Wow, this jogs memories. I absolutely had this disk back in the day. Labyrinth was king. Also played a lot of stupid Lemonade. First time I ever heard of the term "wet bulb". Even at such a young age, it still sounded a little dirty to me. Tee Hee!
Oh! You know what connection I just made after 30+ years of knowing about other Commodore 64s than just the normal one? The VIC-20's default color scheme is also the one on the SX-64! OH my GOSH, why did I only just realize that RIGHT NOW even though I had played around with SXes in high school and David Murray the 8-Bit Guy showed us that he built his new studio building based on this scheme and at some point I think he showed us an SX-64, as well as others? Why did it just barely take THIS video for me to connect the dots? So why, do you think, they used the 20's scheme in the SX? Oh my gosh, how interesting! Happy Christmas (2023)!
In labyrinth you need to press "SHIFT" +"CBM" to switch to upper case to display correctly this is a commodore pet program adapted for the C64 the "M" and "N" will change to / and \ making the image display correctly.
Thanks for the tip; there was another comment about that as well. The C64 was in upper/lower case mode as a result of Labyrinth being launched from the menu. I wasn't familiar enough with the game to catch that it was in the "wrong case". A perfect example of why BASIC programmers should not assume that users are launching their programs from a "fresh" system! ☺️ -- JC
Thanks, that was a nice information package. Would have loved to have that disk back in -83. About the colour test, some may not know that most of the C-64 users didn't have a quality monitor. Instead they had to use a regular TV, because the monitors were quite expensive back then. With a regular TV you had a really-really bad picture quality with a certain colour combinations.
Yes indeed! I was one of the MANY people who only had a TV for my C64 back in the day. I now own the Commodore CRTs I always wanted, but even those have awful smearing between certain colours if you're using composite output instead of luma/chroma. (But who would do such a thing? ☺️ ) Thanks for the comment. -- JC
This disk is very similar to the Disk Bonus Pack that came in the big blue folio (also known as the Starter-Kit on Zimmer's). I think the disk bonus pack has a few more songs on it, plus the DOS wedge and PET emulator. I think the Cassette Bonus Pack also has most or all of these also.
Thanks for the information. I wasn't very familiar with the Bonus Pack prior to posting this video, but I've since checked it out, and it does indeed have a huge overlap of contents with the Program Pack. While there are a few legitimate differences, the amusing part to me is that they broke out the songs and sound effects into their own individual programs -- so the Bonus Pack can more truthfully meet the claim of having 30+ programs (applications) while containing approximately the same amount of content! -- JC
Wow, I didn't know this existed at all back then and we bought several 1541s between 1983-1989. I wonder if this was exclusive to Canada? The spelling of Color as Colour makes me think so. I would guess that in the USA this was sold as Commodore 64 Software Bonus Pack, aka Disk Bonus Pack. It was sold in a large Folder, similar in style to the PD releases from Commodore. I still have mine and a glance at the instructions seems to show very much the same or similar programs. I do have the manual for that and would guess it is available online but I haven't checked. If it isn't let me know and I will scan it. Edit: Glad I checked the manual because the staples have rusted, which is a bummer. Oh well pulled them out and can paint white out over the rust as I have not figured out how to get it off the paper.
I didn't know about it either, until lately. While "colour" would be the correct spelling just about everywhere in the world except for the USA, the fact that the only 2 relevant publications I could find are Canadian ones leads me to believe your Canada-exclusive theory might be correct. Thank you for the tip about the Bonus Pack! I have looked that up online, and there is a LARGE degree of overlap in the contents of the 2 disks -- but they are indeed separate compilations. -- JC
@@BasicBitesCA It's great learning the history and about these things that we missed back then. Keep up the good work. As for Color/Colour that is funny. We have to be the only english speaking country to spell it different, LOL. I wasn't originally trying to be funny about colour more like a clue that it seemed to be localized. It seems that Commodore was localizing for the various markets in a limited fashion back then. The Bonus Pack has the same Colour program but they renamed it Color. They probably didn't need to as Americans would have probably got it. Interesting though because that meant it was clearly for the USA market.
