How the Commodore REU Works
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- čas přidán 3. 08. 2022
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My uncle ran a computer store in the 80s and I just texted him to see if he knew how much REUs went for. He has always been a Commodore fan (he even has a tattoo of the logo). He said that he can try and track down a price sheet from back then but he's pretty sure they were MSRP for 299 but most shops would price them at MAP which was 199.
MAP?
MAP - minimum advertised price
@@Jody_VE5SAR A store can't advertise a product for lower than the MAP (minimum advertised price) without risking penalties for the manufacturer. If a store wants to sell a product for $189, but the MAP is $199, then they would have to show the customers the full MAP of $199 but provide a $10-off coupon for the purchase of the unit on request.
Gsus! It was more expensive the the commodore itself.
@@pd1jdw630 well, RAM wasn't cheap back then.
David, I bought mine from Best Products for $149.99. I do remember that the price had no catalog listing and when I asked them why they said that the price of dram was very volatile at the time. And, when they had to look it up it was listed with the jewelry department since it had to be where their program allowed them to easily modify the price.
That's really neat, thanks for sharing! Not only did you know the price, but I love that you knew why it's unlisted and even the tidbit about the way their pricing system worked haha.
LOL @ jewelry! Imagine wearing 2 of these as earrings…
@@alexanderthomas2660 Well RAM Chips often are
Fascinating, thanks for this comment! I remember when the US Congress punished China for dumping DRAM and the supply dried up. I was outside the back door of Softwarehouse in Dallas (in the rain, no less) begging for a tube of DIP DRAM to put in a system to ship the next day. Crazy times. "Supply chain issues" aren't a new thing!
The 32K EPROM socket can be used to add GEOS onboard to the REU for instant loading of the base GEOS application.
I have yet to try that, but how does it behave in a 128? Does the 128 option ROM have priority?
@@8BitNaptime I believe it does have priority. I no longer have a REU to confirm.
Several of the later Infocom games shipped with REU support which allowed pre-loading of data into RAM, greatly speeding up the time it took to process your turns.
@@RockProductionsYT I'm from the future.
@@RockProductionsYT people pay to see his stuff early
The new port of New Rally-X also has an REU version on the developer's itch page
@@8_Bit Yet, you love the past?
@@dennisneo1608 Yes, even here, 8 hours in the future, we still appreciate the Commodore 64 and other classic computers.
Great Video. I can help with the price. The REU listed for $149 in the USA when it came out but I got mine on sale at Toys R Us for either $109 or $129. I do know that later on they were selling them for $99 and that is when we picked up a second unit for our BBS. I still own my 1764 and the PSU is still in use on my 64C.
I'm pretty sure I picked mine up for around $100. I was a poor college student at the time. I definitely would not have spent more than that. I used it along with CNet BBS. CNet used this trick of overwriting specified sections of running code with different code loaded from disk. This allowed the size of the program to be much larger than available RAM. By copying the program disk to the REU, then running it from there, not only did it run much faster, I had the entire floppy disk space available for saving the data from the BBS.
@@BrianMelancon Oh that is cool, I remember CNet but never used it. I ran a Color64 BBS and the REU used it as basically a drive and it installed all the BBS overlays to it so that it would not have to load them from disk. Overlays were basically games and mods for the BBS. The bootup took some time and required several disk swaps and Commodore's own software fast loader. I still have all those files but can't remember how to boot it. haha. One of these days I will try it again.
Yeah $100-129 for the REU at the time for a computer that was only $129 was a large investment for a kid just out of HS as I was. haha.
@@RacerX- What was the name of your BBS?
@@robertleeluben City Limits BBS.
@@RacerX- it sounds familiar, I was all over Miami area BBSs and did a lot of CG graphics as Creeping Death.
Sonic the Hedgehog port to C64 was a real shot in the arm to 8-bit retro game development world as it so viscerally made very clear what the REU brings to the table - exciting
Agreed. Although more native games for the SuperCPU would be nice too
From what i saw on screen it was most likely Master system port.
@@ponocni1 Even the developers say as much
@@ponocni1 i feel like the genesis sonic 2 could be ported to the amiga
....if you really tried
@@sonicthehedgehog23145 I see no reason why it could not. Only what might be limiting factor are sprites and onscreen color pallete, maybe memory. Also question is, what amiga? There are multiple ones with some being much more powerful.
