Watching these videos just makes me want to pop over to Robin's place for a cup of tea and a bout of gaming. But then I remember I live in Europe and Robin doesn't know me.
I did that once but he burst into the kitchen, screamed "WHO ARE YOU WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE HOW DID YOU GET IN IT'S THREE IN THE MORNING IS THAT MY TEA!?!?" and called the police.
I stumbled upon your video and 8 bit guy on the C64 and boy does this take me back to my childhood and for years wanting to fire up my original on modern televisions. I'm in the UK and started with a ZX81 before a VIC 20 but never had the original C64 so this is also a childhood dream and blast from the past. Thankyou for covering this on RUclips and on the back of this I have ordered one in the UK. Now I just have to visit my parents and go through all my childhood stuff from the 1980s to get all the old manuals and magazines :) Keep up the good work
Awesome video. Just to answer some of the people here; Bob Yannes, the creator of the VICII chip for the C64, said himself that colours differ from C64 to C64 because of the different tolerances in the chips, Chroma and Luma saturation, and so on. So, there is NO 'official' perfect colour saturation for the C64. I myself still remember different looks among the machines my friends and I had. I won't even go into how different even SID chips from the same serial number machines sounded, let along earlier and later variants of C64s. Then you have each seperate Monitor/TV looking slightly different to each other. Then you have PAL/NTSC...the way electronics were made back then, perhaps even the weather affected it!
I have just recently added a Commodore 64 to my Console Collection. I find these videos very informative, and help me understand the basics of this machine.
Re: TED and PET emulation, I think the keyboard situation could be sort of over come if they allows you to plug in a USB keyboard. My TheVIC20 only came out of its box once as i have real VIC,64 and +4, I do like it but I love the real thing(s) more. Thank you Robin, you youtubes often inspire me,
I can still remember the smell of the c64 my friend got in 1983 when we were 9 years old. It was the best thing I had ever seen and smelled. Luckily my family got one a few months later. The floppy disks also had a really specific smell when we got a 1541.
That's a really sweet system! I loved watching GEOS draw the screen. :) I miss the C64 days, they were such a blast. I used to amaze people who never seen one back then at what it could do, especially the sound out of it.
See it is a MICRO computer made for the average user. You didn't need to know much to operate it just basic loading commands or if you have the hard drive skip that all together which is what we did. It booted into BASIC and you could program right away or run something. Commodore was for the power of the people and insanely cheap compared to it's competitors the IBM and Apple II I believe it was.
Comomdore offered a lot of fun educational opportunities compared to even the IBM or PC and especially the NES which was in no way educational. The few educational titles it had were CRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!
I keep one of these in the living room hooked up to a big LCD TV for on-the-couch playing, but about 100% of the time I use the one hooked up to a CRT in the spare room. Everything just looks so much nicer. I tried selling it off due to not seeing much use but Facebook Marketplace tagged it as an illegal streaming device so vOv
Great video. And thanks for creating the boot program on the Vic configured disks, saves that unpleasant error. Hopefully a future firmware update will give us a menu to set the default memory configuration to use if the flags are absent or not used.
It's an awesome thing, I have a 3 metre HDMI connected to my bedroom tv and a 5 mtr one in the lounge room. Because all the games load from a usb it's so much more portable than an original one with a disk drive.
Great video, Robin. Thanks for all the exploration of the VIC-20 mode. I suspect that enabling an REU mode on the C64 will become standard in the future, as it seems that the system can handle it just fine. Now if they just enable 1351 Mouse mode that would make a really useful GEOS machine!
1 Hi Robin, enjoying your videos very much and trying to learn assembly language now too! I've followed the instructions for the REU hack various times and once I was able to see the ram expansion but other times I tried it for some reason it now shows 0k and the test program wont run from $c000. Not sure if I messed up the machine or something. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Looking forward to more videos on assembly language for both the VIC20 and the C64!!
Hey, that's cool!!.... Watching the demo at the end with them side by side creates a 3D effect when you train your eyes to meld them into one.... Stereoscopic 3D!! :)
Speaking of SYS 64738 (11:18), I recently found out about a similar command SYS 64760 which does an instant reset instead of the 1 to 2 second reset. If you haven’t talked about that one before, could you cover it in a future video?
I love those classic "command line hacks" you do. Could you make a video on just those? For us simple folk that bought a C64 to catch up on their technical skills after 35 years? I wanna impress my friends from back in the day who knew some of those. They impressed me with magic tricks on the C64 when I was 15, now I'm 50 and I wanna impress them. Exploring the inner workings of the C64 with _'poke'_ and _'sys'_ commands is fascinating! I'd also kill for a video explaining how that GUI OS version worked back in the day (one needed an expansion cart? or a hard disk?) and how to get it working on the C64 Full Size with a cart image.
If I can ask a question. You provided vic 20 disk images with the memory expansions already loaded; is there any way the memory expander could be a virtual cartridge? The c64 maxi has problems loading multiple disk images in the disk drive and I found this really cool 'software' for the vic 20 that needs a 16kb expansion. I'm just getting started learning all things commodore, and am not well versed at Basic yet (I plan to change that if the world doesn't end). Love your videos by the way, been going through them as I teach myself basic.
Forgot to ask, does TheC64 support a USB keyboard? If so, that could help it support C128 and PET mode. I modded a PC keyboard with C64 decals for the purpose of using Vice, so someone wanting a C128 or PET keyboard could do something similar.
VIC SPLATFORM - Sprites by Vanja UTNE ! - I love the work of VANJA/Mermaid. Her new comic book "GROK & GROK part 2" is brilliant! I used to speak with her lots.
Great video! I like the comparison at the end of the Vid. The real 64 looks much more colorful. And oh the emulated SID needs a bit of tweaking. It would be nice if they added some flags for the SID, IE for 8580 and 6581, etc.
