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Forty years have passed and I am trying again to get to grips with using this software package. I am actually following this on a new "THEC64". Everything in this video worked fine but when assembling the code with ASSEMBLER64 at time:6:40 instead of "PASS1 PASS2" I got a listing of the code and the next two lines on the screen were all printed with double characters e.g. EERRRROORRSS == 0000000000. I still got a READY. and the next steps running the programme worked fine. Thanks for making the videos. Very useful and easy to follow.

I learned about this from @"8-Bit Show And Tell". This is a snippet to setup NMI (non-maskable interrupt) so that when you hit the RESTORE key you end up back in TMP, source in tact. Even after a soft reset of course. ``` TMP = $8000 ;POINT NMI TO TMP LDA #<TMP STA $0318 LDA #>TMP STA $0319 ``` Just put it at the top of your executable code. Remember to remove before shipping ... note the .if family of directives to do conditional assembly might be useful here. That is it! Enjoy.

Very, very well explained. Interestingly, this is exactly how things were done in the very early days of computing. Every CPU ever made always had (and will have) a mnemonic (human-readable text) version of every instruction/opcode (and variant) of the instruction set - purely because writing in machine code (numbers only) was never done (except as an academic exercise), for obvious reasons. The total number of mnemonic instructions then comprised that CPU's 'assembly language'. Programs would be written in assembly and the numeric version of each instruction/opcode (and operand if applicable) would be hand written against this. The operator would then enter in the numeric version to load the program - exactly what you see here. The BASIC loader program in this video then does the same thing as the early operators, poking each opcode/operand into memory.

I wanted to check if emulating HD for C64 is even possible and I ran into this ABSOLUTE GEM of a channel. Thank you so much for all the videos!

This highlights the stark limitations of the C64. I still have my childhood C64, but using it for anything “serious” really is frustrating, whereas using an Amiga is much more like using any modern machine when it comes to being able to multitask and arguably much better when it comes to developing in C.

Iused to have Lazer Basic by Oasis software. I never managed to understand it or use it,. Any chance of walking us through Lazer Basic when you complete this series?

Thanks for such a thorough series! You make things very easy to follow.

COBOL, what an awful language. I would have been reaching for C or Pascal or even Forth given the hardware options - but it is cool to see how they ported great evil to the system so people could play IBM mainframe at home.

Sprite Magic is what I used-in 1984-5; just point their memory to a higher bank for a long length basic game

This makes assembly to look easy. With all the explanation, and with the knowledge of the architecture and the instruction set and what the instructions do, it's amazingly simple.

Wow this is awesome to see. Back in the day, I picked up this fantastic software package. I loved playing with it and turned out a few "No Way in Hell are these ready for prime-time" games. Lately, though, I've gotten out my old copy & I'm going to be making an attempt to finally produce a descent game. Just want to say thanks for this well timed set of tutorials.

Not possible to use any interrupts when using the kernal disk routines so the bitmap/text boundary flickers. The built in graphics functions in programming languages of those days were horrendously slow compared to poking memory in assembly.

This has been a good series on White Lightning. The VLIST command seems a little odd. It show a number of words but it doesn't show all of the words you used in this series. I was expecting it to show the complete list of available words.

Such a great video! Always nice to see someone navigate a FORTH-system with confidence. My hat is off to you sir.

Nice video! I don't understand the relationship between "$1c" and "$3000" and how can I reach a different address like 3800?

A big commodorehead who used basic and asm who never learned forth following here closely. I love it. Never will see enough of this. Thanks.

or inc $d020 a litle bit shorter

Thanks for the video. I wish I‘d had something like that when I struggled (and failed) to learn machine code as a kid in the early eighties!🙂

I enjoyed this series, I find Forth interesting, the forced structure is a unique mental reset and challenge. Interestingly, secure ledgers which form the useful part of Crypto Currency use Forth stack constructs to ensure ledger integrity. Just goes to show how sometimes this "retro" knowledge can be useful.

In FORTH you can list dictionaries of words that are available. A rather typical way of exploring things is to try a new word, see what errors it produces, put some things on the parameter stack and see what happens. Unfortunately, it’s much easier to do when you know the basics. Having a dictionary available as a fundamental language feature is not typical in most other languages of that era. Smalltalk and derivatives had it. And FORTH. And I guess that’s it among mainstream languages.

I also had a copy, a Christmas present, I loaded it once... it was the ZX Spectrum version and my reason for abandonment was the manual printed black on dark green, my poor eyesight simply prevented me from reading it. Such a shame. I remember it had a cool demo on the tape.

Thanks to these videos, I've explored aspects of FORTH that I've only read about. You're doing a great job with these videos. The pacing is right on, you speak in a way that is easy to understand and your video capture looks great!

This is very exciting. I've never gone this far with any of the other FORTH implementations I've played with. Excellent series you have started here.

