Jay's Commodore Podcast

Jay Versluis

Join me for tips and tricks on programming BASIC and Assembly on vintage Commodore systems.

  1. 05/09/2018

    Discovered: Commodore 64C used in an auto repair shop (2018)

    I’ve recently discovered a tweet that showed a Commodore 64C complete with green monitor and 1541-II drive, heavily dust covered, but still working and being used in a Polish Auto Shop. The picture itself was fascinating enough, but I’ve also discovered that it was a screen grab from a video – which I’m including here ... Read more

    13 min

  2. 05/08/2018

    How to write a text input routine in Commodore BASIC

    In this screencast I’ll show you how to write your own INPUT routine in Commodore BASIC. This comes in handy when you want to reject certain keys from being used when asking users for keyboard input. In my example I’m going to allow all alpha characters (A-Z), as well as SPACE, RETURN and the DELETE ... Read more

    23 min

  3. 04/18/2018

    Flashing Border Colors on the Commodore 128 in Machine Language

    In this episode I’ll show you how to create the iconic flashing borders on Commodore machines. Back in the day, when the system was loading, this was a nice way to indicate that the computer is busy doing something rather than being dead. I’ll show you the principle both in BASIC and in Machine Language ... Read more

    8 min

  4. 04/17/2018

    Programmatic Loops in Commodore BASIC

    In this episode I’ll demonstrate how to use programmatic loops in Commodore BASIC. I’ll show you how to use the FOR/NEXT loop (available in all versions of Commodore BASIC), as well as the DO/WHILE loops (available on the Plus/4 and C128). Enjoy!

    12 min

  5. 04/16/2018

    Flow Control in Commodore BASIC

    In this episode I’ll explain the concept of Flow Control in Commodore BASIC. It’s kind of a video update of a post I did a while ago. In essence, it means that we can tell the programme to take a different route in the code depending on a condition that’s met. We’ll explore the IF/THEN ... Read more

    14 min

  6. 04/16/2018

    How to run Commodore BASIC as a Scripting Language on macOS

    Did you know you can run Commodore BASIC v2 on your Mac and Linux systems as a scripting language? It’s true – thanks to the marvellous efforts of Michael Steil and James Abbatiello. They’ve adapted the original BASIC v2 as featured on the VIC-20 and C64 with additional routines so that it works natively on ... Read more

    19 min

  7. 04/13/2018

    Writing HELLO WORLD in Machine Language on the Commodore 128

    The Commodore 128 has a built-in machine language monitor which makes it ideal for ML development. However, most (or pretty much all) documentation on this subject is geared towards the Commodore 64, making it slightly difficult to get a head start in writing ML code for the 128. Before I forget how to do it, ... Read more

    22 min

  8. 04/11/2018

    Lottery Statistics in Commodore BASIC

    In this episode I’m adding statistics support to my previous lottery generator on the Commodore 64. I’ll add an array that is updated if my supplied numbers have been matched, and how many times over how many draws this has happened. I’ll also add an option to pause the programme and display the statistics before ... Read more

    14 min
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Join me for tips and tricks on programming BASIC and Assembly on vintage Commodore systems.

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