Commander X16

Are there books out there on programming the Commander X16 in pdf form? I looked in GitHub and it looks like that they are online but not downloadable. It would be a nice feature to have papers in front of you when you are working with an emulator instead of switching screens from emulator to the online docs.

There's a Quick Start guide that David just finished getting printed, but it's very basic. It's more about how to hook it up than how to use it.

That's what's available in print so far... but there are other projects out there.

Jestin is working on something more like the User's Guides that came with the various Commodore computers back in the day. It just isn't quite ready yet.

A more detailed Programmer's Reference Guide? That would require a bit more filling of holes in the existing online documentation. Most of the legacy parts of the interface are not documented within the X16 community docs, and other places where such documents exist (such as C64-wiki.com) are not even linked to; this is an ongoing issue, and progress is slow in fixing it—but we ARE working on it.

kelli217 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:13 pm Jestin is working on something more like the User's Guides that came with the various Commodore computers back in the day. It just isn't quite ready yet.

Hey, me too! Nothing like some healthy competition, eh?

I am "sort of" making my own programming book by collecting info from the people who are posting info on YouTube. Perifractic has an excellent series of videos covering all aspects of assembly language programming for the X16. I have been screen-scraping some of his diagrams. Obviously, I can never share or publish this for others since Peri owns the content, but it works for me.

I'd vote for Peri (Matt Heffernan) for the person I'd most like to write the book everyone wants. But of course it's a backbreaking job.

-Bill

Bill Leue wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2023 6:01 pm
I'd vote for Peri (Matt Heffernan) for the person I'd most like to write the book everyone wants. But of course it's a backbreaking job.

Manual Labour

Bill Leue wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2023 6:01 pm I'd vote for Peri (Matt Heffernan) for the person I'd most like to write the book everyone wants. But of course it's a backbreaking job.

I hear PuppyFractic is doing the layout.

Bill Leue wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2023 6:01 pm I'd vote for Peri (Matt Heffernan) for the person I'd most like to write the book everyone wants. But of course it's a backbreaking job.

Perifractic (Christian Simpson) and SlithyMatt (Matt Heffernan /The Retro Desk) are not the same person.

Thanks guys. I'll be looking out for those books especially the one that is written like the old Commodore VIC-20 and 64 user's guides.
mlk

trooperklein wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 11:06 pm Thanks guys. I'll be looking out for those books especially the one that is written like the old Commodore VIC-20 and 64 user's guides.

Hopefully, they won't have as many errors.

mortarm wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2023 3:26 pm

trooperklein wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 11:06 pm Thanks guys. I'll be looking out for those books especially the one that is written like the old Commodore VIC-20 and 64 user's guides.

Hopefully, they won't have as many errors.

I wouldn't be as worried about errors so much as breaking changes in later Kernal/HW revisions, like the vector pull, the Kernal's layout of video memory usage, and the keyboard keycode change. Although, I haven't seen any such changes for a while now (only non-breaking stuff, like new commands and extensions), so maybe this isn't a concern anymore.