I like when youtube creator grinds it out for 10 years and then finally a video goes viral and they get the real viewership they finally deserve. If it wasn't for that one video I never would've found this channel.
I had my C64 connected to a 9" black and white TV for years in my bedroom. My mind was totally blown when my mom and dad got me a Commodore 1702 monitor for Christmas one year.
@@nevillegoddard4966 Yeah, it definitely made the games more interesting and fun to play. I used that 1702 monitor for many years after that, well into the 90s with my Amigas. Those things were very well made.
The C-64 is a fantastic machine to use to learn how the current kind of digital computers work. It has video chips, sound chips, the CPU, built-in BASIC (including rather good BASIC program compilers/editors that can be loaded in to greatly ease the programming job!), and internal firmware in memory areas that can be accessed much like an elevator going up and down in a building with various "floors" having memory or firmware that can be overlayed without deleting the information on the other "floors". Go deep into its operation in hardware, firmware, and software and you can get a rather easy master's class in digital computer design, with rather a lot of "bells and whistles" not always visible in simpler machines or easily accessed (or understood!) in later, much more complex machines.
Back in the day when there were still "computer stores", a local one had a kiosk running a video disk describing the IBM PC of the day. The kiosk had some buttons and then it would play part of the video disk that applied to whatever you requested with the button. I wondered what the "guts" of this looked like so I opened a cabinet door at the bottom of the kiosk. Controlling this IBM PC display was a Commodore 64!
What a great machine. Brings me back to the day when I was running a bbs in my bedroom with 3 - 1541 disk drives and a fan on them to keep them cool. That lovely 2400 baud supra modem sound. Ooo those were the days. Now I have taught my daughter who is 9 to program in basic on the c64. She created some nice small programs. She loves it and thinks it's cool. A new generation exploring the old generation of tech. :) It's so cool to see my kids interested is dad's retro tech. My C64 is still working fine and going strong. Thanks for the video Fran. :)
FlashGordonMurr Yeah yeah yeah! Mine was a white "modem 1200" Hayes compatible thing. I can't even remember what my BBS was called, but the incoming midnight calls pissed my sister off. Oh my.
6:19 to 6:24, the look on her face is great. Here's someone who obviously enjoys the technology, even the dated technology like this. Makes me want my old 8088 compatible PC that ran at a whopping 4.77 megahertz. Twenty meg hard drive, two 5 1/4 inch floppy drives, and 640k RAM. Cut my teeth on DOS 3.1. Those were the days...
+Howard Price Mine was an Ohio Scientific II. Very similar but very expandable. Second was C-64 and the third, almost right after, an IBM PC. That is when I got into DOS and BIOS.
Something to consider--When you turned on most of those old computers, they came up in (usually) BASIC programming language ready to be programmed. The latest devices--tablets and phones--often try to sell you something.
Keeping up with Commodore! Started with PET at school, Vic-20 for home with cassette, upgraded to 64 with two 1541, then next 128 with 1750 (512K!) and 1581 (3.5" floppy). Good times!
Those character symbols were surprisingly flexible. I remember local BBSes used to use them extensively to create graphics since they used very little bandwidth (and this was in the days of 300 baud modems). My C64 works great still, though I broke the '8' key off years ago. People and small companies are STILL producing not only software, but _hardware_ for these old systems because there is still in demand. There are even NEW games coming out for the Atari 2600...on cartridge! I guess people of "that age" are just a little tired of the FPS which seems to be 90% of the current video game market.
What I like about your videos in particular, Fran, is that you seem to be having a conversation that is personal. you answer the questions I'm asking in my head, the ones that I would be asking if I were there with you. That's a good presentation talent. Really enjoy this stuff. You display considerable knowledgeability. You have my respect.
My friend worked in a bar that had a big projector TV. He had a C64 with a Floopy Drive (just like I did). He asked me to write a program so he could put up text during the day: different text and colors that changed every minute or so. You know, up comming events, drink specials, fun facts about the bar "The Merry Widow" in Bridgeport Connecticut. It was a simple program that read a text file off the floppy disk. So I created a simple text editor, and a text reader to display the text file contents. This was before the days of HTML, but I came up with tags after seeing DEC Runoff way before the internet and HTML was at our fingertips. The tags were intermingled with the text: clear the screen, where to position text, background/text colors, font sizes, special characters, delay for a specific number of seconds, and a repeat, single run, or next file tag. My program just read the file, interpreted the text and tags, and displayed it on the monitor which was just a big projection TV. His boss loved it. It was easy to use and they edited their own presentations every week. I remember customers commenting how great it was and how did they get a TV to do that.
My parents got me a C64 when I was 9 or 10 or something and it's the computer I learned about programming on. So much fun. I had a similar program on a floppy disk that I used to set up my "desktop theme" every time I started the computer -- black background and cyan text. Also -- I didn't know about PRINTTAB() .. cool! :)
This computer was really ahead of the time. It is unbelievable, things it was able to do with only 64KB of RAM. Nowadays, a simple 128x128 pixel Windows Icon could grow over that!. I still use C-64 emulators time to time to run some of those old good nostalgic titles.
I am impressed! I still have my VIC, a 64, a 64-C and a 128-D - along with the modem and the tape deck and a separate drive. I even have the CPM program instruction book and a Monitor and a dot printer. The tape ribbon for the printer is getting hard to obtain. Have about 100 pieces of software (games, word processing and accounting) and a few blank floppies (in fact I have one box I have never opened). I thought I was the only die-hard C= fan left. My ,8,1 has survived 2 fires and a flood. I really do wish I could meet you. I love your record passion and now I see this... thank you so much. You have gained an admiring fan.
Blast from the past! First computer for me was the Vic-20 with the tape drive. Later upgraded to the 64 and got the "laptop" version of it as well. Gut, God damn was that a heavy machine to carry around.
I have vague memories of a C16 but the C64 was my first computer. Dad had a 128. Later on we had Amiga 500 and 500+ and AMOS! :) We even had CD32 for games - all 10 of them!
