I added the full illustrated transcript to the post, plus an option to get a disk, slides, and PDF of the transcript - check it out on the site :) retrogamecoders.com/commodore64-basic-programming/
I was much older than many of you here when the VIC-20 came out but it was my first computer and a great intro to BASIC. I loved programming so much I earned a Bachelors in Computer Science.
Started with VIC20 and tape drive, and Basic and some assembly. I also tried Forth as that was one of the tapes I got with a computer. Later I got C64, still only tape drive. Did my diploma work with Simon's Basic as it had so many commands, mostly graphic ones that I needed (wanted to draw 3D graphics. One wireframe sphere would took 5 hours to render! ). In school we learned Fortran and Cobol (that we had chance to try on some big IBM mainframes from the local bank) After that I got Amiga 500 and there, I wanted to try Amiga Basic, but discovered and loved more C.
@@RetroGameCoders Sure, once it is bug free, it got a major overhaul: I changed the start of BASIC higher so I could read all my sprite data in the first VIC bank. Unfortunately the code is a mess, but that happens without an editor or proper design.
@@Plrang Just plain C64, with some online tools: krissz pertscii editor and spritemate, also trying out lvlvl petscii converters for future projects, CBM studio is a bit hard for lot of petscii graphics, which I usually have tons of.
Vision basic is excellent, though I am biased towards cross-development rather than editing and compiling on the C64 itself. Using emulation for Vision allows a partial solution to that :)
Thank you for this great intro to basic, ive got a Vic-20 in late 1980 at age 12 and moved on with Sinclair 48k, then C=64, and then C=128. but after these all years away from the Basic language ive forgotten it, so this course i gold for me to get back on it, now i built a Raspberry PI running Combian 64 emulator wich emulates all commodores from PET to C=128,.....it is awesome fun, thank you again Chris Garrett
Glad you enjoyed it! Combian is amazing isn't it? Also check out Bare Metal C64 for immediate boot and some other advantages, though you do lose Raspberry Pi operating system quality of life conveniences with that setup :) I also started with Vic 20 and then Spectrum 128+2, but then my brother got employed so we could move on to Atari ST :)
Really a wonderful introduction to BASIC and Commodore BASIC specifically. I am looking forward to the future videos in the series! I should send you a copy of my Haiku generator I wrote in BASIC back in 2019. I created it so it runs on everything from the PET to the VIC-20, C64 and PLUS/4! (And the C128 in C128 mode, both 40 and 80 column!)
My first computer was a Vic-20. I bought one just after graduating from high school. In school, i had taken a "computer math" class. We used TRS-80s, which we called "trash 80's". The Commodore 64 was my next computer. For nostalgia, i just bought a C64 mini, which I received yesterday.
I like my C64 mini. While I did get a C64 "Maxi" (the big one with the working keyboard), the mini can do everything that can do it just doesn't have the convenient keys for symbols and colours etc :)
Wow, it was fast! :D Congrat sir this video has won the 10s award :) Which means I've never seen any of your content before and within 10 second I subscribed to your channel. :D
I started BASIC programming at age 13, in 1980, at school, We didn't have computers so we used a punch card system! They were send to a Central School Computer for a print out! I became a Dbase programmer. Later I was in IT- management, so I didn't any coding anymore. Now I'm 54, and I have to relearn BASIC again, hahaha! Forgotten almost all!
I just missed the punch card era but our COBOL teacher told stories of dropping her cards and having to put them back in order, hoping none of them got too creased or bent up in the process :D
Nice one. The great thing about these 'golden era' first home computers (ZX80/81/Spectrum, CBM64) was that you simply switched them on and you were taken instantly into a BASIC/IDE environment. That's what hooked so many into beginning their passion for programming. Is it this easy today? - bizarrely no! since you need to install your own IDE & toolsets. That said, double-click on any of these excellent emulators and you're taken straight into that same 1980's BASIC environment.
