Robin @ 8-Bit Show And Tell
@8BitShowAndTell
Followers
8,880
Following
4,547
Media
3,207
Statuses
15,989
Programmer, gamer, collector of retro computers and video games, making 8-bit Youtube videos, games with @P1XLgames , nerd music with @BedfordLvlExp
Thunder Bay, Canada
Joined April 2016
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
GCF HEADLINER LISA
• 525534 Tweets
Bama
• 87371 Tweets
Martinez
• 74224 Tweets
Román
• 70511 Tweets
スプリンターズS
• 51850 Tweets
Tuscaloosa
• 44220 Tweets
Riquelme
• 38905 Tweets
#MostRequestedLive
• 35113 Tweets
Mets
• 33143 Tweets
Heisman
• 31519 Tweets
Ryan Williams
• 28186 Tweets
Kirby
• 25842 Tweets
Carson Beck
• 25436 Tweets
Milroe
• 24784 Tweets
Saban
• 21575 Tweets
#RollTide
• 20717 Tweets
Jeremiah Smith
• 20406 Tweets
Dawgs
• 19959 Tweets
Jodhpur Case
• 17292 Tweets
ショウマ
• 15081 Tweets
招き猫の日
• 14718 Tweets
トッキュウジャー
• 13277 Tweets
#KaoPPFanMeet2024
• 13086 Tweets
Florida State
• 12148 Tweets
ジンギスカン
• 11958 Tweets
ショアキーパー
• 11364 Tweets
メェメェ
• 10795 Tweets
Penn State
• 10476 Tweets
The top image represents "Off" in Microsoft ToggleSwitch speak. If you encountered the same configuration in the real world (with the word "Off" actually printed on the object at the opposite end of the switch) it would mean "On". This is ambiguous and non-optimal at best.
150
396
9K
@Shouty_Dave
The top digital switch visually toggles to On when the switch is flipped, but the bottom one would continue to say off since it's just printed on the item.
5
0
373
I turned my Atari 2600 into a REAL COMPUTER with a Spectravideo CompuMate.
24
31
312
Where I got my start. Just a Commodore 64, a black & white TV, and the User's Guide. No disk drive, no cartridges, not even a tape drive for the first weeks until I saved up another $40 to buy one. So I typed in every program in the Guide, and learned a lot!
35
19
304
This amazes me: spaces are allowed in C64 BASIC variable names!! 40+ years at this and I'm still learning things frequently.
27
21
280
This "Commodore PET 64" just sold for $1358 on eBay. Not to me! I like the seller's description:
"This computer was used in schools but was less fun and harder to steal than the regular Commodore 64."
17
24
253
Maybe he'd be impressed if I told him I actually cracked it in 2022.
32
2
231
What On Earth is this doing here in my basement in Canada? I have no idea what to do with it. I think I heard it plays a mean game of Elite. And has a decent BASIC?
32
14
228
I found the TV commercial for Mikadon, the computer store I worked for in the early '90s here in
#ThunderBay
.
Shadow of the Beast for
#Amiga
and The Snowman demo for
#AtariST
are shown!
#C64
#SegaGenesis
#NES
#GameBoy
all get a mention or showing in the 30 seconds.
18
46
222
I don't know if this setting is on or off. It says "Off" to the right, but the button/switch is left which would logically be "On"... right?
Ambiguity in a binary toggle by a market leader, after 50+ years of GUI development.
44
17
206
My highschool computer club from the late 1980s. Proof that nerds were outcasts: the yearbook editors only knew the names of four of the nine people in the picture, and didn't bother to find out who the rest were.
26
11
208
I really don't see why USB got any traction when there was already IEEE-488 GPIB. Like, just look at these connectors! Beautiful.
29
17
200
Why not put the RESET button right there on the hex pad, beside zero?
24
19
197
Testing the C128Ds I've rescued over the years. 2 of them seem to have bad power supplies, the others boot up fine. Some have aged gracefully, some have not.
#Commodore
#C128
22
17
193
The more rare
#C64
disk drives in my collection. Especially that one at the top right!
#Commodore64
7
18
181
80 columns on a VIC-20! 40+ years later it's still kinda neat.
17
16
194
Chatting up the girls with the portable cassette recorders and Chemistry With A Computer textbooks, chatting up the boys carrying around the Exidy Sorcerers.
