I still have that record on vinyl :) The 11 y/o me actually figured that out back in the 80:s recognizing the BASIC connection with IF.. THEN.. and decoded the PETSCII with the help of the keyboard on my C64 bread bin. Thanks for this trip down memory lane, Robin! I had totally forgot this. :)
Can confirm, Björn Skifs has been a popular artist and performer (plays, musicals, TV., film, stand-up comedy, you name it) since the sixties and is a bona fide cultural icon. 18:00 You assume correctly! It just says the store doesn't accept returns if the seal has been broken. The 39:- on the front is the price, for 39 Swedish Crowns (an album is close to 200 SEK there days, for reference). If the price is in "cents" (öre) it's written as - :50 (although we got rid of öre as a minted denomination some years ago, prices using öre are still commonplace, they just get rounded to nearest 1 Crown at the register). The dash before or after the colon is really just a shorthand for one or more zeroes, (39:- instead of 39:00 or -: 50 instead of 0:50) but I imagine most Swedes just see the colon and dash as a kind of currency symbol like £ or $. Minor currency tangent there. 😊
"they just get rounded to nearest 1 Crown at the register" - So, first they use deceiving prices like 199.99 to trick you into thinking it's "less than 200" and then they charge you 200 anyway? What a scam! 🙂
@@mhausb6436 The game is rigged! Although you can save _up to 49 öre_ (it rounds down, too, and it's just the total which is rounded, not individual items) which is like... 5 US cents!
Neat. My friends and I used to write secret messages in school using Runic from our Ultima manuals. Never thought about using PETSCII characters. Although on paper it would probably be hard to tell the difference between some of the line characters.
On paper, it would definitely be hard to tell the difference between many characters, but the good news is that once you make mental notes of the minor differences in positioning, then you'll be able to tell the difference between a bit better.
"My friends and I used to write secret messages in school using Runic from our Ultima manuals" is the best sentence I'll read all week. I love RUclips comments!
We listened to this record in the mid 80's in my hometown in Sweden. I think my brother bought the record. Since I later got a Commodore 128 in the late 80's I recognized the symbols and decrypted the message. Thank you for reminding me about it and I'm so glad that someone else also knows about this hidden feature ❤️
Positive and logical message. :) Trivia: Hooked on a feeling was a cover of the song by B. J. Thomas, who also wrote 'Raindrops keep falling on my head' - great songs! Å is pronounced like the vowel in 'lord' Ä is pronounced like the vowel in 'bear' Ö is pronounced like the vowel in 'earl'
"Hooked on a Feeling" was written by Mark James and to confirm the other commenter, "Raindrops keep falling on my head" was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. BJ Thomas was an extremely underrated artist IMO. Great voice and presentation.
@@keithparker1346 I see. Well, B. J. Thomas was the original singer hired by the writers in both cases. And his voice is a reason they were (original) hits. Not the same as recording a cover of a famous song and hoping for it to hit the charts again! We are supposed to build on the shoulders of giants, not replace them or diminish them. ;) And embrace originality. Regarding 'suede'. 1784! -> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can%27t_Help_Falling_in_Love Random bit of trivia: Who had a first hit of Red Red Wine INB4 UB40? :)
Why did I watch this just before lunch? Now I really want a nice sandwich! Great video Robin! I enjoyed the details on the music. I loved the guardians movie but I guess didn’t remember any details on that cover song. It is pretty fascinating how Commodore 64 / PET things end up on albums like you’ve shown.
Instant click! I love your videos about hidden messages! **EDIT** 03:50 Petra? I listened to that in my youth when I barely understood English. The songs are stuck in my mind and today I can "decode" the lyrics wich I mostly misheard then. I absolutely enjoyed watching this video!
The message on the blue sticker tells that if the sticker is broken the record can still be returned if the record was already broken when opening it up.
Ooga Chaka was not originated by Blue Swede. It was actually taken from Jon King's UK cover. So....technically...this could be called a cover of a cover as it borrows it's most infamous hook from a cover.
Rather than think of a sad Björn nursing the clearly misguided idea he might again capture lightning in the same bottle, I'm going with the image of him in the kitchen. That bit really made the whole video pay off for me. :)
Philips P2000T 8 bit homecomputer had a similar graphics caracter set. That computer shared the graphics chip with a teletext decoder because this was the only way to use (character based) graphics on teletext.