I have a 64C too - the PSU died before I got a chance to see it working. Waiting on parts to build my own replacement. I owned about 6 different computers when I was a teenager, but never a Commodore. Cant wait to scratch an itch that's been waiting 30 years to be scratched. (PS: My C64C was used for around 6 months when bought new and left under someones house for the next 30 years - it looks brand new. Thanks for a great channel. Cheers from Aus!
Nice bit of nostalgia. My family's first pc was a C-64. We had to buy 4, yes 4 because at that time there was a 75% failure rate of these machines. The first one lasted an hour, the second a day, the third a week and the fourth as far as I know is still chugging along. We sold it and I wish we hadn't. I remember seeing a guy who modified his 1541 disk drive to record on both side s without having to use "flippies" and a hole punch and he had a track readout on a led display. What high tech. ;-) I can remember having to manually having to bang in a a program from a magazine to get a "free" word processor. That took days. Thanks for the refreshing look back.
Wow Fran, this brings back so many memories of my own C64 - I wish I'd never got rid of it. Love your videos, you have such a natural and "real" way of speaking to an audience. It's like sitting down and listening to a dear friend. Many thanks.
Still have mine up and running . I run my flight sim,s on it Banner printing is nice also . I can still run the Bob Sterm program and get into the backbone but it's not used much any more . 220 local still works for us old guys that still use it !
I started with the C16, the Grey one, not Brown. Sweet machine. Typed in 4 pages of code form the "Gazett" to play solitaire. Sold it to buy the C64, which I still own. But I miss the 16, it had different commands. It was dropped before it went to market and was given away for door prizes at time share demos. I'm now a CNC programmer. Fran I love your Videos!
I have used that computer for "quasi-professional" applications, between 1985 and 1987. As student of electrical engineering, I developed programs for filter synthesis/analysis and reflector antenna analysis... The good old time!
Hey Fran, really dig the spontaneity, and the cheerful courage to tackle any and all. The reason I'm gushing with gratitude is because I just finished watching your video about a apollo era switch. I bought a few cabinets of the tiny plastic vintage drawer stuff five years ago and in a few of them contained a bunch of strange crazy switches. Googled the dog out of it and there it sat until l saw your vid. I never ventured passed "no bulb? Oh well..." But now I'm on the hunt for bulbs! Thanks and Cheers! PS. If you or any of your viewers would like one or two, let me know. Have a few extras.
My parents bought a C64 to teach their kids about computers. Eventually it taught me BASIC, then assembly, then eventually a C compiler. Basically, an 8-bit 80s computer set me up for a pretty good engineering career.
Stumbled across this vid by coincidence and i gotta say i love it. Oh the sweet nostagia...it brought a small tear to my eye. Thank you Fran. You rock.
I have 2 comadores that used for decoding teletype and other communication mode's back when. Now I miss them when I saw your video. Love the look back!!
Loved mine, but those programs from the magazines really didn't seem to want to work. Had a friend that could break down sound and figured out how to program the chip, so one New Year's eve, the speakers got taped into the windows and at midnight, they street was greeted with the space shuttle taking off. I was amazed with the amount of neighbors in their pajamas that got out on the porch and looked up. They never complained about use shooting our guns with banks again.
i got into BASIC on an ATARI 400 i had for christmas in the early 80's , then my younger brother got the bug and got a C64 a year later ! i can remember him getting a drum machine program on cassette and it was just brilliant ! ! we both are still making music :)
We were one of 3 households with a desktop computer in our school district in 1983. We had an IBM but our friend had a commodore 128. We wrote cartoons in basic. Then had to make a translation table so that when we sent our cartoons back and forth over the modem, it would account for differences in the two versions of basic. It actually worked. It was translated in transmission. Clear / home would equal cls on our end. The kid with the commodore went on to make a perfect score on the math section of sat tests. He also became a math professor for Clemson University. Cassette drive was a joy. The 'black book' program to store girls numbers on one side and the number database on the other side. Great nestalgia Joy from the 80s 😃 makes me want to dial up an old bbs to play my turn in chess.
This is the computer that really launched my career in graphic design for games. I actually started with the Vic-20 on which I made a Space Invaders clone and of course, a Pac-man game lol then I got my 64 and made some more games. Later I got an Amiga and started to learn basic 3d design and that lead to my career as a computer graphics designer which is what I'm doing today.☺
I had a TRS 80. No storage, you could buy a cassette deck that would store programs on a cassette tape. Computers have come a long way. I remember copying the code out of a magazine to play Russian roulette. I had not mastered typing at that time spent about 3 hours and it was not impressive at all. I did learn to write some stuff of my own. At school we had the same TRS80 and I could just type, took about 20 seconds and it would cycle through all the audio frequencies playing tones and would flash all the colors it could display. Made the computer look like it was messed up. I don’t miss that. I’ll just watch videos of you doing it.
I think it was a brilliant move hat they didn't over-simplify everything with a unique command for every little thing but left you to peek and poke a lot of functions. Moving data into registers is far more illustrative of how computers actually work that if they had created a special command just for the background color and another function for the boarder color.
The second computer that I coded on, the first being the high school's computer back in 1973 (or, '74). I started off writing programs in Basic on the C64. I got into assembly for some magazine saying that one could not run machine language in Basic. After I proved that statement incorrect, and after learning how to send machine language into the floppy drives controller to add functions the floppy drive, I changed computers and set the C64 aside. Glad to see that you were able to hang onto your Commodore, and that it is still running.
mart fart The first computer I coded on was the high school's administration computer. It was narrowly focused but it was programmable. Later on when the Commodore 64 came out, that is when I purchased one. Yes, maybe I did not say it originally so clearly, but the info was still all there.
Gerard Kuzawa Funny enough I built my first microcomputer in 1978 the Science of Cambridge Mk14 using 8 bit SC/MP 256 bytes of memory hex keypad and calculator style seven segment display. I only just remembered.
I never heard of any of this and am very amazed. I am shocked actually and feel like wow I should know this. It is now 2021 and I just watched you talk about the government and unidentified flying objects, so thought I would look back here at you. You are just so interesting because of your intelligence! Thank you.
It is a looong time ago that i was 13, got a C+4 and some books about programming in Basic. At this age, i did not understand how to program in Assembler, but with Basic had i a lot of fun. As you locked the disc drive, i remember how many times i did it too. This sound when the drive was reading or writing ... like real hard work. And yes, this electrostatic discharge sound is awesome.
seeing your early presence for the first time. Competent from the start, and still sharing your knowledge. We could be less cynical back then. World has changed.