19
34
184
This beautiful machine is a SEIKO 5900II programmable calculator with built-in CRT and amazingly, dual floppy drives. It was made around 1982 and as far as I know was only sold in Japan.
13
23
192
Some of my favourite Atari 2600 games. Trying to narrow down my top 20 but I think I still need to make a few changes.
#atari2600
36
18
184
The many faces of Little Professor, my favourite reverse owl calculator, and their mystic cousin, Wiz-A-Tron.
15
30
194
At the retro computer club tonight there was this boxed "Calgary Olympics" C64 for sale, but it only had 463 bytes free! I bought it anyway. If it's otherwise stable, I might not even try to fix it. That's way more than I need for 10 PRINT.
17
10
183
A young worker at the grocery store asked if I had taught programming for kids at the library 7 or so years ago. I had! He said it really got him into coding; he's now in 3rd year Computer Science. A great reminder for me that we can make a difference by volunteering.
10
15
188
This Commodore M55 calculator from ~1977 just sold for $606. Congrats to the lucky bidder - sure wasn't me!
11
18
182
I like the idea of a calculator with a PUNCH button.
15
21
185
Had a lot of fun with the PET 2001 at computer club last night. Miner got a lot of play.
10
18
171
What other computers besides the Commodore 8-bits have a π symbol right there on the keyboard?
(yes I should have dusted before taking this picture)
22
11
170
14
28
170
A 3 MHz Z80 is not 3 times more powerful than a 1 MHz 6502. For example, a 6502 takes 2 to 6 cycles to execute an ADC (Add with Carry), while a Z80 takes 7 to 19 cycles. The Z80 needs to be clocked 3x as fast to be competitive with the 6502.
24
27
170
And here's Pi to 876 decimal places, calculated by Commodore 64 and Rosetta Code, shrunk to one screen and slightly improved.
#C64
#piDay2023
9
20
167
Today's pleasant surprise was finding 4 boxes (one open) of new-old-stock double density 5.25" disks hidden behind a stack of blank DVDs at the local electronics supply store that's been around longer than I can remember.
12
5
164
I've spent the last couple days optimizing 44-year-old Commodore PET BASIC code for a "lost" game. Here's a snippet. Will be releasing the original and faster versions with a video and more info in the near future. It's been a lot of fun!
6
24
159
The output of maybe the coolest one-line C64 BASIC program I've seen yet. And I've seen a few! Details (including LISTing) in a video soon. See if you can figure it out yourself in the meantime - the original is here:
9
14
160
Emboldened by my PET 2001-N success, I decided to see if I could improve this original 2001's health. It took some prodding, and the screen is shaky sometimes, but this is the first time I've ever seen it boot to the READY. prompt.
6
13
157
I saw this shirt on Amazon:
?syntax error
15
9
153
Happy New Year to all my friends on Twitter from my favourite
#CommodorePET
and me, scrolling smoothly into 2019.
7
22
149
The Commodore 64 was criticized for only having 38911 BASIC bytes free despite its 64K of RAM. False advertising! So Commodore addressed this in the Plus/4, making 60671 of its 64K bytes free. The cost? A slower BASIC due to the extra bankswitching, even with the faster CPU.
23
14
152
New retro arrivals today. Took a couple extra weeks for the Mail Moose to trudge through the tundra up to my place.
10
8
155
This new-to-me Commodore calculator is hideously beautiful.
16
19
149
Power user time! CMD FD-2000 high-density 3.5" floppy drive and SuperCPU 20 MHz 65816 accelerator with 16 MB RAM, bringing the Commodore 64 into the '90s.
10
7
150
I just realized it's 35 years ago this week that I bought my first
#Commodore64
. It was March Break in 1984 that my family went on a trip to Duluth, Minnesota, and we bought the
#C64
for $199 at Target.
12
9
145
Ever wonder how Commodore computers got their iconic RUN/STOP key? Hewlett Packard programmable calculators were becoming very popular in the mid/late '70s, and have a R/S button with two functions, which the PET 2001 engineers borrowed: RUN and STOP.
6
13
150
I just finished cleaning up this silver label
#Commodore64
. Looks almost new now! Its SID has datecode 2182 (21st week of 1982), and the VIC is 3982, so it's a very early
#C64
, nearly 36 years old.
8
15
145
Having fun at the Retro Computer Club tonight.
