6 ms·

The story of FCopy for the C-64

78 points by ssp 15y ago

ghshephard 15y ago
A major takeaway from this story is that among the many innovations we can thank Apple for, one of the largest is finally creating a platform, mechanism, and support framework that allows individual developers the ability to be recompensed for their intellectual creations. It's also nice to see competition creating variants of it on other platforms as well - so you can get the advantages of both a open platform (Android) and versions of Apple's App Store from Google and Amazon.
- cek 15y ago
  Did you comment on the wrong story? I do not understand how you connected a story about the Commodore 64 floppy drive in the 1980s with Apple & Google today.
  - access_denied 15y ago
    Did you read the article? In the last paragraphs he tells the story of how he almost did not get any compensation at all for his software. Ironically, since his program was mostly used to pirate software. Apple, Amazon and Google are close to offering a solution to this problem.
  - chipsy 15y ago
    I'm sensing some kind of rule of technology stories: All stories must be perceived as commentary on contemporary Apple and Google.
  - ghshephard 15y ago
    First read the entire story. You'll discover that one of the key takeaways is an incredibly talented developer put a lot of effort into creating some very clever and useful software, but was unable to ever sell it for much money, despite putting effort into the process. Of course, to counter my own position, Apple of today would unlikely allow him to sell software that messed around with low-level internals on it's own platform.
jerf 15y ago
Heh, next time I hear someone talk about how wonderfully optimized all code was back "in the days" and how wasteful we all are now, maybe I'll send them this article, referring to the shipping software on the 1541.
psykotic 15y ago
> Back in the 80s, the Commodore C-64 had an intelligent floppy drive, the 1541, i.e. an external unit that had its own CPU and everything. I remember by the time I got a floppy drive for my C64 it was twice the price of a new C64, $400 vs $200. It was a real luxury item in those days. Obligatory link to Michael Steil's The Ultimate Commodore 64 Talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRRCnque2E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRRCnque2E
- protomyth 15y ago
  Yeah, the price of floppy drives was insane (bought an Indus for my Atari 400), but it sure made you feel great after using a damn tape drive (I curse you Atari 410).
saundby 15y ago
25 minutes to do a copy? I remember it taking about 45 minutes per disk to do a backup copy. I also remember having to break out the oscilloscope every time I played F-15 Strike Eagle and Psi-5 Trading Company to re-align the disk head. Until a friend gave me cracked copies, which allowed me to simply play the games. (By that time I had purchased two copies of Psi-5, after the first disk refused to recognise itself as a valid copy!) Worst copy protection I ever encountered, until Lotus 123 came along.
- CamperBob 15y ago
  There are lots of good points to make about the cost/performance attributes of the Commodore 64 and how awesome it was to work and learn on... but it's also true that the 1541 disk drive is up there with the original IBM display adapters in the annals of incompetent engineering. As a teenager with an Apple II+, I first understood what a genius Steve Wozniak was when I realized that the disk drive on my friend's C64 ran at about the same speed as the Apple's cassette port. The fact that the 1541 was so slow even though it had its own dedicated CPU was just icing on the cake. How'd that happen? Did the engineer at Commodore actually go home and sleep well that night, thinking he'd done a good job?
  - DrJokepu 15y ago
    I assume it was the usual story; tight deadlines, lack of resources, architectural changes made in the last minute and perhaps management incompetence.
  - dedward 15y ago
    There were many mistakes made at C=, but engineering wasn't one of them. I'm fairly certain the serial speed was kept low because of a management decision to keep the drive compatible with some earlier C= business gear. The engineers had designed the thing to be much better than it was out of the box. The drive, and the C64, were both capable of running the serial port at a much higher speed, (and that's what your fast-load cartridge did....)
- ghshephard 15y ago
blue1 15y ago
now, if only someone could finally reveal to me what "hullabaloo mode" did in Fast Lightning, a disk copy program for the Amiga...
protomyth 15y ago
I really think we have lost something since those days since a computer you can program cannot be gotten in the under $200 category. // I suppose somewhere there is an example, but nothing I've seen in a big box store
- elehack 15y ago
  If you're lucky, you can find a low-end netbook on clearance at Best Buy or the like for $199. Other than that, you do seem to have to go digging online. Deeply.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    yep. Before the phone app era, I hoped someone would try to pull a Sinclair, Atari, or Commodore and introduce a cheap computer based on Linux (well, I was hoping one of the BSDs but still) with a HDMI output. Something that could be programmed, surf the web, and play some games. Heck, a box with a JVM and minimum OS (JavaOS at the time) would have been fine.
- gjm11 15y ago
  $200 in (say) 1985 ~= $400 in 2011. You can get a computer you can program for $400, and it will be a lot more capable than a Commodore 64.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    That nice an all, but I'm pretty sure a lot of kids could afford the $200 and not the $400. Technology is supposed to be cheaper and not a doubling.
    - gjm11 15y ago
      Perhaps I wasn't clear enough? Inflation means that $200 in 1985 is, for most practical purposes, the equivalent of $400 now. Prices now are about double what they were then. Salaries now are about double what they were then. The number of children who could afford $200 then is probably comparable to the number who can afford $400 now.
polo 15y ago
I remember FCopy and its successors (esp. FCopy++) with fondness from my childhood. In those days many heated discussions arose around which copy program was fastest, most accurate, or, ah, most "useful" when it came to "backing up" games :-)