Thanks for your coverage of TheC64 "Maxi". I'm very curious on your thoughts about the Commodore 64 (and variants) FPGA core provided as part of the MiSTer Project running on the Terasic DE10-Nano FPGA SBC. The Commodore 8-bit platform is one of more than 100 FPGA "cores" freely available from the Mister Project. I'm not sure if the Commodore "core" is cycle-accurate or not but it should be more accurate than software-based emulators. I'm wondering how the FPGA Commodore recreation compares to the software-based emulation products.
I find the FPGA projects interesting and would review one if it showed up at my door someday, but I mainly just focus on the vintage hardware and occasionally software emulation when it suits.
You can use the INT() function like A=INT(A) to truncate or A=INT(A + 0.5) to round to the nearest whole value, for example. You can also assign the value to an integer variable, like A%=A to truncate. Note that integer variables are only signed 16-bit so the maximum value they can hold is 32767. Also, A% is a distinct variable from A.
C64 reborn! wow! i never had it, i had the Vic20, and then jumped to the C128, nice little game you wrote for the V20! -- this new one is not available here in sweden, not yet anyway, i have to think about it! - i am afraid i will be totally "lost in space" if i get it though! lol! - thanks for nice demo, Levi
I noticed about 14min in you mention vice on a mac and having to change vice configurations based on what you are trying to load, like enabling the REU or setting default to Joystick 1, etc.... You may already be aware of this but thought I would mention just in-case you weren't. I have been able to get around this on a PC using multiple vice.ini files with certain settings and then loading that particular vice.ini with the disk I am trying to load and run via a .bat file. I would think you could do this on a MAC also via a script file. So for example if I have a vice config where I want the REU enabled, Joystick 1 as the default and NTSC, I created a vice ini file called viceNTSCREUJS1.ini (the name can be whatever you want it to be) with those settings. Then for any NTSC game that uses Joystick 1 by default, in .bat file via the command line options to run x64.exe I have a line in the .bat file that contains (see below). BTW incase you are wondering, the %~dp0 just tells the command that the files are located in the same directory as where the .bat file was executed from since in my .bat file I do a CD command to the location of where my VICE is installed before the x64.exe execution. x64.exe -config "%~dp0viceNTSCREUJS1.ini" -autostart "%~dp0ZORRO +5D.d64"
I got mine here in Denmark, and I FREAKING love it... DAmn its good to be back at the C64. I sold the original in the days, so I could buy an Amiga 500.. TheC64 cost me around $149
Starting to revisit BASIC through the Compute Gazette. Started with some simple tone generation such as poke 36878,12 but no sound . Have you run into errors with audio memory addresses?
In my experience, you don't have to add _J1J2. Joysticks are getting assigned when the mounted medium changes. So if you go into file browser and mount an empty disc and leave the media access dialog, the joystick with which you do this gets port 2, the other gets port 1. If you access the media access dialog, unmount and leave the dialog, the same. Only if you change the medium to the same like before being in that dialog, nothing gets reassigned (like unmounting and remounting the same image without leaving the dialog in between). I did lots of tests concerning this topic. If you attach a third joystick, things get really complicated until reboot of TheC64 :-) Edit: _J1 or _J2 just state which port gets assigned to the joystick changing the media (defaults to port 2 like said above). With _J1 its the other way around.
Yes I think you are correct. Autostart a d64 with the nr 2 button on thec64 joystick makes that stick port 2, however mounting just by using thec64 keyboard (B) seems to mess things up, making thec64 joystick still mandatory to use. I have tested with 1 thec64 joystick and 1 speedlink competition pro. This is all when using Basic which is my preferred "retro" choice over the carousel. Hope they'll fix that in an upcoming firmware.
The only thing I would have liked extra to see on this machine, would have been a daughter board inside to hook up original peripherals and cartriges. So it literally could substitute for a C64 even if it is emulated.
TheC64 is a really good piece of kit. It's a great way to do C64 Development work without having to stress your older hardware such as disk drives. You can tell the engineers and programmers behind this are actual fans of the real Commodore 64. I look forward to what the future holds for this machine. Not just from the manufacturer, but also the community. I would definitely love to see a software update, or perhaps even hardware expansion that make most USB peripherals compatible, including floppy drives, mice, keyboards and the like.
Hi Robin, your videos are refreshing in their detail (they're SO informative), complemented by your warm, welcoming narrative presence. A question, are the SIMONS BASIC commands faithfully replicated on TheC64, when this cartridge image is loaded?
1:33 You might need to jump into a time machine and smell an original C64 when it was new. 3:20 How long does the original C64 take to boot to BASIC? 9:00 Does VICE emulate the 1351 mouse? 12:25 Can you do things like change the standard ROM to make the default cursor color white? 15:58 If I enter 0 POKEV,A:POKEV,.:GOTO ⏎ 10 V=36878:A=15:GOTO ⏎ on the NTSC VIC-20 in VICE, I get 246 Hz, since the VIC-I chip doesn't steal clock cycles from the processor. 33:19 The aspect ratio of each C64 display is about 1.5 instead of the standard 1.33. 37:47 The lyrics are seeming a little bit "copyrighted".
An original C64 takes slightly over 2 seconds to boot, mostly because of the RAM check that's done. Some common utility cartridges skip it, and so the boot is nearly instant. Yes, VICE emulates the 1351, it's something that can be toggled on and off. So likely TheC64 could implement it if they can provide a fairly universal mouse driver. I don't know of any way of changing the KERNAL/BASIC ROMs on TheC64, but I could probably customize a Fast Load or Super Snapshot cartridge image to change the default cursor colour. It's funny how fast the VIC-20 can seem compared to the C64. No bad lines gives a bit of a CPU boost, and then having way fewer bytes to shuffle around on screen makes some games run very fast. Of course, if a VIC-20 game needs smooth scrolling or to simulate smooth sprite movement, then it needs all the help it can get.
I mainly got TheC64 for the VIC-20 mode and I love it. Has anyone had any success in getting the Scott Adams Adventure cartridges to run. I load the .crt images and then type SYS 32592 but nothing happens. Any ideas?
