Support The 8-Bit Guy on Patreon: / 8bitguy1 Visit my website: www.the8bitguy.com In this episode, I explore the 1982 Commodore Christmas Demo for the Commodore 64.
I remember running the Christmas program for my Grandparents in 1983. When the snowman started to dance, my Grandmother was amazed. I was 12. Good times.
This takes me back. My brother got a C64 for Christmas, my dad wasn't prone to extravagant spending but the guy in the shop convinced him it was the 'future' hence we woke up expecting a spectrum or similar and there it was a C64! wow the power.
Ahhh.. a Commodore Christmas. The feels! It was a great morning every year as kid waiting to see what new Commodore device/upgrade/peripheral/game/etc was waiting for me under the tree!!
I was so into SID music back in the day that I actually recorded it to cassette tapes so I could listen to it when I wasn’t at the computer. I must’ve had 50 floppies filled with songs I had downloaded from various BBSs back in the day. It was truly amazing what could be done with that chip that seems so limited by today’s standards.
Yeah I did that too but with Amstrad CPC tunes as I did not have a C64 back then (I do now). However there were some brilliant ones on the CPC, they just have a different sound profile and character to the C64.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943 "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977 "Apple is already dead." Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO, 1997 "Two years from now, spam will be solved." Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, 2004
I remember this demo well - as I come from the UK I had it on tape. Amazingly, it was the one time of year that my parents liked having my C64 on the main TV in the house so they could play it as a rudimentary sort of screen saver during Christmas dinner and the like. They even put up with the music! Great times, great memories 😊
I really loved the demo's that would draw outside the regular screen in the borders. Or showing more sprites than available on-chip. Of course all trickery using the raster line interrupt...
Love this stuff. One of my first computers was a Commodore 64. They are amazing machines. They all hold a place in my retro heart. Keep making these amazing videos. Great work.
I still have my 1040st and Mega2 st, both work still. Atari over Amiga any day. Same goes for Atari 800 over the Vic20. Own an 800 too and that still works. I am in the USA.
+Sentry Gun I would hope most people can read that lol, pretty sure we learned all those words in our required year of spanish :p at least i'm pretty sure most states have that...
A very merry christmas to you, and thanks for creating such cool content! I very much remember 'the demo scene' from when it was big on early PCs. Back then the whole MOD, S3M, XM and IT 'tracker scene' was big too. Been to a few of the 'compos' (competitions) too. The ever astonishing graphic feats. Some of that stuff should be really cool to make a vid about. Check out the Mind Candy DVDs: www.mindcandydvd.com/ - awesome.
Heh. Remember when all downloads from BBS'es came with some .com-format 'demo' with horizontal scrollbars? Or when you saw the 'plasma'-effect the first time? ;) Oooh trip down memory lane.
Very interesting. From your description of your design process for PX2, I didn't realize that it was possible to combine character graphics and sprites on the screen at the same time. How did that work? Just print characters, then draw pixels?
It's a cool resource-saving design feature. Do you have to redraw the character graphics if a sprite obscures them, or does the hardware take care of that?
Systems with sprites likely had Display Priority flags. This would determine if a sprite was opaque or transparent, and if text or bitmapped pixels displayed on top of or behind sprites. Sprites do not affect anything they pass over.
Ahhh, the C64 Christmas demo. I first encountered it when I worked for Commodore as an intern in 1983 and have played it every year since... Thanks for sharing and Merry Christmas!
Thanks for posting this! I remember being called down by my dad each year and watching this disk and other Christmas themed demos. Back then it seemed like the coolest thing that I had ever seen even though it doesn't it look like much now. Anyway, keep up the good videos and I just got my copy of Planet X2 in the mail a few days ago and look forward to trying it out during my time off during the holidays!!
Is basic on the commodore an interpreted language like python? I'm trying to make sense of why they would ship the disk with source code on it rather than just a binary.
xcvsdxvsx Python isn't even a real programming language, since you can't make a stand-alone executable with it. Any computer that runs a program made with Python has to have a Python installed on it. It's just a scripting language.
Commodore programs were frequently written in mostly BASIC (which is indeed interpreted), with any parts that needed speed (especially true for games) in machine code.