Interesting tidbits - since you mentioned KISS, it's interesting that Bryan Adams/Jim Vallance also wrote songs for KISS - including "War Machine", which sounds nothing like an Adams/Vallance song :D Also, Eric Carr (drummer for KISS until his death in 91) has a co-write on "Don't Leave Me Lonely" on the Cuts Like a Knife album (and although he was just given a co-write, it's pretty clear he came to them with the complete song and they just changed it a bit).
ruclips.net/video/ZTWHA9abaWs/видео.html - live in Rio to ~200000 people, with Eric Carr on drums and Vinnie Vincent on guitar, who used to play with Dan Hartman (ruclips.net/video/jW-OfaiBs9k/видео.html) and later started Vinnie Vincent's Invasion, which morphed into the band Slaughter ruclips.net/video/IYNJMsaAlW0/видео.html - Bryan Adams doesn't remember the words :) The music industry is very incestuous ;)
Yeah, I had to watch this video at 1.5x speed too and skip forward a few times. I normally like Robin's stuff but he talks so slowly and waffled on way too long. 26 minutes to reveal two sentences he could have read off the key caps is too much.
Just something I recorded some years ago. I wish I had a more on-topic song to play, but I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't de-monetize or copyright strike the video.
Very close to the truth, but more exactly that text said that if that seal was broken the record could only be exchanged/returned IF there was a problem with it that existed before the purchase.. (Back when corporations didn't SAY that they refused all returns and hoped that people would accept it even if it was a manufacturing defect that was the cause: They have no legal right to refuse accepting a valid service request if it is them who sold a deficient goods).. (I first thought I'd try to do a more literal translation, but that became a BIT of a mess, and I couldn't help thinking that.. "återtas".. would kind of become: åter = back/re- .. Tas "gets taken".. so.. return IS the word for what the customer would do, and this is kind of what the store would be doing when they.. accept a return.. . The problem was I couldn't find a good English word for it, until I found the best.. it doesn't mean the same, but seriously.. "Backsies".. since/after the seal has been broken, exchanges and backsies only if there was a fault in the item by the time of purchase)
I really hope the sandwich he made wasn't a lutfisk-räkmacka... or rather, if it was, I sure hope that isn't the sandwich he'd try to recreate. I would question his sanity! (It would be better than a surströmming-räkmacka though.)
I rarely leave negatives on a retro channel but this? Robin? I hold you in high regard as it applies to your knowledge and practice with the C64 and related machines. I believe your familiarity with everything C64 is unmatched. Do you suggest that you couldn't simply look at those characters and do the translation in your head?! I think you could. I think you probably did! But to go through all of the "who is this band and the others bands and artists who wrote or covered the songs this guy and his band got famous for?" It's almost as if you were trying to make this video longer than it needed to be. Couldn't you have just typed in the message without making it a print statement? Of course you could. But then you wouldn't have that "voila!" moment when doing the display character shift. While I am amazed and enthralled by your coding expertise and the way you go about optimizing things, I feel like this video was an enormous waste of time... even yours.
Sorry you feel that way. I'm genuinely interested in everything I put in this video; I had a lot of fun listening to this record and looking into all the song writers, I actually encouraged viewers to jump ahead to the next chapter if they're not into these sorts of details, and I always take the time to make a chapter index for the viewer who might want to jump ahead or skim the contents. I also care as much about the potential meaning of the hidden/extended title just as much as the decoding, and all that context I give earlier in the video directly contributes to my suggestion of what it means. It all ties together: it's a story. And it's one I was oblivious to until I explored all the avenues and connected the dots. I would have found it very unsatisfactory to just convert PETSCII graphics to a string of English words, read it out, and said "thanks for watching." As for the length, it's the shortest video I've released since September 2022, so I dunno. I research and plan the video, I shoot the video, I edit the video, and that's the length it is. I don't target any particular length.
@@8_Bit S'arrite though... I love all of the OTHER videos and have been subscribed for a very long time. I still imagine you saw the petscii and immediately coverted it to alpha characters in your head. I think you're THAT smart.
@@erroneus00 I only knew about half of them :) The card symbols, quarter-circles, "L" right angles and slashes are easy. It's the straight vertical and horizontal lines that are difficult to tell apart / memorize.
Yay! Björn Skifs! ❤ I recommend the song "When The Night Comes" (With Björn Skifs, not with Joe Cocker, not the same song) to people speaking English or Canadian. Never knew Björn was a C64 nerd. 😊
I straight up thought it was Blue Suede, and I always thought of the previous name as “Blue Blues” rather than the piece of clothing. Probably because I heard the names before I could read them:) (And I grew up in Sweden so heard a ton of Björn Skifs in Swedish as well.)
