Commander X16

Hello Community,

I am a father of 4 from Indiana, USA and work as a Database Architect (MsSQL) for a pharmaceutical consultancy.

I like to say I was born with the knowledge of every secret coin or trick associated with Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros III (NES), but the honest truth is that I have watched my Dad play these games as a kid and just loved to watch and imitate him. Unfortunately, a more computer like 8-bit experience like Commodore 64 predates me. However, I have just loved working in the emulator and even started modding my own C64DTV. I watched the 8 bit guy mod the hummer DTV and was finally introduced to your community of enthusiasts (Did he ever finish the space shuttle shed?). 

I have a wide array of programming experience and hope to offer my services to your community, so let me know where I can make the biggest difference. 

Until then I am going to start making some games and testing out the performance restrictions of the emulated product. I will make my findings public to those who would find it interesting.

As a Millennial, let me just provide one piece of feedback about the commodore. The keyboard layout is just terrible after being taught from childhood the new standard. The key that messes me up the most is the double quote. Why is it shift + 2... ugh.

Sincerely,

Michael Stephens "The 8-bit Millennial"

We had a meeting and thought how fun it would be to confuse people with a weird keyboard layout. ?

But yeah, it always took me a few minutes to transition between thinking Commodore layout vs IBM Selectric layout when I would go to typing class in high school. No fancy schmacy keyboarding class for us! Nosiree! We typed and we liked it.

We also walked uphill in waist deep snow to and from school. You've probably heard about that from your parents. ?

It isn't 8 bit until you encounter at least on issue ?

A millenial father of 4 makes me feel really really old.

But welcome, it's nice to see your interest. ?

Wellcome to the community!

Speaking about double quote being Shift + 2, in modern cyrillic layout double quote is typed with Shift + 2. )

And since I use cyrillic much (I need English, Russian and Ukraininan in my everyday life), so I type double quote with Shift + quote when I type English, but when I switch to Russian or Ukraininan, I need to remember, that double quote is Shift + 2 now. Actually you get used to it after a while.

But just now you got me realize that modern cyrillic layout is a bit retro Commodore. ))

Hi and welcome to the X16 community!

It is funny and strange how preferences about keyboards can vary.  I always preferred the "shift-2" = double quote layout. 



What to me is the most interesting things about commodore keyboards,

was how the cursor keys layout was.  There are just 2 cursor keys, not 4 as we are used to nowadays (see my avatar :))



Anyhow, nice to see new people having interest in the community!  

On 9/27/2021 at 7:37 AM, Cyber said:

Speaking about double quote being Shift + 2, in modern cyrillic layout double quote is typed with Shift + 2. )

It's also Shift+2 on a Swiss-German standard keyboard ?...

Welcome Otacon!  

That Commodore keyboard never bothered me.  It was that bizarre IBM keyboard that initially confused me.  And then I forgot the Commodore keyboard layout.

But I never forgot Commodore.

 

Heh... I'm glad someone standardized keyboard layouts in the 80s. Looking back, every manufacturer placed symbols differently, with the [ and ] keys being in different places on every vintage computer I've ever seen. 

PETSCII complicates things, as do the interesting choices with @, *, =, and ⬆ keys. I definitely prefer the Commander's layout, which matches IBM's, just adding the PETSCII symbols (and moving them, as needed). 

Objectively speaking, I use quotes enough while programming that having the quote and apostrophe under the pinkie is much more efficient than reaching for the 2 key every time I enter a string.