I used to do my English essays on Geos Write, and then print it all out on a hellishly noisy dot matrix printer with a blue ribbon. Used to drive my parents mental.
Did my final college marketing project with Geos Write. Text and graphs mixed together beautifully but I printed it on the Okidata color printer. The output could only be called “waxy”.
@@jaybrooks1098 The very first production Amiga computer was designed and produced by Commodore, the Amiga 1000. Amiga Corp (HiToro at first) developed the chipset prototype breadbin boards that was made into 'silicon' IC's for the Amiga by Commodore and MOS. Commodore bought Amiga Corp. in 1984 and realized the Amiga 1000 that was launched in mid 1985.
@@Great-Documentaries The Amiga 1000 case was designed and produced at Commodore. I've got myself a book with the case design drawing pictures. The chipset was of course pretty much developed at Amiga corp over the previous couple of years to working breadbin prototype state. Amiga 1000 was launched 23 july 1985 and was shipped to retail in September 1985. Of course not shipped to everywhere at first, here in Norway we has to wait to around summer 1986 to get a PAL version.
The Commodore 128 was the pinnacle of 8 bit computing. OK, the Apple might be for some but technically this thing was awesome and backwardly compatible with the 64. Great stuff..
Apple IIe uses a MOS 6502 which is basically owns by Commodore. Apple has no hardware technology....only until now in 2020 they start designing their own chip (with some ex staff from Intel i believe) and they still don't have the manufacturing capability. Commodore was the only company that has such capability back then from design to chip manufacturing. Hence the customised SID instead of another AY-39xx which is used by almost every other company.
For whatever reason youtube decided to play this video on autoplay... meanwhile I'm testing some code I just wrote on the 128D on my desk.. I still have 2 working ones, and one with some damage and known defects for spare parts.... Its still one of the nicest machines I ever owned.
Man, GEOS on the C64 takes me back. It really wasn't anything more than a curiosity, but just getting a GUI to show up on a computer like the C64 was a feat.
Back in the day, before there was email, I would write all my letters in GeoWrite. When it was time to relax with the game, I would play blackjack from inside GEOS as well.
c128 seemed like a good idea but it didn't get enough adoption to be useful. It was an odd machine. the z80 based CP/M mode was less than useful and there wasn't much 128 software other than GEOS 128 (the software in this demo was GEOS 64.. 128 would have run faster). So most people *did* run c128 in c64 mode.
@@justinhenryhaynes GeOS 128 was the killer app for the 128 I think. That alone must have made it worth it. It converted an 8 bit Home Computer into something that could compete with the PC and Macintosh for Office and graphics work, for a laughable price. And if you wanted to play games, wel..., then there always was that good 'ol C64 mode. Samples on the C128 revision of the SID chip didn't work properly though...
@@mtunayucer There was very little software that was written specifically for the 128. I had one. Never bothered using the CP/M mode. Friends told me there were compatibility issues. I did use GEOS quite a bit in 128 mode. Wrote quite a few documents with it, and had the Commodore dot matrix printer.
GEOS was a much better WYSIWYG than Windows. Loved it for word processing and game play. I remember having to write out complete games in machine code from magazines but it was well worth it. Plus, being able to create my own fonts was awesome.
Still, it makes sense to compare the design to that of an Amiga 500 since the Amiga is more familiar for most people. Plus 5-6 months release date gap is not THAT much, case design was clearly laid out by the same people at the same time, only the Amiga was a completely new groundbreaking machine and maybe saw its release a little bit delayed for some reason.
In order to use GEOS you need to make the GEOS 'work' disk (using a blank floppy, it's somehwere in GEOS the option to create the disk) that you can write to. The default GEOS disk can't be written to, used to use GEOS all the time. This was a nice 'blast from the past' for me, thank you so much!
Nice to see Geos running, though I would have liked to know if the 128 version could make use of the more capable hardware (more ram, advanced video modes). A detail : the Amiga 500 wasn't released before 1987. In 1985, it's the "Commodore Amiga" that was released, later renamed Amiga 1000.
+sautebroussailles Yup, my brain got addled. Still the 1000, is pretty much the same thing as the 500. GEOS on the 128 does make use of that extra memory, and you really need it to make the most of the GUI
Cool, thanks for the info. I definitely need to dig up the old pal and see if I can try Geos with the help of my 1541 Ultimate II cartridge. Contiki would be nice too, if only I had a RR-Net network card...
5 years late... but yes it does. You also want a 17xx ram expansion module (as it has a DMA controller which really helps GEOS quite a bit.. not to mention having a large ramdisk) ua-cam.com/video/qw9gucO1AgQ/v-deo.html
I used to run GEOS on my 64 with a light pen. It was MUCH more responsive than the mouse or joystick. Holding your wrist and hand up to the screen for long periods with the light pen got tiring, but drawing was fun.
GEOS really comes into its own when you have a machine with expanded memory and an accelerator (like the CMD SuperCPU running at 20mhz). On a stock C128 it's a bit slow, but not unusable. A C128 with one of those SD card/floppy emulators _really_ makes a difference with GEOS! JW3HH
this was our family computer in the late 80s. great video, i only wish you had shown the big floppy disk being inserted into the drive, and to hear the whirring and clicking noise the drive made - just for nostalgia's sake
I loved my 128, i didn't have the newer 1571 diskette drive, but part of the reason I bought a 128 was because it was an easy upgrade from the Commodore 64. It played all my old C-64 games, but I could use the C-128's new BASIC graphics and sound commands. Plus, I could experiment with CP/M (by 1985, CP/M was in decline, but it was fun to experiment with just the same).
For Geos you really need a Ram Expansion and multiple drives. Then you can make Ram Drives and speed things up quite a bit. I only used the 128 mode for BBS calls and Word processing. Nearly everything else was in C64 mode.
I remember walking around Nichols when I was a kid. (Nichols was a very popular department store at the time.) . They had a giant electronics / computer section in our local store, and I remember my parents just letting me hang around there while they shopped. I wanted virtually anything computer related at the time, and the 128 was no exception. I wanted one of these SO bad :-) . Love those memories :)
Something I learned the hard way with my 128 is that the fuse for the power supply can blow. While it isn't commonplace, you want to look into spare fuses if possible.
