on the menu today... very the very i don't know!
why did commodore say they were dumb and fast? i am dumb and fast buy a commodore 64!
welcome
oh hello chip dippers welcome to a very festive retro recipes
yeah dippers not diapers puppy fractic
um i am actually just going to disconnect this because it is connected to
the solar panels of the house and we don't want to wear those down
and that's depleting the sun's energy quite a lot so get rid of that [breaking glass]
however i'm here because i want to invite you to join me on a bit of a mystery hunt way back
when when i was about 12 years old and i got my first commodore 64. i remember having the
commodore christmas demo remember vividly i would load it up at christmas time and it was honestly
so nostalgic that it's something that i still do to this day around christmas time just load up
that demo because you know how smells and well it didn't have smelly vision but you know how
it smells and music and sounds can really tap back into your your most latent memories like
nothing else something about the visuals and the memory of the commodore christmas demo just for me
probably for a few of you as well that just brings back being 12 years old christmas presents under
the tree and uh yeah happy trees so there's a bit of a mystery about all that because
when i got the commodore sx 64 donation which you can maybe see behind me
and we've done some really fun things with that on the channel and i also got this sx64 test
demo disc so we know it was distributed on disks but i was in the uk when i had it as a kid
and it was cassette tapes not floopy discs that were the prevalent media
so how did i end up with a copy of the demo and because the commodore 64 users in the UK & europe
mainly just used tapes this might explain recollections that the christmas demo only
shipped with the sx64 because it did have a disk drive now people online answered me and they said
yeah they remembered actually working in a shop at that time and they were provided
with this disc to showcase the sx64 but nobody remembered ever getting it for the commodore 64.
so how did i end up with a copy of the demo when i had a commodore 64. well that's really the mystery
so i've been asking around online and one person mentioned that they think that they got a copy of
it on something called the very first now just so happens i have reacquired that from fleabay
i have it right here this triggered another latent memory in the back of my mind
of getting this with my commodore 64. on the cover it says the very
the very first very first then if that was the official title
the very the very first very first introduction
to your c64 okay i'm going to ask you how you pronounce that
the very first the very the very i don't know i think i got it right the first time
now i also looked at all the back issues of zzap 64 which was my favorite commodore 64 magazine and
i got every issue for as long as i had a commodore 64. and i looked at every issue that they made and
every cover tape and there was no sign of the commodore christmas demo coming through my door
that way but when i looked more into the bundles of commodore 64 that this came with
someone online mentioned they thought it came with this commodore compendium pack
and that suddenly made so much sense because as you know i've had a commodore music maker keyboard
overlay for my commodore 64 since i was 12 and you've seen me do a lot of fun stuff refurbing
that and then in one very low resolution picture i couldn't find a higher version
i saw the very first tape lurking in the corner of that compendium pack although i've uncovered
possibly the answer to the riddle there's a few things we need to find out
firstly is the commodore christmas demo on here secondly what on earth else is on here
and what latent memories is that going to trigger in me i mean this might be quite a flashback for
me and some of you so that's our challenge today hope you're going to join me let's go
now the tape was halfway through so yeah i'm gonna have to ask you to bear with me while i rewind it
how about some christmas music while we do joy to the world the world is the world
ah it's done so we're just gonna do it the completely old-fashioned way
no sd cards no emulators press play on tape
and of course we don't know if the tape even works from felipe so that's going to be another
interesting thing just got a blank screen right now this may not be a happy christmas after all
okay searching found the very first that is a really good sign i'm kind of surprised that
happened so i'm speechless it's working okay but it is working slowly so while we wait it's a good
time to mention pushy be ways christmas shopping festival featuring a lucky draw and a year-end
big sale because as we all know pcb stands for perifractic's cassette boot screen doesn't it
a tutorial program for your commodore 64. commodore presents the very first
okay i don't see the christmas demo but i do see four things that we can go through so let's go
through the tutorial see what happens you're 12 years old you've got your commodore 64 for the
first time set up in your bedroom you've got no idea what you're doing keyboard and colors
i am loading keyboard and colors lesson that mean i am loading it or i am loading it
see those classic and overload flashing stripes so it's kind of like a zip program for a cassette
tape that it would crunch the data and what you see there is kind of it uncrunching it it's very
interesting how you could choose one two three four but it's loading one so what if you hit four