4
16
149
Sometimes big lots of calculators like this show up on eBay and though I don't understand why, I want them all.
19
15
145
Floating point fun: if you ask C64 BASIC to print the square root of 9, it returns 3. Good! But if you compare SQR(9) with 3, it's not equal! Subtracting 3 from SQR(9) reveals what's going on: a very tiny rounding error so small it only prints if the integer part is zero.
17
9
145
A CMD HD-40 Hard Drive for the Commodore 64, 128, and other IEC-having computers. Mostly made redundant by SD2IEC, but still has some nice features such as the SWAP 8/9 buttons, and a fast parallel interface if you have the corresponding RAMLink. Full REL file support too!
13
8
143
About to open my last (and final?) box of new Double-Sided, Double-Density 3.5" floppy disks. <sigh> Say it with me: For Science.
8
5
142
I think I've found the limit of Commodore 64 BASIC: it's 170141183459999999999999999999999999999.
170141183460000000000000000000000000000 is too big.
13
9
141
Finally!! The ZX81 will satisfy your lust for power.
23
15
139
Spotted during my morning eBay trawl: "The computer is in good working condition and will be shipped to you fast."
29
13
136
This is a still from a trailer for a film called "The Commodore 64 Revolution" that's trying to raise $50,000. Does anyone see the (interesting to me) blooper? It's not just a redundancy, it will completely fail in all but the narrowest case.
29
15
137
Actual eBay listing: "For sale is a bundle of classic video games for Commodore 64, including The Dallas Quest, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, ms Pac-Man robotron defender moonpatrolcentipede digdug ... All games come in their original packaging.
27
14
133
Surprisingly, the original Dartmouth BASIC that turns 60 today was a compiled ("and go") language, not interpreted like most BASICs we've used.
And the inventors of BASIC really disliked the popular implementations used on most micros, dismissively calling them "street basic"!
21
20
135
I tried porting that hi-res 10 PRINT to the VIC-20 Super Expander, but a bug in my code made it look like this instead. Still kinda neat looking though.
15
7
129
There seems to be a lot of interest in the original Commodore PET 2001 keyboard, so here's a new pic of mine after some further cleaning. It's beautiful and kind of terrible to use, but I still prefer it to my ZX81 or Atari 400 keyboards.
13
14
129
COBOL 64 by Abacus. Designed for Students and Programmers. You can tell this is serious stuff because she took off her glasses to show him what key to press.
A few years back I made a video about trying to
#10print
with COBOL 64:
12
17
129
I finally found a replacement for my lost Programming Pitfall Harry. Years of searching!!!
#C64
8
13
128
I found a floppy disk with the preview of my Commodore 64 game "Frogs and Flies 64" from 1997. I later finished it and it was published by Loadstar disk magazine.
8
10
131
Kind of unexpectedly, Radio Shack once sold Commodore 16 keyboards as a $4.95 "Special Purchase!". They helpfully provided a wiring diagram on the package with an interesting take on the Commodore symbol.
13
9
130
I have no idea how I talked for 90 minutes about this program, but I did. Working on editing it down now. No particular target.
12
7
128
I dug out my old Commodore 1541 disk drive with JiffyDOS. This is from my pre-video-making days when I really didn't care about the appearance of my hardware at all. All I cared is if it did the job. Mismatched yellowed case bottom? Drilling a hole through it? No problem.
16
4
125
Working on my SuperCPU-based Super Computer. Each unit accelerates the system by 20x so I'm up to 20^16 MHz so far. At least, that's how I'm told the math works. Will need a beefier power supply to test. Thanks to
@markseelye
for the technical help...
18
9
123
The 1986 Polish movie "Podróże Pana Kleksa" features a scene with a Commodore 16, and the actor dramatically hits F6 (Shift+F3) at the end of a sequence of keystrokes, which is the correct shortcut for RUN<return>!
I love when they get these details right in movies.
4
12
122
I'm really excited to learn of this tiny type-in hiding inside a blank computer cassette j-card. Fun Program!
5
6
122
I've been living in 1982 this last week and it's the best. Video soon.
7
6
122
I love these really early microcomputer books not only for the content, but also because they've got that '70s art and print style before publishing got all slick later in the '80s.