I added a link in the description to 5 Scott Adams VIC-20 games in a .zip file, with the proper config flags set. Launch any of those, then SYS 32592 and you should be set. Also, I updated the Splatform download with the correct flags too, so it should launch fine now. Thanks for letting me know!
@@8_Bit Thank you, thank you, thank you. They work really well. I'm really happy with this thing. And I really enjoy your channel, very informative. One thing I forgot to ask: are there onscreen tape controls for saving game progress onto tape images? I created some blank tape images and can mount them (the C64 tries to load a program straight away instead of waiting. It would be better if it waited for a load command). But when playing an adventure game and I type "save game", I can't find any option to press play/record. I don't want to use save states as I would like to do it the original way (I understand that obviously this is emulation anyway but still want the experience). If there aren't any controls, what is the best way to submit a suggestion about having them added. Thanks again for your help. :)
@@8_Bit Thanks Robin. Using banks 2 and 3 was helpful and worked. The manual would would suggest you added banks incrementaly, which wasn't helpful to us uneducated...even though I owned a Vic20 back in 1983...
@@seank8489 As far as I know, there aren't any tape controls; that would be a great feature to be added. I suppose that game is hard-coded to save only to cassette, rather than disk? For suggesting features, I'd try either (or both?) the Retro Games contact form: retrogames.biz/contact and also starting a thread in the main TheC64 group on Facebook and seeing how many other people want it added.
As of firmware version 1.6.1 mouse emulation has been added, but I've not really tried it out because I don't have GEOS on my unit, though I may try and download it if I can. I have messed about a bit with GEOS on an original C64C.
Wow, that whole disk-mount-tag thing seems really cumbersome. It's nice that they let you make the options persistent in some way but why didn't they just provide a menu for selecting the joystick options and then adding metadata to the end of the disk image or whatever? That's a shame about the lack of 1351 emulation but hopefully they'll add that at some point, as well as improving the UX around joystick stuff. I also understand the audio latency is still a bit high - not terrible, but could still be improved a bit.
I guess they didn't want to make "*.pif" files mistake again ;). Flags are for user supplied files, maybe there is some kind of licensing limitation that they couldn't overcome? Like... "Ok, let users play their files but do it to look like side effect"
Unless I'm mistaken, there's sadly still no solution from RGL to the REU problem on the VIC20 emulation. What I'd love to see is the Boot mode menu offer the different memory configs (Classic, Classic + 3k, Classic + 8k, Classic + Super Expander, etc.), or the ability to plug in virtual REU memory CARTRIDGES in the Media Access menu as we all did back in the day with real hardware. I want to be able to expand the memory and then read in my own programs off disk images created via ZoomFloppy. Currently, that doesn't seem to be possible.
Not only should they use an original-ish box design for the North American release, but for extra authenticity they should make some machines with the orange-ish function keys. ;)
Yeah the killer function for the next firmware update would have to be USB network adapter support where it provides ssh access (ssh and sftp) and local utilities for reading and writing disk image files (and others? tape? Cartridge?). And CX-Basic would just be amazing.
Lots of comments about the difference between PAL and NTSC color. But in the demo at the end, both the real unit and "TheC64" are set to PAL, so their colors should be the same. But TheC64 has washed out colors. Is that because the video options are set to emulate scan lines? Can this be overridden and would that make the colors the same?
I'm in the UK, and have a 'The C64' that I got just before Christmas (I was lucky - most places had sold out!!). The examples of the demo running at the end are Not representative of one set to PAL running through a PAL TV. With mine, the 'classic' mode screen is just as blue/purple vibrant as the O/G 64 was, and running games, it's not in the slightest subdued or washed-out looking. It looks identical to the original PAL CBM64's that I used back in the early 80's (the optional scan-line emulator is actually pretty effective with this device as it's subtle, and doesn't 'dim/darken' the picture!). Maybe a capture card problem in the video that wasn't getting all the colour information properly as the capture card would be set natively for American NTSC output? Don't know.... but the genuine UK item, set to PAL, running on a PAL TV is every bit as colourful as the original CBM64 - and a lot sharper being upscaled to 720p.... And of course, for the most part of the video, showing the different features, you could see how good the colour was, and how vibrant it looked... the end 'demo' section of the video was not a good representation of the system - that was a technical issue on his part, not the 'The C64' console's part... ;-)
That trick of using the filename for configuration really seems accomodating. Not only compared to Vice, but for example compared to WinUAE with it's super horrible, confusing configuration split in multiple parts, that no one knows how they seperate and go together.
Yeah, that's a JiffyDOS switch. I was a beta tester for the VIC-20 version years ago, and that's the VIC I installed it in. Okurka linked to the episode where I talk about it briefly.
In the head-to-head demo starting at 33:18, why were the colors from TheC64 so unsaturated? The pale colors of TheC64 look pitiful when compared to those from the real Commodore 64!
They are NOT in reality..... I'm in the UK and have a 'TheC64'.... this must be a problem with the capture equipment used (perhaps it can't decode PAL properly?) My C64 on my PAL TV is vibrant, colourful, and not at all grey/muted looking from that video capture. It looks just as I remember the original CBM64 looking on a PAL TV back in the 80's.
I ordered one from Amazon Germany and just got my shipping notification. I'm thinking a week or so I should have one in the US. $121 us dollars isn't too bad.
Thank you very much! I was a former happy C64 kid and now I'm a happy new owner of TheC64 Maxi and I really appreciate your videos, especially the TMP assembler bits for lazy people ;-). A question that came into my mind very quickly is: may I be able to communicate with my Arduino or my RaspberryPi? This would bring together my old and new worlds...! I just can't think of an easy way to do it, perhaps over RS-232 port 2 on the commodore side and Serial interface on the Arduino or Raspberry side, i.e. just with an USB cable? Maybe you have an idea about this? Thank again!!
Thanks for the information! I was wondering if it would work with a modem. I have an old HAL-Robot RTTY radio modem I used with an original C64. I still use it with a modern computer and a USB to TTL adapter to interface them. I would love to hook a new TheC64 to my old HAL modem. Perhaps that will happen in a future upgrade along with the addition of an emulated user hardware port. There's plenty of room inside that mostly empty case.