@ct92404 He never said it was a programming language, but interpreted; meaning the computer interprets the human code as it is executed. Which is how BASIC is treated, however BASIC can be compiled as there were BASIC compilers available for the C64 which made the application run a LOT faster,
I remember seeing this demo in the stores when I was a kid and always wanted it to play it in my house. Never thought I’d see it again. Thank you for posting this.
Happy Christmas for every one and for you, Mr. 8-bit-Guy! I hope this year had been a very good one for all of you and that next 2018 will be better! Happy Holidays!
Merry Christmas to you and yours, sir! I had a C64 but never saw the demos before. Great stuff. And I loved the childhood pictures, took me right back. It could easily have been my dad with me and my brother, everything looked so familiar. Right from the Gen-X template!
I definitely had a demo like this on something. I want to say it was my TI-99. I remember a scene almost exactly like the wreath, and another with a fireplace. I also coded a pretty great, for the time anyway, Christmas Tree decoration kit game for my Atari 8-bit machine in BASIC out of a Family Computing magazine. It took me the better part of a day, maybe even spanned over two, typing it on that membrane keyboard. It let you build a tree and add decorations by moving branches and all the bits around, all in ASCII characters, then when you were done it'd display it and play "Oh, Christmas Tree." This was before I had my tape backup so I did all that code input just for it to vanish as soon as I turned off the Atari.
Thank you so much for making this video! I still remember the Christmas our first C-64 was all set up beside the tree, running this very demo, flashing that $595 price proudly. At the time, I was actually a little confused and even disappointed, since I was 10 years old and really wanted a cartridge-based game console like my friends had, such as the Atari 2600 or ColecoVision... but my parents in their wisdom knew better, a decision I will always be grateful for. That Commodore put me on a path to graphic design and Web coding which shaped my future interests, career and life path. And it all started one Christmas morning... with this wonderful, timeless Christmas demo. Today I play the Christmas demo every year on my Powerbook G4 (in emulation) in my office. It's not Christmas in my home without it.
I remember running the Christmas program for my Grandparents in 1983. When the snowman started to dance, my Grandmother was amazed. I was 12. Good times.
Funny I did the same for my grandmother, Christmas 1984
vcv6560 My Granparents are gone now, but I still have the 64. I bring it out occasionally and go through my floppies....
Now this is some quality Christmas content. Love the detail you went into!
First reply after two years
Greetings LGR! I Really Like Ur Content Even Tho I'm Only 13! Keep Up The Good Work! And Also Thanks To The 8-Bit Guy For Making This Great Vid!
Who needs more 8bit guy in their life???
3um3le3ees his wife
OMGGGG MEEEEEEEE
Every geek ever
3um3le3ees me
This takes me back. My brother got a C64 for Christmas, my dad wasn't prone to extravagant spending but the guy in the shop convinced him it was the 'future' hence we woke up expecting a spectrum or similar and there it was a C64! wow the power.
David looks just like his dad.
It's David going through his Benjamin Buttonesque transformation.
BillyPilgrim So was his dad the one holding the box?
Oh wow he really does.
Noel, common mistake. That's actually David's brother.
Came here to say that.
Ahhh.. a Commodore Christmas. The feels! It was a great morning every year as kid waiting to see what new Commodore device/upgrade/peripheral/game/etc was waiting for me under the tree!!
TheGeekPub Spoilt 8-bit Guy you were?
No his parents actually loved him, unlike you :P
+TheGeekPub Dumbledore bleached his rectum.
TGOTR it's true his parents never loved me. My parents, however, bought me Skyfox, Druid and a Competition Pro joystick one Christmas. Great memories.
Simon Harris aha the first example of "shit posting" I've seen this Christmas.
I was so into SID music back in the day that I actually recorded it to cassette tapes so I could listen to it when I wasn’t at the computer. I must’ve had 50 floppies filled with songs I had downloaded from various BBSs back in the day. It was truly amazing what could be done with that chip that seems so limited by today’s standards.
Yeah I did that too but with Amstrad CPC tunes as I did not have a C64 back then (I do now). However there were some brilliant ones on the CPC, they just have a different sound profile and character to the C64.
I still do the same with .MOD and .MIDI songs... Amiga .MODs were amazing and the music had a certain flavor that can't be matched in modern music.