I'm pretty sure that most American DJs pronounced it "swayed" and just ignored the spelling. The same thing happened with Bachman-Turner Overdrive, which is pronounced "Backman". But hey, if they're playing your music, you don't complain.
I saw an interview with Björn Skifs right after Guardians of the Galaxy caused Hooked on a feeling too be a hit again. When he said that "It happened again! To that same song. It's crazy!"
Oh, if I had found that interview while researching this that would have been the perfect way to close this video!! It did "happen again" but not how he expected it :) Thanks for letting me know.
I didn't realize that the 70s version of Hook On a Feeling was a Swedish band. It was a staple of radio when I was a kid in the 80s and I always just thought it was Neil Diamond or something, lol.
Boys will be boys was also covered by Dennis DeYoung, formerly of the Chicago area rock band Styx. Also the songwriting Duo of Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance also wrote music when they are just up and coming artists for the Vancouver area rock band Prism, who are being inducted into the Canadian Rock and Roll Hall of Fame pretty soon. You mentioned that Bryan Adams music is no longer included on Canadian content anymore because he wouldn't became a tax Exile in switzerland.
Fellow ABBAnatic here. The Arbiter is a great song with a very 80s video clip! I like how the lyrics mention "I'll be watching all 64"... Bjorn must've been a real C64 fan 😆
Skifs was/is also an actor. I remember years and years ago my dad and I watched a movie starring Björn Skifs. At one point his character has to come up with a fake name for himself when put on the spot, and he comes up with the absolute beauty of "Rutger Jönåker", which sounds both ultra-Swedish and ultra-fake at the same time (the person he tells the lie to says later in the movie "I looked it up; there's not a single Rutger Jönåker in all of Sweden"). My dad and I being Norwegian thought it was such a hilarious name that we've called Skifs "Rutger Jönåker" ever since.
Good job on Skifs (though most dialects would use a voiceless palatal-velar fricative: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sj-sound ). Ö in Björn is pronounced like EA in earn or early
Björn Skifs has done quite a bit of comedy over the years as well. In one of my favorite skits he did he comes out on scene to some really nice big band-type music, he waits for his moment .. then starts singing to the music "I have a great melody!", then the music abruptly stops and he says ".. but unfortunately no lyrics.". It's hilarious because Swedes at the time were primed to know that when there was music and he got on stage, there would be lots of singing. (I learned much later that many of the really funny skits I saw Swedish comedians do turned out to be translations of American/British skits, and I'm sure this was ripped off as well .. but it worked so well partially because it was Skifs).
The 17:57 mark reads: "Once the seal has been broken the product will be replaced/refunded if there has been any fault with the product at the point of sale" Yeah... I am Swede... You could have treated the Petscii stuff as a substitution cipher aswell... it means that if you know the English language good enough you could have done a frequency analysis and figure out what it would read that way... :-)
3:40 I know Russ Ballard for "Voices": ruclips.net/video/pqKD-aTckE8/видео.html 7:48 The Canadian government has apologized for Bryan Adams on several occasions: ruclips.net/video/gTuQOmgl_Z4/видео.html 9:31 Would have saved a lot of trouble if they'd just used plain ASCII + 33 graphic characters.
I don't remember hearing "Voices" before, but I like it! I briefly misunderstood your sentence as "...has apologized TO Bryan Adams..." and didn't catch your drift until I watched the linked video :)
This blows my mind! I'm a Swede and have missed this record. Björn Skifs is wow before this and as a retro computer fan he has risen to levels no one can imagine!
Oh yeah, lutfisk & shrimp open-faced sandwich! Sorry, I was just trying to find a silly "stereotypical" Swedish thing, and it seemed to me that putting lutfisk on top of something else Swedish would make it really Swedish. Like how I ride a moose to get some maple syrup poutine here in Canada.
Hello. Is it possible to have variables in basic c64. the interpreter took into account more characters. than 2 or 3... that are taken into account. when executing the program? I wonder if it would be a simple interference in the code. or more difficult... best regards.
That limit of 2 (significant) character variable names is very deeply embedded in the BASIC and it would be a fair bit of work to extend it unfortunately.