I don't really know if this would solve the problem you have with the vic20 memory bank emulation, but I would tell you how I experienced this in the past. Whenever I needed to run a specific memory configuration, I had to remove the expansion card, change the appropriate dip switches and put it back in the expansion slot and then I could start up the vic 20 again. Infact, I never had the guts to remove the card while the power was on and change the config and put it back in, but I'm pretty sure the system would crash very early into trying this. So maybe vic 20 mode emulates this the correct way, and the error you're getting is just cause of the limitation of the actual vic20. Maybe I'm totally wrong, I sold my vic20 back in 1985, so I can't give it another try, but this is how I remember it.
seems to me if the price is the same for original hardware or The C64, I would chose original hardware. Mainly because there are emulators already for PC which can give you an 'enhanced' experience in using the original system (ie. emulating additional expensive/theoretical hardware/peripherals, savestates,etc), but there are some situations where you really cannot beat owning the actual official and original hardware.
Between this and what The 8-Bit Guy said, this is way more up my alley than the mini version, especially since it has more than I wanted. Shame that, as of writing this, there's no known release date for the U.S.
I noticed you said something about using other USB devices like a mouse that didn't work. While that is true, if the device you are plugging in is recognized like a flash drive it will work with them. I tried this after watching Retro Recipes 1541 mini for theC64 using a USB 3.5 floppy. This sparked me to investigate if I could do the same with an old Iomega USB Zip Drive. I was able to find my old USB Zip Drive... it was in a box with 2 old Iomega Jaz SCSI drives and an old Parallel Zip drive!! Found a box of fifteen 100mb zip disks in a different box. Plugged it into a Win 10 machine and it recognized right of way it was a USB Zip drive. Stuck a disk into it and it spun up (forgot how loud these were). The disk was already formatted as FAT, so I formatted it again to clean the crap I had on the disk off and then copied some D64 images over to it. Turned theC64 Maxi on and then plugged the Zip drive in and waited about 10 seconds and it did show up like it was a flash drive. Loaded a couple games and they all worked. Why would you use a USB Zip drive instead of a flash drive you may ask... No reason other than just to see if you can!!!
it would be really cool to use a usb cd rom drive. then u can modify an old 1541 drive and put the cd rom drive in it. You could put all your roms on a cd.....that would be neat! If its possible i'm going to do it.
So if i can get my hand of a dump of one of those basic expansion cartridges i can use it? Sounds great. Also you're right about the keyboard situation. That's actualy one of the reason i'm very intrested in buying myself a C64 Maxi. I currently own 2 Commodores 64, none of them anywhere near running condition, i don't have the know how to fix them and i always get very frustrated when i'm trying to use an emulator because it's always cumbersome to say the least to figure out the differences between a C64 keyboard and a modern keyboard... AZERTY make that even worst so the C64 maxi got a lot of appeal to me Thank you for your video ^^
Yes, Simon's BASIC or Super Expander 64 should work fine if you can find the .crt file for them. I haven't actually tried them on the maxi but I don't see why they wouldn't work.
Watching these videos just makes me want to pop over to Robin's place for a cup of tea and a bout of gaming. But then I remember I live in Europe and Robin doesn't know me.
I did that once but he burst into the kitchen, screamed "WHO ARE YOU WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE HOW DID YOU GET IN IT'S THREE IN THE MORNING IS THAT MY TEA!?!?" and called the police.
I stumbled upon your video and 8 bit guy on the C64 and boy does this take me back to my childhood and for years wanting to fire up my original on modern televisions. I'm in the UK and started with a ZX81 before a VIC 20 but never had the original C64 so this is also a childhood dream and blast from the past.
Thankyou for covering this on RUclips and on the back of this I have ordered one in the UK.
Now I just have to visit my parents and go through all my childhood stuff from the 1980s to get all the old manuals and magazines :)
Keep up the good work
Did you get your C64 yet.
I could live a million life times and I’d never tire listening and learning from you.
You have a real gift. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the VIC RAM files! These will help when I finally receive my TheC64. Not many people covering the VIC-20 side. Much appreciated!
Imagine if that Demo at the end of the video had been playing on the C64s in the shops in '82 when it first came out.
Awesome video.
Just to answer some of the people here; Bob Yannes, the creator of the VICII chip for the C64, said himself that colours differ from C64 to C64 because of the different tolerances in the chips, Chroma and Luma saturation, and so on. So, there is NO 'official' perfect colour saturation for the C64. I myself still remember different looks among the machines my friends and I had. I won't even go into how different even SID chips from the same serial number machines sounded, let along earlier and later variants of C64s.
Then you have each seperate Monitor/TV looking slightly different to each other. Then you have PAL/NTSC...the way electronics were made back then, perhaps even the weather affected it!
I have just recently added a Commodore 64 to my Console Collection. I find these videos very informative, and help me understand the basics of this machine.
Fascinating video. I was transfixed from start to finished.
It's funny how many 5 number POKE codes you knew when you owned a C64 :D, like telephone numbers no one remembers nowadays :)
You're the Splatform guy! My brother and I are writing a c64 games guide for 1990 - 2010
Neat idea, so many undiscovered games from that middle era!
Re: TED and PET emulation, I think the keyboard situation could be sort of over come if they allows you to plug in a USB keyboard.
My TheVIC20 only came out of its box once as i have real VIC,64 and +4, I do like it but I love the real thing(s) more.
Thank you Robin, you youtubes often inspire me,
I can still remember the smell of the c64 my friend got in 1983 when we were 9 years old. It was the best thing I had ever seen and smelled. Luckily my family got one a few months later. The floppy disks also had a really specific smell when we got a 1541.
Ross2d-2 for me it’s the smell of the colecovision!
Demo starting at 33:17 is awesome.