6
7
121
I unfollowed a bunch of people who were filling up my feed with political stuff, and now my feed is full of so much super-great RETRO stuff that I'm wearing out that retweet button. Okay, I'll give it a rest for a bit. 😍
19
2
113
My first (successful) Commodore PET keyboard repair! This PET 2001N-8 is now working 100% - previously less than half the keys worked. Thanks to
@HutchCA
for his very helpful PET videos here:
1
13
118
They've made a transistor from wood! Maybe someday we can have a fully functional wooden Commodore 64.
About the transistor:
9
7
115
Cleared 30,000 subscribers just a few days before my channel turns 2 years old. Thanks everybody!
21
8
116
My new-to-me SHARP PC-1401 Pocket Computer. Works 100% and includes the manual. Thanks Mike!
11
5
115
I heard it's MSX Day, so I finally pulled out this beauty I've had for years but have never checked out for reasons unknown even to me. I think I was intimidated!
#MaySiXth
P.S. Paolo, if you're reading this, C64 is still a billion times better than MSX1.
10
7
113
First time I've heard about the Sord M200 all-in-one released in 1977 in Japan. Built-in floppy disk drive, 64K of RAM, 12" monitor, 80 columns?? And only 30kg.
Picture source:
11
13
116
8
26
106
My old Ultinet 386sx notebook still boots up! I bought this computer ~26 years ago. Here's the main menu, with the MS-DOS software I was regularly running in the early to mid '90s.
#MSDOS
10
14
112
I'm still discovering books about the Commodore 64 I've never seen, despite being on the lookout for 40 years. There were so many!
11
9
113
Am I even allowed to own one of these? I certainly don't know how to work it. Does it need a power supply? There's a jack for one on the back but there wasn't one in the box or any mention of it.
14
4
110
The HP-65 calculator and its successor, the HP-67, released in 1974 and 1976 respectively. 50 years of programmable pocket-sized gadgets, used for everything from game development by the future president of Nintendo, to on-board spaceflight calculations for Apollo-Soyuz.
5
15
112
I found my other little stash of Atari games that included some other favourites like Pitfall!, Asteroids, Haunted House, and yes, Pac-Man. Despite its obvious flaws I still think it's a lot of fun, and I've grown to love the bizarre colour scheme.
#atari2600
7
12
107
Today’s thrift find. With box, $15 isn’t bad.
7
6
107
I got my Pac-Man watch working again! Kind of weird how it shrunk over the years though; it barely fits around my wrist, and it's really challenging to just press one button without mashing another.
12
7
108
Day 15 of
#C64Month
. Here's an easter egg hidden in the
#C64DTV
of the core development team - from the left,
@adrianglz64
,
@jeriellsworth
, and (beardless) yours truly. Great memories!
The 2nd pic shows how to load the pic on an actual DTV, from the built-in ROM (device 1).
8
23
108
I'm hopeless. I set out to make a quick video about the Commodore CDTV and here I am days later assembling a ridiculous entertainment system stack of mostly '90s mostly black audio/visual components and realizing I can't possibly light this correctly. Or get it all in frame.
17
2
109
Are you a Commodore 64 owner who is anxious to program your own adventure games? Then I've got the book for you.
7
11
108
It's cool that the Terminator runs 6502, but shouldn't that assembly language be assembled to machine code?
I'd never noticed until now that the code on the Terminator's vision is actual assembly code! 😄 SkyNet clearly ran on 8-bit technology...
54
43
297
23
8
106
Little Professor: my favourite reverse owl calculator.
8
6
109
There are 3 main KERNAL ROM revisions for the Commodore 64. These screenshots show one of the major POKE differences between them, along with how to PEEK to see what version you have.
I made a video explaining all this and much more:
5
20
106
Possibly the best comment so far on my videos: “You are creating lamers in my opinion.”
36
11
104
Before and After (last pic) of this VIC-20 getting ready for its Youtube debut. PAL motherboard kindly provided by
@anderszapac
many years ago, cartridge by
@futurewas8bit
and
@tynemouthsw
11
7
108
A subscriber to my channel learned 6502 and coded his first Commodore 64 game last month. His wife did the art, and it's really impressive! Check it out here:
#C64
4
19
103
Amazingly, Sid Meier wrote much of Pirates! for the Commodore 64 in BASIC - about 45K worth! In the code there's evidence of unimplemented game scenarios, and a SID RNG diagnostic tool. Explore that and more in my new video:
#Commodore64
10
17
103