Same as for the Amiga 500. It happend to me just after a few days of operation. I was young, had been working for a year to get my first own computer in 88, and this shocked me to tears. But we were soon able to find out, with some telephoning, what the cause was. When it happened the next time, I already had a substitude fuse in reach. :)
Had the same setup back in the 80's. Commodore 128 and disk reader 1571. Uses for games mainly but also for basic and logo. It was a big improvement for me because before that I had the commodore vic 20, which is the commodore 64's little brother. My friend were all playing ataris. Commodore was a real computer.
Couple geeky C128 notes: 2MHz was only available when in 80 column mode (128 mode only) because VIC (responsible for 40 columns) wasn't capable of running at that speed. Also, GEOS had a C128 version for high resolution mode, but I believe it may have required the C128D with 16K of video memory - though my memory might be wrong about that. I do recall that it was a much nicer version when I ran it on a 128D.
Johnmichael Monteith The C128 came with 16k of vid RAM and the c128D upgraded the vid RAM to 64k. I swapped my c128 for a c128D for that reason in addition the the fact that the 1571 disc drive was incorporated. As an added bonus all of the components powered by a single internal PSU. It really tied the package all together nicely with its Amiga 1000-esq profile.
Slight correction; when running in 40 column mode, the CPU only can run in 1MHz mode, not 2MHz mode. You need to turn off the VIC-II chip in order to run the CPU at 2MHz mode.
The motion of the mouse pointer suggests it's not the Amiga mouse. The Amiga mouse used quadrature signaling to indicate directions. What you're using appears to be a Commodore 1350 mouse which worked by emulating a joystick. Replacing the mouse with an actual joystick further cements my hypothesis. An actual Amiga mouse would have resulted in quite spastic mouse pointer movements, as I recall, unless you install a proper Amiga mouse driver for it.
The Commodore 1351 is a true proportional mouse and is the best input device for GEOS. That horrible Commodore 1350 mouse is really a joystick in disguise.
To use GEOS, you really needed an REU and a larger drive, like a 1581, or at the very least two 1541 drives. With just one drive, GEOS really wasn't worth the trouble. I used to like being able to print in fancy fonts and I had a couple different font disks for GEOS. One day I decided to print out samples of all the fonts in various sizes. Easier said than done, since the fonts needed to be on the boot disk and since you couldn't copy GEOS files with anything but GEOS, you had to swap disks about 2-3 times per file. It took hours, especially as GEOWrite seemed to have a mind of its own with regard to fonts and sizes, but I finally had samples of all the fonts printed out. The very next day my friend spilled his coffee on the printouts. There was no way in hell I was going to go through all that again. Really the only programs most people used GEOS for were GEOWrite and GEOPaint. Even then the most notable use for GEOPaint was converting MacPaint images to GEOPaint format. Using it to create anything from scratch was more work then using a normal graphics program. About the only advantage it had was being able to use all the fonts to add text to images. It was an ambitious idea, but I always found using it to be more trouble than it was worth.
Very nice video, never saw before the Geos GUI in action! Had Commodore 64C with cassette drive myself and later got Amiga 500 which I still have. Amiga 500 was introduced btw in 1987 but Amiga 1000 indeed came in 1985. Back in the 80's one neighbour had Commodore 128 like the one in your video and I remember we used to play games like Ghost'n Goblins and Bomb Jack. Another guy I knew had the later Commodore 128D, played at least the Batman game with it. Those were the days :)
Hey Nostalgia Nerd, just remember to keep a disk in the 1571 at all times. This is a two head drive with a head lowering prevention if no disk is in. The spring for the upper head is prone to breaking or bending from years of one sided stress. I was able to fix a broken one recently using mildly elastic epoxy, but there is no guarantee.
1571 was used as mt BBS system drive/more space than the 1541... I was able to use 3 1581's for uploads/downloads. was a stable system, never had heat related problems with any of the hardware... good video. FIBER0PTIC/FBR, The HUMBLE Guys, Napalm and Worship.
1581 was a good and high capacity drive. I do not know the speed, I know it was faster than 1541, but 1571 had just the double capactiy of the 1541 (due to double sided) I just learned about the IEEE488 Commodore drives, and the SFD-1001 was a beast (I own one now). With IEEE-488 interface it was 5 times faster that 1541, and had 1MB capacity per disk, and was not bigger than the normal "old" 1541. I heard a guy also running a BBS, and diasy chained 4 of these SFDs. 4MB capacity was close to a Commodore HDD's capacity, and it was not much slower too. Certainly was much chaper than that. I hope once Iwill able to buy an IEEE-488 C= HDD to test.
I think I talked my spouse into buying a C128 because 1 of our C64 games supported enhanced music if you ran it on a C128. I also used the "C128 can run CP/M productivity software" argument, too; however, by then, we already had an IBM-compatible (not sure if it was a 286 or 386 at that point) in the house, and didn't really need productivity software at home until we had a reliable every-day Internet connection (which we didn't with the next-county-over, long-distance-phone-charge server we accessed Q-Link from).
I still have a C128D, I use to run it with dual floppies, and a CMD HDD, Final Cartridge III, and dual 40/80Col monitor, mouse. Running GEOS 128 in 80col was the bees knees...
I have two Commodore 64 computers with one floppy drive, a joystick that I know of, a box of software, and some other items for those computers. Geos was one of the software disc's I received with the games I got from the person I bought from the guy who included along with the other software.
Ow, that font on a 8 bit computer. Beautiful. And GEOS was originally written in about 20 K of memory *including* multitasking and the fonts with the variable spaced characters. I mean, that's just special. As an MSX guy I never liked the C64/128 much, but that window manager and text editor beats anything on my old MSX computer. Kudos to Berkeley Soft for making it.
Nostalgia Nerd Yeah, i started to learn coding on this machine at my best friend home when 10 years old. But i bought a C64 for my birthday, ehehe because it was expensive :D
I am working setting up my 128D again, I have not use it since 1998. Right now I having two problems 1) Getting c64 games to run on the 128D 2)Have the 128D recognize all the drives, 2 floppy drive and 1 mini drive. I know they all work together before, I also know the 128D is drive =8, not sure how to the other drives to be 9-11. When I first this up it was easy. Looking for help.