That's a really sweet system! I loved watching GEOS draw the screen. :) I miss the C64 days, they were such a blast. I used to amaze people who never seen one back then at what it could do, especially the sound out of it.
This looks like a solid option. The colour palette could use some tweaks anyways, as shown by the demo running on a real PAL Commodore.
See it is a MICRO computer made for the average user. You didn't need to know much to operate it just basic loading commands or if you have the hard drive skip that all together which is what we did. It booted into BASIC and you could program right away or run something. Commodore was for the power of the people and insanely cheap compared to it's competitors the IBM and Apple II I believe it was.
Comomdore offered a lot of fun educational opportunities compared to even the IBM or PC and especially the NES which was in no way educational. The few educational titles it had were CRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!
Super helpful video, as always, thank so much!
Nice video! And for the bit at the end, I would love it if they would use black plastic and new key caps and do a C16 with a Plus/4 mode in it.
Your videos are extremely interesting and you know your stuff. Thank you Robin.
This was very helpful for me and my TheC64. Thank you very much - your channel is great! :-)
Awesome in depth review. Thanks for sharing. Best wishes for the new year from your fans in the UK.
Very nice overview and demos. Thank you for sharing.
25:18 I downloaded your little game "Splashform", and it is very cool and challenging. Nice job!
Ah, I see. Early column in the magazine. That article was for the VIC. Have to wait a couple months to get the Maxi
I keep one of these in the living room hooked up to a big LCD TV for on-the-couch playing, but about 100% of the time I use the one hooked up to a CRT in the spare room. Everything just looks so much nicer. I tried selling it off due to not seeing much use but Facebook Marketplace tagged it as an illegal streaming device so vOv
Another great video Robin, you continue to impress, keep them coming.
Great video. And thanks for creating the boot program on the Vic configured disks, saves that unpleasant error. Hopefully a future firmware update will give us a menu to set the default memory configuration to use if the flags are absent or not used.
I don't care what it takes, I'm getting this when it comes out in the USA!
It's an awesome thing, I have a 3 metre HDMI connected to my bedroom tv and a 5 mtr one in the lounge room. Because all the games load from a usb it's so much more portable than an original one with a disk drive.
Still isn't out in the USA. I got tired of waiting and just bought a mini instead.
@@maxxdahl6062 should have waited a tad longer. It's coming out November 5 in the US and is available for preorder on Amazon
@@cjallday1130plays Meh, more than 6 months. I'm good. lol
Great video, Robin. Thanks for all the exploration of the VIC-20 mode. I suspect that enabling an REU mode on the C64 will become standard in the future, as it seems that the system can handle it just fine. Now if they just enable 1351 Mouse mode that would make a really useful GEOS machine!
1
Hi Robin, enjoying your videos very much and trying to learn assembly language now too! I've followed the instructions for the REU hack various times and once I was able to see the ram expansion but other times I tried it for some reason it now shows 0k and the test program wont run from $c000. Not sure if I messed up the machine or something. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Looking forward to more videos on assembly language for both the VIC20 and the C64!!
thank you for the side by side demo comparison!
0s boot time was the reason why I always missed my c64 when working on the pc.
Hey, that's cool!!.... Watching the demo at the end with them side by side creates a 3D effect when you train your eyes to meld them into one.... Stereoscopic 3D!! :)
Great video again! The demo is amazing! Greetings and Happy New Year to all! Doc64!
Speaking of SYS 64738 (11:18), I recently found out about a similar command SYS 64760 which does an instant reset instead of the 1 to 2 second reset. If you haven’t talked about that one before, could you cover it in a future video?
I love those classic "command line hacks" you do. Could you make a video on just those? For us simple folk that bought a C64 to catch up on their technical skills after 35 years? I wanna impress my friends from back in the day who knew some of those. They impressed me with magic tricks on the C64 when I was 15, now I'm 50 and I wanna impress them. Exploring the inner workings of the C64 with _'poke'_ and _'sys'_ commands is fascinating!
I'd also kill for a video explaining how that GUI OS version worked back in the day (one needed an expansion cart? or a hard disk?) and how to get it working on the C64 Full Size with a cart image.
If I can ask a question. You provided vic 20 disk images with the memory expansions already loaded; is there any way the memory expander could be a virtual cartridge? The c64 maxi has problems loading multiple disk images in the disk drive and I found this really cool 'software' for the vic 20 that needs a 16kb expansion. I'm just getting started learning all things commodore, and am not well versed at Basic yet (I plan to change that if the world doesn't end).
Love your videos by the way, been going through them as I teach myself basic.
Another excellent video. Thanks!
Late November 2020. I got mine from Amazon in Austin, TX last week.
Forgot to ask, does TheC64 support a USB keyboard? If so, that could help it support C128 and PET mode. I modded a PC keyboard with C64 decals for the purpose of using Vice, so someone wanting a C128 or PET keyboard could do something similar.
Thank you for doing all of this!
Loving mine, been playing roms on it👌😊
roms only apply to CARTRIDGE images
VIC SPLATFORM - Sprites by Vanja UTNE ! - I love the work of VANJA/Mermaid. Her new comic book "GROK & GROK part 2" is brilliant! I used to speak with her lots.
I am loving your indices :-)
Cool.. I'm tempted to get this when it comes to "the states."
And we in Europe get TheVic20 by the time y'all get the TheC64 XD
Those words at the end of the demo (to come up behind you again etc) are from 'Time' on Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' album.. Cool.
Great video! I like the comparison at the end of the Vid. The real 64 looks much more colorful. And oh the emulated SID needs a bit of tweaking. It would be nice if they added some flags for the SID, IE for 8580 and 6581, etc.
Great couple videos, really excellent. I’m going to have to get one I think
I bought one! It's arriving this Monday (3/22/2021)!