@@RacerX- Thanks; my pleasure, as always. I didn't at all think you were making a joke about the "colour" observation -- but since it would have been spelt the same by Commodore in the UK, Australia, etc, my take was just that I wouldn't have assumed it was a Canadian exclusive on the strength of that alone. I also wouldn't expect that a piece of software using the US English spelling "color" was exclusive to the USA, since at that time, many programs being written in the USA were being distributed worldwide -- but companies generally didn't bother to do an International (British) English localisation for the export copies, as has become common with software packages today. -- JC
Thank you, Alan! You're absolutely right; I just tried it, and it certainly looks better. Having the C64 in upper/lower case is a leftover effect of launching from the menu. You can see on video that I manually switched the Colour Test program into uppercase mode after running it, but it didn't occur to me for Labyrinth. So many BASIC programmers seem to assume that the user is always launching from a default machine! -- JC
How did Jim write Supermon, though from my understanding there was nothing like it for the 64 that came before? Or how would anyone have written the first one, for that matter?
Nice to get such quick confirmation that this disk was indeed "out there"! I have about that many copies of the 1541 TEST/DEMO disk, but never knew about the Program Pack. -- JC
I don't have that. However, from doing an Internet search for more information, it appears as though the C64 Program Pack contains 6 of the 12 applications on the Programmer's Utilities disk. -- JC
@@SIDCIAVIC Although I still haven't seen a disk image anywhere, a fellow on Facebook named Kevin Lee Reno just posted a link to a site that has the Programmer's Utilities manual: www.retro-commodore.eu/c64-software/ ... in case you needed that as well. -- JC
Wow, this jogs memories. I absolutely had this disk back in the day. Labyrinth was king. Also played a lot of stupid Lemonade. First time I ever heard of the term "wet bulb". Even at such a young age, it still sounded a little dirty to me. Tee Hee!
LOL
Oh! You know what connection I just made after 30+ years of knowing about other Commodore 64s than just the normal one? The VIC-20's default color scheme is also the one on the SX-64! OH my GOSH, why did I only just realize that RIGHT NOW even though I had played around with SXes in high school and David Murray the 8-Bit Guy showed us that he built his new studio building based on this scheme and at some point I think he showed us an SX-64, as well as others? Why did it just barely take THIS video for me to connect the dots? So why, do you think, they used the 20's scheme in the SX?
Oh my gosh, how interesting! Happy Christmas (2023)!
I recognize this disk, we did get one along with the Test/Demo disk way back in '82 when I was just 8.
Thank you for this bit of C64 history.
In labyrinth you need to press "SHIFT" +"CBM" to switch to upper case to display correctly this is a commodore pet program adapted for the C64 the "M" and "N" will change to / and \ making the image display correctly.
Thanks for the tip; there was another comment about that as well. The C64 was in upper/lower case mode as a result of Labyrinth being launched from the menu. I wasn't familiar enough with the game to catch that it was in the "wrong case". A perfect example of why BASIC programmers should not assume that users are launching their programs from a "fresh" system! ☺️ -- JC
I still have my original disk that came with my 1541.
Thanks, that was a nice information package. Would have loved to have that disk back in -83. About the colour test, some may not know that most of the C-64 users didn't have a quality monitor. Instead they had to use a regular TV, because the monitors were quite expensive back then. With a regular TV you had a really-really bad picture quality with a certain colour combinations.
Yes indeed! I was one of the MANY people who only had a TV for my C64 back in the day. I now own the Commodore CRTs I always wanted, but even those have awful smearing between certain colours if you're using composite output instead of luma/chroma. (But who would do such a thing? ☺️ ) Thanks for the comment. -- JC
Thanks for this. Very interesting. I enjoy your videos very much. Keep ‘me coming!
(… avoid whistlin’ Dixie …) 😊
Hah! Much appreciated. - JC
This disk is very similar to the Disk Bonus Pack that came in the big blue folio (also known as the Starter-Kit on Zimmer's). I think the disk bonus pack has a few more songs on it, plus the DOS wedge and PET emulator. I think the Cassette Bonus Pack also has most or all of these also.
Thanks for the information. I wasn't very familiar with the Bonus Pack prior to posting this video, but I've since checked it out, and it does indeed have a huge overlap of contents with the Program Pack. While there are a few legitimate differences, the amusing part to me is that they broke out the songs and sound effects into their own individual programs -- so the Bonus Pack can more truthfully meet the claim of having 30+ programs (applications) while containing approximately the same amount of content! -- JC
I too knew this as the "Starter Kit" with this same program listing. I copied it from a friend and I have no idea where he had gotten it from.