So cool!!!!!!!!!! You bring back so many wonderful memories! My first computer was a C=64 and then I got a C=128. I still have an Amiga 4000. Anyone have a blast with Deluxe Paint? I used my C=64 for the brain of one of my first computer controlled robots. I still have the control board I built to control the robot. Everything was programmed in basic. I found out that I could control transistors from the port on the back of my C=64 and use the transistors to control relays. I used the relays to control the motors on my robot arm. Now I design robots on my computer, 3d print the parts and add servos, servo controller and then I have a new robot to program and have fun with!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My Dave robot is 3d printed. Fran, I wish we had known each other back then. I am so glad you make videos!
I had C-64 in 1983. I used it to learn Basic programming & play Temple of Apshai dungeon crawl. The C-64 is still an excellent home computer & modern version C64 Max has HDMI, USB inputs & new games are being written for download. Connecting to regular TV with composite inputs the C-64 takes up very little space & offers a lot of functionality. For those wanting to learn assembly language the Commodore is simpler to learn than Intel 8086 having Motorola 8 bit microprocessor with versatile instruction set.
But the new version has no serial port for floppies and printers, no expansion port, no user port, no tape port. I still prefer the real one. The C64 has a MOS/Commodore CPU, not Motorola; maybe you mixed that up with the Amiga which has a 16 bit Motorola CPU.
EXCELLENT CONTRIBUTION!! I´m a programmer char Commodore of "Old School" (diploma in 1987). For those kids who never had the opportunity to be close to a Commodore 64, very good explanation, for the first steps CONGRATULATION FRAN!!!!
I'm only 32 but I had a C64 in the mid-90s. My dad had a friend who was into computers and he had one kicking around. I just used it for games, but I really loved it. I remember a Ghostbusters game and the classic lemonade stand game everyone's played.
My i7 is a joy to use while multitasking. Yet, I do miss a Vic-20 which was a replacement for an Apple II+ clone that I had in the early 1980s. Those were fun and filled with a wonderful newness while exploring programming years. 🌸
I used to have a C64 and that monitor. The Commodore monitor had an excellent display when used for a TV monitor. I first bought the data-sette but exchanged it the same day for a disk drive.
I've been watching your new stuff for about the last year, I was one of those that stopped getting your notifications =[ That has been resolved =] This just came up on my feed and it is the best thing I've seen on the internet today. It's so nostalgic for me and I appreciate that it appeared today, I was having a rough one. Keep up the good work.
Like so many of your followers, I also had a 64 but I started with the Vic20. I knew every memory location in that 3k of memory. Learned to program in BASIC because the only programs you could get were in magazines and you had to type them in. Also learned to program in machine code for the 6502 processor on the Vic20. But my favorite was the user port, your access to the real world. Both the 64 and the Vic20 had manuals with the complete schematic in the back.
An interesting side note. My Vic20 with the monitor and tape drive cost me as much as a cheap lap top does these days. I paid over $300 for that setup in 1980.
OMG Fran, this brings back so many memories! For a long time, I used an amber monochrome monitor with my 64, so I always used that POKE trick to make the display look more to my liking! I have had many different kinds of computers over the years, but my C64 was the funnest by far! :)
I had fun doing quick code on these, when I was in junior high, we also did simple animation wave lines, in a multi-colored fashion. I felt nostalgic after watching this video, thanks for sharing.
I learned on a Vic-20, then a friend got a C-64 - spent so many hours of my youth writing programs - had limited computer "hands-on" time, so spent thousands of hours writing in a notebook so that I could just key it in when I got the opportunity!
Nice Fran. Brings back lots of memories. Computer started appearing in radio books and I wondered what they were all about. Finally got the Commodore Vic 20. It was brill but virtually no memory. Then came out the C64. So saved and saved until could get one. Did some programing but all in Basic. Lumpy blobs that moved in steps and had to clear the screen before the next blob would appear, Brighter people could write in machine code, bet you can, and that was so much better. There were cartridges too like Lunar Landing. They were fun. The dataset recorders/players were great but very slow and you could wait 15 to 30 minutes to load but also often got the ERROR message. The 64 was very advanced in sound.
Very nice video, I still use my Commodore's to this day with great pleasure. From eBay tomorrow I am getting an SD2IEC for my 128. Cant wait for that to arrive. Mike.
Way cool! Takes me back..... BTW, the Commode-door cassette storage is bona-fide sturation recording, NOT analog audio. The time interval between flux changes is what encodes the zeroes and ones. It was a cut above the other methods that used a consumer audio-cassette deck. The pcb inside that tape drive digitizes the flux transitions and records with DC polarity reversals through the coil of the record/play head. Digital in, digital out. Nice work.Please keep it up :-)
My dad brought one of these home when I was a kid (second hand), it came with an "introduction" casette, and still to this day I remember how it taught me the difference between hardware and software, "when you drop hardware on your foot, it hurts" (SFX of a bang and a man yelling in pain) Haha classic
Neat stuff. The C64 was my first venture into marrying together my love of electronics and programming, I can still remember being ridiculously excited when I was given an edge connector and wire-wrap board that suited the user port. Reading a handful of push buttons, and lighting a series of 5mm LEDs on their command felt like it was cutting edge at the time. Actually I guess it was for a hack back in 1985 :) Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Once upon a time, I programmed my C64 to do my income tax. It just mostly did the computations but was broken down step by step with the then current 1040. It worked well and I could be confident of my figures since the computer never erred. And I could go back to quickly see how certain deductions affected the bottom line. The program probably took longer to program in basic than it would have taken to just prepare my taxes. But it was a lot more fun and I could be sure of my results. I never thought of a commercial application for my program, otherwise I might have now been enjoying the benefits of having beat TurboTax to the punch. Thanks, Fran.
My first PC that I played with for a couple years was the TRS-80 Model I Level II. Paid $1100 for it. In '81 I bought my first C-64, 1541 floppy drive, and color monitor for less than half what I paid for the trash80. It was more fun to program and worked better with another hobby, amateur radio. Sill have 2-C-64's and 2-C128's.