Commodore 64? But Captain Kirk promised me that the VIC-20 was all I would need :(
"640K ought to be enough for everyone (slightly paraphrased)." - Bill Gates
Kiyoshi Kirishima Need? Yes... Want? Oh, no.... not at all! 😜
"The computers of the future may be able to fit in a single room" -Popular Electronics circa 1949 (kinda paraphrased)
LordOfTheCats I thought it was "...weigh no more than 1.5 tons"? Either way, they had no idea.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
"Apple is already dead."
Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO, 1997
"Two years from now, spam will be solved."
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, 2004
Ahh. Feels nice to see these old demos. Merry Christmas everyone!
I remember this demo well - as I come from the UK I had it on tape. Amazingly, it was the one time of year that my parents liked having my C64 on the main TV in the house so they could play it as a rudimentary sort of screen saver during Christmas dinner and the like. They even put up with the music! Great times, great memories 😊
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Thanks for all of your excellent videos this year. I'm looking forward to a great 2018!
"After doing a bit of POKE-ing around..."
yup, I see what he did there.
I missed it. I'll have to take another PEEK
I also noticed that REMark!
Boooo....
...lean.
Think I will GOTO bed after all these REMarks! Everyone else should GOSUB to his channel..... ;-)
There was also a few MS-DOS Christmas demos from the 80s that had glorious CGA graphics.
would be interesting to dig those ones up
Great choice of demos there! I am staring to feel a bit Christmasy now lol.
Merry Christmas dude :)
GadgetUK164 - Retro Gaming Repairs & Mods bahhh humbug
well is aboot time
I never expected to see you wearing a Santa hat.
Merry Christmas, David.
Thank you for all entertaining videos in 2017.
Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas and to all you nostalgi nerds.
That cute Christmas hat killed me!!
Zack Becker
I really loved the demo's that would draw outside the regular screen in the borders. Or showing more sprites than available on-chip.
Of course all trickery using the raster line interrupt...
Thanks for getting one last video up before christmas. You have a Merry Christmas as well!
Thank you for another entertaining and educational video. Merry Christmas to you and all the family!
Great episode as always. Merry Christmas David
Thanks and merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas brother!
Merry Christmas for you too David.
And thank you for a year filled with nice episodes.
Great Video! Loved your old Christmas pics! Merry Christmas!
I don't know what it is but that intro music is so incredibly catchy...
BoogiemanXXL his old one is way catchyer
He didn't have one, Rainbow Dash.
Is that the joke?
I think that's the joke.
he had a old intro song before this " new" lame one came out,
I agree it's a great intro. Has a late 80's / early 90's tv show sound to it. Very nostalgic sounding.
you know you're early when the title has "Episode" and numbers after it
eeyup (2)
eeyup. (FINALE)
Merry Christmas, 8-Bit Guy! I appreciate these types of videos!
Merry Christmast to you too! I've really taken a keen interest in your videos this year. Keep up the great work!
+1 for that cap
It's amusing to me how casually he wears it like it's not even there
Merry Christmas
Great job David, good luck on all of your future endeavours, it has been a pleasure to watch and support your channel!!!! Merry Christmas!!!!!!!
And a merry Christmas to you & yours
Ahhhh the music of midi files, can't beat it, very nostalgic
I love these comma doors.
*has brain aneurysm*
So do I! Sail on down the line about half a mile or so!
The commies
lool
They are easy like Sunday morning.
Magnificent works in the 80s
And C64 music are great
+The 8-Bit Guy
Merry Christmas to you too David! Thanks for a great year of fun, interesting and informative video's!
Love this stuff. One of my first computers was a Commodore 64. They are amazing machines. They all hold a place in my retro heart. Keep making these amazing videos. Great work.
finally something i can watch after being ungrounded
i love that hat
I hat that love
Thank you for yet another awesome video! I find it pretty awesome to find out what Christmas looked like when I was a baby. Happy Holidays.
Thanks for the in-depth look. I like how you explain about memory use, text characters, etc.
When you add the blur effekt at 3:44 the flam startet to look real ;)
That effekt startet to look cood ya know ;)
I think c64 worked very hard to calculate that blur effect
8bithuman YEh, dat wuz kewl. dat efact.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all, and all get good gifts
K, thanks!
Merry Christmas to you and yours, 8-Bit Guy, and a Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas and thanks for all the vids in 2017.
Cheers,
- Eddy
Merry Christmas!
Atari 8bit snowman is great.
P.S : Atari ST has PSG sound not FM :-D
"That about wraps it up."
I see what you did there.