Your comment made me realize I didn't explain that well! Pressing Shift+Commodore switches between the two character sets built into the Commodore 64. The default one is the "graphic" character set, with upper case letters and when shifted, the graphic characters (like the spade symbol on A). The other character set is the "mixed" or "lowercase" set that has lower case letters by default, and when shifted, upper case letters. So switching sets like that instantly converts all the graphic symbols into their uppercase equivalents.
Does anybody still do falsetto (I think that's what it's called?) like in that Baby Come Back song? The guy from Zebra did it all the time, and Michael Stipe of R.E.M. brought it out occasionally but not on any of their radio friendly stuff if I'm remembering right ("Burning Hell" is the first example that popped into my head). I'm kind of a music nerd and try not to be a snob, but I just don't keep up with modern stuff very well. Love the intersection of music and C64 nerdery with these videos. :)
I remember being shocked by Bruce Cockburn's falsetto in "Beautiful Creatures" recently, but I just looked it up and that was from 2006 :) I still listen to a fair bit of new music but I don't think it's very mainstream, and it seems most of it has women vocalists, so I don't really have any modern falsetto examples to suggest. I hope somebody's still doing it somewhere! :)
@@8_Bit I had to look up Beautiful Creatures, and wow I was *not* expecting him to go there that soon, that easily, or that often in that song! Thanks!
Awesome Easter egg at the end showing me my name in Petscii: "❤─L|| |_━━/ " ...wish Unicode had better backward compatibility with it though! Gonna keep my eye out for more Petscii secret messages. Thanks Robin!
I still have that record on vinyl :) The 11 y/o me actually figured that out back in the 80:s recognizing the BASIC connection with IF.. THEN.. and decoded the PETSCII with the help of the keyboard on my C64 bread bin. Thanks for this trip down memory lane, Robin! I had totally forgot this. :)
Can confirm, Björn Skifs has been a popular artist and performer (plays, musicals, TV., film, stand-up comedy, you name it) since the sixties and is a bona fide cultural icon.
18:00 You assume correctly! It just says the store doesn't accept returns if the seal has been broken. The 39:- on the front is the price, for 39 Swedish Crowns (an album is close to 200 SEK there days, for reference). If the price is in "cents" (öre) it's written as - :50 (although we got rid of öre as a minted denomination some years ago, prices using öre are still commonplace, they just get rounded to nearest 1 Crown at the register). The dash before or after the colon is really just a shorthand for one or more zeroes, (39:- instead of 39:00 or -: 50 instead of 0:50) but I imagine most Swedes just see the colon and dash as a kind of currency symbol like £ or $.
Minor currency tangent there. 😊
The amounts look like a time. Gives a whole new meaning to "time is money".
I was looking for this. Thanks
"they just get rounded to nearest 1 Crown at the register" - So, first they use deceiving prices like 199.99 to trick you into thinking it's "less than 200" and then they charge you 200 anyway? What a scam! 🙂
@@mhausb6436 The game is rigged! Although you can save _up to 49 öre_ (it rounds down, too, and it's just the total which is rounded, not individual items) which is like... 5 US cents!
@@TaramiBedona And I hear you rarely use cash in Sweden anyway, so it's probably no big deal.
Neat. My friends and I used to write secret messages in school using Runic from our Ultima manuals. Never thought about using PETSCII characters. Although on paper it would probably be hard to tell the difference between some of the line characters.
On paper, it would definitely be hard to tell the difference between many characters, but the good news is that once you make mental notes of the minor differences in positioning, then you'll be able to tell the difference between a bit better.
"My friends and I used to write secret messages in school using Runic from our Ultima manuals" is the best sentence I'll read all week. I love RUclips comments!
We listened to this record in the mid 80's in my hometown in Sweden. I think my brother bought the record. Since I later got a Commodore 128 in the late 80's I recognized the symbols and decrypted the message. Thank you for reminding me about it and I'm so glad that someone else also knows about this hidden feature ❤️
As a Swede I appreciate this episode. Björn Skifs is a living legend in Sweden. I had no idea that he was into C64.
Positive and logical message. :)
Trivia: Hooked on a feeling was a cover of the song by B. J. Thomas, who also wrote 'Raindrops keep falling on my head' - great songs!
Å is pronounced like the vowel in 'lord'
Ä is pronounced like the vowel in 'bear'
Ö is pronounced like the vowel in 'earl'
hmm. B J Thomas was a performer of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" but the song was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David
"Hooked on a Feeling" was written by Mark James and to confirm the other commenter, "Raindrops keep falling on my head" was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. BJ Thomas was an extremely underrated artist IMO. Great voice and presentation.