Started in Cobol, BASH, C, Java. Old school analyst programmer course from 2000 to 2003.... But the worse was Assembly... the teacher had us do exams with pen and paper on graph-type paper to note the hexadecimal values in memory of the data we manipulated with Asembly. Yeah my first work as an intern was COBOL for the gov't ! In passé computer infrastructures for the time. NORTEL had failed and they were still - ARE STILL - using COBOL.
now learning Commodore Basic for my C64 mini ! @@RetroGameCoders from that book you referenced, the descendent of the Brown Bible... he says you can use the screen at 1/576th of an inch vertically with a precision of 1/1296th of an inch horizontally? Is this similar to what nowadays feel like 576 x 1296 pixelated blocks ?
i've heard that quote from djkstra before and yeah, it's totally backwards. sure, there are conventions in basic that don't work elsewhere... but that's EVERY LANGUAGE. the basics of how things work, what you're doing, why you're doing it, and the insane degree of bare metal access that 8bit computers gave to users THROUGH BASIC really gives people a leg up on understanding the overall process of computing and programming. no grudge against djkstra but yeah, he's very very very wrong and it would be a great boon to kids right now to start with even a commodore vic20.
When is there going to be a GFA BASIC for Mac and Linux? :) Actually I quite like the modern BBC BASIC and QBasic, I need to check GFA out as I have a boxed edition for the Atari ST somewhere!
I really appreciate this. I especially like the In-browser emulator you provide. You literally could not make it easier, and I'm grateful for that. I'll be following and learning along!
I can't use the online emulator. My keyboard keys didn't have the same layout as a commodore so I couldn't use it. What type of keyboard do you have? how did you get a modern computer to use the online emulator? or did you use the online keyboard?
@@RetroGameCoders What I've discovered in my experience is that people are looking for a lot of assembly language type programs, which is what I enjoy doing. Although the computer is old as dirt, for some reason there are those who still like the bits and bytes. There is always room for another great tutorial guy. Maybe you could be him?
What an inspiring and educational video! I have no significant experience with computers and programming other than the general. I’m 31 now now and having recently read the book Code by Charles petzold I’d like to get started with learning about computers and programming. This leads to my question: having seen that amazon is selling a replica of C64, i wondered if it’s possible to have a full programming experience on the replica vs the original? I’d very much appreciate your input. Best wishes.
I was bought a c64 maxi last Christmas by the other half because that’s all I went on about as my parents bought me a commodore 16 lol 😂 Iv started trying to learn basic now at nearly 47 lol 😂 and I can’t even figure out to be able to input the date (7/12/2021) lol 😂 But I don’t care I’m enjoying trying to learn it
Wow, this video is great! But I'm having a problem were the clear home button doesn't work. Any idea on how to fix it? Also how would I go about continuing my learning seeing as you don't make videos anymore? Is there any good manuals you recomend?
What device are you using? Emulator or an actual C64 or the maxi or ..? I’m going to start doing videos again now the flood of trolls seem to have gotten bored with me. So long as my videos aren’t exposed to Reddit I think my mental health will improve 🤣
Just worked for me on Chrome on mac but I did have to fix some of the character keys such as " and & :) You should be able to use your computer keyboard to do shift+home or the onscreen keyboard to clear home
I used to love C64 BASIC. However, it was a nightmare dealing with any kind of graphics or sound. This is what ultimately put me off using it. The C128 BASIC addressed a lot of these issues. Simon's Basic on C64 was also excellent
Watching your editor through me for a minute until I realized it was an emulation! That's why it had replacements for down and left and such. Those characters don't exist on the PCs font
@@RetroGameCoders Thanks. As others have said on Twitter, "I was just thinking about something like this." I mainly use U64, C64 and Vice, but I tried the browser emulator and could not get it running on multiple machines/browsers. Guessing it has to do with java not being supported.
I haven't even looked at basic program or is it programme on the C64 in nearly 4 decades, but I'm immediately thinking about animating sprites and mapping sprites with a sprite box. Where they 8x8? That seems a little small.
I had a programming teacher at college who said a program should have only one start and one exit. She, too, frowned on BASIC due to GOTO and I found her arguments a bit retarded because what's BEQ? What's BNE? What's BRA? What's BHI if they're not all forms of GOTO? You can't RTS from one of those. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the C64 but Commodore 64 BASIC - really??? It's shit! I got spoilt with BBC BASIC and that had support for graphics and sounds and many more features C64 BASIC could only dream of.
Yeah BBC BASIC is the standard that others are measured by but comparatively few people experienced it in comparison to Microsoft BASIC so that is what everyone refers to and knows, not just because of Microsoft putting it on PCs but the Commodore line and all the others that used it or copied it, which is a shame
I had a 3 year older machine, the Philips P2000T, with a Microsoft licensed Basic as well, but it is so much easier to use. A couple of basic things done right on the Philips, but unbearable on the C64: 1) load and save. This just does not make sense on the C64 with the ,8 behind it: as if one would have more than 1 drive/tape unit. And there is not even an disk inventory command or key. 2) no insert behaviour. On the P2000T I can go back with the cursor keys and insert stuff I missed. The way to do this on a C64 is abysmal. You enter the right amount of spaces with a awkward combination of 2 keys, and then you can "fill the gap". Who came up with that dumb editing system? 3) no EDIT command. On a P2000T you just type EDIT 10, and you can edit line 10. On a C64 it is LIST 10, then move the cursor up (with those nasty 2 on 1 key cursor arrows!), type over the old line and hit enter. The P2000T also has an edit next line shortcut 4) The P2000T has default ASCII characters instead of PETSCI. If you make basic programs, you want to have upper and lower case text, not weird shapes. It is an easy swap on the C64, but as the swap is a total character-set swap, it feels very weird for beginners. You should hack the ROM to start with proper characters. Also the font of the C64 is really bad, and it wastes a lot of screen estate. The P2000T uses 10 scanlines per character, where the C64 only uses 8. So the text is harder to read, even worse because of the purple-on-purple colour scheme, and you waste 20% of your CRT tube with a border. The P2000T font is less heavy weight and much better readable. OK, the C64 is not as bad as a ZX Spectrum, that Basic really gives you headaches, but for a starter, don't use C64 basic. Try the M2000 emulator first. Or maybe Atari/Apple Basic, no idea how those work, but C64 Basic is really bad.
I added the full illustrated transcript to the post, plus an option to get a disk, slides, and PDF of the transcript - check it out on the site :)
retrogamecoders.com/commodore64-basic-programming/
I was much older than many of you here when the VIC-20 came out but it was my first computer and a great intro to BASIC. I loved programming so much I earned a Bachelors in Computer Science.
Started with VIC20 and tape drive, and Basic and some assembly. I also tried Forth as that was one of the tapes I got with a computer.
Later I got C64, still only tape drive. Did my diploma work with Simon's Basic as it had so many commands, mostly graphic ones that I needed (wanted to draw 3D graphics. One wireframe sphere would took 5 hours to render! ). In school we learned Fortran and Cobol (that we had chance to try on some big IBM mainframes from the local bank)
After that I got Amiga 500 and there, I wanted to try Amiga Basic, but discovered and loved more C.
Just finished debugging one of my basic games on the c64, started basic at the age of 10, now 39, BASIC v2 for life! :-)
It's like there is a secret society of us :D
Will you be sharing/publishing your game?
@@RetroGameCoders Sure, once it is bug free, it got a major overhaul: I changed the start of BASIC higher so I could read all my sprite data in the first VIC bank. Unfortunately the code is a mess, but that happens without an editor or proper design.
@@TheDarkmore what editor are you using?
@@Plrang Just plain C64, with some online tools: krissz pertscii editor and spritemate, also trying out lvlvl petscii converters for future projects, CBM studio is a bit hard for lot of petscii graphics, which I usually have tons of.
@@TheDarkmore You mean you code directly in C64 editor or am I reading that wrong?
Basic was my 1st language that I liked and just recently got VISION Basic for the 64 which has rekindled that love.
Vision basic is excellent, though I am biased towards cross-development rather than editing and compiling on the C64 itself. Using emulation for Vision allows a partial solution to that :)
I sorta do that, I run it on a C64 Mini with a wireless keyboard.@@RetroGameCoders
Thank you for this great intro to basic, ive got a Vic-20 in late 1980 at age 12 and moved on with Sinclair 48k, then C=64, and then C=128. but after these all years away from the Basic language ive forgotten it, so this course i gold for me to get back on it, now i built a Raspberry PI running Combian 64 emulator wich emulates all commodores from PET to C=128,.....it is awesome fun, thank you again Chris Garrett
Glad you enjoyed it! Combian is amazing isn't it? Also check out Bare Metal C64 for immediate boot and some other advantages, though you do lose Raspberry Pi operating system quality of life conveniences with that setup :)
I also started with Vic 20 and then Spectrum 128+2, but then my brother got employed so we could move on to Atari ST :)
@@RetroGameCoders Hi dear friend! =) thanks for the tip on bare metal C64 i am exiting to look into it =) love cheers
Really a wonderful introduction to BASIC and Commodore BASIC specifically. I am looking forward to the future videos in the series! I should send you a copy of my Haiku generator I wrote in BASIC back in 2019. I created it so it runs on everything from the PET to the VIC-20, C64 and PLUS/4! (And the C128 in C128 mode, both 40 and 80 column!)
Thank you and please do :)
My first computer was a Vic-20. I bought one just after graduating from high school. In school, i had taken a "computer math" class. We used TRS-80s, which we called "trash 80's". The Commodore 64 was my next computer. For nostalgia, i just bought a C64 mini, which I received yesterday.
I like my C64 mini. While I did get a C64 "Maxi" (the big one with the working keyboard), the mini can do everything that can do it just doesn't have the convenient keys for symbols and colours etc :)
@@RetroGameCoders Sounds like it is good enough for me though.
@@FunAfter52 yep I am sure it is :)
Wow, it was fast! :D Congrat sir this video has won the 10s award :) Which means I've never seen any of your content before and within 10 second I subscribed to your channel. :D
I started BASIC programming at age 13, in 1980, at school, We didn't have computers so we used a punch card system! They were send to a Central School Computer for a print out! I became a Dbase programmer. Later I was in IT- management, so I didn't any coding anymore. Now I'm 54, and I have to relearn BASIC again, hahaha! Forgotten almost all!
I just missed the punch card era but our COBOL teacher told stories of dropping her cards and having to put them back in order, hoping none of them got too creased or bent up in the process :D
@@RetroGameCoders I know the feeling! 😁😁
Started on the VIC in 1983, and then on Apple II, then Pascal, then C on the Mac and from there became a pro rockstar including at Apple + Sony.
Nice one. The great thing about these 'golden era' first home computers (ZX80/81/Spectrum, CBM64) was that you simply switched them on and you were taken instantly into a BASIC/IDE environment. That's what hooked so many into beginning their passion for programming. Is it this easy today? - bizarrely no! since you need to install your own IDE & toolsets. That said, double-click on any of these excellent emulators and you're taken straight into that same 1980's BASIC environment.
Pretty good BASIC primer video. Well done!
Thank you :)
Started in Cobol, BASH, C, Java. Old school analyst programmer course from 2000 to 2003....
But the worse was Assembly... the teacher had us do exams with pen and paper on graph-type paper to note the hexadecimal values in memory of the data we manipulated with Asembly. Yeah my first work as an intern was COBOL for the gov't ! In passé computer infrastructures for the time. NORTEL had failed and they were still - ARE STILL - using COBOL.
I kind of enjoyed COBOL, and I was tempted during Y2K prep to take the fat $$$$$ on offer;)
now learning Commodore Basic for my C64 mini ! @@RetroGameCoders from that book you referenced, the descendent of the Brown Bible... he says you can use the screen at 1/576th of an inch vertically with a precision of 1/1296th of an inch horizontally? Is this similar to what nowadays feel like 576 x 1296 pixelated blocks ?
Thanks for readin g ! @@RetroGameCoders
@@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914 which, the Atari Reference Manual?
sorry one led me to the other : it was in Complete_Commodore_Inner_Space_Anthology @@RetroGameCoders
i've heard that quote from djkstra before and yeah, it's totally backwards. sure, there are conventions in basic that don't work elsewhere... but that's EVERY LANGUAGE. the basics of how things work, what you're doing, why you're doing it, and the insane degree of bare metal access that 8bit computers gave to users THROUGH BASIC really gives people a leg up on understanding the overall process of computing and programming. no grudge against djkstra but yeah, he's very very very wrong and it would be a great boon to kids right now to start with even a commodore vic20.
