Some Assembly Required
In our series about C64 ROM commentaries (English version by Lee Davison, German version by Data Becker), I’m now presenting a most unusual C64 ROM commentary – based on a commented disassembly of the Apple II ROM.
After last week’s German C64 ROM disassembly from the “64 intern” book, I have now also converted Lee Davison’s commented disassembly into the same format.
Whenever I need to look up some code in the ROM of the Commodore 64, I have the choice of the commented disassembly by Marko Mäkelä, the one by Ninja/The Dreams, or the one by Lee Davison – or I can just use my paper copy of “Das neue Commodore-64-intern-Buch“, an excellent line-by-line commentary in German.
by Mike Pall, published with permission.
(This article is about a German-language podcast episode on the C64.)
Update: The source is available at github.com/mist64/fastboot1541
Nobody doubts that the C64 was the greatest selling single computer model of all time, it even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records, but nobody quite knows how many it really was: Most sources say 17 million, others say 22 or even 30 million. With a high degree of confidence, I can now say that Commodore only sold 12.5 million units – how I would know that, you ask, and how do I dare to contradict well-known facts? By analyzing serial numbers!
The “Final Cartridge III” has been among the most popular Commodore 64 extensions, providing a floppy speeder, BASIC extensions, a machine language monior, a freezer and even a (rarely used) graphical desktop. The major advantage compared to other C64 cartridges is the consistent way in which the Final Cartridge III extends the C64 experience.
Download the Apple Keynote 08 presentation.
Update: Video recording available.
I converted the first issue of the German Commodore 64 magazine 64’er into a searchable PDF: