8-Bit Fun Testing Commodore and Atari Computers
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- Опубліковано 15 жов 2024
- My friend wasn't sure how many of his old computers were still functioning so we test them in this video. We also wax nostalgic about computing in the 80's and I try to program an Atari 800 game in BASIC from memory.
Download the smash hit game I programmed here! github.com/ben...
That video cable might be a chroma-luma cable, if you just have the luma inserted it would display as monochrome in a composite interface.
Now I'm just wondering if he also plugged the chroma pin into one of the audio jacks by mistake and why it didn't make a horrible noise when he did.
Opes, you beat me to it!
Not Jesus, @@ChrisKewl; just Ben and _Chris._
No matter how loud I was screaming this at the screen they would not listen to me.
Hahaha, @@bmmcwhirt! It was totally obvious to us, huh?
Nice to see the "regrettable acting" continues on!
FYI: The TI-99/4A has a 16-bit Texas Instruments TMS9900 CPU, not the Z80.
And it was the first 16-bit home computer... Knee-capped back to 8-bits, but it is a 16-bit CPU.
@@MrWaalkman Kneecapped by a not very good implementation of BASIC out of the box, and the Extended BASIC, while good, wasn't that easy to find (at least here in the UK)
old pc specs can be confusing but I'm not gonna lie and say I wasn't triggered by that mistake. It's funny though, a TI-99/4A with a Z80 is basically the Coleco Adam....
Yeah, TI-BASIC was an interpreted language, which was itself written in another interpreted language. I think it ran at maybe 1/3 the speed it could have if it was written in assembly.
@@rog2224 Yeah, you are correct on that. Pity, it had great potential.
I've no idea, how in the 30 mins of this video, that the SX wasn't taken apart and fixed, lol
I sat watching this with itchy fingers.
Impressive how Ben 'smashed out' a program from memory....I can vaguely remember Basic (which was like a second mother tongue back then), but C++ has somehow overwritten that part of my brain - the moment one experiences guru meditation in real life us so humbling
Thanks for posting Ben!
The goal was to get through all the machines. The video is edited down from an afternoon of testing/etc. I wanted to know which worked as is and which needed work. Once we finished reviewing all the machines it was late enough in the afternoon that I decided to just wait with the SX-64 for another day. My goal is to have it fixed in time for VCF Midwest which isn't until fall of 2020 so I have time to get it fixed.
I have talked to Ben about shooting another video repairing the SX-64. We would do that at my workshop probably early spring.
@@kraftlab no worries mate! :)
I'll certainly be watching the repair video and am looking forward to it. You're a lucky man, owning a SX....I haven't physically seen one in years. Thanks for presenting it here on Ben's channel Chris. I hope you didn't take any offence to my comment because none was intended. :)
@@tedvanmatje None taken. Just giving background because 4 hours of work compressed down to a 30 minute video can't capture everything that happened or the context behind what we were doing.
I've appreciated all, well almost all, of the comments especially the ones filling in the details on the items we were not sure about.
Doesn't matter what show he's making, Ben just can't resist a song.
Ever.
The Atari 800 is an incredibly underrated computer these days. We have one in our collection that see's a ton of use for videos or just fun.
1) Do you know what the other cartridge slot was for?
2) Were there any games that required 4 joy sticks?
@@eugenetswong The other slot was mainly used for debugging/programming cartridges. I definitely remember an assembly language cartridge for it. So LEFT for applications/games; RIGHT for 'system utilities.' Only the 800 has the RIGHT slot.
@@xnonsuchx Excellent info. Thank you so much.
There were a few games for 4 joysticks, including a party quiz game that included buzzers that could use all 4 ports for 8(?) players.
@@eugenetswong Besides what others have said here, the Right Cartridge was mostly an idea that turned out to not be needed. The idea, loosely, was that if someone didn't have a Cassette drive, or a Disk drive, they could use that slot for things like application expansions for what was in the Left Cart slot. Or possibly for a battery-backed storage cartridge for things like high scores, that never got beyond someone's possible brainstorm. Mostly because prices on Cassette and Disk drives quickly decreased to the level that there was no longer any point in pursuing things to go in the Right Cart slot.
I just remembered a great experiment looking into how desert ants keep track of the long distances they travel searching for food. It turns out the ants each have a very consistent stride length and a kind of internal pedometer that counts exactly how many steps they've taken.
The researchers famously came to this conclusion by attaching stilts to the legs of some ants, shortening the legs of others, and leaving a third group unaltered. When traveling back to their nest after locating some food, the control group had no issue making it home.
However, the ants with longer strides than normal due to the stilts walked right past the nest and those with shortened strides stopped short thinking they had already arrived.
Muscle memory for typing arises from the consistent "finger stride" we come to expect between keys, and Ben typing on the Atari 800 is at the end of the day an ant on stilts 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜
Very interesting analogy.
I always loved how Atari Basic, for all its slow quirks, had such easy commands for joystick/paddles, sound and graphics. I had an Atari 800XL as my first computer and loved tinkering with its Basic.. then a year later I got a C64.. while it was the better machine (and i lived in a PAL region so got many of the later better games) It had the worst basic around with no commands to control anything except for cryptic PEEKs and POKEs... it was at that point i stopped programing
The story is Commodore paid just $50k for a perpetual Microsoft BASIC license in the PET days... then used it on millions of computers without updating, which is why the C64 needed to POKE everything instead of using custom commands.
I think they eventually re-upped and changed it with the 128.
14:52 OMG the FMV click and point stuff, amazing
That was hilarious, and I didn't even play Myst.
Now put an Incognito personality board in that Atari 800 and it becomes the most powerful Atari 8 bit computer. Compatible with all the later models, 1 MB of RAM, a harddisk on CF card, a RTC, your choice of several RAM configurations, OS, and Basic. You can get it at Lotharek's webshop in Poland. Never sell an 800, it is a miracle from 1979.
Like many fans today, I love my Atari 800 over the other models and admire the massive aluminum shield in this machine. Star Raiders also was so ahead of anything of the day. It's actually still fun to play today.
Using the old c64 power supplies without checking the voltages that it is outputting first makes me sad, so many chips needlessly killed. Also, the EA game seemed to be loading fine on the 1541, first it cycles through the colours, then it begins to flash from colour to color, then the title shows up.
Yes (sight) it hurts ...
Love 8 bit computers, I have a good bunch of them, is the best epoch of do-it-yourself computing. Repairing and restoring these machines is really fun and also playing old glories like Manic Miner or Pitfall makes a day. Hope to see more videos like this!
Also, as some others stated, you got the wrong cable, the one you're using is connected to PIN1 which is LUMA and you need one from PIN4 which is composite video.
As a final note, beware with the power supplies, they tend to overvoltage and fry the VIC and the CPU, I usually remove the regulation section from it and replace with a switching regulator, works like a charm.
I'm a C64 person, but Atari Basic is great!
Yes. I talked to Ben about this for a bit but it isn't in the video. I pointed out that the Commodore basic doesn't have all the commands for audio and video/etc. You had to use peeks and pokes for everything. Basically Commodore was too cheap to license a newer version of Basic and kept re-using the Basic they got for the PET.
On the other hand that meant that when C-64 coders moved onto Assembly and machine code they were more familiar with dealing with memory addresses and ROM calls instead of having had Basic as a crutch to do that for them.
I had both CBM 64 and Atari 800, give me the Atari every time much better machine
Clicked on this in my subscription feed thinking it was an 8-bit Guy video, and was surprised when Ben came on! XD
The c64 DID NOT use the 6502 !! It used the MOS 6510, which has additional IO Pins that are required on the C64 to work. So although all people keep saying these chips would be compatible, they were NOT.
For a moment I thought I was watching an Element14 video; they never check facts.
The problem is, it's still essentially a 6502 "core", with the extra IO port added.
In a similar way to people saying the Playstation 1 has an "R3000" CPU, when it's actually only part of a larger and much different chip.