Sonic is actually a port of the already existing 8-bit version for the Sega Master System/Game Gear. That being said, it's a near perfect port of it, and it even runs a bit better than the original version!
Next thing you know you're going to tell us that the Super Mario Brothers game was also available on some other system before the C64! ;) Or were you just being cheeky with your comment? If so, well done. You got me!
@@JustWasted3HoursHere There were no systems before C64 - myths, legends and fake news!
@Brandon Taylor SEGA has selective caring. It seems like most of the time they'll let Sonic stuff slide, but SEGA is more protective of their other IPs in terms of fan works. I remember they were issuing take down notices of people merely uploading Saturn gameplay and I've seen groups receive C&Ds for fan games like the Streets of Rage remake and a few other things.
@@JustWasted3HoursHere port of the gameplay and gfx, rather than demake of the megadrive version
I have sonic already on 2 disks waiting to play, but cannot find an reu.
I love how they even recreated 8-bit Sonic 1s broken demo. That's true dedication to the source material.
Yes, it's so interesting how there's now quite the cult following of the C64 that can finally afford to use these super accessories that we wish we could have had just as easily some 4 decades ago! And with people developing modern solutions for old machines, like being able to run flash storage on these computers, this is really a magical era for nostalgia, isn't it?
Not just nostalgia, it's quite amazing how even people my age (born late 90s) can still use and experience these machines. It's because of the documentation and preservation that the community has done. And as someone who is interested in retro tech I'm very thanful for it.
@@carlangelo653: Nice, yep!
Yeah i look back with resentment.
Im like "oh you have an 040 cpu... Thats cute.. i just threw away a pentium 233 mhz chip cos its taking up space.." :)
Too many years running workbench on 2 megs and no mmu i suppose. Lol
Back in the early 90s, I ran a CNet BBS off a REU using it as a ram disk on a C128 in 64 mode with two 1581s. Had the BBS menus and doors stored on the REU and the message base on a 1581. Think I only had a 2400baud modem but even with that the REU made a noticeable performance boost for users. Within a few years, moved on to a A500.
Good times Don. I ran a BBS from 86 to 89 on a Apple IIC with a external 3.5 drive and I think it was 512K memory upgrade using a 2400 baud modem.
I was wondering anyone would mention this use case. I ran my 1750 clone on a 128 with New Image BBS for a few years in college. It took forever to power it up and copy all the modules into the REU but it ran so smoothly once it was up.
I think your first sentence might be the most beautifully retro thing I’ve ever heard.
you ran a BBS on an A500? Blasphemy. I had a friend who had pretty much every major "A" computer except Apple - Amiga 500, Atari 520ST, Atari 800XL... and he ran the BBS on the Atari 8-bit then later a PC. He never used the Amiga for running the BBS. Mostly calling them. And playing games.
Same here Don. I ran a Cnet bbs with Empire and a few other overlay programs loaded into what we at the time called a "Rampack". It made a big difference in game play as Empire was a series of overlays that needed to be loaded in sequence with each game event. Good times.
I had one of those. I even had it all wired up with extra sockets and the glue logic (74series ftw) to make it a two megabyte reu, just at 15 I never came up with the money for the actual ram chips. There was also an update to software to properly use all that ram. This was more ram than pc-xt's of the time.
BTW, your opening theme song makes me happy every single time I hear it. It's everything I wish my memories of the 80s were actually like.
I came here to say this. I've been watching for years and the theme still slaps.
Same. I love it. 😁
The C64 was my first computer. I'm always blow away by how much good programmers could squeeze out of that thing! The quick dive into assembly instructions and clock cycles was really interesting. I'd love to see more of that.
Yea! RAM those days was something you never get enough
I like that you have actual good sound production levels. Love you show!
Love these behind-the-scenes looks at old technology, bravo 8-bit guy!
bravo vince
Great video as usual. Just wanted to say that, after the fall of CMD, we were in an REU desert for ages! The 1541 Ultimate II was some relief, but it was very expensive for a long time, and might still be considered a bit of overkill. I think we are finally going to start seeing actual stand-alone REU clones in the next few years.