@@keithparker1346 I see. Well, B. J. Thomas was the original singer hired by the writers in both cases. And his voice is a reason they were (original) hits. Not the same as recording a cover of a famous song and hoping for it to hit the charts again!
We are supposed to build on the shoulders of giants, not replace them or diminish them. ;)
And embrace originality. Regarding 'suede'. 1784! -> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can%27t_Help_Falling_in_Love
Random bit of trivia: Who had a first hit of Red Red Wine INB4 UB40? :)
The blue seal reads: Once the seal is broken, the item may be exchanged, not returned, if it was faulty when bought. Not an easter egg.
Why did I watch this just before lunch? Now I really want a nice sandwich!
Great video Robin! I enjoyed the details on the music. I loved the guardians movie but I guess didn’t remember any details on that cover song.
It is pretty fascinating how Commodore 64 / PET things end up on albums like you’ve shown.
Thank you for making the effort to spell Björn (my name too) with an "Ö". It's worth a couple of beers. Cheers mate.
Thank you Björn! :)
@@8_Bit The letter "ö" is prononunced like the French -eux, if you feel the need to show off your Swedish sometime :)
What a nice video, thank you! Love the hint to C65 / MEGA65 as well 😊
Instant click! I love your videos about hidden messages!
**EDIT**
03:50 Petra? I listened to that in my youth when I barely understood English. The songs are stuck in my mind and today I can "decode" the lyrics wich I mostly misheard then.
I absolutely enjoyed watching this video!
Thank you so much for this great video! Every second was pure fun, entertainment and education.
You are one of a kind.
Greetings from germany
The message on the blue sticker tells that if the sticker is broken the record can still be returned if the record was already broken when opening it up.
Im from sweden! Long time viewer. Love Björn. Hes also a funny guy.
I watched Crossroads 3 days ago. Great movie, especially for fans of the blues! It was directed by Walter Hill (The Warriors).
Lovely video, thank you very much indeed. SIR.
That was really interesting video. Enjoyed that. Thanks!
The producer on that record, Claes von Geijerstam has also had a long and varied career. I've seen him DJing :P
claes af geijerstam!
@@ExperimentIV Clabbe to you and me
Awesome video, Robin! What a cool find after all these years! OOGA-CHAKA!
I describe Crossroads as The Karate Kid with guitars - and the Karate Kid
This movie made me love the Blues and made me a fan of Robert Johnson
Ooga Chaka was not originated by Blue Swede. It was actually taken from Jon King's UK cover. So....technically...this could be called a cover of a cover as it borrows it's most infamous hook from a cover.
He’s checking his fingernails for dirt.
Wow, thanks for the great story Robin.
Rather than think of a sad Björn nursing the clearly misguided idea he might again capture lightning in the same bottle, I'm going with the image of him in the kitchen. That bit really made the whole video pay off for me. :)
Awesome finding. 😊
Philips P2000T 8 bit homecomputer had a similar graphics caracter set. That computer shared the graphics chip with a teletext decoder because this was the only way to use (character based) graphics on teletext.
BTW "magervalp" translates to "the skinny puppy" :-) 01:29
Yes, I think that may have been his favourite Canadian band at the time of choosing that handle :)
I wonder if there are any hidden uses of MouseText anywhere!?
That was an amazing discovery
wow, he had some real song-writing royalty on that album!
Interesting tidbits - since you mentioned KISS, it's interesting that Bryan Adams/Jim Vallance also wrote songs for KISS - including "War Machine", which sounds nothing like an Adams/Vallance song :D Also, Eric Carr (drummer for KISS until his death in 91) has a co-write on "Don't Leave Me Lonely" on the Cuts Like a Knife album (and although he was just given a co-write, it's pretty clear he came to them with the complete song and they just changed it a bit).
ruclips.net/video/ZTWHA9abaWs/видео.html - live in Rio to ~200000 people, with Eric Carr on drums and Vinnie Vincent on guitar, who used to play with Dan Hartman (ruclips.net/video/jW-OfaiBs9k/видео.html) and later started Vinnie Vincent's Invasion, which morphed into the band Slaughter
ruclips.net/video/IYNJMsaAlW0/видео.html - Bryan Adams doesn't remember the words :)
The music industry is very incestuous ;)
You could always make the C65 happen again with the Mega 65.