Talk about good times. In 1981 I was 16 years old and the C-64 was perhaps the most successful personal computer along with the Sinclair Spectrum, altough some people still bragged about the precursor model VIC-20 also from Commodore. I bought a single book which explained every single C-64 hardware detail and showed the complete OS source code in assembly language. I was literally abducted in a fascinating virtual world made of weird smelling paper sheets and rows after rows of bright characters flowing on a green phosphors display (color displays were too expensive). I managed to read and understand almost the entire OS source code and proceeded to program a BASIC language extension in assembly that was better and faster than the official Simon's Basic extension. I only could afford the audio cassette data storage device because the floppy disk drive was priced more than the computer itself, therefore I programmed a self-loading module that speeded up SAVE and LOAD commands about ten times (there was Turbotape already but my module did better). The C-64 hardware was so sparing that the display buffer had to be disabled while using the tape drive because some interrupt signals were shared.
Has this happened to anybody? When I first got my Commodore Floppy Drive I could not get it to work. The only thing I knew about floppy disks was from my friend's Macintosh, you put one in and send commands (mouse clicks) to talk to it - easy. The Commodore disk drive came with a manual with all the commands but no Quick Start section, pretty much how to hook it up and just details about each drive command. The commands were listed alphabetically (if I recall) and "Format" was in the middle. I didn't know that floppies needed to be formatted because every Macintosh floppy I ever used was pre-formatted (which was not indentified on the disk, Apple did it by default to make things easier) so I figured you plug in a new blank floppy disk and away you go (being totally oblivious that a floppy has to be formatted for it to work). I asked my friend if he had any idea what I was doing wrong, he didnt...and wasn't much help...he knew that floppy disks had to be formatted first, but since it was not a Macintosh, he didn't make the connection. It took me weeks (on and off) and many "ready to take it back" moments when I found the solution: to run the Format command first on any new floppy disk. This was in the days before the internet so research on "how to" was virtually non existent. I was in a computer store one day and I overheard a guy said that he has some floppy disks that would not *format* so he had to throw them out. The "a ha!" moment, I remember seeing the Format command in the manual so I rushed home to try it... voila, it worked! If Commodore included just a 1 page chaper on getting started to use of some of the commands (like Format first and formost) rather than a technical manual only, it would have saved me a lot of headaches.
I had one like that (64c), a 1541, and a 1581 with JIFFY DOS installed on all 3 and a SNAPSHOT cart in the back of the 64c, I could load any program in 3 secs...used it mainly for the BBS I ran for years on 1200 baud...those were the days (pre-inet) of SysOps...Windows was never so stable or fast as that set up. Most people that logged on wouldn't believe it was a 64c but the 40 col screen was a dead give away. Sold it all for $200 so I could buy four 1 meg strips of used memory for my 286 which I was running a stolen copy of Xenix 286 System V on....oh the memories and waisted money....;-)
were are you from? back in the day nobody in my part of the UK even knew what a BBS was, how did you come to know about it? did it not cost a lot to access using the phone line? cheers
Yep, like most guys watching this.. I really like Fran! Totally Cute/Nerdy/Geeky Tech Gal! Hmm and she has a Commodore T shirt on! Yep my Dream Gal too!
thanks for the nostalgia! I've been following for a while, and I can say that you are an awesome person who has fought to get to where you are today. kudos to you!
I have a couple C64's from way back, but I never knew about the shortcut keys. I'm very pleased to find out that I can type R shift U, instead of RUN. This will save so much time! Just kidding. You are so cool, keep doing what you do!
This brings back memories of a painstaking and horribly boring intrusion alarm system I wrote for a Timex Sinclair TS1000 that used the external keyboard input to scan for hard contact sensors around the house. After typing inkey$ commands for hours on end it all came to a terribly sad ending when RFI induced onto the logic level keyboard signal path from miles of sensor cabling made the poor little Z80 go insane. But by God, we had fun.
I like when youtube creator grinds it out for 10 years and then finally a video goes viral and they get the real viewership they finally deserve. If it wasn't for that one video I never would've found this channel.
I had my C64 connected to a 9" black and white TV for years in my bedroom. My mind was totally blown when my mom and dad got me a Commodore 1702 monitor for Christmas one year.
@@nevillegoddard4966 Yeah, it definitely made the games more interesting and fun to play. I used that 1702 monitor for many years after that, well into the 90s with my Amigas. Those things were very well made.
everything about this video is so freaking adorable.
Fran-tastic even
Talking about nostalgia, I swear I can hear some static sounds when you touches that CRT monitor.... It brings me nice memories.
+youreale LOL ... I forgot about the CRT static ... hilarious
Mmm smells like ozone.
And especially if you charge up your hair and it is flying up in the air xD
I always remember my mom getting mad at me for that.
@@dommbrown same had totally forgotten that was a thing haha
Love this girl - no airs or graces - just straight talk and to the point - how refreshing. Just subscribed (and a big thumbs up).
We had the VIC 20 and then the Commodore 64 as each came out and we had a great time with both.
The C-64 is a fantastic machine to use to learn how the current kind of digital computers work. It has video chips, sound chips, the CPU, built-in BASIC (including rather good BASIC program compilers/editors that can be loaded in to greatly ease the programming job!), and internal firmware in memory areas that can be accessed much like an elevator going up and down in a building with various "floors" having memory or firmware that can be overlayed without deleting the information on the other "floors". Go deep into its operation in hardware, firmware, and software and you can get a rather easy master's class in digital computer design, with rather a lot of "bells and whistles" not always visible in simpler machines or easily accessed (or understood!) in later, much more complex machines.
My 1st ever computer - the C64! Thanks for the happy memories, Fran.
Back in the day when there were still "computer stores", a local one had a kiosk running a video disk describing the IBM PC of the day. The kiosk had some buttons and then it would play part of the video disk that applied to whatever you requested with the button. I wondered what the "guts" of this looked like so I opened a cabinet door at the bottom of the kiosk. Controlling this IBM PC display was a Commodore 64!
Awesome seeing people still fascinated with c64
Awesome memories flooding back when I wrote machine code and many programs on the C64 as a kid ! loved that machine so much.