Couldn't you use a Turbo Chameleon? (it's really overkill, but still)
Yep for sure. I beta tested an REU compatible project that was 100% compatible, that I could see. I think he released it as open source but not sure it was actually finished. The prototype that I have is large but also had things like VGA out, RTC and something else. He streamlined it to just an REU but I have not seen that one yet.
@@thecorruptedbit5585 yes you could as it also has REU built-in. But like you said if you just want REU it is overkill. A cheap alternative is in the works.
What is going on with CZcams? An 8 Bit Guy video should be over 100k easily after 12 hours. Especially a classic vintage tech piece like this! I didn't even get a notification despite choosing that setting.
I absolutely never tire of seeing petscii robots on this channel. I think it's fascinating to see it evolve, and it really sets this channel apart because basically every device you review has a special petscii port that specifically shows off its features. It's not something you can really get anywhere else on CZcams
Really neat stuff!
Not going to lie, I really miss 8-Bit Keys uploads… I’m sure you are extremely busy with all you projects, but I’d love to see you messing around on old keyboards again sometime. Any chance of that in the future? Or have you moved on from doing that for the foreseeable future?
Regardless thanks for all the amazing things you share with us all!
I really did enjoy seeing you clean up an old keyboard and then writing some fun music for it!
I too enjoy and would like to see more 8-bit keys!
8-bit-keys has always been your best channel. Your weapons channel is for sure #2!!!
"how 8 bit music was created" was the reason I subscribed, before he was even called the 8 bit guy. I've never been disappointed by a single video, but I sure hope he'll do another 8 bit keys video in the future, those were the BEST
🤟🤟🤟
Another use of the REU that is difficult to appreciate these days is for a larger backbuffer in compatible terminal programs for bulletin board systems. Not everyone can keep up with a blazing 2400 baud modem so being able to scroll back and read the buffer was useful. The bigger the better.
My experience with the 1764 REU was discovering that my RAM disk was not as slick an idea as I thought when my C64 crashed and I lost the term paper i was working on at 2:00 AM in the morning on the last day of the semester. The old and dying refrigerator drew enormous current when it kicked on and my landlord's brother-in-law wiring job wasn't up to the task of supplying it and the rest of the house. Fortunately I only lost the bibliography but man it was a pain. Save early and Save often has been my motto ever since.
i enjoy the production value of your videos. sound, video and editing is all 10 / 10.
I don't know why, but I absolutely love this channel's intro music
The C64 version had the ability to add more RAM to it. There was a jumper that you had to either cut or solder together, I forget which. And you also had to add RAM chips to the empty spots. They had two rows of RAM chips. One was populated and the other was not.
AFAIK all versions uses the same two circuit board (DIP/old vs PLCC/new), on the board there's a trace that controls whether it has 64kbit or 256kbit memory chips, and another that controls whether it has one or two banks. From what I can tell CBM never bothered making a 128kB variant.
Many sources say there's an extra resistor (R4) on the two C128 models and that this is required due to subtle differences in the C128 cartridge connector to avoid "stability issues". And that as a result you should remove R4 on the REU before using it on a C64, and add it to the REU to run on C128 (or I guess, install a switch if you move it back and forth).
that was the amgia 500
Oh yes, that reminds me of what happened to mine. I managed to get a 1764 as a kid which was quite something all by itself. One day I was walking around my neighborhood and I saw some DIMMs someone had thrown in the bushes. It sounds crazy but there was a computer store right there so someone upgraded their computer and threw out their old DIMMs like a litterbug... I took them home, desoldered the DRAMs and upgraded to 512K ! I was freaking out. GEOS was great with 512K.
IIRC, I got a 1764 expander for my C64, and later added a second bank of RAM chips to bring it up to 512k. GEOS could use the expander as a virtual disk, and was pretty quick as a result.
It was great seeing you at Game Fest in Austin. I’m glad the copy of Sonic I gave you was put to good use. Great video as always.
That Sonic port is insane! It looks and sounds a lot like the Master System/Game Gear version. Something that is simply incredible with how limited the Commodore hardware was for that sorta stuff. It's also really neat to see every version Petscii Robots get updated to use every obscure and weird expansion out there.