You pronouced Björn's last name very well :)
Ö is somewhat similar to the English sound ‘i’ in the word ‘bird’. Or ‘u’ in the word ‘fur’. Or ‘ea’ in the word ‘heard’.
Oh yeah Robin. Petra's version is Awesome!
The credits music sounds great at 1.5x speed.
Yeah, I had to watch this video at 1.5x speed too and skip forward a few times. I normally like Robin's stuff but he talks so slowly and waffled on way too long. 26 minutes to reveal two sentences he could have read off the key caps is too much.
Nice find.
What was that song at the end though?
Just something I recorded some years ago. I wish I had a more on-topic song to play, but I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't de-monetize or copyright strike the video.
@@8_Bit that's cool. It was a beautiful piece! ❤️
"Hooked On A Filling..." 🤣
Nice!
Well, doing something amourous for first time generally only happens once...
Yeah, but it leads me one problem when I press Shift for programming as usual habit :>
Rodney Higgs :) Everyone Loves Rodney Higgs...
Very close to the truth, but more exactly that text said that if that seal was broken the record could only be exchanged/returned IF there was a problem with it that existed before the purchase.. (Back when corporations didn't SAY that they refused all returns and hoped that people would accept it even if it was a manufacturing defect that was the cause: They have no legal right to refuse accepting a valid service request if it is them who sold a deficient goods)..
(I first thought I'd try to do a more literal translation, but that became a BIT of a mess, and I couldn't help thinking that.. "återtas".. would kind of become: åter = back/re- .. Tas "gets taken".. so.. return IS the word for what the customer would do, and this is kind of what the store would be doing when they.. accept a return.. . The problem was I couldn't find a good English word for it, until I found the best.. it doesn't mean the same, but seriously.. "Backsies".. since/after the seal has been broken, exchanges and backsies only if there was a fault in the item by the time of purchase)
I really hope the sandwich he made wasn't a lutfisk-räkmacka... or rather, if it was, I sure hope that isn't the sandwich he'd try to recreate. I would question his sanity! (It would be better than a surströmming-räkmacka though.)
haha, I had to look up surströmming - very smelly!! :)
Nooo its not pronounced o... Its an ö
Then death metal hit, and the Swedes showed the world how it’s done.
Not death metal exactly, but Björn Skifs could totally show up on a Katatonia album. That would, in fact, be awesome.
@@TaramiBedona Katatonia certainly USED to be a death metal band. Now they are a different kind of awesome.
muy b.
I rarely leave negatives on a retro channel but this? Robin? I hold you in high regard as it applies to your knowledge and practice with the C64 and related machines. I believe your familiarity with everything C64 is unmatched. Do you suggest that you couldn't simply look at those characters and do the translation in your head?! I think you could. I think you probably did!
But to go through all of the "who is this band and the others bands and artists who wrote or covered the songs this guy and his band got famous for?" It's almost as if you were trying to make this video longer than it needed to be.
Couldn't you have just typed in the message without making it a print statement? Of course you could. But then you wouldn't have that "voila!" moment when doing the display character shift.
While I am amazed and enthralled by your coding expertise and the way you go about optimizing things, I feel like this video was an enormous waste of time... even yours.
Sorry you feel that way. I'm genuinely interested in everything I put in this video; I had a lot of fun listening to this record and looking into all the song writers, I actually encouraged viewers to jump ahead to the next chapter if they're not into these sorts of details, and I always take the time to make a chapter index for the viewer who might want to jump ahead or skim the contents.
I also care as much about the potential meaning of the hidden/extended title just as much as the decoding, and all that context I give earlier in the video directly contributes to my suggestion of what it means. It all ties together: it's a story. And it's one I was oblivious to until I explored all the avenues and connected the dots. I would have found it very unsatisfactory to just convert PETSCII graphics to a string of English words, read it out, and said "thanks for watching."
As for the length, it's the shortest video I've released since September 2022, so I dunno. I research and plan the video, I shoot the video, I edit the video, and that's the length it is. I don't target any particular length.
@@8_Bit S'arrite though... I love all of the OTHER videos and have been subscribed for a very long time. I still imagine you saw the petscii and immediately coverted it to alpha characters in your head. I think you're THAT smart.
@@erroneus00 I only knew about half of them :) The card symbols, quarter-circles, "L" right angles and slashes are easy. It's the straight vertical and horizontal lines that are difficult to tell apart / memorize.
He looks like an older Kyle Rittenhouse. SELF DEFENSE IS NOT A CRIME!
He really does!
@23:45 "Try lutefisk at your own luterisk" ;)
I just hope the music doesn't get this demonetized, as people have complained about it happening on clips that short, but that is a good song.
Yes, I hope so too. I wish I could have played longer clips but it's too risky.
Yay! Björn Skifs! ❤ I recommend the song "When The Night Comes" (With Björn Skifs, not with Joe Cocker, not the same song) to people speaking English or Canadian.
Never knew Björn was a C64 nerd. 😊
I'm just realising now that I always read "Blue Swede" as "Blue Suede", and I'm really not sure why.
I straight up thought it was Blue Suede, and I always thought of the previous name as “Blue Blues” rather than the piece of clothing.
Probably because I heard the names before I could read them:)
(And I grew up in Sweden so heard a ton of Björn Skifs in Swedish as well.)
I'm pretty sure that most American DJs pronounced it "swayed" and just ignored the spelling. The same thing happened with Bachman-Turner Overdrive, which is pronounced "Backman". But hey, if they're playing your music, you don't complain.
I saw an interview with Björn Skifs right after Guardians of the Galaxy caused Hooked on a feeling too be a hit again. When he said that "It happened again! To that same song. It's crazy!"
Oh, if I had found that interview while researching this that would have been the perfect way to close this video!! It did "happen again" but not how he expected it :) Thanks for letting me know.
I didn't realize that the 70s version of Hook On a Feeling was a Swedish band. It was a staple of radio when I was a kid in the 80s and I always just thought it was Neil Diamond or something, lol.
The Outro just nails it.
Thanks, Robin.
Boys will be boys was also covered by Dennis DeYoung, formerly of the Chicago area rock band Styx.
Also the songwriting Duo of Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance also wrote music when they are just up and coming artists for the Vancouver area rock band Prism, who are being inducted into the Canadian Rock and Roll Hall of Fame pretty soon.
You mentioned that Bryan Adams music is no longer included on Canadian content anymore because he wouldn't became a tax Exile in switzerland.
I recently got addicted to song The Arbiter from Chess sung by Bjorn Skifs. I'm also an ABBA addict
Fellow ABBAnatic here. The Arbiter is a great song with a very 80s video clip! I like how the lyrics mention "I'll be watching all 64"... Bjorn must've been a real C64 fan 😆
Skifs was/is also an actor. I remember years and years ago my dad and I watched a movie starring Björn Skifs. At one point his character has to come up with a fake name for himself when put on the spot, and he comes up with the absolute beauty of "Rutger Jönåker", which sounds both ultra-Swedish and ultra-fake at the same time (the person he tells the lie to says later in the movie "I looked it up; there's not a single Rutger Jönåker in all of Sweden"). My dad and I being Norwegian thought it was such a hilarious name that we've called Skifs "Rutger Jönåker" ever since.
On the blue sticker: Once the seal has been broken, the product may be replaced if it was defective at the time of purchase. G. R. S.
Good job on Skifs (though most dialects would use a voiceless palatal-velar fricative: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sj-sound ). Ö in Björn is pronounced like EA in earn or early
Björn Skifs has done quite a bit of comedy over the years as well. In one of my favorite skits he did he comes out on scene to some really nice big band-type music, he waits for his moment .. then starts singing to the music "I have a great melody!", then the music abruptly stops and he says ".. but unfortunately no lyrics.".
It's hilarious because Swedes at the time were primed to know that when there was music and he got on stage, there would be lots of singing.
(I learned much later that many of the really funny skits I saw Swedish comedians do turned out to be translations of American/British skits, and I'm sure this was ripped off as well .. but it worked so well partially because it was Skifs).
Swedish? Like the Majestik Møøse?
A møøse once bit my sister...
The 17:57 mark reads:
"Once the seal has been broken the product will be replaced/refunded if there has been any fault with the product at the point of sale"
Yeah... I am Swede...
You could have treated the Petscii stuff as a substitution cipher aswell... it means that if you know the English language good enough you could have done a frequency analysis and figure out what it would read that way... :-)
3:40 I know Russ Ballard for "Voices": ruclips.net/video/pqKD-aTckE8/видео.html
7:48 The Canadian government has apologized for Bryan Adams on several occasions: ruclips.net/video/gTuQOmgl_Z4/видео.html
9:31 Would have saved a lot of trouble if they'd just used plain ASCII + 33 graphic characters.
I don't remember hearing "Voices" before, but I like it!