Yes, I realise that, but if anyone is working on the C64 hardware at any level, and doesn't know the CPU isn't pin-compatible with a standard 6502, then they have bigger issues to worry about.
ie. it should be known to most people that the Atari 2600 uses a 6507, but they still often colloquially say a "6502".
Like if I'm going to be coding in assembler for the C64, I'm not going to say "6510 assembly", for example. It's just easier to call it a 6502.
But yes, people should really know the differences if they are working on the hardware.
@Kurt Pedersen No one cares about the extra pins, no one is trying or advocating swaping a 6510 for a 6502.. they care about the code... and the 6510.. runs 6502 code... its the same
I remember when I get my 1541 drive for Christmas. It took my C64 experience to another level. Although, being in the in the UK nobody else at school had one.. great days 👍👍
Same here. Had my C64 already and got the drive for Xmas. That was so cool. Finally no tape rewinding any more
8bitguy did a video on this and ever since I came to know this beauty, I fell in love with it. Unfortunately in Turkey it didn't have a release :(
Techmoan did a great video with a European PAL version...
MetalJesusRocks and some other good retro channels also have an SX.
I remember seeing old Commodore 64's, Amiga's, even Commodore monitors for sale in Doğubank Iş Hanı in Eminönu back in the early 90's so yes they were released in Turkey in limited numbers. Just do a search on Sahibinden and yoi should come across some.
@@tolgahk84 Commodore 64s and Amigas were common place, but that portable model I don't think it had a release. Izmir had a shop that sold only Commodore but its long gone
Looks like you're using a video lead designed for a Commodore monitor that takes separate luminance and chrominance on the yellow and red leads. You need a different video lead for composite.
Thanks for the input. I was originally going to bring my Commodore monitor but decided against it at the last moment. I think I even had the right cable along with me but didn't think to try it. It has been so long since I used these machines that I've forgotten most of this stuff. Also I went from a C-64 to a C-128 then Amiga so It was like starting over each time.
@@kraftlab It doesn't help they used the colours we now associate with composite video and stereo audio.
yups, you need to use an Svideo input on the LCD, or get a composite cable.
@@DaveCurran Yeah, it is funny. It is not in the video Ben posted but there was a point where I basically said the C64 is not stereo so why does the cable have Red/White connectors. We were kind of rushed to get through everything though so I just moved on. As I said, I even had the correct cable with me so if it had occurred to me we could have just swapped it out.
Also dangerous to plug original brick power supply without testing as when bad they send unsafe voltage.
Using the same cable on 4 different C64s and 3 different screens and still not figuring out where the fault is...
I would absolutely love to aquire a c64 again! Haven’t had one since I was a kid...it was my first computer and changed my life forever!
I bought one in october 2019 in unknown condition. Thanks to youtube I knew how to clean it up and build a power cable. It powered up, but had only 1% of the ram it should. I replaced the ram and got a 1541 Ultimate 2+ cartridge that lets me put a 16gb flash drive on it for games. They actually still make games. Sam's journey is amazing! It was released in 2017. It either needs to be a PAL system or have a ram expander though. However the 1541 U2+ doubles as a ram expander as well. I love having a C64 again. Worth every penny.
Ashley Williams outstanding! I made notes on what you said and will actually seek one out again soon. I think you just re-lit the 🔥
@@chanelnumba_5 there are plenty of youtube channels that can help you get it running. Jan beta has many c64 repairs. The 8 bit guy helped me with the aesthetics. He only recently did his first c64 but his vic 20 video helped me make it look good. The case is the same on both computers. Lol
@@awilliams1701 If you have a pc running windows mac or linux, the 8bit guy made a custom version of the C64 basic language and has an emulator. Its called Commander 16
@@MrDaniellong1970 I'm familiar with it. I may even purchase one when they finish.
FYI: Commodore made two video outputs. If you own one cable with 3 RCA connectors, they did they S-Video type method of which one connector is the Chroma (color analog signal) and the other is Luminance (light-intensity & composite sync [ horizontal & vertical]). It was for Commodore's 1902 monitors and 1084's & compatibles. A switch in the back of the monitor was needed to be turned on for the YUV video. The other cable used just the standard video which had a more dull video output (2 RCA connectors).