Awesome! I'm one myself, a RGC - Totally supporting your channel
Thank you, hope you enjoy :)
@@RetroGameCoders I have, and subbed!
Wow. This video deserves way more views than it has.
Thank you! One day I might crack the UA-cam algorithm but for now I just get all up in my head with analysis paralysis instead ;)
Brings back memories!
When is there going to be a GFA BASIC for Mac and Linux? :)
Actually I quite like the modern BBC BASIC and QBasic, I need to check GFA out as I have a boxed edition for the Atari ST somewhere!
Great introduction:)
you earned a sub. great work
Yeah we all should learn BASIC ..
Well done! Are you planning to make this a series?
It is a series :)
I really appreciate this. I especially like the In-browser emulator you provide. You literally could not make it easier, and I'm grateful for that. I'll be following and learning along!
I can't use the online emulator. My keyboard keys didn't have the same layout as a commodore so I couldn't use it. What type of keyboard do you have? how did you get a modern computer to use the online emulator? or did you use the online keyboard?
Awesome, thank you!
You bet!
Good Stuff, Thank you.
A great demonstration of how Basic works with the machine and how to program in it. Do you teach assembly language videos as well? Quite curious.
I considered it but wasn’t sure if I could add anything that hasn’t already been offered :)
@@RetroGameCoders What I've discovered in my experience is that people are looking for a lot of assembly language type programs, which is what I enjoy doing. Although the computer is old as dirt, for some reason there are those who still like the bits and bytes. There is always room for another great tutorial guy. Maybe you could be him?
You were getting a like anyway, but for using grok, I'd give you a second like if I could :D
What an inspiring and educational video! I have no significant experience with computers and programming other than the general. I’m 31 now now and having recently read the book Code by Charles petzold I’d like to get started with learning about computers and programming. This leads to my question: having seen that amazon is selling a replica of C64, i wondered if it’s possible to have a full programming experience on the replica vs the original? I’d very much appreciate your input. Best wishes.
Yeah I think it’s worth buying. Enjoy!
I was bought a c64 maxi last Christmas by the other half because that’s all I went on about as my parents bought me a commodore 16 lol 😂
Iv started trying to learn basic now at nearly 47 lol 😂 and I can’t even figure out to be able to input the date (7/12/2021) lol 😂
But I don’t care I’m enjoying trying to learn it
Wow, this video is great! But I'm having a problem were the clear home button doesn't work. Any idea on how to fix it? Also how would I go about continuing my learning seeing as you don't make videos anymore? Is there any good manuals you recomend?
What device are you using? Emulator or an actual C64 or the maxi or ..?
I’m going to start doing videos again now the flood of trolls seem to have gotten bored with me. So long as my videos aren’t exposed to Reddit I think my mental health will improve 🤣
@@RetroGameCoders I was using your web emulator on pc
@@dailydoseofeverything7141ok that must mean something changed in the keyboard scan codes since I did the videos - will investigate! 👍
Just worked for me on Chrome on mac but I did have to fix some of the character keys such as " and & :)
You should be able to use your computer keyboard to do shift+home or the onscreen keyboard to clear home
I used to love C64 BASIC. However, it was a nightmare dealing with any kind of graphics or sound. This is what ultimately put me off using it. The C128 BASIC addressed a lot of these issues. Simon's Basic on C64 was also excellent
I see BASIC as a gateway to other things. It's a great learning tool :)
Watching your editor through me for a minute until I realized it was an emulation! That's why it had replacements for down and left and such. Those characters don't exist on the PCs font
Might you produce some TRSE videos? Targeting the Commodore PET?