would you have to fast forward the tape or how would it know what order you were gonna choose
the options in in order to know where on hello to go this is my keyboard press the spacebar
this this is it's hitting the back of my memory press the spacebar okay now that you own me
let's be friends well hello i'm going to teach you how to use the keyboard to use the colors
tell me if i am dumb and slow dumb and fast smart and fast smart and slow i don't really understand
i'm just gonna be nice three smart and fast who told you i was smart try again
smart and slow do you really think i'm slow try again what weird place for the apostrophe
thumb and fast okay that's right why does why did commodore say they were dumb and
fast like someone literally programmed that in i am dumb and fast buy a commodore 64. great
holiday marketing there that's right i am dumb but very fast and humble okay makes more sense
i'm always ready to serve you my master getting flashbacks to being on set on revenge of the sith
i'm also very sensible do not use the force when oh do not use force
this is getting it's getting very freaky and close to the bone here we'll get away from star wars
do not use force when you press the key just you can imagine me pressing the key with the force
okay just tap it lightly once only if you don't get this desired effect sorry if you
don't get the desired effect press it if you don't get the desired effect press it again
once a bit harder i thought i was going to get childhood nostalgia from this and i'm
getting star wars and other things we'll now learn how to use the keyboard and i want my payment now
give me a dollar
now that the matter is settled i i like the humor in this uh i would like to point out that there
are two shift keys one on each side well i'm gonna assume that you know how to use a commodore 64.
because i don't want us to lose sight of the goal here which is to try to discover and recreate the
exact process i would have gone through when i was 12 just like some of you to get all christmassy
and thanks for joining me for this i do wonder if they put multiple versions on the tape so option
one two three and four are repeated throughout the tape so you can always just press play to
eventually get back to option two option one if it needs to clever stuff because of course it can
only store so much in the ram in the memory because it is dumb if very fast and humble
that's not what we're looking for
load error
well this is bound to happen at some point wasn't it
i've just noticed it says select the side you require side one the demo loads and runs and
then the menu is loaded so two the menu loads could the demo be the demo as in the demo
let's see if i do have side two inserted of course in true commodore fashion
there's nothing actually on the tape to tell you which side you've got loaded
so let's hope and pray to santa himself that this is side one see what we get
i'll tell you it's something else mirroring actions that you probably haven't done
in the exact same way since well 35 years ago found the very first oh i've got in brackets demo
didn't say demo before did it actually nervous i really want this to work
it's taking longer to load than it did before so it's loading something different
whatever we get actually i'm going to be happy now loading demonstration program all right
we've got a little countdown in the number of blocks that it's got to load so we've got 64 left
well with 30 blocks left i i'm just reminiscing in my head about just how magical it was having
this little puppy in my bedroom we were all very lucky kids to get this these magical boxes
turn up the volume press return to start demo see what we get
it is
this is exactly what i would have loaded as a kid
good times happy christmas from commodore
i'll turn it down just a little bit
that is emotional that is that really i didn't expect that to hit me
so i've never understood how i was able to play this every christmas
and now i know it was the demo tape that came with the christmas compendium from commodore
now the demo i know very well um but the nostalgia that we can re-animate
in exact living form thanks to tiny little magnetic particles storing binary data is that is
that is truly special i think that is what makes computers so nostalgic
there are a lot of hobbies that people do but i've never found a community where we
really get to relive that happiness of childhood nostalgia because if you go back and you look at a
painting that you had as a kid or you find an old school book it doesn't have sound it doesn't have
moving animation it doesn't have a tactile user interface that you you used with your fingers
this is so all-encompassing to your memories that i think it just hits more neural
connections at once and when you re-spark them it's something really special very christmassy
but yeah i think we have discovered the answer to our mystery i just want to thank you guys for
joining me on that short ish but very emotional very festive little journey i'm going to be back
with lady fractic and puppy fractic in a week's time and we're going to be doing a very special
huge christmas fun boxing so hope you'll join me then as always thanks so much for
watching subscribe and support below merry christmas and cheerio and play it again now
now can you work out which is site on which side too
no well you put it in and side one would show the demo
and then the menu is loaded right side two just the menu loads where were you an hour
ago when i was trying to figure all of this out uh whole foods!