I did that with the a C64 I picked up a couple weeks ago. Didn't take me long too realize it was a chroma luma cable.
Yeah, you beat me to it!
Hey Ben,
You guys should talk to 8-bit Guy on UA-cam or Facebook as he could likely fill in any gaps you might be missing. He’s a huge 8-bit gamer and especially a Commodore fan. He’s working on building his own new age 8/16-bit computer as we speak. It’s called the Commander X-16.
The TI-99/4A actually used a TMS9900 16-bit CPU rather than a Z-80.
Thank you. I was just getting ready to post that.
@@pdfogle0529 Ditto. )
Impressive that Ben could program the beginnings of a game in Atari Basic from memory and so quickly. I would have to have looked at a reference after all these years. The Atari 800 had a high resolution (256/320/384 x 192-240) bitmap graphics mode, as well. So redefining the character set wasn't necessary to get high resolution. However, it was much more memory efficient, ofc. And the variable names could be up to 120 characters long.
The built-in full screen editor in the OS (an incredible rarity in 1979!) made the Atari BASIC the best standard BASIC to program in even past at least the release of the C64 3 years later.
Still the bad acting we all loved from back then, nice! :D
Damn does this bring back memories! I owned a Commodore 64 (that's 64K!!) and graduated to an Amiga 500. From really floppy discs to the 3.5 inch floppies. My son was using Apple II in school. Awesome for the times. Thanks guys.
I had a similar issue with my C64s on Composite. Here's a Backwards way I found to get colour out of a Chroma-Luma cable...
1. Employ a RCA switch
2. Have another Console hooked up and boot the TV with that console running
3. Boot C64 and switch to the Computer whilst your Console is still running. You can turn off the Console after the Commodore is showing BASIC in full colour
Bit of a process Ben, but all you can do is have a go. Thanks for the Video and hope you enjoy the rest of your day
You plugged in using an old C64 power supply ???...
Savages.
I was cringing so bad when he did that.
Never thought anyone would mention the TI-99/4A. I'm working on integrating a mini-ITX system inside one. I love the keyboard on it. Love your videos, Ben! Always a fan :)
Blasphemy!
@@Okurka. Haha well hey it's a fun way to repurpose an incredibly outdated piece of beautiful technology and achieve a very practical form factor.
I grew up on a Commodore VIC-20 and 64. Didn't get Atari... Still have some Commodore stuff in storage today.. Great computer for its time.
Did I got confused with an 8-bit guy video? Yes. Did I was pleased when I saw Ben? Again, yes.
Pretty sure the C64 used the 6510, a slightly modified 6502. Must be nice to make your own chips (aside from creating a Superfund site).
Ben, I though I should let you know, the TI-99/4A didn't have a Z80 Processor. It used the TMS9900, which was a 16-bit processor. The reason why many thought it was lacking was not due to the capabilities of the machine. But that Texas Instruments took every action they could to prevent the use of machine code by the programmer. This left the user to either use basic programs, or the solid state cartridges which were not exactly the greatest games of the time. And were limited in size. The video chip on the 99/4a was the TMS-9918, the same used for the MSX computers, which is a very capable chip when comparing against the VIC-II.
I was about to say to Ben that I thought the TI had a 16bit CPU but Ben was pretty sure himself so I let it slide. The TI wasn't really bad, just kind of clunky. It had some great games too like Tunnels of Doom. We played that one a lot back in the day.
@@kraftlab, the 99 was a fantastic machine for the day, Spec-wise. If TI hadn't crippled it by locking it out with running machine code and the problematic GROMs it would have been everything the MSX was. Sadly, they shot themselves in the foot. And because of that, it faded away fairly quickly.
Lode Runner's digging mechanic was based on games from Japan, the most famous, but not first of which, esp in the US, was Space Panic. There was an unauthorized clone for the Apple II called Apple Panic (which was ported to the Atari 800 with the same name). The first such game was prototyped on an Apple II (which were rare in Japan).