If I had seen that demo back in the day, my mind would would have surely exploded! :)
These videos are amazing. I can't wait to find a NA supplier for TheC64
I REALLY LOVE C64 👍🥂🎩
Thanks for your coverage of TheC64 "Maxi". I'm very curious on your thoughts about the Commodore 64 (and variants) FPGA core provided as part of the MiSTer Project running on the Terasic DE10-Nano FPGA SBC. The Commodore 8-bit platform is one of more than 100 FPGA "cores" freely available from the Mister Project. I'm not sure if the Commodore "core" is cycle-accurate or not but it should be more accurate than software-based emulators. I'm wondering how the FPGA Commodore recreation compares to the software-based emulation products.
I find the FPGA projects interesting and would review one if it showed up at my door someday, but I mainly just focus on the vintage hardware and occasionally software emulation when it suits.
I'm trying to round off or truncate a float in Basic. Possibly turn it into an Int. Thanks for your great videos.
You can use the INT() function like A=INT(A) to truncate or A=INT(A + 0.5) to round to the nearest whole value, for example. You can also assign the value to an integer variable, like A%=A to truncate. Note that integer variables are only signed 16-bit so the maximum value they can hold is 32767. Also, A% is a distinct variable from A.
@@8_Bit I'm trying to truncate a float like (8.123456) to (8.12). Is this possible?
@@Larry-AK0Z Yes, just do something like: A=INT(A*100)/100
I'd be happy if they added printer support at least. Maybe some way to connect 2 of them together for playing games.
C64 reborn! wow! i never had it, i had the Vic20, and then jumped to the C128, nice little game you wrote for the V20! -- this new one is not available here in sweden, not yet anyway, i have to think about it! - i am afraid i will be totally "lost in space" if i get it though! lol! - thanks for nice demo, Levi
I noticed about 14min in you mention vice on a mac and having to change vice configurations based on what you are trying to load, like enabling the REU or setting default to Joystick 1, etc.... You may already be aware of this but thought I would mention just in-case you weren't. I have been able to get around this on a PC using multiple vice.ini files with certain settings and then loading that particular vice.ini with the disk I am trying to load and run via a .bat file. I would think you could do this on a MAC also via a script file. So for example if I have a vice config where I want the REU enabled, Joystick 1 as the default and NTSC, I created a vice ini file called viceNTSCREUJS1.ini (the name can be whatever you want it to be) with those settings. Then for any NTSC game that uses Joystick 1 by default, in .bat file via the command line options to run x64.exe I have a line in the .bat file that contains (see below). BTW incase you are wondering, the %~dp0 just tells the command that the files are located in the same directory as where the .bat file was executed from since in my .bat file I do a CD command to the location of where my VICE is installed before the x64.exe execution.
x64.exe -config "%~dp0viceNTSCREUJS1.ini" -autostart "%~dp0ZORRO +5D.d64"
Your game looks amazing, very impressive.
I got mine here in Denmark, and I FREAKING love it... DAmn its good to be back at the C64. I sold the original in the days, so I could buy an Amiga 500..
TheC64 cost me around $149
i order mine late October from Elgiganten, but i first got it a couple of days ago.
but at least i got it to a good price 599 Dkr :D
Starting to revisit BASIC through the Compute Gazette. Started with some simple tone generation such as poke 36878,12 but no sound . Have you run into errors with audio memory addresses?
In my experience, you don't have to add _J1J2. Joysticks are getting assigned when the mounted medium changes. So if you go into file browser and mount an empty disc and leave the media access dialog, the joystick with which you do this gets port 2, the other gets port 1. If you access the media access dialog, unmount and leave the dialog, the same. Only if you change the medium to the same like before being in that dialog, nothing gets reassigned (like unmounting and remounting the same image without leaving the dialog in between). I did lots of tests concerning this topic. If you attach a third joystick, things get really complicated until reboot of TheC64 :-) Edit: _J1 or _J2 just state which port gets assigned to the joystick changing the media (defaults to port 2 like said above). With _J1 its the other way around.
Yes I think you are correct. Autostart a d64 with the nr 2 button on thec64 joystick makes that stick port 2, however mounting just by using thec64 keyboard (B) seems to mess things up, making thec64 joystick still mandatory to use. I have tested with 1 thec64 joystick and 1 speedlink competition pro. This is all when using Basic which is my preferred "retro" choice over the carousel. Hope they'll fix that in an upcoming firmware.
The only thing I would have liked extra to see on this machine, would have been a daughter board inside to hook up original peripherals and cartriges. So it literally could substitute for a C64 even if it is emulated.
TheC64 is a really good piece of kit. It's a great way to do C64 Development work without having to stress your older hardware such as disk drives. You can tell the engineers and programmers behind this are actual fans of the real Commodore 64.
I look forward to what the future holds for this machine. Not just from the manufacturer, but also the community. I would definitely love to see a software update, or perhaps even hardware expansion that make most USB peripherals compatible, including floppy drives, mice, keyboards and the like.
This was awesome! Thanks for the video. Can't wait until this comes out in the USA.
Hi Robin, your videos are refreshing in their detail (they're SO informative), complemented by your warm, welcoming narrative presence. A question, are the SIMONS BASIC commands faithfully replicated on TheC64, when this cartridge image is loaded?
I think the scratchy sounds on The C64 sound more in fitting than the original 64! :)
VIC-20 was awesome......
Looking forward to the MEGA65 if it ever arrives. The C64 Maxi sold out upon the N.A. release,
1:33 You might need to jump into a time machine and smell an original C64
when it was new.
3:20 How long does the original C64 take to boot to BASIC?
9:00 Does VICE emulate the 1351 mouse?
12:25 Can you do things like change the standard ROM to make the default cursor color white?
15:58 If I enter 0 POKEV,A:POKEV,.:GOTO ⏎ 10 V=36878:A=15:GOTO ⏎ on the NTSC VIC-20 in VICE, I get 246 Hz, since the VIC-I chip doesn't steal clock cycles from the processor.
33:19 The aspect ratio of each C64 display is about 1.5 instead of the standard 1.33.
37:47 The lyrics are seeming a little bit "copyrighted".
An original C64 takes slightly over 2 seconds to boot, mostly because of the RAM check that's done. Some common utility cartridges skip it, and so the boot is nearly instant.