What a great machine. Brings me back to the day when I was running a bbs in my bedroom with 3 - 1541 disk drives and a fan on them to keep them cool. That lovely 2400 baud supra modem sound. Ooo those were the days. Now I have taught my daughter who is 9 to program in basic on the c64. She created some nice small programs. She loves it and thinks it's cool. A new generation exploring the old generation of tech. :) It's so cool to see my kids interested is dad's retro tech. My C64 is still working fine and going strong. Thanks for the video Fran. :)
you had insane 2400 baud speed? You must be a n00b. ;) :) ;)
FlashGordonMurr Yeah yeah yeah! Mine was a white "modem 1200" Hayes compatible thing. I can't even remember what my BBS was called, but the incoming midnight calls pissed my sister off. Oh my.
6:19 to 6:24, the look on her face is great. Here's someone who obviously enjoys the technology, even the dated technology like this. Makes me want my old 8088 compatible PC that ran at a whopping 4.77 megahertz. Twenty meg hard drive, two 5 1/4 inch floppy drives, and 640k RAM. Cut my teeth on DOS 3.1. Those were the days...
grayfoxfive , i miss those 8 min boot ups and all three colors! I had two 8088s with all the bells and whistles. Or is that whistle lol.
My first computer was a Commodore PET (yes, I'm that old!). Good times. Thanks for the trip down memory (or is that RAM) lane.
+Howard Price
Mine was an Ohio Scientific II. Very similar but very expandable.
Second was C-64 and the third, almost right after, an IBM PC.
That is when I got into DOS and BIOS.
Arf arf!
Something to consider--When you turned on most of those old computers, they came up in (usually) BASIC programming language ready to be programmed. The latest devices--tablets and phones--often try to sell you something.
computers were for nerds only back then lol
Keeping up with Commodore! Started with PET at school, Vic-20 for home with cassette, upgraded to 64 with two 1541, then next 128 with 1750 (512K!) and 1581 (3.5" floppy). Good times!
Those character symbols were surprisingly flexible. I remember local BBSes used to use them extensively to create graphics since they used very little bandwidth (and this was in the days of 300 baud modems).
My C64 works great still, though I broke the '8' key off years ago. People and small companies are STILL producing not only software, but _hardware_ for these old systems because there is still in demand. There are even NEW games coming out for the Atari 2600...on cartridge! I guess people of "that age" are just a little tired of the FPS which seems to be 90% of the current video game market.
What I like about your videos in particular, Fran, is that you seem to be having a conversation that is personal. you answer the questions I'm asking in my head, the ones that I would be asking if I were there with you. That's a good presentation talent. Really enjoy this stuff. You display considerable knowledgeability. You have my respect.
I was still a small kid when I had my C=64, yet I still know those 53280/1 addresses by heart even today. So much nostalgia! Love the T-shirt.
My friend worked in a bar that had a big projector TV. He had a C64 with a Floopy Drive (just like I did). He asked me to write a program so he could put up text during the day: different text and colors that changed every minute or so. You know, up comming events, drink specials, fun facts about the bar "The Merry Widow" in Bridgeport Connecticut.
It was a simple program that read a text file off the floppy disk. So I created a simple text editor, and a text reader to display the text file contents. This was before the days of HTML, but I came up with tags after seeing DEC Runoff way before the internet and HTML was at our fingertips. The tags were intermingled with the text: clear the screen, where to position text, background/text colors, font sizes, special characters, delay for a specific number of seconds, and a repeat, single run, or next file tag. My program just read the file, interpreted the text and tags, and displayed it on the monitor which was just a big projection TV. His boss loved it. It was easy to use and they edited their own presentations every week. I remember customers commenting how great it was and how did they get a TV to do that.
Back in 85 when i was in my 20's, I bought my first computer, the commodore 64. What a ride!.. The coolest thing I ever had!
“ Love that Bettie Page look.”
Wow, this video brought me back to the many nights I was up till 3am programming my C64 when I had to be at work at 7am. Addictive indeed!
My parents got me a C64 when I was 9 or 10 or something and it's the computer I learned about programming on. So much fun. I had a similar program on a floppy disk that I used to set up my "desktop theme" every time I started the computer -- black background and cyan text. Also -- I didn't know about PRINTTAB() .. cool! :)
This computer was really ahead of the time. It is unbelievable, things it was able to do with only 64KB of RAM. Nowadays, a simple 128x128 pixel Windows Icon could grow over that!.
I still use C-64 emulators time to time to run some of those old good nostalgic titles.
I'm not sure if this video was made to look like it was done in the 80s but those aesthetics are great!
I am impressed! I still have my VIC, a 64, a 64-C and a 128-D - along with the modem and the tape deck and a separate drive. I even have the CPM program instruction book and a Monitor and a dot printer. The tape ribbon for the printer is getting hard to obtain. Have about 100 pieces of software (games, word processing and accounting) and a few blank floppies (in fact I have one box I have never opened). I thought I was the only die-hard C= fan left. My ,8,1 has survived 2 fires and a flood. I really do wish I could meet you. I love your record passion and now I see this... thank you so much. You have gained an admiring fan.
Blast from the past! First computer for me was the Vic-20 with the tape drive. Later upgraded to the 64 and got the "laptop" version of it as well. Gut, God damn was that a heavy machine to carry around.
Still *LOVE* using my old 64 (my original 83' model) - damn those baby's are built to last. But now I feel really old now, sniff....
I learned how to program on a Commodore :D
That monitor was one of the best composite video tube monitors ever made. I kept my monitor and used it many years after I sold all of my C=64 stuff.
I have vague memories of a C16 but the C64 was my first computer. Dad had a 128. Later on we had Amiga 500 and 500+ and AMOS! :) We even had CD32 for games - all 10 of them!
I have a 64C too - the PSU died before I got a chance to see it working. Waiting on parts to build my own replacement. I owned about 6 different computers when I was a teenager, but never a Commodore. Cant wait to scratch an itch that's been waiting 30 years to be scratched. (PS: My C64C was used for around 6 months when bought new and left under someones house for the next 30 years - it looks brand new. Thanks for a great channel. Cheers from Aus!
