Yes. This went on for almost 3 hours, but could have easily gone on for hours the number of stories that they were telling. I hope that we can do this again some day.
Yes it was! Believe it or not there wasn't much preparation for this talk. Even though it looked like it was scripted in some parts. That was hilarious every time Andy Finkel brought out a t-shirt related to what we were talking about. We didn't plan that!
I find it very hard to believe that the C65 was done by "one guy". Aside from the PCB and case design, it had a new 16bit 6502 CPU variant, the VICIII and new software OS. This would have been a massive amount of work from programming, chip design, PCB design, case design etc. Would love to hear the real background story behind it, I hope it surfaces one day or the person involved gets to tell their story.
It would be nice to get a history of the software that went with these computers. How was it developed? How much did they need to work with the hardware people to get it to work? What programming languages? Ect... Would love to hear more from Andy Finkle as well. That said, thanks for this, please keep it up!
I love the story about shorting out the back bias generator on the 80 column chip. I remember having to mess around with schottky diode dropping of prototype chips at university to make the marginal voltage behaviour stable enough to work on the next revision :-)
29:39 Bil, my man, I keep telling you Commodore hasn’t been forgotten. The retro kids love it. An Amiga 1000 is central to the 4th season of Stranger Things. Weird Al mentions the 64 in a song. Halt and Catch Fire’s entire second season revolves around Commodore. Sure, everyone knows Apple - but Commodore lives on in the human subconscious. 1:45:11 I’m glad Hedley chimes in here, because Jeff Porter was a supporter of the C65, believing it to be a contender against video game consoles.
I agree with you! The best selling microcomputer of all time! People kept buying them for years up until Commodore went out of business. They did something really right with the C64!
@@vcfederation People are still buying the C64 - the originals on the second-hand market - usually still working - or replicas like C64 DTV, Turbo Chameleon 64, Ultimate 64, THEC64 ...
I never liked the knocking C64 BASIC received, I guess it was a cliché established early on, and many people enjoy repeating clichés without second thought. C64 BASIC is actually the fastest CBM-8-Bit-BASIC, being 4.0 (including the bug fixes) trimmed to the essential command set of 2.0, while the more bloated versions are all slower, for additions that don't achieve much. I don't need commands for rather useless circles and rectangles or meager beeps, and BASIC can easily live without structures like ELSE or WHILE - if needed, equivalents can be done using the oh-so-evil GOTO. 2:27:45 is especially implausible: The entire first half of the C64 Programmer's Reference Guide is about BASIC, and a large chunk of the assembly part is about using KERNAL. Many books about assembly on the C64 also recommend using routines of the BASIC interpreter, e.g. for floating point calculations.
Sorry, but whoever was supposed to be monitoring the audio/mixing did a really shitty job with the audio for Al Charpentier around 15:00. My volume is maxed out and you can barely hear what he's saying, very disappointing, and I haven't even heard the rest of the video. I really wanted to hear what he was saying. Then there's people without any mics at all talking, really bad job on that aspect of this video.
Sorry about the audio. One thing that you can do is turn on the auto generated closed captioning to pick up what he is saying. We are are an all volunteer group that does this as a hobby and we do the best that we can. This was the new A/V group's second round of the new and improved A/V system. Believe it or not this was a vast improvement over how we used to record video, which was setup a tri-pod, hit record and walk away, but obviously there are are still some kinks to work out. This large group was a real challenge to work with as there were multiple speakers across a stage. Although we had enough handheld microphones spread out among them, some of the speakers didn't have the awareness to get the microphone to their mouth before they started talking. I think that they were focused on the live in-person audience than what would be heard on the recording. We do have some ideas on how to improve the audio for next year as well as some training with the speakers to make sure that they have awareness of having the microphone to their mouth before talking.
Hedley's floppy drive story is classic!
Oh yeah. It's fun that never head before stories come up in this talk. You will not likely ever see a group like this ever in one place again!
Thanks for making this available for us all to view. Love all of the Commodore stories ❤️
Thanks go to Bil Herd for getting the gang together and Jeff Brace for organizing the event and making all of this possible.
Brilliant panel. Those Commodore guys are all legends and must be preserved at all costs.
Absolutely! It was such a great talk!
Well, I'd agree their stories should be preserved. I'm not sure preserving them is a good idea.
@@timlocke3159 no. They must be preserved!
I could listen to them talk for days and days. Absolutely loved this. Thanks for sharing.
Yes. This went on for almost 3 hours, but could have easily gone on for hours the number of stories that they were telling. I hope that we can do this again some day.
This was a great panel, I'm grateful to have witnessed it in person.
Yes it was! Believe it or not there wasn't much preparation for this talk. Even though it looked like it was scripted in some parts. That was hilarious every time Andy Finkel brought out a t-shirt related to what we were talking about. We didn't plan that!
1:44:19 that C65 answer, created more questions then answered the question 😂
We're just glad that more information was shared. Having all of these guys in one room at least helped to find out more information.
