Hey, I'm Dave, welcome to my shop! I'm Dave Plummer, retired operating systems engineer from
Microsoft going back to the MS-DOS and Windows 95 days, and I've got a couple of important
announcements, including a live Q&A event tonight, as well as a response from Bill Gates regarding
the Easter Egg episode! To begin, I'm pleased to announce that Dave's Garage just crossed the
10 million view mark, which is quite a milestone for a channel as technically focused as this one,
I'd say! It goes without saying that I couldn't have done it without you - because by definition,
I couldn't! That averages out to 50 views per subscriber, by the way, so please do make sure
you're subscribed to the channel if you enjoy the content! Either way, I'm pretty stoked about the
milestone, so I'm going to put in a cool special effect right now: In other news, I also heard
back from Bill Gates about the Commodore Easter Egg! If you haven't seen the Bill Gates Easter
Egg episode that details the egg and the origins of Commodore BASIC, check it out next. I'll try
to put a link to it up in the corner, and I'll include a link in the video description as well.
So while he didn't specifically say that he's a huge fan and watches every episode,
I think it's the natural conclusion. But what DID he actually say? 1) He confirmed that it was
indeed he that wrote and inserted the famous WAIT 6502 Easter Egg into Commodore BASIC version 2
2) He said the easter egg was put in just for fun. So, it was like a little vanity license plate. He
didn't mention any of the licensing concerns that people often cite and that I speculated about in
the video. So it appears to just be a fun little diversion to be able to claim pride of authorship
later. 3) Contrary to the common legend, he said that Commodore paid $50K for the most
basic of BASICs, and then something on the order of $120K for addons and special features. So, the
notion that Jack Tramiel got away with a single payment isn't quite true. In the famous story,
Bill wanted to get a per-machine royalty, but Jack quipped "Sorry Bill, I'm already married". So in
the end he may not have married Microsoft, but it wasn't a one-night stand either. 4) Bill said
that Chuck Peddle, chief designer of not only the PET but also head of the 6502 design team,
was aware of the Easter Egg, and because it was benign, Commodore didn't care. 5) And then Bill
created a new mystery for me - he said that the Commodore PET character set, famously known as
PETSCII, was something "we" did to enable a bit of graphics on a machine that otherwise had none. But
he didn't say if "we" was Microsoft or Microsoft and Commodore together. I would have thought
that PETSCII, being basically the character set ROM, would have been a hardware thing designed
by Commodore, but you never know. So there's a new mystery - was Microsoft responsible for PETSCII?
Now, if you happen to be watching this on the day of release, then later on today - yes, today,
Wednesday January 26th - I'll be doing a book talk livestreamed from the University of Regina. I'll
do a bit of a reading from the book, and then there will be an interview conducted by Joelle
Seal of CBC News, the national news channel in Canada. Then there will be a Q & A where you can
join in and ask your questions and I'll do my best to answer them! It all starts tonight
at 5PM PST, 8PM EST. My apologies to those of you time zones where that doesn't work,
but it's a lecture series traditionally held in the evening so that it doesn't overlap with
classes. This was originally planned to be an on-site lecture, but Omnicron had other plans.
I have no idea how many people they were expecting... so if they had plans for 50
folks and I announce it to 200,000 of my closest friends, I can't promise there will be room for
everyone. But hey, let's see if we can crash Zoom! My best advice is to register early using the link
in the description. If you're watching this live during the premiere, then good gravy, pause the
video, do it now! Space is limited! Panic! The registration link is in the video description.
Of course, the subject at hand is my book, Secrets of the Autistic Millionaire, which
details my advice for living a successful life with autism, whether it affects you personally or
someone you love. But I'm told the interview will be focused on employment issues, in particular,
my time at Microsoft in the 1990s, so it might be an interesting chat about a cool period in time,
and I'd hate for you to miss it! I've been trying to keep the content mostly separate,
so if you're interested in ASD matters, please be sure to subscribe to my OTHER channel, with
the same name as the book: Secrets of the Autistic Millionaire. I plan to start releasing the audio
book in installments there, so get subscribed so that you start with the first episode!
And by all means, check out the Amazon link to my book in the video description! Thanks for
joining me for this brief announcement! I hope to you see you there tonight, and of course,
in the meantime and in-between time, I hope to see you next time, right here in Dave's Garage.