WOW! that brings back memories! and to think i trashed all my commodore stuff about 10 years ago just because i needed the space.
Nice bit of nostalgia. My family's first pc was a C-64. We had to buy 4, yes 4 because at that time there was a 75% failure rate of these machines. The first one lasted an hour, the second a day, the third a week and the fourth as far as I know is still chugging along. We sold it and I wish we hadn't. I remember seeing a guy who modified his 1541 disk drive to record on both side s without having to use "flippies" and a hole punch and he had a track readout on a led display. What high tech. ;-) I can remember having to manually having to bang in a a program from a magazine to get a "free" word processor. That took days. Thanks for the refreshing look back.
Wow Fran, this brings back so many memories of my own C64 - I wish I'd never got rid of it. Love your videos, you have such a natural and "real" way of speaking to an audience. It's like sitting down and listening to a dear friend. Many thanks.
A nice reminder when I was playing with this old computer ! That was so exciting to try basic programming... !!!! Thanks for this presentation.
I do not have a Commodore 64..I never had a Commodore 64 and I watched this whole video..why? Fran, that's why. Brilliant.
Still have mine up and running . I run my flight sim,s on it Banner printing is nice also . I can still run the Bob Sterm program and get into the backbone but it's not used much any more . 220 local still works for us old guys that still use it !
2:40 - when Fran touches the screen and it makes a "ZAAAP" sound, that takes me back to my childhood.
I started with the C16, the Grey one, not Brown. Sweet machine. Typed in 4 pages of code form the "Gazett" to play solitaire. Sold it to buy the C64, which I still own. But I miss the 16, it had different commands. It was dropped before it went to market and was given away for door prizes at time share demos. I'm now a CNC programmer. Fran I love your Videos!
I used to play the games in a tape.. amazingly it gave me a look into the future of dial up.
If nostalgia is fatal, I've died and gone to heaven! 😍
I have used that computer for "quasi-professional" applications, between 1985 and 1987.
As student of electrical engineering, I developed programs for filter synthesis/analysis and reflector antenna analysis...
The good old time!
Your delight with technology is palpable and delightful. Thanks for sharing.
it's crazy how youtube is recommending me all your old stuff. I really want a c-64
Hey Fran, really dig the spontaneity, and the cheerful courage to tackle any and all. The reason I'm gushing with gratitude is because I just finished watching your video about a apollo era switch. I bought a few cabinets of the tiny plastic vintage drawer stuff five years ago and in a few of them contained a bunch of strange crazy switches. Googled the dog out of it and there it sat until l saw your vid. I never ventured passed "no bulb? Oh well..." But now I'm on the hunt for bulbs! Thanks and Cheers!
PS. If you or any of your viewers would like one or two, let me know. Have a few extras.
This was my first computer ever! I loved that computer, and it kept me busy for several years. Back in the days of the dial up 9600 baud rate modem!
I learned how to fix computers on the C-64! That was a *long* time ago, in a school, far far away...
My parents bought a C64 to teach their kids about computers.
Eventually it taught me BASIC, then assembly, then eventually a C compiler.
Basically, an 8-bit 80s computer set me up for a pretty good engineering career.
Stumbled across this vid by coincidence and i gotta say i love it.
Oh the sweet nostagia...it brought a small tear to my eye.
Thank you Fran. You rock.
I'm building my own 6502 family machine, right now, and frankly, two years of watching FranLab are what compelled me to take on the project.
I have 2 comadores that used for decoding teletype and other communication mode's back when. Now I miss them when I saw your video. Love the look back!!
Loved mine, but those programs from the magazines really didn't seem to want to work. Had a friend that could break down sound and figured out how to program the chip, so one New Year's eve, the speakers got taped into the windows and at midnight, they street was greeted with the space shuttle taking off. I was amazed with the amount of neighbors in their pajamas that got out on the porch and looked up. They never complained about use shooting our guns with banks again.
i got into BASIC on an ATARI 400 i had for christmas in the early 80's , then my younger brother got the bug and got a C64 a year later ! i can remember him getting a drum machine program on cassette and it was just brilliant ! ! we both are still making music :)
We were one of 3 households with a desktop computer in our school district in 1983. We had an IBM but our friend had a commodore 128. We wrote cartoons in basic. Then had to make a translation table so that when we sent our cartoons back and forth over the modem, it would account for differences in the two versions of basic. It actually worked. It was translated in transmission. Clear / home would equal cls on our end. The kid with the commodore went on to make a perfect score on the math section of sat tests. He also became a math professor for Clemson University. Cassette drive was a joy. The 'black book' program to store girls numbers on one side and the number database on the other side. Great nestalgia Joy from the 80s 😃 makes me want to dial up an old bbs to play my turn in chess.
This is the computer that really launched my career in graphic design for games. I actually started with the Vic-20 on which I made a Space Invaders clone and of course, a Pac-man game lol then I got my 64 and made some more games. Later I got an Amiga and started to learn basic 3d design and that lead to my career as a computer graphics designer which is what I'm doing today.☺
I had a TRS 80. No storage, you could buy a cassette deck that would store programs on a cassette tape. Computers have come a long way. I remember copying the code out of a magazine to play Russian roulette. I had not mastered typing at that time spent about 3 hours and it was not impressive at all. I did learn to write some stuff of my own. At school we had the same TRS80 and I could just type, took about 20 seconds and it would cycle through all the audio frequencies playing tones and would flash all the colors it could display. Made the computer look like it was messed up. I don’t miss that. I’ll just watch videos of you doing it.
I think it was a brilliant move hat they didn't over-simplify everything with a unique command for every little thing but left you to peek and poke a lot of functions. Moving data into registers is far more illustrative of how computers actually work that if they had created a special command just for the background color and another function for the boarder color.
Nice to catch some content from a decade ago. It doesn't go off. ❤
The second computer that I coded on, the first being the high school's computer back in 1973 (or, '74). I started off writing programs in Basic on the C64. I got into assembly for some magazine saying that one could not run machine language in Basic. After I proved that statement incorrect, and after learning how to send machine language into the floppy drives controller to add functions the floppy drive, I changed computers and set the C64 aside. Glad to see that you were able to hang onto your Commodore, and that it is still running.
