Mike wrote: ↑Sat Oct 02, 2021 3:53 am
Some remarks:
Thank you! I know some of those remarks you already mentioned in previous drafts. I had to put this document aside for a few weeks (months?) and just had a brief chance to revisit it yesterday. I have a lot to catch up on. Excellent notes!
chysn wrote: ↑Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:18 am
My suggestion would be, go with the spiral binding. For a reference book, laying flat is worth the extra money. Nobody whose hobby is "retro-computing" is particularly price-sensitive, and if they are, there are always PDFs.
I’m still thinking about this. The issue here is quality and shipping. The spiral books would have to be shipped to me and mailed out from me. A perfect bound book could be printed locally from anywhere. The spiral would also be vulnerable to pages falling out with current print quality unless the price goes up to 20. I thought that might not be worth it for a simple, quick guide.
I also found myself more comfortable using my perfect bound Vic books over my spirals from compute. Of course they’re falling apart from age. I suppose I could do both. I can’t imagine more than 5 people wanting this. It’s just for me mostly.
I've used Lulu to print reproductions of Vic and C64 manuals that are impossible to find and even with shipping overseas I've found them to be affordable - eg: Mapping the C64 cost me just under £9 spiral bound (and really good too binding too - no risk of wear and tear to the same degree as those in 80's originals) with £4 postage.
If you just want to make available as a print option and no cost to you, once set up you can post the Lulu link to your project for others to order.
I've not used any other service so I cannot compare but they've been good for me and magnitudes cheaper than any local service in the UK.
AndyH wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 5:21 am
I've used Lulu to print reproductions of Vic and C64 manuals that are impossible to find and even with shipping overseas I've found them to be affordable
With a little extra work, you can set up Lulu to sell finished copies of your book for whatever price you want. For example, I set up sales for the wAx manual at
That looks like an excellent idea. Would using Lulu enable there to be two versions, one perfect bound and one spiral bound, without pushing up the cost per copy much if at all? Incidentally, Jeff, you mentioned a target of $5 for the production, and like someone else above, I don't see people being THAT price sensitive that a few more dollars would make any difference to whether we would buy a copy or not, so my suggestion would be to focus more on getting the content and presentation the way you want it rather than compromising to save a buck or two and then not being totally happy with the result because of it.
It's been fun to keep revisiting this with new eyes. I tried to include all of the suggestions and fix typos. I'm concerned about the logical order and "flow" of the booklet. It's down to 56 pages, easy to navigate a directory, I hope.
Some notes and questions: Cover: Yep, I slapped a basic screen map on there for now (see back cover too). 2-5: I updated the descriptive parts per Mike's suggestion. 6-7: Added a single ones digit just to keep track of locations. 9: Has space for something else. I want to fill all unused space. 18: I'm still trying to include some ML info. Opcodes now in decimal per suggestion. 19: An additional chart of cycles is included. 20-21: Attempted formal descriptions per chysn's suggestion. There's room if you think additional bit info should be included. 22-23: Added Kernal and BASIC entry points. Useful? 24-25: Had Vicmon and space room, so included list of other utility cart commands. But I suspect users are much more likely to appreciate something more contemporary like WimBasic commands or Minipaint key combinations. I am considering removing both pages. Is Vicmon information still usefull to anyone? This space could also be used for additional ML info I may be ignorant of. 26-44: Still trying to add to map where possible. Many minor charts were just moved here. 45: Another page I find useful from time to time. Not sure if I should just cut it. It balanced the page count. 47-55: Nothing new. Unless there are typos to be addressed, this will stay the same. 56: Added Kernal error codes. Useful? Should it be moved closer to Kernal info or stay here with errors? Back: Like the front cover, the back just repeats very really basic info. It needn't be a good looking book. I like the idea of finding "at-a-glance" info. on every surface.
I really appreciate any and all thoughts on this. Still a work in progress...
For me, I would prefer e-book form so that I could print out a subset of pages linked to my interests rather than the whole thing. This can then be kept close to hand or pasted to the study wall as a concise reference.
I was particulary attracted to the music page at the end: especially the keyboard layout. I notice that the register values mapped to the music notes are somewhat different to those given in the Commodore reference manuals. Bottom C is wrong, and the rest of the notes are assigned values different to the reference manuals.
In the list of BASIC commands on page 5 you include the first parenthesis on SPC( and TAB(, but not on any of the other functions.
In the list of BASIC commands you include GO (as in GO TO) but TO is only listed to with respect to FOR ... TO ... NEXT. It would be cleaner to list it as GO TO instead.
On Page 24 in the list of Super Expander commands/functions, the functions include the parameters, eg RJOY(x) but the commands, eg CIRCLE, do not. I know that's how the SE manual lists them, but it would be more helpful to list say DRAW c,x1,y1 TO x2,y2 [TO x3, y3 ...] rather than just DRAW to save anyone using it from needing to check the SE manual.
doug_in_nc wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:04 am
In the list of BASIC commands on page 5 you include the first parenthesis on SPC( and TAB(, but not on any of the other functions.
That's because the tokens actually include the parens only for these two.
thegg wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 7:29 am
Nice work. I can see this being very useful.
For me, I would prefer e-book form so that I could print out a subset of pages linked to my interests rather than the whole thing. This can then be kept close to hand or pasted to the study wall as a concise reference.
I was particulary attracted to the music page at the end: especially the keyboard layout. I notice that the register values mapped to the music notes are somewhat different to those given in the Commodore reference manuals. Bottom C is wrong, and the rest of the notes are assigned values different to the reference manuals.
Yes, ebook and PDF would be easy to offer. The music notes were based on a suggestion earlier in this thread. And test out bottom C for yourself. It seems correct.
I had time to make a few corrections today. Here's yet another new draft: DRAFT.
- added port info. Not sure if thar's really useful.
-corrected a bunch of typos.
- added relative branch backwards chart again. I really don't know if it's useful.
- worked on super expander cart instructions per suggestion.
Any other carts or software I should add? Any other information I'm missing that might be useful to you?
Would it be possible for us Latin descendants to have the "medieval" musical notation (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si) together with the Anglo-Saxon one (a, B, C...)? I have always found the English notation quite difficult, as I learned the Latin one ever since I was a kid
Jeff-20 wrote:I suspect users are much more likely to appreciate something more contemporary like [...] Minipaint key combinations.
On this occasion I should mention, that MINIPAINT includes online help that is invoked with Shift + '/' (mind the caption "? for help" in the bottom right window):
I like the line and block characters on page 15, I recently had to work some of these out myself. Perhaps the cell background should be light grey, that way it is easier to see where the set pixels are?
