8-Bit Book Club: The Complete Commodore Inner Space Anthology

We take a look at the best pure reference guide for 8-bit Commodore computers. It's by The Transactor magazine editor, Karl Hildon, with memory maps and Super Charts from Jim Butterfield.

Follow along at home:

To support 8-Bit Show And Tell:

Previous 8BST episodes mentioned:

Index:
0:00 Intro
3:00 Table Of Contents
5:16 BASIC
12:09 COMAL
14:34 Printers
15:12 Business Software
17:07 Machine Language
19:37 SuperCharts & Memory Maps
22:50 Disk Drives
24:13 Music/Audio
26:07 Graphics/Video
28:38 Telecomputing
32:01 Computer Clubs / User's Groups
33:51 Input/Output, Hardware
37:11 Misc. Reference
39:06 C-128 Section
40:09 Thanks!

[LadyNicola]

I'm going to go through the Pet manuals then Vic20 then C64. I'm learning now, stuff that I so wanted to learn as a kid. 😊📺🌟

[jeffstack]

Nice to see the CCCC users group in there. I met the last surviving member of that group in 2020 and purchased ALL the equipment, disks and books they had and have a decade worth of their monthly news letters. ALOT of interesting stuff.

Btw, i emailed Karl Hildon regarding this and linked him to this video in case he was interested, or didn’t see it yet. I know you mentioned he was a friend, so I’m guessing he might have, but never assume.

[AndyDavis]

This is a most excellent volume. You have an awesome library. Thanks so much for sharing, including your personal and historical insight.

[RetroGameCoders]

Amazingly comprehensive. All the time I was thinking it really should be a searchable website :)

[viJ]

The Transactor was awesome!!! I used to read and re-read every issue a half-dozen times. As a teen, it was the first place I saw info on adding a reset and cartridge port switches (so that I could dump them to floppies) to the C=64; my first ever computer mods!

[JohnMDiLiberto]

Wow! "Comprehensive" doesn't even begin to do this book justice. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Robin!

[jinchoung]

wow what an awesome resource... it contains SO MUCH information on even non computer subjects! it's almost like a guide to the modern world or something. incredible.

[CollinBaillie]

Wow, what a book! And that closer song!!

[richardperritt]

Transactor was the most valuable subscription I had. I had both the original brown bible and the inner space anthology and wore them both out!
Growing up in Northern Ontario we didn't have the luxury of attending club meetings like TPUG. After running up a $2000 phone one month (yes in one month!) I invested in a Bell Canada Datapac account. It was substantially cheaper!
Sadly my Transactors, and all my notations(!), are long gone with the sale of my C64 in the late 80s. (One of those unemployment events that forces you to sell everything you own because you just bought a vehicle!)

[GeoffSeeley]

I have this book! Blast from the past as I probably haven't looked at it in 30+ years! It was a fantastic source of information back in the day as was the Transactor magazine as well.

[ropersonline]

37:02: I bet Adrian's Digital Basement would like this.

[noland]

Great manual – and I had never heard of it. Thank you for the tip!

[sammy]

I understood none of this but i certainly enjoyed watching it love old school computing keep the great videos coming

[snakefriesia]

dang this cost a lot of work, kudos to Karl Hildon. for putting up with it :-)

[johnnydreamwarior]

Excellent book . A must have for every commodore 64 fun!!!!

[majortom]

Wow!!! Incredible book. Thanks for sharing

[MichaelDoornbos]

I contacted Karl a few months ago about getting new paper copies of this and he didn't have any left. He sent me a link to the unlocked PDF because I asked nicely. I have pages 37- 42 printed on single sheets of paper (both sides) and laminated it ;-)

11:00 We all make mistakes. Ain't that the truth?
11:40 I think I prefer Simons' BASIC, not sure if I can pin down why
12:06 "That was a weird move". I'm reading the 3 book series on the history of the Commodore by Brian Bagnall and there isn't a page in those books where "That was a weird move" doesn't apply.
21:00 This chart with the op codes on one page has also been really helpful in building standalone 6502 based boards lately. These pages are worth exploring more.
22:30 Love these startup values, now if I just had a chart with ALL of the startup values. I know a lot of the video related ones like $d011, but a list would be nice.
26:43 This is something that keeps me going, and going and then asking it to do things no one had ever thought to ask it to do. It's endless "frontiers". Love it.
27:25 I think I need that human eye upgrade. Do they sell that at the store yet? Can't. See. Those. Tiny. Numbers.
27:55 I have a series of BASIC programs I've used to help remember the edges of the screen to scroll horizontally which work well for this. Which row is next off screen and where they go.

Excellent overview Robin. Looking forward to the next book club installment.

[PXAbstraction]

Man, this book is nuts. I can't believe how much they crammed into it. Have to ask though:

35:24 What the actual?

[Woodenflutes]

I have a copy of this book signed by the author as well. I believe the only (officially released) Commodore 8-bit computer it doesn't cover (considering there is a C128 addendum) is the special features of the SuperPET (the normal features are covered by the 8032 sections). Well I suppose it doesn't cover the VIC-1001, MAX or Educator 64 as well, but then we might be splitting hairs.

[INFILDR]

READY.
10 PRINT "Now I know, why did two wires soldered on to my C=64's back, ended in a microswitch."
11 REM Now I know, that 'leftback' port is called 'USER PORT'.
12 REM Never used, never know whats for
13 PRINT "Now I know!"
20 PRINT "The holy 'RESET' button!"
30 PRINT "COLD START to GND!"
31 REM Memory is NOT destroyed... isn't that warm?
40 PRINT "It didn't work for me, probably the microswitch was dead, and as a kid, I always wondered, what's that mod for?!"
50 PRINT "After 29 years, now I know what was that mod for!"
60 PRINT "THANKS!"
70 PRINT "But now, I don't know, why this mod had never been done to the 'BREADBIN' ?!"
80 PRINT "Simply by factory?"
90 GOTO 80
RUN
...
?OUT OF DATA ERROR IN 80
READY.
0