I briefly misunderstood your sentence as "...has apologized TO Bryan Adams..." and didn't catch your drift until I watched the linked video :)
You, quite literally, rock.
The less we say about Eric Clapton the best 😅I do love all these hidden record programs.
really appreciate your research and covering of this gem, being a Suede and all :D
This blows my mind! I'm a Swede and have missed this record. Björn Skifs is wow before this and as a retro computer fan he has risen to levels no one can imagine!
Example of how important an original keyboard is for anything interactive.
After seal is broken, exchange -or return - of product if it was already something wrong with it at time of purchase.
If you pronounce the Ö in Björn like the U in Burn, you get very close to how we say it. Super fun video!
The font on the back of the sleeve reminds me of the large font you could make using the ASCII. Maybe on purpose?
I enjoyed the deep dive on the song writers, their backgrounds and the Elvis tie-in. Nice work!
PETSCII is my "animated gif". I love putting those characters in a loop.
Really cool idea, both for album Easter Egg and a YT video.
That songs also in pulp fiction
Genius of hidden things discovery!
god, i need a copy of if… then…
björn skifs is so good!
That is great.
Were you trying to say lutfiskräkmacka? Also, eww.
I think that's exactly what I was trying to say :) A lutfisk (open-faced?) sandwich?
@@8_Bit räka means shrimp
Oh yeah, lutfisk & shrimp open-faced sandwich! Sorry, I was just trying to find a silly "stereotypical" Swedish thing, and it seemed to me that putting lutfisk on top of something else Swedish would make it really Swedish. Like how I ride a moose to get some maple syrup poutine here in Canada.
Hello. Is it possible to have variables in basic c64. the interpreter took into account more characters. than 2 or 3... that are taken into account. when executing the program? I wonder if it would be a simple interference in the code. or more difficult... best regards.
That limit of 2 (significant) character variable names is very deeply embedded in the BASIC and it would be a fair bit of work to extend it unfortunately.
I would have pooped myself if the hidden message was “ARE YOU KEEPING UP WITH THE COMMODORE”
How did you know to press the shift & commodore keys to decode it? Interesting!😅
Your comment made me realize I didn't explain that well! Pressing Shift+Commodore switches between the two character sets built into the Commodore 64. The default one is the "graphic" character set, with upper case letters and when shifted, the graphic characters (like the spade symbol on A). The other character set is the "mixed" or "lowercase" set that has lower case letters by default, and when shifted, upper case letters. So switching sets like that instantly converts all the graphic symbols into their uppercase equivalents.
@@8_Bit thanks for the explanation!
It's pronounced "byurn".
Sorry! We always hear the "Beorn" pronunciation here, I guess due to its English connection with Tolkien and bears, etc?
Ey! Thank you for the shout out. :D
Thank you again for bringing this to my attention! In addition to the PETSCII, it's been fun to listen to. Some great '80s sounds and songs.
Does anybody still do falsetto (I think that's what it's called?) like in that Baby Come Back song? The guy from Zebra did it all the time, and Michael Stipe of R.E.M. brought it out occasionally but not on any of their radio friendly stuff if I'm remembering right ("Burning Hell" is the first example that popped into my head). I'm kind of a music nerd and try not to be a snob, but I just don't keep up with modern stuff very well.
Love the intersection of music and C64 nerdery with these videos. :)
I remember being shocked by Bruce Cockburn's falsetto in "Beautiful Creatures" recently, but I just looked it up and that was from 2006 :) I still listen to a fair bit of new music but I don't think it's very mainstream, and it seems most of it has women vocalists, so I don't really have any modern falsetto examples to suggest. I hope somebody's still doing it somewhere! :)
@@8_Bit I had to look up Beautiful Creatures, and wow I was *not* expecting him to go there that soon, that easily, or that often in that song! Thanks!
I see this fact was added to Wikipedia in 2019
I am so happy you found this. Loved that album.
What the hell are those emojis?
@@mirabilis
@@aresaurelian wut
Neat one Robin.
Petra? II didn't know they recorded this song. listened to two or three of their albums in the 80s, but didn't have access to their older albums.
Yes, it was on their 1977 album "Come and Join Us". It's got a really epic intro.
Amazing how you find all these things. Great detective work robin!
Thanks, though this one was thanks to a great tip from a viewer.
Awesome Easter egg at the end showing me my name in Petscii: "❤─L|| |_━━/ " ...wish Unicode had better backward compatibility with it though! Gonna keep my eye out for more Petscii secret messages. Thanks Robin!