Gerard Kuzawa 73, 74? You a decade out?
mart fart
The first computer I coded on was the high school's administration computer. It was narrowly focused but it was programmable. Later on when the Commodore 64 came out, that is when I purchased one. Yes, maybe I did not say it originally so clearly, but the info was still all there.
Gerard Kuzawa
Yeah I realised after I typed what you meant, but let it go as I wondered about school computer
mart fart
Okay dokey. Moving forward.
Gerard Kuzawa
Funny enough I built my first microcomputer in 1978 the Science of Cambridge Mk14 using 8 bit SC/MP 256 bytes of memory hex keypad and calculator style seven segment display. I only just remembered.
I never heard of any of this and am very amazed. I am shocked actually and feel like wow I should know this. It is now 2021 and I just watched you talk about the government and unidentified flying objects, so thought I would look back here at you. You are just so interesting because of your intelligence! Thank you.
Jay Miner was a friend of mine. I am sure he would have loved knowing YOU enjoyed his work.
Spent some of the most formative years of my youth living and breathing everything C64. Good times.
Wow... I found a commodore64 in my dad's attic, and I have no idea how it works. This video is a really big help.
It is a looong time ago that i was 13, got a C+4 and some books about programming in Basic. At this age, i did not understand how to program in Assembler, but with Basic had i a lot of fun.
As you locked the disc drive, i remember how many times i did it too. This sound when the drive was reading or writing ... like real hard work.
And yes, this electrostatic discharge sound is awesome.
The sound of a floppy drive reading a fresh boot disk on an IBM PCG.
seeing your early presence for the first time. Competent from the start, and still sharing your knowledge. We could be less cynical back then. World has changed.
So cool!!!!!!!!!!
You bring back so many wonderful memories!
My first computer was a C=64 and then I got a C=128.
I still have an Amiga 4000. Anyone have a blast with Deluxe Paint?
I used my C=64 for the brain of one of my first computer controlled robots.
I still have the control board I built to control the robot.
Everything was programmed in basic.
I found out that I could control transistors from the port on the back of my C=64 and use the transistors to control relays.
I used the relays to control the motors on my robot arm.
Now I design robots on my computer, 3d print the parts and add servos, servo controller and then I have a new robot to program and have fun with!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My Dave robot is 3d printed.
Fran, I wish we had known each other back then.
I am so glad you make videos!
Also that fender bassman in the background is an awesome amp. Great loud clean pedal platform.
I had C-64 in 1983. I used it to learn Basic programming & play Temple of Apshai dungeon crawl. The C-64 is still an excellent home computer & modern version C64 Max has HDMI, USB inputs & new games are being written for download. Connecting to regular TV with composite inputs the C-64 takes up very little space & offers a lot of functionality. For those wanting to learn assembly language the Commodore is simpler to learn than Intel 8086 having Motorola 8 bit microprocessor with versatile instruction set.
But the new version has no serial port for floppies and printers, no expansion port, no user port, no tape port. I still prefer the real one. The C64 has a MOS/Commodore CPU, not Motorola; maybe you mixed that up with the Amiga which has a 16 bit Motorola CPU.
Hey Fran I had and older model and loved it.C64 makes a person use their mind.
EXCELLENT CONTRIBUTION!! I´m a programmer char Commodore of "Old School" (diploma in 1987). For those kids who never had the opportunity to be close to a Commodore 64, very good explanation, for the first steps CONGRATULATION FRAN!!!!
I'm only 32 but I had a C64 in the mid-90s. My dad had a friend who was into computers and he had one kicking around. I just used it for games, but I really loved it. I remember a Ghostbusters game and the classic lemonade stand game everyone's played.
In ‘87 I bought an old computer that I never heard of before - the VIC20. I spent hours playing Omega Race. Life was great when I was 14!
I just fixed my 1541-II for my C128. It's such a nice piece of hardware! Love to look through old floppies! :D
My i7 is a joy to use while multitasking. Yet, I do miss a Vic-20 which was a replacement for an Apple II+ clone that I had in the early 1980s. Those were fun and filled with a wonderful newness while exploring programming years. 🌸
I used to have a C64 and that monitor. The Commodore monitor had an excellent display when used for a TV monitor. I first bought the data-sette but exchanged it the same day for a disk drive.
I've been watching your new stuff for about the last year, I was one of those that stopped getting your notifications =[ That has been resolved =]
This just came up on my feed and it is the best thing I've seen on the internet today. It's so nostalgic for me and I appreciate that it appeared today, I was having a rough one. Keep up the good work.
Like so many of your followers, I also had a 64 but I started with the Vic20. I knew every memory location in that 3k of memory. Learned to program in BASIC because the only programs you could get were in magazines and you had to type them in. Also learned to program in machine code for the 6502 processor on the Vic20. But my favorite was the user port, your access to the real world. Both the 64 and the Vic20 had manuals with the complete schematic in the back.
An interesting side note. My Vic20 with the monitor and tape drive cost me as much as a cheap lap top does these days. I paid over $300 for that setup in 1980.
OMG Fran, this brings back so many memories! For a long time, I used an amber monochrome monitor with my 64, so I always used that POKE trick to make the display look more to my liking! I have had many different kinds of computers over the years, but my C64 was the funnest by far! :)
I had fun doing quick code on these, when I was in junior high, we also did simple animation wave lines, in a multi-colored fashion. I felt nostalgic after watching this video, thanks for sharing.
I learned on a Vic-20, then a friend got a C-64 - spent so many hours of my youth writing programs - had limited computer "hands-on" time, so spent thousands of hours writing in a notebook so that I could just key it in when I got the opportunity!
Nice Fran.
Brings back lots of memories.
Computer started appearing in radio books and I wondered what they were all about. Finally got the Commodore Vic 20. It was brill but virtually no memory. Then came out the C64. So saved and saved until could get one. Did some programing but all in Basic. Lumpy blobs that moved in steps and had to clear the screen before the next blob would appear, Brighter people could write in machine code, bet you can, and that was so much better.
There were cartridges too like Lunar Landing. They were fun.
The dataset recorders/players were great but very slow and you could wait 15 to 30 minutes to load but also often got the ERROR message.
The 64 was very advanced in sound.
I learned about Assembly language on a C64. 6510 CPU. Made an oscilloscope using the joystick analog input port from what I can remember.
Very nice video, I still use my Commodore's to this day with great pleasure.
From eBay tomorrow I am getting an SD2IEC for my 128.
Cant wait for that to arrive. Mike.
Way cool! Takes me back.....
BTW, the Commode-door cassette storage is bona-fide sturation recording, NOT analog audio. The time interval between flux changes is what encodes the zeroes and ones.
It was a cut above the other methods that used a consumer audio-cassette deck. The pcb inside that tape drive digitizes the flux transitions and records with DC polarity reversals through the coil of the record/play head.
Digital in, digital out.
Nice work.Please keep it up :-)
Still remember my Commodore 64. Used a cassette recorder as my hard drive.
My dad brought one of these home when I was a kid (second hand), it came with an "introduction" casette, and still to this day I remember how it taught me the difference between hardware and software, "when you drop hardware on your foot, it hurts" (SFX of a bang and a man yelling in pain) Haha classic
Neat stuff. The C64 was my first venture into marrying together my love of electronics and programming, I can still remember being ridiculously excited when I was given an edge connector and wire-wrap board that suited the user port. Reading a handful of push buttons, and lighting a series of 5mm LEDs on their command felt like it was cutting edge at the time. Actually I guess it was for a hack back in 1985 :) Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Once upon a time, I programmed my C64 to do my income tax. It just mostly did the computations but was broken down step by step with the then current 1040. It worked well and I could be confident of my figures since the computer never erred. And I could go back to quickly see how certain deductions affected the bottom line. The program probably took longer to program in basic than it would have taken to just prepare my taxes. But it was a lot more fun and I could be sure of my results. I never thought of a commercial application for my program, otherwise I might have now been enjoying the benefits of having beat TurboTax to the punch. Thanks, Fran.
My first PC that I played with for a couple years was the TRS-80 Model I Level II. Paid $1100 for it. In '81 I bought my first C-64, 1541 floppy drive, and color monitor for less than half what I paid for the trash80. It was more fun to program and worked better with another hobby, amateur radio. Sill have 2-C-64's and 2-C128's.
Fran is such a good instructor
Talk about good times. In 1981 I was 16 years old and the C-64 was perhaps the most successful personal computer along with the Sinclair Spectrum, altough some people still bragged about the precursor model VIC-20 also from Commodore.
I bought a single book which explained every single C-64 hardware detail and showed the complete OS source code in assembly language. I was literally abducted in a fascinating virtual world made of weird smelling paper sheets and rows after rows of bright characters flowing on a green phosphors display (color displays were too expensive).
I managed to read and understand almost the entire OS source code and proceeded to program a BASIC language extension in assembly that was better and faster than the official Simon's Basic extension. I only could afford the audio cassette data storage device because the floppy disk drive was priced more than the computer itself, therefore I programmed a self-loading module that speeded up SAVE and LOAD commands about ten times (there was Turbotape already but my module did better). The C-64 hardware was so sparing that the display buffer had to be disabled while using the tape drive because some interrupt signals were shared.
Has this happened to anybody?
When I first got my Commodore Floppy Drive I could not get it to work. The only thing I knew about floppy disks was from my friend's Macintosh, you put one in and send commands (mouse clicks) to talk to it - easy. The Commodore disk drive came with a manual with all the commands but no Quick Start section, pretty much how to hook it up and just details about each drive command. The commands were listed alphabetically (if I recall) and "Format" was in the middle. I didn't know that floppies needed to be formatted because every Macintosh floppy I ever used was pre-formatted (which was not indentified on the disk, Apple did it by default to make things easier) so I figured you plug in a new blank floppy disk and away you go (being totally oblivious that a floppy has to be formatted for it to work). I asked my friend if he had any idea what I was doing wrong, he didnt...and wasn't much help...he knew that floppy disks had to be formatted first, but since it was not a Macintosh, he didn't make the connection. It took me weeks (on and off) and many "ready to take it back" moments when I found the solution: to run the Format command first on any new floppy disk. This was in the days before the internet so research on "how to" was virtually non existent. I was in a computer store one day and I overheard a guy said that he has some floppy disks that would not *format* so he had to throw them out. The "a ha!" moment, I remember seeing the Format command in the manual so I rushed home to try it... voila, it worked! If Commodore included just a 1 page chaper on getting started to use of some of the commands (like Format first and formost) rather than a technical manual only, it would have saved me a lot of headaches.
I have two C-64s, two 128s and a monitor just like that one. I wrote a lot of programs on them. I love it
I had one like that (64c), a 1541, and a 1581 with JIFFY DOS installed on all 3 and a SNAPSHOT cart in the back of the 64c, I could load any program in 3 secs...used it mainly for the BBS I ran for years on 1200 baud...those were the days (pre-inet) of SysOps...Windows was never so stable or fast as that set up. Most people that logged on wouldn't believe it was a 64c but the 40 col screen was a dead give away. Sold it all for $200 so I could buy four 1 meg strips of used memory for my 286 which I was running a stolen copy of Xenix 286 System V on....oh the memories and waisted money....;-)
were are you from? back in the day nobody in my part of the UK even knew what a BBS was, how did you come to know about it? did it not cost a lot to access using the phone line? cheers
Yep, like most guys watching this.. I really like Fran! Totally Cute/Nerdy/Geeky Tech Gal! Hmm and she has a Commodore T shirt on! Yep my Dream Gal too!
thanks for the nostalgia! I've been following for a while, and I can say that you are an awesome person who has fought to get to where you are today. kudos to you!
I have a couple C64's from way back, but I never knew about the shortcut keys. I'm very pleased to find out that I can type R shift U, instead of RUN. This will save so much time! Just kidding.
You are so cool, keep doing what you do!
This brings back memories of a painstaking and horribly boring intrusion alarm system I wrote for a Timex Sinclair TS1000 that used the external keyboard input to scan for hard contact sensors around the house. After typing inkey$ commands for hours on end it all came to a terribly sad ending when RFI induced onto the logic level keyboard signal path from miles of sensor cabling made the poor little Z80 go insane. But by God, we had fun.