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Commodore Trivia 07
Here are the answers to Commodore Trivia Edition #7 for June, 1994.
Q $060) When you turn on stock Commodore 16, how many bytes free does it
report?
A $060) According to the initial power-up indication on the monitor, a stock
Commodore 16 has 12277 bytes free for BASIC program use. A number od
people have calculated 12287 bytes, so the power-on message may be in
error. I guess it is time to dig out the C-16 and power it up.
Q $061) How many does a stock Plus/4 report?
A $061) According to its initial power-up message, the Plus/4 has 60671
bytes free.
Q $062) What was the VIC-20's subtitle?
A $062) "The Friendly Computer"
Q $063) What personality announced the birth of the Commodore 64 in
Christmas advertisements?
A $063) Though not well-known outside of the US, Henry Morgan introduced the
new Commodore 64 computer system in the US. In other countries, the
answers differ, as countries like Finland had the Statue of Liberty
announce the C64 birth.
Q $064) What was the name of the monitor program included in the Plus/4?
A $064) TEDMon. TED, as you know, stood for Text Editing Device.
Q $065) How many sectors per track are there for tracks 1-17 on a 1541?
A $065) 21.
Q $066) There are two programs running in the Commodore single-6502 drives
(1541,1571,1541 II,1581). What is the interpreter program called?
A $066) The interpreter program is called the Interface Processor (IP). It
handles the dispatching of all commands sent to the drive, as well
as corrdinating the flow of traffic between the disk and the computer.
Q $067) How do you do a hard reset on a Plus/4 ?
A $067) First, we need to define hard-reset. A reset differs from a power-
cycle, since the latter does not retain the RAM contents. In this
case, the answer is analogous to the RUN/STOP-RESTORE combination
found on the 64 and VIC-20. Hold down RUN/STOP and CTRL and press the
recessed reset button on the side of the computer. I believe this
works for the C-16 as well.
Q $068) Where did the name "Commodore" come from?
A $068) Rumor has it that Jack Tramiel always wante to use a naughtical term,
but most had been already used. However, one day he watched a moving
company van pass by on the street with the name he decided to use as
soon as he saw it: Commodore.
Q $069) Chuck Peddle, designer of the 6502, left Commodore twice. Where did he
go first?
A $069) He went to Apple Computer. He stayed with them briefly, but it seems
that Apple and Chuck got along even worse than Commodore and Chuck.
Q $06A) Where did he eventually go when he left for good?
A $06A) First, he went off to start a company called Sirius, which died almost
before it started due to a lawsuit over the name. Then, he and some
former Commodore designers came up with the "Victor" computer, which
did modestly, but never took off.
Q $06B) What does the Kernal routine at $FFD2 do in terms of function and what
parameters get passed and returned?
A $06B) The KERNAL routine at $FFD2 on all Commodore 8 bit machines outputs the
PETSCII character code contained in the .A register to the current
output device. The carry flag indicates the presence of an error on
return.
Q $06C) What Commodore drive has a hidden message?
A $06C) The 1581 has a couple such hidden messages. In the idle loop of the
IP, the text says "am i lazy???...no just wanted to save a few ms...".
Also, in the same loop, the following can be found: "this is lazy!!!".
Lastly, the credits in the 1581 roms are: "Software david siracusa.
hardware greg berliNZDedicatedto my wife lisA". (Note: the N in berliN
and the A in lisA is typical of how strings are stored in the 1581,
last byte has bit 7 set. The Z after berliN appears to have been a
typo, but I can't say for sure. I have a program that displays these.
(Email me for info.)
The 1571 has the ROM authors' names hidden at the beginning of the
ROM, but I don't have a 1571 to scan for them.
Q $06D) What computer was the first to have a hidden message?
A $06D) The PET 2001. Some said the 128 has a hidden message, but it wasn't
the first.
Q $06E) What was it and how did you get it to come up?
A $06E) By typing:
wait 6502,x (where x was a number between 1 and 255)
the computer printed Microsoft! x times on the screen.
Q $06F) What does NTSC stand for?
A $06F) Truthfully, NTSC can stand for different things. In regards to the
television standard for the US, the expansion is National Television
Standard Code. However, the body that formed the standard is also
called NTSC: National Television System Committee.
Now, these have been verified through our librarian, but I got other
answers like Standards Committee and Standards Commission. If you
can prove these are more correct, then I'm all ears.
End of Commodore Trivia Edition #7!
Jim Brain
brain@mail.msen.com
2306 B Hartland Road
Hartland, MI 48353
(810) 737-7300 x8528
New questions are coming up next.
--
Jim Brain, Embedded Systems Designer, Brain Innovations.
brain@msen.com
Dabbling in VR, Old Commodore Computers, and Good Times!
"The above views DO reflect my employer, since I am my employer" - Jim Brain