I had an 800 and Star Raiders as a kid. Never could figure out how to do anything but aimlessly fly thru space
In the mid 90's someone gave me an atari 800. No cartridges or manuals. We wouldn't get internet for several more years. Since I couldnt figure it out I threw it away. I wish I hadn't.
Great video, guys! The best Atari 800 was the one with the Atari 800 sticker not crooked!
A Z80 takes around 2.5 to 3x as many clocks to execute equivalent instructions as a 6502/6510 so a 1 MHz C64 has very similar throughput to a 3 MHz Z80 machine. Can't just compare clock speeds! :)
I can image how much fast my Atari 800 was with its 6502C clocked at 1.79MHz.
@@bjbell52 The Atari systems share the bus with the video chip and the video chip frequently steals cycles from the CPU for graphics fetches. It's hard to get exact numbers, but depending on the video mode over 40% of the time the CPU is halted, making the effective clock speed much lower. On the C64 the processor and video chip share the bus on alternate half cycles, and much less frequently does the VIC-II need to steal the 6510's cycles as a result.
@@8_Bit Yes, I'm aware of the antic stealing cycles. I'm also aware that one can turn the graphics off by poking 559,0 and restore it with poking 559,34.
Here's one you may not know. The engineers that designed the serial I.O. port of the Atari 800 also designed the USB port.
Ouch, I feel your pain. I took my my Amiga A1200, an A600, and an Aquarius to Phreaknic this year. The A600 decided that this was the year that it is going to insist on a re-cap, so it was sidelined. And we couldn't get the video from the Aquarius to work with my monitor. The A1200 worked just fine though, in all of it's Blizzard 1260 glory. :)
I was only showing them off to my buddies so no big deal. :)
Small Atari trick I still remember:
POKE 622,1 [return]
GR.0 [return]
then make it scroll something on the screen (like list a program, or make few dozen prints)... fun days
Is that your workshop? That's one hell of a workshop, the element14 one has nothing on this.
And you said you were a *former* youtuber when we met at the Midwest Computer Festival. These videos since then say otherwise. ;)
I knew I remembered seeing something from you since the end of the Ben Heck Show. Anyway, cheers from someone who used to own a C64 a long time ago with a third-party disk drive.
I'm a former *professional* UA-camr. Now I just do it when I feel like it and give zero f**ks :)
The I/O chip in the VIC-20 didn't support hardware serial because of a bug in the MOS VIA, so it couldn't handle the IEC handshake, so the routines were bit banged on GPIO by the processor, which was much slower. The C64 CIA COULD have supported hardware serial, but it would have broken compatibility with the VIC-20 drives.
Which ended up being a mistake, because with the RAM available, a much larger share of C64's ended up equipped with drives than VIC-20's.
They didn't finally get hardware serial implemented until the C128, and that was sacrificed when running in C64 compatibility mode.
Set the 1571 to 8 and a 1581 (if lucky enough to have one) to 9.
Character corruption followed by black screen points to PLA (glue logic chip) dying in real time. There are modern replacements but a quick swap with the one in the breadbin could verify.
The C64 loading was so slow because it used a 1-bit asynchronous serial communication with handshaking, which was very stable but very slow.
From what I heard Commodore was going to use IEEE-488 parallel bus but the cables were expensive, so the downgraded to a serial bus (but otherwise the same) and were planning to use a shift register, but a bug on the VIC-20 hardware forced them to use an all software version. The C64 has the shift register but there was some other issue I don’t quite recall that caused them to stick to the all software version.
Because the bus pins were programmable, it is possible to parallelize a few bits, and if you ignore the protocol entirely, even more, but it may clash with other connected devices like the printer. Also the computer and disk clocks were slightly out of sync, but close enough that you could burst transfer data synchronously, although interrupts, if not disabled, could mess up the timing. This is why you saw so many fast loaders and some of the obscure ones would tell you to do things like turn off your printer.
I find it all fascinating.