LOL, I'm using Vice64 and somehow, after repeated warnings from you, formatted the White Lightning disk. I have the manual but didn't see anything about using drive 9 for the FORTH disk. I can load White Lightning from drive 9 and use drive 8 for the FORTH disk I suppose. It just feels backwards for some reason. 😀

I enjoyed this video very much. I had a C64 back in the day but now I have Vice64 and all the cool mods and accessories I could never afford. I never new about White Lightning until now. Thanks for the resources at github! I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

CP\M in Color: There has never been a fourth generation in computing: Unix in 1960, SmallTalk in 1970, BCPL in 80 and Linux back. ;)

If c64 didn't have basic. not to mention simons basic. I would consider it the eighth wonder of the world. very eccentric approach to programming. I wonder why the author of "white lightning" took such a path to the c64 programming method. best regards.

I had Machine Lightning, and I got a lot of use out of it.

The fact that Stuart Smith (of ACS fame) was involved in this is a major missing puzzle piece for me, thanks! I was fascinated with Adventure Construction Set as a kid and made several full sized games. Ever since I found out it was written in Forth I've been attempting to pick apart ACS for the C-64 and see if I can reconstruct some of the Forth from the binary in memory and on the ACS disks. Now that I know that it is likely very similar to White Lightning, it should make the project possible. Stay tuned...

Did they not have enough memory to store the source code while you work on it?

Thanks. I am really enjoying these videos.

I never came across Forth on my C64 in the 80s, I did some BASIC and assembly language, but ended up a professional Forth developer in the 90s for embedded Z80180 & x86 PC. I found out about White Lightning later on, but have never got round to taking a look at it. Your first four videos cover the basics and I'm looking forward to the advanced stuff later on. Thanks for the videos! 👍

Thank you for this series! So wish youtube was a thing in 1984 😁.

I had this on tape. The manual was actually one of the best ways of causing blindness. Dark red pages with black text. Think they did that to prevent photocopying and the purchasers from actually learning how to use the thing.

This is very interesting. Forth language was always something of an oddity to me. Very efficient (complied code was compared to that of C in the 80s), but also highly abstract and (to me, at least), counter intuitive. Build vocabulary… words that contain words, within more words… In the end, assembly was actually easier to learn (not to mention C). Oasis Software made quite a stir in the 8-bit communities in Europe in mid 80s, with their development tools: White Lightning, Laser Genius, Laser Basic compiler. I think they were made for ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, apart from C64, maybe for other systems as well. I don’t think much came out of that. Not many games were made with White Lightning, hardly any with Laser Basic. I’m not sure how popular was Laser Genius, it certainly had excellent reviews in the press at the time. A question: is White Lightning a compete implementation or a subset of Forth? A fast integer Forth of a sort?

If you want to emulate Spectrum, the most commonly used emulator is Fuse.

If you want to emulate Spectrum, the most commonly used emulator is Fuse.

Very good video as usual, I'm enjoying discovery all this tools, software, languages of the past ! Giving me even new idea for modern stuff !

Great start. WL is under appreciated. I bought it back in the day, although mainly used the bundled Basic Lighting interface to the graphics routines or my friend's Machine Lightning assember.

Very cool. With enough commodore DOS knowledge you can write something that works like this that writes direct to disk and pulls it back in a random format and not sequential. Not a small task.

These WL videos are great! Really great content here. Takes me back to when I bought this pack many years ago. Thank you!

I love how you manage to find obscure development packages and review them. I'm guessing the likes of White Lightning were not as popular in N America as they were in UK and Europe. I owned White Lightning back in the day and tried my best to get to grips with it. I only got so far before I found myself needing more information on how to program in Forth. This package sowed the seed of Forth programming for me. I have always had a curiosity for Forth ever since I bought this. I even bought Leo Brodie's 2 books "Starting Forth" and "Thinking Forth". What I always remember about this pack was that the manual was printed on red pages to prevent it from being photocopied. This was how it was "copy protected". White Lightning and Basic Lightning were closely related to Laser Genius and Laser Basic. The Laser Genius debugger was a Forth environment which, to this day, I haven't tried out fully. Brilliant content as always! Thanks again.

Strange, at least different

Really great video. I really enjoy your style and how you explain things. Cannot wait to see the next one. I had WL (cracked of course) when I was a kid and never figured it out because I had no manual.

That is nuts!

Oh wow... I had this when I was a kid! I begged my parents and got it for Christmas the year it was released. I played with it a bit... but I did not have any Forth books and it was not very easy to get into, so I quickly lost interest in favor of coding directly in assembly. I'm glad that the first thing I did was back it up, as I recall there was something about about it writing directly to track/sectors so it was possible for you to trash the OEM White Lightning disk if you screwed up.

so qq, what kind of Keybaord are you using, one with labels? I am looking to add labels or icons to my current keyboard, but want something that makes sense... 70% keyboard etc...

Sir could u make a video on animate with kickassembler?

Excellent video. Thanks for posting.

I've wanted to learn assembly for a long time, but was intimidated by it. This vid and TMP is removing that.