12:25 - It seems you have your mouse running in _joystick mode_ . I remember using that on programs which did not have built-in mouse support (which was close to _everything_ on the C64 really) like the Final Cartridge III's GUI (yes, even freezer modules had their own version of windows - at least that one..). The 1351mouse does have a switch on its bottom side to toggle to proportional (i.e., proper) mouse mode. And if _your_ mouse works with a C64/128, I don't think it's the Amiga mouse. The 1351 looks exactly the same from the top.
I had a commodore 128D which looked more like a desktop PC back in the early 90s. Had a program called final on a cartridge looked almost the same but with more colors.
Had more fun with thus computer than anyone had a right to. Still have a working "D" version. There is a GEOS 128 which really flies with a RAM expander (1750), 80 column screen and an FD 4000 3.5" drive. Am still discovering things about the built in Basic 7.0 and (remember this one?) an add on "Basic 8" by Walrusoft. BTW, if you could read the 40 column screen, your 8502 was at 1 MHz. The VIC chip couldn't keep up at 2 MHz, so they had an extra graphics chip for 80 columns at tht speed. Best computer EVER, no two ways about it.
QauntumLink cost a fortune! I remember an $80 bill for one night of just chatting. And the 128 is pronounced _one twenty-eight_ (at least we all said it like that). Furhter, the GEOS was just a novelty - something that came out late and nobody really made any good use of it. Cheers.
Geos 128 had a lot of potential with its use of the 80 column mode and clock doubling speed, full use of ram expansion . problem is, the amiga did everything it could so much better.
Yeah uh. I probably wasn't aware back in 2016, but plugging in a strange Commodore isn't how I'd go about it. First I'd check what the PSU outputs, THEN maybe try turning it on. Still, this gives me hope that MY 128 is in working order without major repairs.
Yeah GEOS was more usable in 128 mode. More screen real estate to work with (IF you had a capable monitor) and it took advantage of the 1571's double sided capabilities. I turned in a lot of homework assignments typed on geowrite with print shop cover sheets back in grade school :)
When I had a C64, I didn't care about the 128 until GEOS came out. It wasn't even worth running on the 64, but by that time, I was about to buy an Amiga, so I didn't care. Now, I kinda want to get a 128 just to try GEOS on it.
What's the point of GEOS on a C128 if it doesn't have a native 128 mode? The memory restriction on the C64 was what kept me from using GEOS in the first place. That and the jarring loading speed while booting up. And its lack of compatibility with leading software on the C64. Come to think of it, it was little more than a demo platform for that 1351 mouse.
None of your Business It DOES have a native 128 mode. The problem is that he needed to be using the RGBI video output. GEOS 128 uses the computer's FAST mode, which means it can't use the VIC-II composite output.
It run at 1MHz when using the VIC chip (40-col). It can run at 2MHz mode when using the 80-col display but not automatically. Type the command "FAST" and it will switch to 2MHz.
Christian Holmstedt Also, even when in C64 mode, there was a POKE that would blank the screen and run in 2 MHz mode. Another POKE would switch back to 1 MHz. There were even utilities published in magazines that set up a raster interrupt; when the screen raster reached the top of the bottom border, it would switch to 2 MHz, and when it reached the bottom of the top border, it would switch back to 1 MHz. The end result was roughly a 20% increase in speed.
I did not get to have any computer until 1989 or 1990 which was a Tandy 1000 sl and then got another computer in 1997/8 can't rightly remember but it was great with its DVD drive. And then I didn't get anything until 2010 when I got my toshiba laptop. While I never had one as a kid I never got to learn and I'm finally going back to my childhood and learning from what I would have had then. I got all the new sega consoles through the years instead.
That mouse is working in joystick mode. There's no mouse driver selected in System, just joystick. (whether that mouse will work in Mouse mode I can't say, but a 1351 certainly will.)
Bloody hell that thing has mod wires for days. My 128 looks pretty clean as far as such bodge jobs go - wonder what the deal is. My unit is from Sep 85 and had the "q" bug in ROM - of course, I say had since I installed JiffyDOS in it, thus fixing that problem as a side effect of the install. Thing works a treat, although it sometimes just won't run certain software - could be the fact I'm running some progs off SD, or could be PAL / NTSC issues - never know with these things.
Interesting... so I guess GEOS only runs in 64 compatible mode then? I'm a bit rusty with GEOS - haven't played with it in a while.... and that was with VICE emulator. One thing I do remember is if you have a RAMDisk you can really speed things up. :)
Robert Bryant Lock No, there is a Commodore 128 version as well. But he wouldn't have been able to use it, since he had his monitor plugged into the normal video output. To use GEOS 128, you have to connect the monitor to the RGBI port on the back, because GEOS 128 runs in FAST mode (which the VIC-II chip can't keep up with).
The reason this never took off is cost. All of the stuff you needed to get it working well put it out of reach of most people. Then the a500 came along and that was that.
That's not a resolution switch. It changes the TV channel of the RF output between 3 and 4 on your TV if you use a TV as a monitor. The 64 had the same switch. Built in RF modulator.
my first computer, my mother bought it because it was supposely compatible cpm, but never had chance to try that feature, only had commodore 64 software.
I think the 128 geos will autoboot from just turning it on...just put the disk in and turn the machine on. Also, you need to add the mouse driver from some other disk to the geos boot-up disk...and I don't think that the amiga mouse works with it...I think that you need the 1351 mouse...I am not sure but I don't think that they are 100% compatible if anything at all...
You must connect a monitor to the RGBI port on the back and not the normal video output. The normal video output is just like a ordinary c64 and the computer runs at 1MHz. If you connect an RGBI monitor instead (and push down the 80 column key) you will get into true 128 mode with 2MHz and higher resolution. Now you can use GEOS 128. Also with the 1571 disk drive the computer can boot from disk so you don't have to type LOAD "*",8 all the time. Just have a disk inserted and boot the computer.
I hated how the 1571 wasn't 100% compatable with all of commodore software. I had to have a 1541 on standby. Even if you adjusted the 1571 the way they told you, it still didn't work 100%.
Sorry the Amiga 1000 came out the same time as the C128. It was the last 8 -bit computer that Commodore marketed. It did not come out the same time as the A500. in was 1987.