Yes, VICE emulates the 1351, it's something that can be toggled on and off. So likely TheC64 could implement it if they can provide a fairly universal mouse driver.
I don't know of any way of changing the KERNAL/BASIC ROMs on TheC64, but I could probably customize a Fast Load or Super Snapshot cartridge image to change the default cursor colour.
It's funny how fast the VIC-20 can seem compared to the C64. No bad lines gives a bit of a CPU boost, and then having way fewer bytes to shuffle around on screen makes some games run very fast. Of course, if a VIC-20 game needs smooth scrolling or to simulate smooth sprite movement, then it needs all the help it can get.
I mainly got TheC64 for the VIC-20 mode and I love it.
Has anyone had any success in getting the Scott Adams Adventure cartridges to run. I load the .crt images and then type SYS 32592 but nothing happens. Any ideas?
I'd like to know this too. Tried various flags with no joy. Also can't get Splatform to run either.
I added a link in the description to 5 Scott Adams VIC-20 games in a .zip file, with the proper config flags set. Launch any of those, then SYS 32592 and you should be set. Also, I updated the Splatform download with the correct flags too, so it should launch fine now. Thanks for letting me know!
@@8_Bit Thank you, thank you, thank you. They work really well. I'm really happy with this thing. And I really enjoy your channel, very informative.
One thing I forgot to ask: are there onscreen tape controls for saving game progress onto tape images? I created some blank tape images and can mount them (the C64 tries to load a program straight away instead of waiting. It would be better if it waited for a load command). But when playing an adventure game and I type "save game", I can't find any option to press play/record. I don't want to use save states as I would like to do it the original way (I understand that obviously this is emulation anyway but still want the experience).
If there aren't any controls, what is the best way to submit a suggestion about having them added. Thanks again for your help. :)
@@8_Bit Thanks Robin. Using banks 2 and 3 was helpful and worked. The manual would would suggest you added banks incrementaly, which wasn't helpful to us uneducated...even though I owned a Vic20 back in 1983...
@@seank8489 As far as I know, there aren't any tape controls; that would be a great feature to be added. I suppose that game is hard-coded to save only to cassette, rather than disk? For suggesting features, I'd try either (or both?) the Retro Games contact form: retrogames.biz/contact and also starting a thread in the main TheC64 group on Facebook and seeing how many other people want it added.
As of firmware version 1.6.1 mouse emulation has been added, but I've not really tried it out because I don't have GEOS on my unit, though I may try and download it if I can. I have messed about a bit with GEOS on an original C64C.
To correct you, it was over 6 MONTHS to get the MINI in USA retailers!
Wow, that whole disk-mount-tag thing seems really cumbersome. It's nice that they let you make the options persistent in some way but why didn't they just provide a menu for selecting the joystick options and then adding metadata to the end of the disk image or whatever?
That's a shame about the lack of 1351 emulation but hopefully they'll add that at some point, as well as improving the UX around joystick stuff. I also understand the audio latency is still a bit high - not terrible, but could still be improved a bit.
I guess they didn't want to make "*.pif" files mistake again ;). Flags are for user supplied files, maybe there is some kind of licensing limitation that they couldn't overcome? Like... "Ok, let users play their files but do it to look like side effect"
Unless I'm mistaken, there's sadly still no solution from RGL to the REU problem on the VIC20 emulation. What I'd love to see is the Boot mode menu offer the different memory configs (Classic, Classic + 3k, Classic + 8k, Classic + Super Expander, etc.), or the ability to plug in virtual REU memory CARTRIDGES in the Media Access menu as we all did back in the day with real hardware. I want to be able to expand the memory and then read in my own programs off disk images created via ZoomFloppy. Currently, that doesn't seem to be possible.
Not only should they use an original-ish box design for the North American release, but for extra authenticity they should make some machines with the orange-ish function keys. ;)
Yeah the killer function for the next firmware update would have to be USB network adapter support where it provides ssh access (ssh and sftp) and local utilities for reading and writing disk image files (and others? tape? Cartridge?). And CX-Basic would just be amazing.
Lots of comments about the difference between PAL and NTSC color. But in the demo at the end, both the real unit and "TheC64" are set to PAL, so their colors should be the same. But TheC64 has washed out colors. Is that because the video options are set to emulate scan lines? Can this be overridden and would that make the colors the same?
I'm in the UK, and have a 'The C64' that I got just before Christmas (I was lucky - most places had sold out!!). The examples of the demo running at the end are Not representative of one set to PAL running through a PAL TV. With mine, the 'classic' mode screen is just as blue/purple vibrant as the O/G 64 was, and running games, it's not in the slightest subdued or washed-out looking. It looks identical to the original PAL CBM64's that I used back in the early 80's (the optional scan-line emulator is actually pretty effective with this device as it's subtle, and doesn't 'dim/darken' the picture!).
Maybe a capture card problem in the video that wasn't getting all the colour information properly as the capture card would be set natively for American NTSC output? Don't know.... but the genuine UK item, set to PAL, running on a PAL TV is every bit as colourful as the original CBM64 - and a lot sharper being upscaled to 720p....
And of course, for the most part of the video, showing the different features, you could see how good the colour was, and how vibrant it looked... the end 'demo' section of the video was not a good representation of the system - that was a technical issue on his part, not the 'The C64' console's part... ;-)
That trick of using the filename for configuration really seems accomodating. Not only compared to Vice, but for example compared to WinUAE with it's super horrible, confusing configuration split in multiple parts, that no one knows how they seperate and go together.
Nice video. What's the toggle switch on the side of your VIC?
ruclips.net/video/PUsYNwISNNs/видео.html
Yeah, that's a JiffyDOS switch. I was a beta tester for the VIC-20 version years ago, and that's the VIC I installed it in. Okurka linked to the episode where I talk about it briefly.
with the Vic 20 boot ram files how do I then load a game in when as you said it over rides the configurations ? especially 16k games with 2 disks
rename your disk images with the flags needed, is my guess.
