Talk:Commodore BASIC Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Commodore_BASIC

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"Test results have shown that copying 16 kilobytes of memory from ROM to RAM takes less than a second in machine code, but over 10 minutes in BASIC."

Actually takes 5 minutes, running the program below on the VIC. And that's even using number literals.

10 TI$="000000"
20 FORI=1TO16384:POKE7680,PEEK(65535):NEXT
30 PRINT TI$

--Jquarry 06:34, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You copied 16 KB on a VIC? The VIC-20 had only 5 KB of RAM! Please explain. SJ2571 (talk) 12:17, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I distinctly remember copying the BASIC interpreter from ROM to RAM, in two 8-kilobyte blocks of POKE I,PEEK(I) takes ten minutes. Unfortunately I don't have a real C64 any more to test it on. — JIP | Talk 06:37, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I read something somewhere about this 10 minute delay, too. I have all my old C64 books in my garage so I'll pull them out and mull them over this weekend to see what I can find. Also, regarding the code snippets tested here: are they all on REAL physical machines as opposed to emulators? SJ2571 (talk) 12:17, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I ran the following program on a Commodore 64:

10 TI$="000000"
20 FORI=40960TO49151:POKEI,PEEK(I):NEXT
30 FORI=57344TO65535:POKEI,PEEK(I):NEXT
40 PRINTINT(TI/6)/10

According to the last line, it takes a total of 69.3 seconds to run - a long time, yes, but the "10 minute" estimate is off by an order of magnitude. Unfortunately, I can't include this original research in the article - but the information there now is clearly wrong. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 04:22, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. How can plain program runs like the above, performed in order to establish a simple(?) fact, be construed as "original research"? I'd say there should be no problem fixing the article---as long as we could agree on the correct time. --Wernher 15:35, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, if you read WP:OR it says under "Expert editors":

"No original research" does not prohibit experts on a specific topic from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia. On the contrary, Wikipedia welcomes the contributions of experts, as long as their knowledge is verifiable.

Since the information is verifiable I will add it. - DNewhall 17:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The time of “over a minute” has frequently been cited for copying ROM to RAM for the C64 throughout history. Here's a naïve but readable implementation in BASIC including a test run:

LIST
10 T=TI
20 FOR I = 40960 TO 49151
30 POKE I, PEEK(I)
40 NEXT
50 FOR I = 57344 TO 65535
60 POKE I, PEEK(I)
70 NEXT
80 PRINT "TIME = "; (TI - T) / 60

RUN
TIME =  75.1833334
READY.

Many software modifications to the C64 ROM only need to touch the contents of the BASIC ROM. Means only 8 kB need to be copied which takes half as long. The BASIC version can be optimized for performance at the cost of readability by stuffing the entire loop into a single line.

If really of interest I could whip up some assembly code to copy ROM to RAM but I no longer have a development at hand.

To the participants in this discussion who do not have an actual C64 at hand. The C64 emulator VICE is incredibly accurate. This includes performance which is necessary for running games and demos. For accurate performance modeling Warp mode has to be disabled. For the matters debated on this page VICE is as good as actual hardware.

Ralf.Baechle (talk) 10:10, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing as this is an encyclopedia, 'type X and see what happens...' just doesn't seem to fit properly in. Does anyone know what happens, as my C=64 died years ago? Empaler 14:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I owned both an Amiga 1000 and Commodore 128 back in the mid-80s. I half-remember reading that in order to get Microsoft to agree to do a Basic for the Amiga, Commodore would have to relent and place a Microsoft copyright on its 6502 Basic for the Commodore 128. Ah, just found a reference: Biggest Deal in Computer History. Is this information worth adding to the Wiki article? 2*6 20:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, add it. Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 05:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not being able to read the BASIC ROM in V 1.0 basic is explicitly disabled by Commodore basic, which I believe was an early form of DRM.

PEEK and POKE to locations around $EXXX were allowed for access to I/O registers, e.g.

poke 59468,14

to set lowercase characters

I can't find a reference to this yet, but I remember this from looking at the BASIC disassembly a long time ago cojoco (talk) 05:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Where can I find a disassembly of BASIC 1.0 for the PET? If that is unavailable, I would settle for a binary image and a hexdump. I have noticed that binaries stored on Commodore Disk drives often include that pesky 2 byte leading pointer, or load address, something that really shouldn't be there. That's why I wanted both a binary image, and a hexdump - so I can look for erroneous disassemblies that have to be corrected before they lead to a phase error. The main article could be improved by linking it to a website where I could download it. Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 05:48, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The main article could be improved if there were a link at a bottom telling users where they locate a list of BASIC 2.0 Tokens. Maybe there is already a list to that effect in Wikipedia, but I haven't noticed where it is. Could somebody add a link to the bottom of the main article so I could examine the hexadecimal values to the BASIC 2.0 Tokens? 198.177.27.25 (talk) 02:22, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The source dump available on Zimmers states that the BASIC version number used in the VIC-1001 and VIC-20 is 2.1. Is this source reliable enough to cite? Thu (talk) 12:20, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

The "Published Versions" section makes no mention of the PET/CBM 3000 series or BASIC 3.0 which I used at school; I was using a CBM 3032 and the annunciator on boot said:

### COMMODORE BASIC ### 31743 BYTES FREE READY. However checking version numbers internally showed up version 3.0 as did all the manuals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stonelaughter (talk • contribs) 08:41, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]