Meloe haze You mean *computers* the size of a VCR. The Commodore disk drives were "smart" drives... they literally had their own CPU, RAM, etc. That's part of the reason for the size. (And the first generation had an internal power supply instead of an external brick, which is why they were so much larger.)
Just an FYI -- There was also a 1350 mouse, but it wasn't a proportional mouse, so it's a bit clumsy. That is, the 1350 knows what direction it's moving in, but not how fast it is moving. The 1351, a proportional mouse, is much better for GEOS.
Having a 128 myself, you might want to avoid putting the metal heat-sink back on the motherboard and chips. This is because the heat-sink doesn't work that well, and serves to cook the chips very slowly. Should be fine for occasional use though :) You seem to have landed on your feet with that buy. My own is still awaiting some free time so I can diagnose and fix some keyboard issues. There's a good site for it called www.c128.com, run by Bill Herd who was the design engineers on the machine. There's also a good Bill Herd podcast at www.theamphour.com/tag/c128/. For me, I just love it's oddity value. A capable machine, it wasn't that common back in the day due to the price and the fact the A1000 and A500 were out. There are very few games that take advantage of the extra power and features. The Last V8 and a jazzed up Rocky Horror Picture Show are the only ones that spring immediately to mind.
CartoonsKick Well, also, that heat sink served to meet FCC emissions regulations. Since those are no longer important (because modern monitors are not vulnerable to that kind of emissions), it's safe to remove... and many people do, as well as gluing more conventional-looking heat sinks on top of the 8510, Z80, VIC-II, etc.
Actually there was a small dispute on this. To able to cool something efficiently, you need big radiation surface. Please check out the VGA cards how big heatsinks they have, even with 35-45W cards. These MOS ICs produced with much less advanced technolgy, and generate a lot of heat too. The RF shield has a really big surface and big mass compared to the small heasinks you can allpy on them. Maybe it is a better idea to reinstall the RF shield and add some good thermal paste (I thick Commodore also added it, just dried out in the last 30 years).
I had one of those 230V -> 110V "bricks" and it failed within a few months. If yours does the same thing, I would recommend the following: www.maplin.co.uk/p/240v-to-110v-300w-voltage-converter-vr05f My mate had a 128 which he only used as a C64, I remember the Go 64 command :)
About as slow and as crappy a poor knock off of the Macintosh Finder as I remember it when I used it back in the day. It might of been semi okay with a legit Commdore mouse but you didn't have one, you had to use an Atari Joystick like that to move around which was a bad joke.
I used to do my English essays on Geos Write, and then print it all out on a hellishly noisy dot matrix printer with a blue ribbon. Used to drive my parents mental.
ungratefulmetalpansy same, butproduced my first publisher type documents that included text and some bitmap graphics
Did my final college marketing project with Geos Write. Text and graphs mixed together beautifully but I printed it on the Okidata color printer. The output could only be called “waxy”.
Some fact: C128 was released two years earlier than the Amiga 500. It was out around 6 months before the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000.
Amiga wasn’t commodores product at first
@@jaybrooks1098 The very first production Amiga computer was designed and produced by Commodore, the Amiga 1000.
Amiga Corp (HiToro at first) developed the chipset prototype breadbin boards that was made into 'silicon' IC's for the Amiga by Commodore and MOS. Commodore bought Amiga Corp. in 1984 and realized the Amiga 1000 that was launched in mid 1985.
@@Great-Documentaries The Amiga 1000 case was designed and produced at Commodore. I've got myself a book with the case design drawing pictures.
The chipset was of course pretty much developed at Amiga corp over the previous couple of years to working breadbin prototype state.
Amiga 1000 was launched 23 july 1985 and was shipped to retail in September 1985.
Of course not shipped to everywhere at first, here in Norway we has to wait to around summer 1986 to get a PAL version.
I often wonder if many of these retro youtubers google anything before they spout off about it.
The Commodore 128 was the pinnacle of 8 bit computing. OK, the Apple might be for some but technically this thing was awesome and backwardly compatible with the 64. Great stuff..
Nevets and it costed half the price of an Apple.
Apple have always used the "It must be great because it's expensive" tactic. Still works to this day.
Even had a CP/M mode.
Aleste 520EX and PC Korvet better
Apple IIe uses a MOS 6502 which is basically owns by Commodore. Apple has no hardware technology....only until now in 2020 they start designing their own chip (with some ex staff from Intel i believe) and they still don't have the manufacturing capability. Commodore was the only company that has such capability back then from design to chip manufacturing. Hence the customised SID instead of another AY-39xx which is used by almost every other company.
My Commodore 128 was the greatest computer I ever owned, in retrospect. I still miss it. I envy you all the fun you'll have with it! :)
Agreed. I still have two in the attic, along with an LtK hard drive.
:0
I owned a C128D and this was my most loved computer. I think often back .... 🥲
For whatever reason youtube decided to play this video on autoplay... meanwhile I'm testing some code I just wrote on the 128D on my desk.. I still have 2 working ones, and one with some damage and known defects for spare parts.... Its still one of the nicest machines I ever owned.
same here. and i miss the huuuge notice book .
Man, GEOS on the C64 takes me back. It really wasn't anything more than a curiosity, but just getting a GUI to show up on a computer like the C64 was a feat.
Back in the day, before there was email, I would write all my letters in GeoWrite. When it was time to relax with the game, I would play blackjack from inside GEOS as well.
99% of the time I ran my 128 in c64 mode.
FIBER0PTIC HELL then why the fuck you have c128?
@@mtunayucer because he's a baller, flexing on his friends
c128 seemed like a good idea but it didn't get enough adoption to be useful. It was an odd machine. the z80 based CP/M mode was less than useful and there wasn't much 128 software other than GEOS 128 (the software in this demo was GEOS 64.. 128 would have run faster). So most people *did* run c128 in c64 mode.
@@justinhenryhaynes GeOS 128 was the killer app for the 128 I think. That alone must have made it worth it. It converted an 8 bit Home Computer into something that could compete with the PC and Macintosh for Office and graphics work, for a laughable price. And if you wanted to play games, wel..., then there always was that good 'ol C64 mode. Samples on the C128 revision of the SID chip didn't work properly though...
@@mtunayucer There was very little software that was written specifically for the 128. I had one. Never bothered using the CP/M mode. Friends told me there were compatibility issues. I did use GEOS quite a bit in 128 mode. Wrote quite a few documents with it, and had the Commodore dot matrix printer.
GEOS was a much better WYSIWYG than Windows. Loved it for word processing and game play. I remember having to write out complete games in machine code from magazines but it was well worth it. Plus, being able to create my own fonts was awesome.
It would be fairer to say that the Amiga 500 looks like the C128 since the C128 came first.
+Gooberslot That would be fair, but they both kinda mean the same thing
Still, it makes sense to compare the design to that of an Amiga 500 since the Amiga is more familiar for most people. Plus 5-6 months release date gap is not THAT much, case design was clearly laid out by the same people at the same time, only the Amiga was a completely new groundbreaking machine and maybe saw its release a little bit delayed for some reason.
In order to use GEOS you need to make the GEOS 'work' disk (using a blank floppy, it's somehwere in GEOS the option to create the disk) that you can write to. The default GEOS disk can't be written to, used to use GEOS all the time. This was a nice 'blast from the past' for me, thank you so much!
Nice to see Geos running, though I would have liked to know if the 128 version could make use of the more capable hardware (more ram, advanced video modes).
A detail : the Amiga 500 wasn't released before 1987. In 1985, it's the "Commodore Amiga" that was released, later renamed Amiga 1000.
+sautebroussailles Yup, my brain got addled. Still the 1000, is pretty much the same thing as the 500. GEOS on the 128 does make use of that extra memory, and you really need it to make the most of the GUI
Cool, thanks for the info. I definitely need to dig up the old pal and see if I can try Geos with the help of my 1541 Ultimate II cartridge. Contiki would be nice too, if only I had a RR-Net network card...
There was a 128 version. I used it on my 128D in 80 column mode in college. I loved it. Then I got an Amiga...
Needs to run in 80 column mode to take advantage of the 2Mhz mode and yes it did make a huge difference.
5 years late... but yes it does. You also want a 17xx ram expansion module (as it has a DMA controller which really helps GEOS quite a bit.. not to mention having a large ramdisk)
ua-cam.com/video/qw9gucO1AgQ/v-deo.html
Quantum Link was actually the precursor to AOL :)
Used it and BBS software to download a TON of pirated software, LOL. Some BBS's even had a rudimentary form of relay e-mail.
The finest 8-bit computer ever produced. I still have & use mine to this day.
I used to run GEOS on my 64 with a light pen. It was MUCH more responsive than the mouse or joystick. Holding your wrist and hand up to the screen for long periods with the light pen got tiring, but drawing was fun.
GEOS really comes into its own when you have a machine with expanded memory and an accelerator (like the CMD SuperCPU running at 20mhz). On a stock C128 it's a bit slow, but not unusable. A C128 with one of those SD card/floppy emulators _really_ makes a difference with GEOS!
JW3HH
Thanks, did not know that. Might as well get a Macintosh though by that point.
this was our family computer in the late 80s. great video, i only wish you had shown the big floppy disk being inserted into the drive, and to hear the whirring and clicking noise the drive made - just for nostalgia's sake
I loved my 128, i didn't have the newer 1571 diskette drive, but part of the reason I bought a 128 was because it was an easy upgrade from the Commodore 64. It played all my old C-64 games, but I could use the C-128's new BASIC graphics and sound commands. Plus, I could experiment with CP/M (by 1985, CP/M was in decline, but it was fun to experiment with just the same).
For Geos you really need a Ram Expansion and multiple drives. Then you can make Ram Drives and speed things up quite a bit. I only used the 128 mode for BBS calls and Word processing. Nearly everything else was in C64 mode.
I remember walking around Nichols when I was a kid. (Nichols was a very popular department store at the time.) . They had a giant electronics / computer section in our local store, and I remember my parents just letting me hang around there while they shopped. I wanted virtually anything computer related at the time, and the 128 was no exception. I wanted one of these SO bad :-) . Love those memories :)
Something I learned the hard way with my 128 is that the fuse for the power supply can blow. While it isn't commonplace, you want to look into spare fuses if possible.
Same as for the Amiga 500. It happend to me just after a few days of operation. I was young, had been working for a year to get my first own computer in 88, and this shocked me to tears. But we were soon able to find out, with some telephoning, what the cause was. When it happened the next time, I already had a substitude fuse in reach. :)
Hah! That GEOS program looked a lot better than I thought it would. I wish that I'd known about it back in the day.
+Richard Troupe It's actually pretty good. Shame you only have about a byte of memory left to play with in 64 mode!
13:00 you are supposed to go to different pages of the desktop by clicking the tip on the bottom left to see more programs ;)...
Had the same setup back in the 80's. Commodore 128 and disk reader 1571. Uses for games mainly but also for basic and logo. It was a big improvement for me because before that I had the commodore vic 20, which is the commodore 64's little brother. My friend were all playing ataris. Commodore was a real computer.
YES!!! Finally someone did a HD video on the commodore 128 !!!! thx
Couple geeky C128 notes: 2MHz was only available when in 80 column mode (128 mode only) because VIC (responsible for 40 columns) wasn't capable of running at that speed. Also, GEOS had a C128 version for high resolution mode, but I believe it may have required the C128D with 16K of video memory - though my memory might be wrong about that. I do recall that it was a much nicer version when I ran it on a 128D.
Johnmichael Monteith The C128 came with 16k of vid RAM and the c128D upgraded the vid RAM to 64k. I swapped my c128 for a c128D for that reason in addition the the fact that the 1571 disc drive was incorporated. As an added bonus all of the components powered by a single internal PSU. It really tied the package all together nicely with its Amiga 1000-esq profile.
Correction... Apparently there were a early quantities of c128D's that were produced with only 16k of vid RAM..
Slight correction; when running in 40 column mode, the CPU only can run in 1MHz mode, not 2MHz mode. You need to turn off the VIC-II chip in order to run the CPU at 2MHz mode.
The motion of the mouse pointer suggests it's not the Amiga mouse. The Amiga mouse used quadrature signaling to indicate directions. What you're using appears to be a Commodore 1350 mouse which worked by emulating a joystick. Replacing the mouse with an actual joystick further cements my hypothesis.
An actual Amiga mouse would have resulted in quite spastic mouse pointer movements, as I recall, unless you install a proper Amiga mouse driver for it.
The Commodore 1351 is a true proportional mouse and is the best input device for GEOS. That horrible Commodore 1350 mouse is really a joystick in disguise.
To use GEOS, you really needed an REU and a larger drive, like a 1581, or at the very least two 1541 drives. With just one drive, GEOS really wasn't worth the trouble.
I used to like being able to print in fancy fonts and I had a couple different font disks for GEOS. One day I decided to print out samples of all the fonts in various sizes. Easier said than done, since the fonts needed to be on the boot disk and since you couldn't copy GEOS files with anything but GEOS, you had to swap disks about 2-3 times per file. It took hours, especially as GEOWrite seemed to have a mind of its own with regard to fonts and sizes, but I finally had samples of all the fonts printed out. The very next day my friend spilled his coffee on the printouts. There was no way in hell I was going to go through all that again.
Really the only programs most people used GEOS for were GEOWrite and GEOPaint. Even then the most notable use for GEOPaint was converting MacPaint images to GEOPaint format. Using it to create anything from scratch was more work then using a normal graphics program. About the only advantage it had was being able to use all the fonts to add text to images.
It was an ambitious idea, but I always found using it to be more trouble than it was worth.
I had the same one like this with 1571 FDD! A lot of nice memories ....
Very nice video, never saw before the Geos GUI in action!
Had Commodore 64C with cassette drive myself and later got Amiga 500 which I still have. Amiga 500 was introduced btw in 1987 but Amiga 1000 indeed came in 1985.
Back in the 80's one neighbour had Commodore 128 like the one in your video and I remember we used to play games like Ghost'n Goblins and Bomb Jack. Another guy I knew had the later Commodore 128D, played at least the Batman game with it.
Those were the days :)
Hey Nostalgia Nerd, just remember to keep a disk in the 1571 at all times. This is a two head drive with a head lowering prevention if no disk is in. The spring for the upper head is prone to breaking or bending from years of one sided stress. I was able to fix a broken one recently using mildly elastic epoxy, but there is no guarantee.
The icons in the top row are the system bits that got loaded. The window shows all files on the disk. Have fun!
1571 was used as mt BBS system drive/more space than the 1541... I was able to use 3 1581's for uploads/downloads.
was a stable system, never had heat related problems with any of the hardware... good video.
FIBER0PTIC/FBR, The HUMBLE Guys, Napalm and Worship.
1581 was a good and high capacity drive. I do not know the speed, I know it was faster than 1541, but 1571 had just the double capactiy of the 1541 (due to double sided)
I just learned about the IEEE488 Commodore drives, and the SFD-1001 was a beast (I own one now). With IEEE-488 interface it was 5 times faster that 1541, and had 1MB capacity per disk, and was not bigger than the normal "old" 1541.
I heard a guy also running a BBS, and diasy chained 4 of these SFDs. 4MB capacity was close to a Commodore HDD's capacity, and it was not much slower too. Certainly was much chaper than that. I hope once Iwill able to buy an IEEE-488 C= HDD to test.
Awsome video buddy, just love the Commodore 8bit stuff. More of the same plz and thanks a lot.
I think I talked my spouse into buying a C128 because 1 of our C64 games supported enhanced music if you ran it on a C128. I also used the "C128 can run CP/M productivity software" argument, too; however, by then, we already had an IBM-compatible (not sure if it was a 286 or 386 at that point) in the house, and didn't really need productivity software at home until we had a reliable every-day Internet connection (which we didn't with the next-county-over, long-distance-phone-charge server we accessed Q-Link from).
So 14 minutes 22 seconds of total nerdgasm! 😉
I have a breadbin original C64 as well as a C64c with similar styling to the 128. Would love a 128 some day. Thanks for sharing.
I still have a C128D, I use to run it with dual floppies, and a CMD HDD, Final Cartridge III, and dual 40/80Col monitor, mouse. Running GEOS 128 in 80col was the bees knees...
I can't wait to try mine and after watching this video I'm more excited than ever. I even think it's got a copy of egos with it.
The Amiga 500 came out in 1987. The Amiga 1000 came out in 1985, six months after the C128.
I have two Commodore 64 computers with one floppy drive, a joystick that I know of, a box of software, and some other items for those computers. Geos was one of the software disc's I received with the games I got from the person I bought from the guy who included along with the other software.
I always wanted a commodore 128 or 64 as a kid and I'm finally getting a 128 next moth and can't wait.
Thanks so much I hope you do more on the 128 because I need to learn more so I can at least play my games on it.
+allan fulton I'll be doing a bit more
+Nostalgia Nerd thanks I'll need all the help I can get.
Ow, that font on a 8 bit computer. Beautiful. And GEOS was originally written in about 20 K of memory *including* multitasking and the fonts with the variable spaced characters. I mean, that's just special. As an MSX guy I never liked the C64/128 much, but that window manager and text editor beats anything on my old MSX computer. Kudos to Berkeley Soft for making it.
Ohhh nerd, i love the 128!!! i done an italian geos video some months ago for italians. great!
+GEKKO GAMES It's a fine, fine, fine, fine machine!
Nostalgia Nerd Yeah, i started to learn coding on this machine at my best friend home when 10 years old. But i bought a C64 for my birthday, ehehe because it was expensive :D
It came out years before the A500!! It preceded it by about 3-4 years!!!
I am working setting up my 128D again, I have not use it since 1998. Right now I having two problems
1) Getting c64 games to run on the 128D
2)Have the 128D recognize all the drives, 2 floppy drive and 1 mini drive. I know they all work together before, I also know the 128D is drive =8, not sure how to the other drives to be 9-11.
When I first this up it was easy. Looking for help.
Oh yes. I had one of these beauties.
LOL Calling it a "One hundred and twenty eight" when it's usually called a "one twenty eight."
`One Two Eight` is the right way :-)
Its the comadore one hundred and twenty eight.
Just like the spectrum was called the
Spectrum zx +2 one hundred and twenty eight k
@ashleigh: No it wasnt, it was the Sinclair Spectrum one two eight plus two.
Correct @@meetoo594
12:25 - It seems you have your mouse running in _joystick mode_ . I remember using that on programs which did not have built-in mouse support (which was close to _everything_ on the C64 really) like the Final Cartridge III's GUI (yes, even freezer modules had their own version of windows - at least that one..). The 1351mouse does have a switch on its bottom side to toggle to proportional (i.e., proper) mouse mode. And if _your_ mouse works with a C64/128, I don't think it's the Amiga mouse. The 1351 looks exactly the same from the top.
Congratulations, you have a great treasure.
I would get a message saying "can find REU Bank" cannot install, what do this mean?
I had a commodore 128D which looked more like a desktop PC back in the early 90s. Had a program called final on a cartridge looked almost the same but with more colors.
What are you using for monitor?
i grew up with the big steel beefcake the 128D !! (:
I had one of these lying around some years back, that I pulled from a junkyard. Unfortunately the drive scratched every disk
£400 boxed on ebay!!!
By the way so nice to meet you at Play Expo.
Had more fun with thus computer than anyone had a right to. Still have a working "D" version. There is a GEOS 128 which really flies with a RAM expander (1750), 80 column screen and an FD 4000 3.5" drive. Am still discovering things about the built in Basic 7.0 and (remember this one?) an add on "Basic 8" by Walrusoft. BTW, if you could read the 40 column screen, your 8502 was at 1 MHz. The VIC chip couldn't keep up at 2 MHz, so they had an extra graphics chip for 80 columns at tht speed. Best computer EVER, no two ways about it.
QauntumLink cost a fortune! I remember an $80 bill for one night of just chatting. And the 128 is pronounced _one twenty-eight_ (at least we all said it like that). Furhter, the GEOS was just a novelty - something that came out late and nobody really made any good use of it. Cheers.
Geos 128 had a lot of potential with its use of the 80 column mode and clock doubling speed, full use of ram expansion . problem is, the amiga did everything it could so much better.
Yeah uh. I probably wasn't aware back in 2016, but plugging in a strange Commodore isn't how I'd go about it. First I'd check what the PSU outputs, THEN maybe try turning it on. Still, this gives me hope that MY 128 is in working order without major repairs.
Yeah GEOS was more usable in 128 mode. More screen real estate to work with (IF you had a capable monitor) and it took advantage of the 1571's double sided capabilities. I turned in a lot of homework assignments typed on geowrite with print shop cover sheets back in grade school :)
Would the external drive work if it was set up vertically
type in sprdef then hit enter to get the built in paint program in 128 mode and my c128 had a dodgy power thingy too i think they were all like that.
When I had a C64, I didn't care about the 128 until GEOS came out. It wasn't even worth running on the 64, but by that time, I was about to buy an Amiga, so I didn't care. Now, I kinda want to get a 128 just to try GEOS on it.
Nice info boy! Will you an A500 video vs. Raspberry Pi 400 for real? 😀
Before i got the Amiga I almost settled for getting a c128. Glad that I didn't. But, nice to see it in action.
had hundreds of issues of LOADSTAR ...yea demo disks!(:
You could get the memory expanded up to 512K. Insane :O
What's the point of GEOS on a C128 if it doesn't have a native 128 mode? The memory restriction on the C64 was what kept me from using GEOS in the first place. That and the jarring loading speed while booting up. And its lack of compatibility with leading software on the C64. Come to think of it, it was little more than a demo platform for that 1351 mouse.
None of your Business It DOES have a native 128 mode. The problem is that he needed to be using the RGBI video output. GEOS 128 uses the computer's FAST mode, which means it can't use the VIC-II composite output.
It run at 1MHz when using the VIC chip (40-col). It can run at 2MHz mode when using the 80-col display but not automatically. Type the command "FAST" and it will switch to 2MHz.
Christian Holmstedt Also, even when in C64 mode, there was a POKE that would blank the screen and run in 2 MHz mode. Another POKE would switch back to 1 MHz. There were even utilities published in magazines that set up a raster interrupt; when the screen raster reached the top of the bottom border, it would switch to 2 MHz, and when it reached the bottom of the top border, it would switch back to 1 MHz. The end result was roughly a 20% increase in speed.
I did not get to have any computer until 1989 or 1990 which was a Tandy 1000 sl and then got another computer in 1997/8 can't rightly remember but it was great with its DVD drive. And then I didn't get anything until 2010 when I got my toshiba laptop. While I never had one as a kid I never got to learn and I'm finally going back to my childhood and learning from what I would have had then. I got all the new sega consoles through the years instead.
5:20 the glasses show but not the computer
That mouse is working in joystick mode. There's no mouse driver selected in System, just joystick. (whether that mouse will work in Mouse mode I can't say, but a 1351 certainly will.)
Bloody hell that thing has mod wires for days. My 128 looks pretty clean as far as such bodge jobs go - wonder what the deal is. My unit is from Sep 85 and had the "q" bug in ROM - of course, I say had since I installed JiffyDOS in it, thus fixing that problem as a side effect of the install. Thing works a treat, although it sometimes just won't run certain software - could be the fact I'm running some progs off SD, or could be PAL / NTSC issues - never know with these things.
The only vintage or retro thing i have is a HP-48 calculator, it's the fucking best tho
Interesting... so I guess GEOS only runs in 64 compatible mode then? I'm a bit rusty with GEOS - haven't played with it in a while.... and that was with VICE emulator. One thing I do remember is if you have a RAMDisk you can really speed things up. :)
Robert Bryant Lock No, there is a Commodore 128 version as well. But he wouldn't have been able to use it, since he had his monitor plugged into the normal video output. To use GEOS 128, you have to connect the monitor to the RGBI port on the back, because GEOS 128 runs in FAST mode (which the VIC-II chip can't keep up with).
Thanks for clearing that up.... had no idea there was a 128 version. I'll have to try it out in VICE too :D
GEOS in C64 mode! It would have been awesome to see the 128 version.
The reason this never took off is cost. All of the stuff you needed to get it working well put it out of reach of most people. Then the a500 came along and that was that.