🇨🇦
Yes the first written articles are on my site, it takes me *ages* to edit videos so they tend to come down the priority list :)
@@RetroGameCodersSuper! Yeah, I saw your BASIC videos, which lead me to your site. Then I read the TRSE articles, and went looking for videos 😏
@@MattKasdorf I just have to get better/faster at editing and get more comfortable speaking into a microphone :)
Great! FYI Links in description are the wrong timestamps.
Aargh, that will be because of my transcription! I will fix, thank you!
@@RetroGameCoders Thanks. As others have said on Twitter, "I was just thinking about something like this." I mainly use U64, C64 and Vice, but I tried the browser emulator and could not get it running on multiple machines/browsers. Guessing it has to do with java not being supported.
@@davedavenport8673 it uses web assembly and JS but I just updated to a more recent build just now :)
I’ll be showing vice and my u64 next though
10 input "enter your name";a$
20 for i = len(a$) to 1 step -1
30 print mid$(a$,i,1);
40 next i
If I enter "bob" it prints out "bob".
I haven't even looked at basic program or is it programme on the C64 in nearly 4 decades, but I'm immediately thinking about animating sprites and mapping sprites with a sprite box. Where they 8x8? That seems a little small.
C64 sprites start out as 24x21 so a bit more space to work with
I've just had a very quick play with the embedded emulator and it's nice. But I had to laugh out loud at the size of the saved disk image, 179KB!
@@DJ-Daz massive right? 🤣
@@RetroGameCoders I think IIRC I've actually got an original manual upstairs. Maybe I should read it? LOL It's only been what about 37 years!
Would this still work on a VIC-20?
Yes. Commodore Basic will work on VIC 20
DOOD!
I had a programming teacher at college who said a program should have only one start and one exit. She, too, frowned on BASIC due to GOTO and I found her arguments a bit retarded because what's BEQ? What's BNE? What's BRA? What's BHI if they're not all forms of GOTO? You can't RTS from one of those.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the C64 but Commodore 64 BASIC - really??? It's shit! I got spoilt with BBC BASIC and that had support for graphics and sounds and many more features C64 BASIC could only dream of.
Yeah BBC BASIC is the standard that others are measured by but comparatively few people experienced it in comparison to Microsoft BASIC so that is what everyone refers to and knows, not just because of Microsoft putting it on PCs but the Commodore line and all the others that used it or copied it, which is a shame
I had a 3 year older machine, the Philips P2000T, with a Microsoft licensed Basic as well, but it is so much easier to use. A couple of basic things done right on the Philips, but unbearable on the C64:
1) load and save. This just does not make sense on the C64 with the ,8 behind it: as if one would have more than 1 drive/tape unit. And there is not even an disk inventory command or key.
2) no insert behaviour. On the P2000T I can go back with the cursor keys and insert stuff I missed. The way to do this on a C64 is abysmal. You enter the right amount of spaces with a awkward combination of 2 keys, and then you can "fill the gap". Who came up with that dumb editing system?
3) no EDIT command. On a P2000T you just type EDIT 10, and you can edit line 10. On a C64 it is LIST 10, then move the cursor up (with those nasty 2 on 1 key cursor arrows!), type over the old line and hit enter. The P2000T also has an edit next line shortcut
4) The P2000T has default ASCII characters instead of PETSCI. If you make basic programs, you want to have upper and lower case text, not weird shapes. It is an easy swap on the C64, but as the swap is a total character-set swap, it feels very weird for beginners. You should hack the ROM to start with proper characters. Also the font of the C64 is really bad, and it wastes a lot of screen estate. The P2000T uses 10 scanlines per character, where the C64 only uses 8. So the text is harder to read, even worse because of the purple-on-purple colour scheme, and you waste 20% of your CRT tube with a border. The P2000T font is less heavy weight and much better readable.
OK, the C64 is not as bad as a ZX Spectrum, that Basic really gives you headaches, but for a starter, don't use C64 basic. Try the M2000 emulator first. Or maybe Atari/Apple Basic, no idea how those work, but C64 Basic is really bad.
For me it’s not a competition or a choice, I like coding for all of my computers even if it’s just hello world :)
The push to FPS gaming and consoles have ruined the potential. Now at best we have 'Early Access' games that rarely ever leave that.