@@vcfederation that's true.... great question, I wonder if the C65 guys from down under watched? 😹
I find it very hard to believe that the C65 was done by "one guy". Aside from the PCB and case design, it had a new 16bit 6502 CPU variant, the VICIII and new software OS. This would have been a massive amount of work from programming, chip design, PCB design, case design etc. Would love to hear the real background story behind it, I hope it surfaces one day or the person involved gets to tell their story.
I would love to hear that story as well. I will try to find out who were the people working on that project.
Absolutely fantastic panel. Thank you all for taking the time and sharing your memories with us.
I was very happy that they took the time to come and tell us their stories!
I love the noticeable Philly accents on the panel. I grew up about 10 miles from Cooper Medical Center in Camden that Bil mentions.
Yeah. I noticed some of them too.
It would be nice to get a history of the software that went with these computers. How was it developed? How much did they need to work with the hardware people to get it to work? What programming languages? Ect... Would love to hear more from Andy Finkle as well. That said, thanks for this, please keep it up!
Good idea!
Thanks, Commodudes!
I will have to whole-heartedly agree with you! ;)
What a fantastic team!
This was a great bunch of guys who did some great things. We were glad to arrange such a group to have fun and share stories.
Thank you, it was awesome
It was our pleasure! We're glad that you liked the video.
I love the story about shorting out the back bias generator on the 80 column chip. I remember having to mess around with schottky diode dropping of prototype chips at university to make the marginal voltage behaviour stable enough to work on the next revision :-)
They have such great stories!
What a fantastic gathering. Is Shiraz Shivji still with us?
I will have to check with Bil, but I believe that he is. There were some that couldn't make it due to other commitments.
29:39 Bil, my man, I keep telling you Commodore hasn’t been forgotten. The retro kids love it. An Amiga 1000 is central to the 4th season of Stranger Things. Weird Al mentions the 64 in a song. Halt and Catch Fire’s entire second season revolves around Commodore. Sure, everyone knows Apple - but Commodore lives on in the human subconscious.
1:45:11 I’m glad Hedley chimes in here, because Jeff Porter was a supporter of the C65, believing it to be a contender against video game consoles.
We too are trying to reassure Bil that Commodore isn't forgotten and we hope that this talk shows everyone all the great things that they did.
In my opinion the cbm64 was one of the best computer for it’s time.
I agree with you! The best selling microcomputer of all time! People kept buying them for years up until Commodore went out of business. They did something really right with the C64!
@@vcfederation People are still buying the C64 - the originals on the second-hand market - usually still working - or replicas like C64 DTV, Turbo Chameleon 64, Ultimate 64, THEC64 ...
I LOVE C64 👍🥂🎩
We love the C64 too!
All that technical knowledge in that room and can't operate a microphone
Sometimes they are nervous or focused on what they are saying. They are engineers, not professional presenters at a TedX talk!
I never liked the knocking C64 BASIC received, I guess it was a cliché established early on, and many people enjoy repeating clichés without second thought. C64 BASIC is actually the fastest CBM-8-Bit-BASIC, being 4.0 (including the bug fixes) trimmed to the essential command set of 2.0, while the more bloated versions are all slower, for additions that don't achieve much.
I don't need commands for rather useless circles and rectangles or meager beeps, and BASIC can easily live without structures like ELSE or WHILE - if needed, equivalents can be done using the oh-so-evil GOTO. 2:27:45 is especially implausible: The entire first half of the C64 Programmer's Reference Guide is about BASIC, and a large chunk of the assembly part is about using KERNAL. Many books about assembly on the C64 also recommend using routines of the BASIC interpreter, e.g. for floating point calculations.
I also have an appreciation for the C64's BASIC 2.0. It's sufficient for what it is supposed to do.
Sorry, but whoever was supposed to be monitoring the audio/mixing did a really shitty job with the audio for Al Charpentier around 15:00. My volume is maxed out and you can barely hear what he's saying, very disappointing, and I haven't even heard the rest of the video. I really wanted to hear what he was saying. Then there's people without any mics at all talking, really bad job on that aspect of this video.
Sorry about the audio. One thing that you can do is turn on the auto generated closed captioning to pick up what he is saying. We are are an all volunteer group that does this as a hobby and we do the best that we can. This was the new A/V group's second round of the new and improved A/V system. Believe it or not this was a vast improvement over how we used to record video, which was setup a tri-pod, hit record and walk away, but obviously there are are still some kinks to work out. This large group was a real challenge to work with as there were multiple speakers across a stage. Although we had enough handheld microphones spread out among them, some of the speakers didn't have the awareness to get the microphone to their mouth before they started talking. I think that they were focused on the live in-person audience than what would be heard on the recording. We do have some ideas on how to improve the audio for next year as well as some training with the speakers to make sure that they have awareness of having the microphone to their mouth before talking.
A lot of them didn't have the microphone that close to them even when they were holding it. That was the only issue. Not bad with headphones on