@tohopes
"because nobody was there to stop us" Engineers run amok!
@medleysa
"Well, we could just check our phones for an inbound phone call." That got a (loud) audible laugh out of me. I wish I could have been a developer/engineer back in the mid-to-late 80s. It was like the Wild West.
@thomasrosebrough9062
Oh man. The "because nobody stopped us" is so real. Good and technically-knowledgeable managers are so necessary, and yet for some reason executives often think that they can replace "good managers" with "more managers". They all bicker upwards about how to divy the current money instead of looking at the direction the market is heading and working with the engineering brains to figure out how to achieve that.
@Jesse__H
I rarely enjoy it when a YouTuber hands over the mic, as it were, to a guest speaker, but this guy was great. Talk about a first-hand account!!
@bleutz
My first computer was a C128, with 1571 and 1581 disk drives, the commodore monitor and the 512K RAM expansion. I ran GEOS, played games and used a lot of application software. One of my life regrets was selling it to get a 386. I used it from 1985 to 1993. Awesome machine. Tell Bill thanks for the memories.
@iainf1
I smuggled one of these into the former Yugoslavia in 1984 for a friend. The 64 was widely available but there was a ban on the 128 because it was considered so powerful that it was seen as a threat. Took it in by train in a rucksack, and shared a compartment with a Canadian press photographer who was on vacation, but had loads of camera equipment with him. The border guards spent so much time noting down the serial numbers of his cameras and lenses that they just gave me a cursory glance.
@gianluca.g
I don't need an alarm clock in the morning, I constantly check what time is it for the entire night and then get up when time comes
@temujin1234
I am impressed that you found a guy who was actually involved in this stuff.
@juraj_redeky
David, This is not Commodore History, this is Commodore University ;-) Great job man!
@nil2k
I have boxes and boxes of floppies in my garage of 128 software I wrote myself but sold my 128 + 1571 + 1581 + 512k expansion in 1990 (for $750). I wouldn't exactly call it high quality software that I wrote, but I was one of those people who decided that I had two processors and I wanted to use both of them at once. It started with me trying to be in c64 mode while I was still getting the z80 going independently on the 80 column monitor, and then it just kept going from there. This was probably a big part of why I still make my living writing system software today. This video was the one of this series that I'd been looking forward to the most.
@alliejr
"You could simply look at a register". (11:15) ROFL!!!
@jm131719
Mr. Herd, from the bottom of my heart and many years too late, utmost gratitude for giving us the 128. It was and is still my favorite computer ever with so many good memories surrounding it. I still have working ones and use them when I can find the time. It's amazing what kind of music can be written in Basic 7 without all of Joey Latimer's peeks and pokes. Still use GEOS 128 to great effect. This was the last computer that I actually felt I understood and that I could program. Although the Amiga 500 was fun, I never really got that feeling from it, nor anything else I have used since. 8 bits = gr8 bits. Thanks again.
@claudiodemarco4388
Ah memories. I used the C-128 to write a registration/scheduling program for the local kids hockey association. For best performance, the whole thing was written in assembly language; using an assembler/disassembler that I had just finished writing myself, also in assembly. The displays were stored in the second bank of 64K for quicker access speed. It would optionally recognize an external ram bank for even faster performance. There was an option to restore the data file, as the floppy drive had a bug which would occasionally mess this file up. The source code was so large that I would use 3 floppy drives when assembling, including two 1571's and an Indus GT (rare). The 1571's were housed in a case, which also included the 512K external Ram. For reference I had a Mapping the C-128, which turns out to be a rare book. One of these days, I'm going to put all this stuff up for sale.
@AiOinc1
I love Bil Herd's commentary in this video. I hope we get to hear more stories from him in the future!
@johnrumm4786
There were quite a few nifty bits that the 128 had that probably deserve more of a mention. The BASIC was vastly better than that on any other CBM 8 bit machine, but not just because of its inclusion of graphics, sound, and disk IO capabilities. It also included proper looping control, and compound statements, so you could write in a far more structured and elegant way. You also had all the programmers aid tools in there, not just the monitor, but line renumbering, program flow tracing, code block moves etc. BASIC had split screen modes built in so you could run combined text and graphics modes split on a raster line (a trick the Amiga would later take to a whole new level). The sprite command was also cute in that it could actually animate sprites as well as just display them - with all the movement being handled in the background under interrupt control. A nice party trick was a one line command that would turn on all the sprites and send them romping off at random speeds and angles all over the screen. They would just keep on running over the top of whatever you were doing. The 80 column display had a mono out pin, that would let it drive much cheaper mono green or amber screen monitors. They made a really good display for software development and running productivity software like word processors. It was also really nice having your code and debugging on the 80 col display with the main program running on the 40 col one. Something you take for granted in modern windowed OSs. The 512K RAM Expansion Module was also rather nice since it included a hardware block transfer device to shift stuff in and out of main memory very quickly without CPU intervention. You could even cache animation frames in the and have the hardware blitter throw them into display ram fast enough for real time animations. It also worked in CP/M mode as a big RAM disk, making it much faster and eliminating loads of disk swaps on a single drive machine. Some native 128 programs like the Big Blue Reader made good use of it when copying stuff between disk formats. (the 128 and the 1571, still being one of the easiest ways to move stuff from CBM format GCR encoded disks, the various MFM formats, and also MS DOS formatted disks) Side note, on a software compatibility front, with some of the 64 titles that did not load, some would actually work if you remembered to toggle the new CAPS lock key down - that made the right bit appear in a VIC II register! While there were not many games written for the 128, there was quite a bit of good productivity software. Things like Superscript 128 and Superbase 128 (that could be loaded simultaneously and hot keyed between), Fontmaster 128, Petspeed 128 BASIC compiler, Oxford Pascal 128. Fond memories, of a machine that got me through my A levels and most of University, and I still have it... (and my wife has a 128D as well - Bill's nice plastic case version with keyboard dock and handle, not the inferior "cost reduced" one).
@bobbygood8833
This is absolutely documentary quality. The stuff with Bill is just incredible. Thank you for doing these
@asciisynth
'Do you know what that question means?' Love it.. Bill Herd is the god of techie engineers.
@Raynl1978
This was our first computer! I remember my brother got a modem for it... in the manual there was a section that said that in the future we would shop and order pizza online. I thought the idea was ridiculous at the time....I guess I was wrong
@vickypollardslittlebrother8710
Nice. Back in the 80s I lived very close to the Commodore-Factory in Braunschweig, where they build C64 and Amiga. About 20 years later there was a school for adults job-trainings in there, which I have visited. The first time I entered the building I felt something "magical". A breeze of history. Meanwhile there is a small museum for commodore in the rooms. And I remember long afternoons staying at that one classmate, who had a C64 as first. Backflash :)
@johannesdolch