Commodore Free 18/Commodore_Free_Issue_18_2008_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.b guide 3.2

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 12KB | 363 lines

u
In the Beginning
by Lord Ronin from Q-Link

Chapter 3, Section 2

 Next I want you to press the C= key
and the 6 key. That box, called the
cursor has now turned into a bright
light green colour. Try the reverse
video now as well. Type a bit and do
another bar. Don't look that great
next to the black does it?

A chart for you.

 Control key and1 = black
 Control key and 2 = white
 Control key and 3 = red
 Control key and 4 = cyan
 Control key and 5 = purple
 Control key and 6 = green
 Control key and 7 = blue
 Control key and 8 = yellow
 Control key and 9 = reverse on
 Control key and 0 = reverse off

 C= key and 1 = orange
 C= key and 2 = brown
 C= key and 3 = light red
 C= key and 4 = dark grey
 C= key and 5 = medium grey
 C= key and 6 = light green
 C= key and 7 = light blue
 C= key and 8 = light gray

 Should add here for those that are
doing this on a 128. 80c mode has two
different colours.

 Lets do bit of adjusting. Press CNTRL
and 9. Putting you in reverse video.
Now go through the colours above. Use
the space bar press for about 6 times
and change the colour. Put all 16 of
them up there. Sure the blue won't
show up. Now once you have that done.
Adjust your Monitor or T.V. until the
colour, tint, hue and brightness are
acceptable to your eyes. We all have
different levels of comfort with the
settings.

 Now are you bored with that border
and screen colour? Well I do and like
to change it. So here is a way to do
that before we go onto more things.
Cursor to the start of a new line on
the screen.

TypePOKE53280,0:POKE53281,0 then press
return. You should now have a black
screen and a black border. Along with
those colour bars.

 Now that is a fancy thing to see,
especially for the first time in your
life. Well it isn't in the start of
the users manual. I'm tossing it in
here for you to see a feature.
Remember this manual was written for
the first time ever computer user in a
world that didn't have any computer
background. OR better said, the manual
was written to interest you in the
computer and keep you interested. At
the same time not to get to techy and
"nerdish".  You see the image of that
time of a computer user was the geeky
guy in the glasses, white button down
shirt with the plastic pocket
protector, stuffed with pens. I don't
think we fit that image anymore <VBG>.
What I am saying with this is that the
C= changed the way people thought
about computers. For years the 64 was
the #1 seller. Before the 64,
Commodore had the Vic-20. Before that
the PET line. Taking us back to round
1977ce. I heard a report that when
they started in 1980ce the Vic line.
There was still a 2 year backlog for
the PET system. But hey if you are
interested in that stuff, it is online
in mail lists and websites, and very
well stated in that On the Edge book
by Brian Bagnall. Plainly stated,
Commodore won the people over to the
idea and use of a Personal Computer.64
being the greatest one of the lot. As
to why they lost out and the things
that they did that were wrong. Well I
again refer you to that book. At this
point I am telling you about how great
the 64 is and how to use it. Idiotic
practices of people in the rarefied
atmosphere of that company is for
other writers.

 Right then, back to the keys. There
is that one which is labelled as
"CLRHOME". On this 128D it has the
home under the CLR part. Anyway trivia
aside. Press it now and see what
happens. Right the flashing cursor
goes up to the top left hand corner of
the screen. Before you ask, yea hit
will overwrite anything up there if
you type new stuff on the screen.
Speaking of the screen. It's pretty
cluttered up now isn't it? Well you
could turn off the 64 and back on
again to clear all that stuff.
Wasteful of time and energy. So there
must be a better way to clear the
screen. Well yeah you could cursor
down a bit until all the stuff is off
the screen. That also takes time. Tell
ya what. Cursor down a few lines.
There that is enough, now press the
SHIFT key and the CLRHOME key. Bingo,
screen is cleared and you have the
cursor at the top left. Generally this
spot is called "HOME". Techy words for
it is row 0 column 0.A way of telling
you that we count in many computer
related things, starting at 0 rather
than 1.

 Pick the colour that you want to use
for this next part. Now type in CITTY
GOT KLAWS

 Spelled worse than I usually do in
these things. Bad grammar as well.
Must be a way to fix that, besides
sending me back to remedial
English.<G> There is and this is where
we mess with the cursor keys. They are
at the bottom right of the key board.
Stated CRSR with arrows. First one in
a left to right read has the arrows up
and down. Press it as you it before in
moving the cursor. Real easy it goes
down. How to make it group? Since
there isn't an up cursor key? Press
the shift key and that cursor key. See
it goes up. Takes a little getting
used to the springs in the keyboard
for accuracy. I'm not going to tell
you about my attempts at the start in
getting the cursor on the right line.
Now there is the next key. This has
left right arrows. Press it and the
cursor moves to the right. Bet you can
guess how to move it to the left.
Yuppers that shift key. More on the
shift key later on. Now then correct
the spelling in that example by moving
the cursor over the wrong letters and
type in the correct ones. If you feel
like it. Type over the got and turn it
to a has.

 Real simple, and now to the next
part. Type in HERE ISAN EXAMLE This
should read "there is an example" How
to fit it? Cursor of course to get to
the bad areas. But then what? Well
lets go step by step. First cursor to
the HERE, put it right over the H. Now
press the shift key and the INST DEL
key. Every thing moves to the right
one space. You now type in the T. That
done, cursor over to the ISAN. Place
the cursor on the A and press shift
and INST DEL. Making the blank space.
Finish with that and cursor over to
the ML part and do the same. Adding
now in the space the P.

 That is the way to INSerT spaces. To
DELete something. Just press the
INSTDEL key. See it moves right to
left and deletes everything in it's
path. Not that hard, but it is for
those without the manual. Seen too
many of them in the past. BTW: with my
crippled hands. I have to use this
feature quite often in writing.

 Now I want you to delete the things
you have put on the screen. Either
with the isnt del key or that shift
clear home command. Good, now type a
few things. Lets just do one row of
keys on the keyboard for this
experiment. Do the one the one that
starts with the A. Don't worry about
the : ; = keys. Just the letter keys.
Got that done? OK now cursor off of
that line and then I want you to press
the SHIFT and the C= key. Hey there
you are now in lower case. Try typing
something that uses Capitals. Yeah
that is there as well. It seems from
what I have read and heard over the
years that UPPER case, or now called
screamers, was the standard   or text
on the screens. Commodore changed that
as well. Oh yeah press the C= and
Shift key again and you will go back
to upper case.

 OK now then we get a bit complicated.
Also a bit more typing for you. Clear
the screen. NOW! Pick a colour you
like. I use Cyan mostly. I want you to
do the keys row by row. In this
manner. First as it is on the screen.
Start with 1 and end with the /. Yeah
I want the + -  *  : ; = , . and the /
keys as well.

 Right, you see a meaningless line of
letters, numbers and punctuation.
Cursor down two lines and start at the
left edge of the screen fo this next
part. I want you to do the same as
above. BUT!!!! hold down the shift key
or use the SHIFT LOCK key. Hey there
are different characters on the
screen. What are called graphic
characters. In fact they are the ones
that are the illustration on the right
hand side of the keys.

 Now, cursor down two lines. Start at
the left side of the screen. Release
the Shift lock, if you used it. Type
all the keys again. BUT THIS TIME hold
that C= logo key as well. Yeah there
you have it. This makes the characters
on the left hand side of the keys.

 Now I have a T.V. show to watch and a
RPGame to run. You, probably are
feeling a bit creative at the moment.
All those characters to use and the
colours that are there as well for the
characters. Go ahead and make a box
with your name in it. Change colours,
of things. Make a step pyramid. Move
on the lines a bit, change the grey
scale colours and see it you can make
it look a tad bit 3D.IOW go play right
now, and I'll be back later. Oh yeah,
don't use the RETURN key at this time.
I know you will. But it was a friendly
word of warning. Won't hurt anything.
You will just get a message from the
64on the screen. Nothing to worry
about.

 What did you discover? Boxes that you
can use colour on to shade and make
look 3D. Using the round circle parts
with the right angle parts to form
letters? Perhaps you made a little
scene with a stick figure? Tell the
truth I did that on my BBS to
illustrate some placement of the
characters in the PBEM game.

 Bet you didn't make a Xmas scene with
tree, presents, snow, fire place and
all of that. OK if you did, you
weren't the first one. I have that
scene from some artist. Anyway that
sort of drawing is called keyboard
art. Another item for the future
discussions. I wanted you to see the
characters from the keyboard and play
a bit. Can't do this on other
platforms. Since we are short on space
in this part. I'll lay this on your
fast. There were/are software
programmes that will let you REDESIGN
these characters from the keyboard.
Not just as in a new font. But yeah
the graphic ones as well. We arent
going in that direction right now.

 RETURN or RTN or other shortened
styles of writing it. Said before it
is like the enter key on other
platforms. In essence it takes what
you put on the screen and sticks it
into the computer memory. Now you see
why you got that funny message when
you pressed return while doing the
colours and characters. RESTORE key is
to "restore the computer to the normal
state it was in before you changed
things with a programme or some
command." Confusing isn't it? Lets not
muck about with it at this point in
time. Most of the time I use it with
the RUN/STOP key to stop and reset.
Speaking of the RUN/STOP key. By
itself, it will stop the operation of
a Basic programme. Hang on a moment.
That is what the book says. However
there is a command in programming that
will defeat that RUN/STOP key. SHIFT
and RUN/STOP together, will load a
programme from the tape drive.
Advanced disk drive load command is
LOAD"0:*",8,1: <use shifted run/stop>
That does the return and will start
loading most programmes. If you have
jiffy dos, Shift Run/Stop will load
and run the first file on the disk.

 So now press run/stop and
restore.Restting everythng. Here is a
code to type in, SYS64759, and press
return. Pretty much same thing as
Run/Stop and Restore. One that isn't
in the manual for you to try. Type
inSYS64738 and press return. I use
this one for resetting back to normal.
Try the two different codes and see
what you like. Last point in this
part. Not covered in the book. How to
do that screen and border colour
change. Laid out the poke command
as POKE53280,X for the border
and POKE53281,X for the screen. X here
indicates a number. But what number?
Ah, that is where it gets confusing.
The numbers on the keyboard that you
used for colour changes aren't the
same for this part. Only because the
count for this starts at 0. Meaning
that for the border and screen colours
in the POKE statement. Black is 0. But
on the keyboard it is Control and 1.
Does get confusing at times. Play a
bit and we will do more in the next
Chapter.