That's not a resolution switch. It changes the TV channel of the RF output between 3 and 4 on your TV if you use a TV as a monitor. The 64 had the same switch. Built in RF modulator.
my first computer, my mother bought it because it was supposely compatible cpm, but never had chance to try that feature, only had commodore 64 software.
I think the 128 geos will autoboot from just turning it on...just put the disk in and turn the machine on. Also, you need to add the mouse driver from some other disk to the geos boot-up disk...and I don't think that the amiga mouse works with it...I think that you need the 1351 mouse...I am not sure but I don't think that they are 100% compatible if anything at all...
why did you put the light on the thing it will yellow the computer
Thomas Farquhar It was already yellow when he got it. A little more won't hurt. And it's nothing a little retro-brite treatment can't fix.
that switch is a common issue with C= 128's ... look at Jan Beta on UA-cam :D hes very good about fixing and trouble shooting if you get 5
Can you show Geos running in 128 mode please? Cheers
+thedddemon I'll see if I can sort it out
+Nostalgia Nerd That would be so much better. It will probably look like GEOS for the Apple IIe...
You must connect a monitor to the RGBI port on the back and not the normal video output. The normal video output is just like a ordinary c64 and the computer runs at 1MHz. If you connect an RGBI monitor instead (and push down the 80 column key) you will get into true 128 mode with 2MHz and higher resolution. Now you can use GEOS 128.
Also with the 1571 disk drive the computer can boot from disk so you don't have to type LOAD "*",8 all the time. Just have a disk inserted and boot the computer.
ZamuelAtari now he knows :)
can't get past stylized bombastic lingual patterns.
i use to have a commadore 128d. it was a heavy beast. I lost it in a house fire.
I hated how the 1571 wasn't 100% compatable with all of commodore software. I had to have a 1541 on standby. Even if you adjusted the 1571 the way they told you, it still didn't work 100%.
Sorry the Amiga 1000 came out the same time as the C128. It was the last 8 -bit computer that Commodore marketed. It did not come out the same time as the A500. in was 1987.
Clayton Pitts actually strictly speaking the C64C was ;)
Polystyrene not Styrofoam. :-)
I want to watch youtube on this machine. It might take a few years to load a video.Better get some coffee
nope it can be done with something like this.. check it out asciitube.bgreco.net/
GEOS also works with the joystick.
You can use a Atari 2600 or genesis controller as a mouse in geos
ah....disk drives the size of a vcr.....good times, man.
Meloe haze You mean *computers* the size of a VCR. The Commodore disk drives were "smart" drives... they literally had their own CPU, RAM, etc. That's part of the reason for the size. (And the first generation had an internal power supply instead of an external brick, which is why they were so much larger.)
I heard that each Commodore disk drive has it's own c64 inside of it.
swoll1980 Not *literally* true, but yes. The disk drive had its own 6502 CPU, 2 KiB of RAM, 32 KiB of ROM, its own 6526 I/O chips, etc.
You need a Commodore 1351 mouse.
I believe you need a C64/128 only mouse for GEOS. I forget the exact name of it.
the 1351. THAT'S what it's called.
+Nathaniel Lockhart I may have to track one of the little blighters down in that case!
+Nathaniel Lockhart yup - those are like "analog" or something. Different than the Amiga mice.. :-)
Just an FYI -- There was also a 1350 mouse, but it wasn't a proportional mouse, so it's a bit clumsy. That is, the 1350 knows what direction it's moving in, but not how fast it is moving. The 1351, a proportional mouse, is much better for GEOS.
Having a 128 myself, you might want to avoid putting the metal heat-sink back on the motherboard and chips. This is because the heat-sink doesn't work that well, and serves to cook the chips very slowly. Should be fine for occasional use though :)
You seem to have landed on your feet with that buy. My own is still awaiting some free time so I can diagnose and fix some keyboard issues. There's a good site for it called www.c128.com, run by Bill Herd who was the design engineers on the machine. There's also a good Bill Herd podcast at www.theamphour.com/tag/c128/.
For me, I just love it's oddity value. A capable machine, it wasn't that common back in the day due to the price and the fact the A1000 and A500 were out. There are very few games that take advantage of the extra power and features. The Last V8 and a jazzed up Rocky Horror Picture Show are the only ones that spring immediately to mind.
+CartoonsKick Thanks for the advice. I agree. It's oddity value is through the roof. I missed out on swiping up The Last V8 a few months back
CartoonsKick Well, also, that heat sink served to meet FCC emissions regulations. Since those are no longer important (because modern monitors are not vulnerable to that kind of emissions), it's safe to remove... and many people do, as well as gluing more conventional-looking heat sinks on top of the 8510, Z80, VIC-II, etc.
Actually there was a small dispute on this. To able to cool something efficiently, you need big radiation surface. Please check out the VGA cards how big heatsinks they have, even with 35-45W cards. These MOS ICs produced with much less advanced technolgy, and generate a lot of heat too.
The RF shield has a really big surface and big mass compared to the small heasinks you can allpy on them.
Maybe it is a better idea to reinstall the RF shield and add some good thermal paste (I thick Commodore also added it, just dried out in the last 30 years).
I had one of those 230V -> 110V "bricks" and it failed within a few months. If yours does the same thing, I would recommend the following:
www.maplin.co.uk/p/240v-to-110v-300w-voltage-converter-vr05f
My mate had a 128 which he only used as a C64, I remember the Go 64 command :)
+Shundi12 Cool. Thanks for the advice!
Way too late to reply, but wouldn’t getting a 50Hz replacement PSU be the right way to go?
"What's the worst that can happen?" You turning into a Chipmunk and making me jump, that's what.
they made a super weird and expensive machine here instead of making real development progress. so sad :-(
Dollars to doughnuts that the font BSW stands for BankStreet Writer.
You lose unfortunately. It stands for Berkeley Soft Works,the creator of GEOS.
About as slow and as crappy a poor knock off of the Macintosh Finder as I remember it when I used it back in the day. It might of been semi okay with a legit Commdore mouse but you didn't have one, you had to use an Atari Joystick like that to move around which was a bad joke.
To be fair, he's only running the C64 version of Geos - the C128 version with a REU installed is actually pretty usable.
You need a Commodore 1351 tank mouse ;) works much better.