That's because it's a direct source code conversion of the Master System port.
I'm a 51 year old dude, probably your age also. I love going back and rewatching your older videos! Four, five, six years ago even. So much to learn & relearn, this is one of the great things to use CZcams for! Lots of negative things about YT, and although I love Rumble & Bitchute, YT still "works" the best with a plethora of information!
Glad to see a video about the REU, have had one lying around for awhile and have been interested in them for a long time.
The fact that you know so much about this stuff is simply astounding. Thanks for sharing!
This isn't rocket surgery.
I always love seeing your videos, I'm not the brightest person but I love learning what you have to offer. We are so spoiled of today's technology but I highly invested in all your videos. Keep them coming!!
Neat! Two of the three channels I've rung the notification bell for have uploaded on the same day!
Brilliant video, thanks. It must take ages to do all the graphics but they explain everything so well! Really enjoyed that. :)
I had a 1750 back in the day. I used it with my copy of C-NET/64 where a lot of the BBS software would be copied on startup. It made the experience a lot faster and allowed for the floppy drives to be used for file transfer and message storage. I think I'd gotten mine for around $350 at the time, but I can't remember exactly.
I used the 512k REU on my C-4, putting the GEOS programs I was running there which made it highly responsive. I thought that was the greatest thing, and now I have multi-terrabyte disks sitting on my desk.
Mine are terabyte disks.
I remember programing the C64 when I was 10 years old! It was amazing and so ahead of its time. Great video!!
Hiya David, awesome explanations for the technical aspects. Working on learning reversing now, and it's always fascinating to see that, while we may have more bells and whistles on modern systems, it's still fundamentally the same as back in the 80s.
The video clips, this expansion enabled was impressive. The Dallas intro sequence for instance.
I always love when the 8 bit guy uploads. his videos are always interesting.
You seriously make the most entertaining videos Dave! I one day hope to have enough spare time to make something for the C64, VIC or Amiga that could stand up to the best!
This is a fantastic topic for a video. Fascinating stuff!
Dynamite stuff always here. Thank you!
Thanks for the video! I’m old enough that I could’ve owned a Commodore computer, but I just never did. I love the technology of old computer systems, and you do a great job of explaining it. Also, love the shirt! Classic poem!
Always great to learn from a new video
Super interesting! Thanks for making this video!
My mother entered my brother and I in a draw in New Zealand, he ended up winning 1st prize which was a commodore 16. Mum had stressed to both of us if one happened to win then the prize was for the two of us so we were stoked. We had that computer for approx 6 months when to our surprise Dad went and upgraded to the commodore 64 with the tape deck, floppy disk drive & dot matrix printer. Along with all that we got some games on cassette and cartridge, I remember really liking 'Who Dares Wins' on cassette and 'Lode Runner' on cartridge. We did eventually get some games on floppy disk and they loaded fairly quickly. We had a lot of fun with this setup as it kept us entertained for hours.
I love this channel. I won't pretend to understand lots of what's going on but I am learning!
Excellent vid! Thanks!! As always, you rock!
Great Video! Love learning about old and quirky hardware :)
Using it as a ram disk was perfect for running a bbs, color64 bbs to be specific. Especially if you had lots of kids for it.
I enjoyed the Memory Management explanation and your Tee Shirt
Can't believe I still hadn't bought a copy of PETSCII Robots! I'm glad I watched this video, just ordered the REU combo 😀
I still have one of these for my C128D, and it still works! Made things work much more efficiently.
Great video David! Very informative!
8/5/22 Great review, I still own my Commodore 128 with the 1750 ram expander, 5 1/4 floppy drive, 1581 3 1/2" hard floppy drive, and a C=> monitor.
I ended up buying my ram expander from someone on Q-link. and your right it was quite expensive, but I was a bigger user of the various GEOS programs making my computer very useable as a desktop along with my HP Deskjet 500 where I could DL a printer drive off of Q-link. All that you said was true about speeding up things when using the expander, plus I had a jiffy Dos chip installed to speed up the booting. Nice to see that there still are users out there still supporting C=> in 2022. The fact that the 128 was a 3-in-one computer where I used both the 64 modes and 128 modes spent a lot of fun time and useful hours while never turning the computer off without any power or heating problems for years.