Awesome video. Merry Christmas to you and your family! 🎄
Hey 8-Bit Guy. I regulary come back to your videos. I wish you and your loved ones a mery christmas. Thank you for all your great contributions.
"Amiga vs IBM PC" Really? Must be a USA thing.
Over here it was Amiga vs Atari ST. PC wasn't even considered till the 90s.
The ST was never very popular in the US.
Trusteft We were lucky just having the Amiga at all.
I still have my 1040st and Mega2 st, both work still. Atari over Amiga any day. Same goes for Atari 800 over the Vic20. Own an 800 too and that still works. I am in the USA.
No caps replacement, no re-soldering of the port(s) etc? Very nice!
Could you do a video on what you think are the best Demo Scene's for your 8 bit computers ?
would be interesting to see what you think
Merry Christmas and a Safe New Year to the 8-Bit Guy.
Merry Christmas 8-Bit Guy and to all of you!
Feliz navidad, me encantan sus vídeos 🎁🎁🎁
For the non-Spanish speaking: Merry Christmas, I live your vids
correction: Merry Christmas, I love your videos
+Sentry Gun I would hope most people can read that lol, pretty sure we learned all those words in our required year of spanish :p at least i'm pretty sure most states have that...
Blorox Cleach true, but in my experiences most people from other countries know a lot more languages than us Americans.
Estas seguro?
Any one notice the intro disk says 'LOAD "*", 8' but he types 'LOAD "$", 8'
Shadoskill Heckroth The LOAD "$",8 was used to load the disk directory first. Then he used the LOAD"*",8 to load the first program in the directory.
Merry Christmas to all! Thanks for posting this.
Merry Christmas, Thanks for the great videos!
Can you communicate with two commodores using the userport?
A very merry christmas to you, and thanks for creating such cool content! I very much remember 'the demo scene' from when it was big on early PCs. Back then the whole MOD, S3M, XM and IT 'tracker scene' was big too. Been to a few of the 'compos' (competitions) too. The ever astonishing graphic feats. Some of that stuff should be really cool to make a vid about. Check out the Mind Candy DVDs: www.mindcandydvd.com/ - awesome.
Heh. Remember when all downloads from BBS'es came with some .com-format 'demo' with horizontal scrollbars? Or when you saw the 'plasma'-effect the first time? ;) Oooh trip down memory lane.
Merry Christmas, thanks for another great video!!!
Happy holidays to you to. Love your channel.
Not dissapointed with this Christmas thing.
Very interesting. From your description of your design process for PX2, I didn't realize that it was possible to combine character graphics and sprites on the screen at the same time. How did that work? Just print characters, then draw pixels?
Sprites are a totally independent part of the C64's video chip. They work in any mode. In fact, I use 1 sprite in Planet X2 as the browse selector.
It's a cool resource-saving design feature.
Do you have to redraw the character graphics if a sprite obscures them, or does the hardware take care of that?
Systems with sprites likely had Display Priority flags. This would determine if a sprite was opaque or transparent, and if text or bitmapped pixels displayed on top of or behind sprites. Sprites do not affect anything they pass over.
Wow, hardware compositing in 1982. Of all the C64 features people have fawned over, I think I find this one the most impressive.
Thank you so much for the detailed explanation. It never occurred to me that there was no framebuffer!
Ahhh, the C64 Christmas demo. I first encountered it when I worked for Commodore as an intern in 1983 and have played it every year since... Thanks for sharing and Merry Christmas!
*Merry Christmas mate!*
Thanks so much for that trip down memory lane with the old C64.👍👍👍
I'm glad 8BitGuy said "Merry Christmas" instead oh "Happy Holidays", there is nothing wrong with that, Merry Christmas everybody x3
Alright but seriously, how was that dancing spinning man done in under 64k?
that group does some amazing tricks czcams.com/video/9SRRTgo-LWA/video.html
Love your videos. And the editing is near perfect. Good job!
Merry Christmas! Love your videos.
If people dont like loud SID christmas music on my party ... they are not invited :D Problem solved
I love the old 8-Bit/SID music... invite me, please! x3
You could probably throw one with the soundtrack of the Gloatlight demo by Fairlight. Go listen to it!
Episode 193?