We had the same problem on the Atari 800. Even though it did have a parallel port, it usually used the serial I.O. port for floppies, printers, modems, etc. . The funny thing was that the guys who designed the serial I.O. port went later on to help design the USB port.
That SX-64 could be a very simple fix. The reason the C64 disk loader is so slow is because they had already started manufacturing phase of C64 so the C64 couldn't be changed and if the loading routines were changed it would break compatibility with the old 1540 VIC disk drives or something possibly. Disk and tape turbo loaders you load into the C64 are common though so it isn't a massive issue, half the slow loading is down to insane copy protection routines..cracked PRG files don't take anywhere near that long as you will see in my many SX-64 realtime loading + waffle videos I made.
C-64 was my first computer. It seems that a good chunk of my brain has also been erased....cool video
I'd be more than happy to give that Atari 800 a good home.
You know: "Don't copy that floppy" ;-)
"Well this power supply is probably busted" *proceeds to plug it in and potentially fry components*
Check your voltages before you plug it in! Jeeze. I know you have a multimeter somewhere.
no joke and those things can go from working to I WILL KILL YOUR C64 in less than a second.
Atari XL and XE series power supplies share the same problem...thankfully they can be powered by a USB supply these days
I think Ben's 800 has a slightly brighter Case but that could just be my view and studio lightning.
Either way, seeing all those vintage machines being used by two fellow fans makes me smile 🤓
Also failing disk drives doesn't sound too strange to me, it could be the 1541 at our compute museum is set to drive 9 but when I tried to load SimCity on it, it wouldn't even load it after 15 minutes.
The cable probably only had the luminescence signal - quite a few old B&W monitors for the system used that.
Oh Ben, how I missed you from the olden days. You should have way more subs!
Yes it's true, should be on par with The 8-Bit Guy!
It's sad that the current generation has less of a learning and exploration experience into the computing side of all the gaming technology available.
I was too young for the 8-bit Microcomputer era. My first computer was a Tandy 2000 followed by a Tandy 1000SX.
Doing this same thing on a C64 in BASIC would require an inordinate number of POKEs. Atari BASIC wins this round. ;-)
Also has DRAWTO, no need for loops or using PLOT 500 times. (And if you wanted, PEEK and POKE are still there for more fancy stuff like making sprites that take advantage of interrupts and whatever.)
To change the screen color command is "POKE 53281,X" X= 0 to 255 border command is "POKE 53280, X"
Jumpman was an awesome game. Miss those days
The TI-99-4/A had a 3 MHz 16 bit CPU (TMS 9900) but that was not the reason why the machine was so slow in Basic. The computer came with 16K of RAM which was all Video RAM. In base configuration it only had 256 bytes used by the system, and that's all.
The Basic Interpreter, which was itself interpreted p-code, had to communicate with the graphic chip to access the basic program and its variables.
This machine was the most circumvoluted architecture imaginable and all its drawbacks came from this strange construction. You can compare it to MSX1 which can be considered essentially a TI-99/4A with a Z80 and a nice basic. Graphic chip was the same and the sound chip was a little bit better.
oh man this is so awesome, this is vintage ben heck. loving this video
Are you selling the Granger Things shirts? Can they be purchased anywhere?
There are a bunch of CGA to VGA converters made for arcade machines that people apparently use for old PCs like this. Some as cheap as $20.
“It’s in black and white too.” I see two shades of blue, a little desaturated, but it looks right to me.
love it dude, that is, the trip down 8bit computers
The 1540 is so slow because it is so expensive that you only use it for storing texts from word processing and databases to handle your home finance. Games you either buy on cartridge, which means they start immediately, or load them from tape using a cheaper datasette. What you don't do on the VIC-20 is loading illegal copies of large games (32 kB and above) from disk into RAM. And the 1541 for the C64 is just a 1540 with some minor changes. Commodore fixed that with burst mode for the 1570 and the C128, but it was too late then.
The way he started the video, I thought Ben was gonna make the hx-64 portable 64 that retro recipes showed last week.
Are you using A/V cables? I have the same issue with the black and white some people online sell shitty cables that don't actually work or meant for the official commodore monitor croma/luma signals
I'm a Commodore owner that is laughing right now.