Hey man I love your videos! Keep up the good work!
I love these videos that get into techie addressing stuff 🤓 keep it up!
I had a Commodore, but never heard of the REU. What a brick! No, TWO bricks to power up! Happy computing!
Really interesting video, thanks! Never knew about this hardware.
Great to see ya Dave! Another cool video!
Very glad to have gotten one of these (and the super power supply for the c64) as part of a lot before the craziness that is C64 Sonic drove up the prices. Also very glad that I learned a bit about 6502 asm so that I could understand the bit about the CPU cycles! Awesome video as always
Thank your fot that lesson. I could learn something. And it was a great video as always. :)
Thanks for another informative, entertaining episode! To me, it's always a good day when David posts.
I had one for my C128. Used it mostly as a RAM Disk for GEOS. Made it lightning fast. Just had to remember to save any files back to disk.
9:26 Oh Wait, it included Sonic in this video! Nice work David!
I had one of the C64 units with 256K... I added my own 256K bytes of RAM to it for about 1/10th the cost of buying the bigger unit. Just took a little soldering.
later one, I bought a third part CMD RAMLink drive, which was a similar device, except that it had it's own power supply, plus battery back up, and it used industry standard SIMMs of 1,2 or 4 MegaBytes.
So, I had a C64 computer with 4.5 megabytes of non-volatile RAM Disk (almost like having a hard drive, as long as the power didn't go off for too long) Ran GEOS OS on it, which was awesome because could boot into GEOS as quickly as a normal C64 could boot to basic.
You should try to find a RAMLink if possible, they were really great devices
My first foray into chip-stacking was with a 1764 REU.
Cut the power trace on the edge connector and gave it it's own power supp;y with a battery back up!
Ran an unlisted Color64 BBS for a few off that and a CMD HD
Great video, crazy how they got around system limitations back then
I really like these technical videos.
Great stuff! Thanks for the history lesson
Great and informative episode. Thanks.
Great timing! My last 24 hours involved having all my food stolen by a bear, chasing that bear for an hour through the mountains at 3:00am, and hiking 8 miles back out to my car with no food, only to find that my car battery had died. I was SO READY for a chill evening at home, and a new 8-Bit Guy video is perfect for that! It's really amazing to see the clever engineering here
Sounds like one hell of a lot of excitement for the day! 😂 hope you enjoyed sitting back and watching some 8-Bit Guy after all of that!!
why would you go chasing after a bear for food at 3 in the morning?
@@Lbf5677 Why were you chasing the bear and what would you have done if you caught it?
@@SashazurI know it's a year later, but I was emotionally ready to fight that bear. But really I was just trying to scare it off my food. California black bears are big softies and run away from people, I was just hoping to have it drop my food bag. I was on a week long solo backpacking trip and multiple days into the trip, so I really wanted that food bag. I've had a lot of black bear encounters and wasn't actually going to get super close to it and wasn't worried about being attacked. They really don't want anything to do with humans. They're also smart, so I hoped that if I chased it relentlessly, it would get the point that it was the food I was after and leave it. No such luck unfortunately, which meant a long, intense, fasted hike out the next day. It all worked out though!
Great video. Even though I’ve never owned a Commodore computer, I still found this very interesting.
Dear David,
Thank you for sharing useful information about Reu.
Unfortunately I don't have real hardware, but thankfully vice emulator give us this chance to have fun moments with reu specially watching nuvie videos
A wonderful topic for a video, Thanks.
I can’t believe I’m exited to learn about obsolete electronics I’ve never heard of
I literally just used the globe demo to test a fix I did on my old 1541 this afternoon! Wow, what a weird world!
Really enjoyed this - thanks.
