1980's DIY C64 Light Interface

[norbolt]

1 person has no idea what was just explained here and started his computer experience with the Wii.

[GreatNorthWeb]

few people in usa pronounce "soLdering". i always hear "soddering".

[odinreln]

brilliant.

[TeamNES1]

I think it's all too clear that Computer Buffs have kept up with Commodore, and obviously Commodore has certainly kept up with them.

[kakureru]

heh. whish they had interactive programming like that when i was growing up.. (stupid ameraican here)

[fsphil]

This is far higher quality than most of Channel 4's output today. I miss this kind of show!

[tvfilmglamdirector]

I did this project at the time, I used a 48k Spectrum. There were choices in the build for the common machines of the time, I think the Spectrum interface had the most complex issues. I couldnt get mine to read the flashing cursor properly and abandoned the project in the end. I think jci10 is right though, he about sums up what was transmitted.

[arejay72]

incredible. I can't believe someone uploaded this. Brilliant. Does anyone have a retriggerably monotstable I could borrow?

[stevebasset]

I remember this when it was originally broadcast. I wonder how many people actually tried it?

[rudyiking]

I bought a cheapo pda keyscain fob, that had a twist end to enter data, kinda crude. However you could download a free bit of software that would do just this. You would enter contacts and such, hold it up to the monitor and it would "upload" you data. I think it was about 4-6 years ago.

Also reminds me of ;CueCat. They wanted to send a little audio code that would open your browser to a website about what the program was talking about.

[lordsigma]

That was a great idea ! here in Argentina we had a radio program that transmitted via audio C64 programs. You just tune the radio and pressed record to "download" software.

[aei05h1]

@lordsigma That is amazing! I wish that we'd have had that in the UK. It would have saved me a lot of the little money I had as a kid.

[maraz666]

It's the 80's, this was never intended to push out podcasts, just programs - they don't take that much space.

Music is possible though, just not as waveform audio, but rather as programs. You'd be amazed what people can fit into just four kilobytes. Google for "4k intro" and check the first scene dot org link.

[coondogtheman1234]

TV stations could be able to deliver podcasts of their content this way i dunno, maybe one could rig this to USB or something, im not sure how fast the data rate of a system like that is, if it isnt fast then you might as well d/l them thru itunes but if you dont have internet, i dunno

[carpii]

The max data rate using this method, on a standard UK tv is 50 bytes a second. Thats with a 0% error rate and perfect syncing (which seems unlikely).

If you now say an average podcast is, lets say, 5Mb, it would take over 27 hours to download a single podcast via this method.

Nice idea, but I dont think its gonna work :-))

[coondogtheman1234]

Yeah I didnt think so, but was a good idea, maybe they could build a bigger sensor and have a bigger light point on the tv which sends a flashing data points on different areas of the dot, I dunno well if ur gonna spend tons of $ on that you can just go out and get DSL or something lol

[storerestore]

Actually it should be 50 BITS per second.

[carpii]

Yep, you're quite right.

Not sure what I was thinking when I said bytes :-)

[juddyydduj]

Sideband transmission with A/D conversion.. Bloody brilliant!

That's a total of like 12 components, plus a TV and C=64? YOW!! A grand total of about $12..

[kikinaak]

ROFL "It'l probably blow up, quite harmless though". This same technique was later used to make those captain power toys.

[infango]

wow its rocks

i wont my c64 back :)

[etatauri]

wow nice.. first cable modem? haha

[UrbanExploration]

this used to be all the rage with house wives while watching thier soaps in the 80's. My granny rocked her commie

[nme1]

Great video, never seen a light interface for the C64. German WDR Computerclub used audio signals to transfer programs.