Merry Christmas! And thank you for making this great content :-)
Thanks for posting this! I remember being called down by my dad each year and watching this disk and other Christmas themed demos. Back then it seemed like the coolest thing that I had ever seen even though it doesn't it look like much now. Anyway, keep up the good videos and I just got my copy of Planet X2 in the mail a few days ago and look forward to trying it out during my time off during the holidays!!
You left the episode number in again...
ARE YOU KEEPING UP WITH THE COMMODORE
No
CAUSE THE COMMODORE IS KEEPING UP WITH YOU
Awesome dude ! Merry Christmas to you and all your family !
Merry Christmas to you 8 Bit Guy, and a happy new year to you and your family.
Is basic on the commodore an interpreted language like python? I'm trying to make sense of why they would ship the disk with source code on it rather than just a binary.
I think so. Watch his videos on BASIC and I think they mention it.
xcvsdxvsx Python isn't even a real programming language, since you can't make a stand-alone executable with it. Any computer that runs a program made with Python has to have a Python installed on it. It's just a scripting language.
Pretty much. (although you can package it with a python build and make it an "exe")
Commodore programs were frequently written in mostly BASIC (which is indeed interpreted), with any parts that needed speed (especially true for games) in machine code.
@ct92404 He never said it was a programming language, but interpreted; meaning the computer interprets the human code as it is executed. Which is how BASIC is treated, however BASIC can be compiled as there were BASIC compilers available for the C64 which made the application run a LOT faster,
Wow did this take me back. With a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. Thank you.
Great video, and Merry Christmas!
I remember seeing this demo in the stores when I was a kid and always wanted it to play it in my house. Never thought I’d see it again. Thank you for posting this.
Merry christmas man, merry christmas. May the Commadore be with you.
Thank you for amazing video! Merry Christmas!
I still bust out (dust off?) this demo every year. Every year, it brings back some great memories. Thanks again for the in-depth look!
Happy Christmas for every one and for you, Mr. 8-bit-Guy! I hope this year had been a very good one for all of you and that next 2018 will be better! Happy Holidays!
Merry Christmas back to you David , always enjoy your videos
Merry Christmas to you and yours, sir! I had a C64 but never saw the demos before. Great stuff. And I loved the childhood pictures, took me right back. It could easily have been my dad with me and my brother, everything looked so familiar. Right from the Gen-X template!
I definitely had a demo like this on something. I want to say it was my TI-99. I remember a scene almost exactly like the wreath, and another with a fireplace. I also coded a pretty great, for the time anyway, Christmas Tree decoration kit game for my Atari 8-bit machine in BASIC out of a Family Computing magazine. It took me the better part of a day, maybe even spanned over two, typing it on that membrane keyboard. It let you build a tree and add decorations by moving branches and all the bits around, all in ASCII characters, then when you were done it'd display it and play "Oh, Christmas Tree." This was before I had my tape backup so I did all that code input just for it to vanish as soon as I turned off the Atari.
This made my day. Gorgeous, and brings back so many happy memories of the excitement of waiting to see what C64 goodies would be under the tree
10:09 that was what i was thinking about , and planning for this year's christmas
and thank you, i wish a merry christmas for you too
I had completely forgotten about the Commodore Christmas demo, but I definitely had one.
Thanks for the memories, David.and happy new year.
A very merry Christmas to you too.
Great video, happy holidays.
Thanks for sharing and Marry Christmass!
Merry Christmas! And a Happy New Year to you and your families!
Merry christmas! I recieved my christmas present today. A nice Planet X2 box :) Really impressed with all of it. Great work!
Merry christmas ans great video. These nostalgic Christmas odditys always trigger my Christmas spirit
Thank you so much for making this video! I still remember the Christmas our first C-64 was all set up beside the tree, running this very demo, flashing that $595 price proudly. At the time, I was actually a little confused and even disappointed, since I was 10 years old and really wanted a cartridge-based game console like my friends had, such as the Atari 2600 or ColecoVision... but my parents in their wisdom knew better, a decision I will always be grateful for. That Commodore put me on a path to graphic design and Web coding which shaped my future interests, career and life path. And it all started one Christmas morning... with this wonderful, timeless Christmas demo. Today I play the Christmas demo every year on my Powerbook G4 (in emulation) in my office. It's not Christmas in my home without it.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Guy! Hope you and the family have a love filled Christmas Day!
Merry Christmas to you too, 8-Bit, Guy!
Great video :) merry christmas and a happy new year 8 bit guy!