When I was little, we bought a brand new C128 system with a 1084s monitor and the 1760 REU. We used it primarily for GEOS in 128 mode, and mostly to copy applications from the various disks into the REU at runtime so it was faster and easier to run a bunch of things at any given time. Of course, we had to reload it every time we rebooted the 128, but it was at a time when you never expected instant gratification. You'd sit down, boot up and load GEOS, then after it was loaded, pop in our prepared applications disks and copy them into the REU before we started doing anything. I remember trying to use it in C64 mode and never really understanding why it didn't do anything but that was my pre-teen self having a very rudimentary understanding of computers and what they were capable of. I do remember that the cost of our 128 system including a printer was somewhere near a thousand dollars at the time, and this was somewhere between the late 80's and early 90's. I want to say somewhere around 88 or 89. It's been a long time, but I vaguely remember the REU cost somewhere between $50 and $100 depending. Most people didn't have them, I knew more people that ran dual disk drives than had an REU at the time. Then again, we bought ours on base, so it's possible there was some kind of special military discount so my prices may be faulty. Seeing some others mentioning around $200 wasn't out of the question, it would have depended on how and where you got it, too.
Thanks David, I completely forget that we supported the REU in Maverick.
Thanks for showing this device off as it was a somewhat niche product probably due to pricing.
I for one remember seeing "$CALL" and similar in sales flyers throughout the 90s and it really annoyed me. Sure, sometimes the price might be fluctuating, but I generally took not showing the price to mean "it's way too expensive / our price isn't the cheapest."
If you were looking for avg price of the REO, check Internet Archive (Run Magazine, Issues 80+ which is 1991 time frame) - Issue 85 - May 1991 - From Software Hut In PA - REU1750 - $129, 1700- $49, 1764-$109. Many of the old magazines had stores advertising items.
Those were heavily discounted prices by 1991, being sold as clearance. You'd need to find magazines from around 1986-1987 to find the original prices.
@@8_Bit The 1764 cost $149 in 1987.
Nice! Was my dream to have one back in the days.
Thanks for the video. I never heard of a REU before.
Once you brought up the surprising capabilities of this device, I was hoping you'd mention that you ported Petscii Robots to work on it. Great to see that! The jump in visual quality is impressive considering this is possible by just connecting a peripheral to a regular C64.
I think it's a strange concept to remove PETSCII out of PETSCII Robots.
Another awesome video thank you so much
I love learning about all the stuff I didn't know existed for the 64, as I was just a smidge too young to understand it all. I hope to some day find a working unit and start my retro-collection with it, followed by an A500.
Locally we used these REU's to power our BBS software and load the entire BBS into the REU so it would require less (slower) disk access. We also had a local modder who would upgrade smaller memory units to 512k to save on costs or availability where possible. Very handy units!
I LOVE that someone made a Sonic the Hedgehog port to the C64! That is one of my favorite retro games. I remember the awe hearing my brand new Genesis sing "SEEEEGA" the first time I powered it on...
Hey, that was a fun watch!
Me shaking my head in understanding not know what your talking about I just enjoy watching your videos lol
6:20 "not sure how useful since it will lose its contents at poweroff" -- puts new meaning to the age old wisdom of keep good backups :P
i love watching vintage tech videos :D!
Ah, a seemingly competent port of the Sega SC-3000/Master System iteration of Sonic the Hedgehog. Nice. very nice.
This is the content we need in 2022
Wow you know something good job Sir
I remember I had a REU for my Commodore 64 specifically for running the bbs software Color64. Color64 had modules that needed to be loaded up every time a user went to a different section. Without a REU the modules would have to load off the drive which would take time. With the REU no loading time as it was much faster. I remember some bbs's that ran color64 used hard drives for the C64 at the time and didn't need the REU since the drives were fast enough to load the modules. Good memories and good times!
dang i love the intro
Just curious, ever thought of going on a small tour to give technical seminars devoted to discussing techniques for vintage tech restoration? If you, LGR, techmoan, Tech Tangents, and your brother were to hold a conference panel I'm sure there'd be a great turnout.
4:46 The branch instruction takes 3 clock cycles if the branch is taken, 2 clock cycles if it is not. The branch is taken for every iteration of the loop except the last.
Also, if the addition of the X register to the addresses indicated in the LDA, X or STA, X instructions crosses a page boundary (where each page of memory is 256 bytes), those instructions will take an extra clock cycle to execute.
The only reason that could push me to buy a REU back in the 80's was an arcade port of dragons lair or space ace. Thank you 8 bit guy for this video.