@@hqqns yes was already doing that but very slow process why I was keen on these disk images with the set memory
The wrong result of powers is because of floating point arithmetic. X^Y does EXP(Y*LOG(X)) which leads to rounding errors.
In the head-to-head demo starting at 33:18, why were the colors from TheC64 so unsaturated?
The pale colors of TheC64 look pitiful when compared to those from the real Commodore 64!
They are NOT in reality..... I'm in the UK and have a 'TheC64'.... this must be a problem with the capture equipment used (perhaps it can't decode PAL properly?) My C64 on my PAL TV is vibrant, colourful, and not at all grey/muted looking from that video capture.
It looks just as I remember the original CBM64 looking on a PAL TV back in the 80's.
I ordered one from Amazon Germany and just got my shipping notification. I'm thinking a week or so I should have one in the US. $121 us dollars isn't too bad.
Thank you very much! I was a former happy C64 kid and now I'm a happy new owner of TheC64 Maxi and I really appreciate your videos, especially the TMP assembler bits for lazy people ;-). A question that came into my mind very quickly is: may I be able to communicate with my Arduino or my RaspberryPi? This would bring together my old and new worlds...! I just can't think of an easy way to do it, perhaps over RS-232 port 2 on the commodore side and Serial interface on the Arduino or Raspberry side, i.e. just with an USB cable? Maybe you have an idea about this? Thank again!!
Can you access the linux that VICE is running on? thru some keyboard combo? or via a simple HW hack? Is the OS on a replaceable micro SD card?
It really is impressive, and that VIC-20 mode is an awesome extra.
Would be cool if they add MegaCart rom support for the VIC-20.
Thanks for the information! I was wondering if it would work with a modem. I have an old HAL-Robot RTTY radio modem I used with an original C64. I still use it with a modern computer and a USB to TTL adapter to interface them. I would love to hook a new TheC64 to my old HAL modem. Perhaps that will happen in a future upgrade along with the addition of an emulated user hardware port. There's plenty of room inside that mostly empty case.
Will they ever do a C128 mode?
I doubt it due to the fact that the 128 has a numeric keypad. Maybe if you used a USB keyboard in order to use the mode...
I don't really know if this would solve the problem you have with the vic20 memory bank emulation, but I would tell you how I experienced this in the past. Whenever I needed to run a specific memory configuration, I had to remove the expansion card, change the appropriate dip switches and put it back in the expansion slot and then I could start up the vic 20 again. Infact, I never had the guts to remove the card while the power was on and change the config and put it back in, but I'm pretty sure the system would crash very early into trying this. So maybe vic 20 mode emulates this the correct way, and the error you're getting is just cause of the limitation of the actual vic20. Maybe I'm totally wrong, I sold my vic20 back in 1985, so I can't give it another try, but this is how I remember it.
Is there a way to change/force settings of the SID emulation on TheC64, as on the VICE (windows) version ?
I'm not aware of any way to change from the 6581 to the 8580 emulation; hopefully they'll allow that in a firmware update.
seems to me if the price is the same for original hardware or The C64, I would chose original hardware. Mainly because there are emulators already for PC which can give you an 'enhanced' experience in using the original system (ie. emulating additional expensive/theoretical hardware/peripherals, savestates,etc), but there are some situations where you really cannot beat owning the actual official and original hardware.
Between this and what The 8-Bit Guy said, this is way more up my alley than the mini version, especially since it has more than I wanted. Shame that, as of writing this, there's no known release date for the U.S.
The Amiga 500 Mini mouse does work with THEC64 from what I've seen.
Question: Is it possible to type up a document in Geos and save it to USB?
I noticed you said something about using other USB devices like a mouse that didn't work. While that is true, if the device you are plugging in is recognized like a flash drive it will work with them. I tried this after watching Retro Recipes 1541 mini for theC64 using a USB 3.5 floppy. This sparked me to investigate if I could do the same with an old Iomega USB Zip Drive. I was able to find my old USB Zip Drive... it was in a box with 2 old Iomega Jaz SCSI drives and an old Parallel Zip drive!! Found a box of fifteen 100mb zip disks in a different box. Plugged it into a Win 10 machine and it recognized right of way it was a USB Zip drive. Stuck a disk into it and it spun up (forgot how loud these were). The disk was already formatted as FAT, so I formatted it again to clean the crap I had on the disk off and then copied some D64 images over to it. Turned theC64 Maxi on and then plugged the Zip drive in and waited about 10 seconds and it did show up like it was a flash drive. Loaded a couple games and they all worked. Why would you use a USB Zip drive instead of a flash drive you may ask... No reason other than just to see if you can!!!
it would be really cool to use a usb cd rom drive. then u can modify an old 1541 drive and put the cd rom drive in it. You could put all your roms on a cd.....that would be neat! If its possible i'm going to do it.
Will there be a next generation TheC64 Maxi running an UDOO RYZEN Bolt V1000 Maker Board with a complete C64 Emulator which includes C64 BASIC.
you still never peeled the plastic off the fire buttons. My OCD is going nuts!!! lol
Hi any idea how I get the joystick to work in Geos? Tried the J1 parameter but not working
So if i can get my hand of a dump of one of those basic expansion cartridges i can use it? Sounds great.
Also you're right about the keyboard situation. That's actualy one of the reason i'm very intrested in buying myself a C64 Maxi. I currently own 2 Commodores 64, none of them anywhere near running condition, i don't have the know how to fix them and i always get very frustrated when i'm trying to use an emulator because it's always cumbersome to say the least to figure out the differences between a C64 keyboard and a modern keyboard... AZERTY make that even worst so the C64 maxi got a lot of appeal to me
Thank you for your video ^^
Yes, Simon's BASIC or Super Expander 64 should work fine if you can find the .crt file for them. I haven't actually tried them on the maxi but I don't see why they wouldn't work.
Great video , but is there any chance theres a PENULTIMATE+ CARTRIDGE VIC20 rom file to run in the vic20 mode.....