Wow, I didn't know this existed at all back then and we bought several 1541s between 1983-1989. I wonder if this was exclusive to Canada? The spelling of Color as Colour makes me think so. I would guess that in the USA this was sold as Commodore 64 Software Bonus Pack, aka Disk Bonus Pack. It was sold in a large Folder, similar in style to the PD releases from Commodore. I still have mine and a glance at the instructions seems to show very much the same or similar programs. I do have the manual for that and would guess it is available online but I haven't checked. If it isn't let me know and I will scan it.
Edit: Glad I checked the manual because the staples have rusted, which is a bummer. Oh well pulled them out and can paint white out over the rust as I have not figured out how to get it off the paper.
I didn't know about it either, until lately. While "colour" would be the correct spelling just about everywhere in the world except for the USA, the fact that the only 2 relevant publications I could find are Canadian ones leads me to believe your Canada-exclusive theory might be correct. Thank you for the tip about the Bonus Pack! I have looked that up online, and there is a LARGE degree of overlap in the contents of the 2 disks -- but they are indeed separate compilations. -- JC
@@BasicBitesCA It's great learning the history and about these things that we missed back then. Keep up the good work. As for Color/Colour that is funny. We have to be the only english speaking country to spell it different, LOL. I wasn't originally trying to be funny about colour more like a clue that it seemed to be localized. It seems that Commodore was localizing for the various markets in a limited fashion back then. The Bonus Pack has the same Colour program but they renamed it Color. They probably didn't need to as Americans would have probably got it. Interesting though because that meant it was clearly for the USA market.
Color spelled "colour" gets pronounced "kuh loor."
@@RacerX- Thanks; my pleasure, as always. I didn't at all think you were making a joke about the "colour" observation -- but since it would have been spelt the same by Commodore in the UK, Australia, etc, my take was just that I wouldn't have assumed it was a Canadian exclusive on the strength of that alone. I also wouldn't expect that a piece of software using the US English spelling "color" was exclusive to the USA, since at that time, many programs being written in the USA were being distributed worldwide -- but companies generally didn't bother to do an International (British) English localisation for the export copies, as has become common with software packages today. -- JC
@@Mrshoujo It certainly does, unless you're speaking English. 😛 -- JC
"...If not on actual hardware."
Even if we're just doing this on the VICE, we're doing it on some sort of _actual hardware._
Nice video. LABYRINTH is meant to be played in upper case/graphics mode, not upper/lower case. Give it a try, you’ll find it looks much nicer.
Thank you, Alan! You're absolutely right; I just tried it, and it certainly looks better. Having the C64 in upper/lower case is a leftover effect of launching from the menu. You can see on video that I manually switched the Colour Test program into uppercase mode after running it, but it didn't occur to me for Labyrinth. So many BASIC programmers seem to assume that the user is always launching from a default machine! -- JC
How did Jim write Supermon, though from my understanding there was nothing like it for the 64 that came before? Or how would anyone have written the first one, for that matter?
Haha, Commodore logo as a "reverse Pac-Man"!
Is this the older brother of the 'DreamcastGuy' ? sounds like him🙃
Is there no poke or chr$ for the Restore function?
At one time I had 4 of these disks...
Nice to get such quick confirmation that this disk was indeed "out there"! I have about that many copies of the 1541 TEST/DEMO disk, but never knew about the Program Pack.
-- JC
Looking for the Programmers Utilities disk.
I don't have that. However, from doing an Internet search for more information, it appears as though the C64 Program Pack contains 6 of the 12 applications on the Programmer's Utilities disk. -- JC
@@BasicBitesCA Thanks, yes that is how far I got, too.
the one by Dr Midnight?
@@BasicBitesCA Aye - and if memory serves me well, there had been a 2nd revision of the Program Pack, but I haven't seen that in decades.
@@SIDCIAVIC Although I still haven't seen a disk image anywhere, a fellow on Facebook named Kevin Lee Reno just posted a link to a site that has the Programmer's Utilities manual: www.retro-commodore.eu/c64-software/ ... in case you needed that as well. -- JC
"TWENTY-twenty-two" is easier to say. Remember 1776? Yeah, like that. How did you say that? Not like "one thousand..." whatever, right?