing ML code for the 128. Before I forget how to do it, … Read more