The oscars are going to be light this year guys, don't count yourselves out.
The man needs good sponsors.. he deserves it..
I think Atari and Commodore changed their business model.
Atari 8bits allow variables with VERY long names, actually. So like PLAYER1SCORE=0:PLAYER1SCORE=0
And it's all tokenized, so you're not wasting space. ;)
And using tokenized variables saved space over using numbers. You knew that a BASIC program was using up all available memory when it started with A0=0:A1=1:A2=A1+A1
Just FYI the problem with the SX-64 was probably the PLA went bad. It was either that or a bad RAM which is not as common on the SX because the power supply is better.
I used to love to program like this way back in the day...
I love the SX-64, I have 5 of them now!
That one time you know stuff Ben Heck doesn't. Mind blown!
I had an Atari 800 back in 1979. One 16K memory cartridge cost $250.
Atari Basic variable names can be 127 characters long with every character is significant. Also, Atari Basic will put the variable name into a table and assign it a one byte token that is used in the code. That way it doesn't use 127 characters every time you use it in a program. Indeed, Atari Basic actually compiles your source code into P code -> everything is tokenized and there isn't any need to parse and interpret the source code at run time.
Wtf, this is a Ben Heck video? I've been seeing the thumbnail in my feed for 2 days and kept thinking it was 8-Bit Guy and being like "I'll watch it later". Well, now it's Later and to my freaking surprise it Ben!
Do more of these please. God, the nostalgia.
Making this keyboard wireless would be an awesome episode for the Ben Heck Sh..... .....hum, nevermind 🤣
Fun Fact: The storage on the SX-64 can hold several TB.
Love the 'Grainger Things' t-shirt! Hopefully a few other people get it :)
OK, so then on that Atari, each RAM chip on the expansion card was 1K, not 1 bit or byte.
Interesting, that Atari model's default font looks, from here, just like some of the Commodore 8-bit models (PET, 64, 128, Plus/4, etc.).
There is a website around that analyzes various 8 bits default fonts. Cant remember the url. In short, the uppercase letters on the C64 are different. (Taller.) The Atari's upper case mostly fit into a 6x6 grid in the 8x8 character cell so that inverse video puts a consistent border around each character.
But the C64 appears to have copied the Ataris lower case characters.
1) Do you know what the other cartridge slot was for?
2) Were there any games that required 4 joy sticks?
Ahhh the good memories of the Commodore 64.
Lode Runner - Press CTRL-Z to turn off the screen wipe. Most important control of the game. :)
The one on the right is in better condition even with the sticker misaligned (yeah you switched them), yours needs retrobright too :D
"No computer's ever really gone" lol
Are you using the cable that outputs s-video through coax for the back connections of the 1701/-2 instead of the composite cable for VCRs and TVs? I'm 96% sure that's your problem!
Hey Ben! When are gonna get the long awaited Gigatron part 2?
They are sending me an updated ROM with MS BASIC so I'll probably wait til then.
Ben Heck Hacks awesome! Thanks for the reply, it’s an honour. Looking forward to more tear downs and hacks too, this is the best channel out there for that.
The TI did not have a Z80. It used Texas Instruments' own processor. The TI has a 16 bit GPU that's blazingly fast though!!
That JPG you posted on GitHub was exceedingly high resolution. I did a 960x540 screen grab and it's still clear.
Tell your friend it's never too late to be an Atari 8-bit fan!
When I was a kid the numbers returned for the stick in Atari Basic seemed stupid to me. A couple of years ago I was fixing a 65XE with one none working direction and it all made sense. 4 inputs on the PIA all with pullups, one never gets pulled low. new PIA and it worked.
the basic code brings back memories...
Great video and funny too! I am an old Atari guy. @Chris Kraft you still have that 800 for sale?
Who do I have to blow to get one of Ben's handheld mods?
Ben presumably?
So good laughs, thanks Ben.
Also amazing Kung Fu on the fly there!
I can't tell if that was a Red Letter Media reference or an actual Star Wars reference....