78 points by ssp 15y ago

A major takeaway from this story is that among the many innovations we can thank Apple for, one of the largest is finally creating a platform, mechanism, and support framework that allows individual developers the ability to be recompensed for their intellectual creations. It's also nice to see competition creating variants of it on other platforms as well - so you can get the advantages of both a open platform (Android) and versions of Apple's App Store from Google and Amazon.

cek 15y ago
Did you comment on the wrong story? I do not understand how you connected a story about the Commodore 64 floppy drive in the 1980s with Apple & Google today.
- access_denied 15y ago
  Did you read the article? In the last paragraphs he tells the story of how he almost did not get any compensation at all for his software. Ironically, since his program was mostly used to pirate software. Apple, Amazon and Google are close to offering a solution to this problem.
- chipsy 15y ago
  I'm sensing some kind of rule of technology stories: All stories must be perceived as commentary on contemporary Apple and Google.
- ghshephard 15y ago
  First read the entire story. You'll discover that one of the key takeaways is an incredibly talented developer put a lot of effort into creating some very clever and useful software, but was unable to ever sell it for much money, despite putting effort into the process. Of course, to counter my own position, Apple of today would unlikely allow him to sell software that messed around with low-level internals on it's own platform.

jerf 15y ago

Heh, next time I hear someone talk about how wonderfully optimized all code was back "in the days" and how wasteful we all are now, maybe I'll send them this article, referring to the shipping software on the 1541.

psykotic 15y ago

> Back in the 80s, the Commodore C-64 had an intelligent floppy drive, the 1541, i.e. an external unit that had its own CPU and everything. I remember by the time I got a floppy drive for my C64 it was twice the price of a new C64, $400 vs $200. It was a real luxury item in those days. Obligatory link to Michael Steil's The Ultimate Commodore 64 Talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRRCnque2E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRRCnque2E

protomyth 15y ago
Yeah, the price of floppy drives was insane (bought an Indus for my Atari 400), but it sure made you feel great after using a damn tape drive (I curse you Atari 410).

saundby 15y ago

25 minutes to do a copy? I remember it taking about 45 minutes per disk to do a backup copy. I also remember having to break out the oscilloscope every time I played F-15 Strike Eagle and Psi-5 Trading Company to re-align the disk head. Until a friend gave me cracked copies, which allowed me to simply play the games. (By that time I had purchased two copies of Psi-5, after the first disk refused to recognise itself as a valid copy!) Worst copy protection I ever encountered, until Lotus 123 came along.

CamperBob 15y ago
There are lots of good points to make about the cost/performance attributes of the Commodore 64 and how awesome it was to work and learn on... but it's also true that the 1541 disk drive is up there with the original IBM display adapters in the annals of incompetent engineering. As a teenager with an Apple II+, I first understood what a genius Steve Wozniak was when I realized that the disk drive on my friend's C64 ran at about the same speed as the Apple's cassette port. The fact that the 1541 was so slow even though it had its own dedicated CPU was just icing on the cake. How'd that happen? Did the engineer at Commodore actually go home and sleep well that night, thinking he'd done a good job?
- DrJokepu 15y ago
  I assume it was the usual story; tight deadlines, lack of resources, architectural changes made in the last minute and perhaps management incompetence.
- dedward 15y ago
  There were many mistakes made at C=, but engineering wasn't one of them. I'm fairly certain the serial speed was kept low because of a management decision to keep the drive compatible with some earlier C= business gear. The engineers had designed the thing to be much better than it was out of the box. The drive, and the C64, were both capable of running the serial port at a much higher speed, (and that's what your fast-load cartridge did....)
ghshephard 15y ago

blue1 15y ago

now, if only someone could finally reveal to me what "hullabaloo mode" did in Fast Lightning, a disk copy program for the Amiga...

protomyth 15y ago

I really think we have lost something since those days since a computer you can program cannot be gotten in the under $200 category. // I suppose somewhere there is an example, but nothing I've seen in a big box store

elehack 15y ago
If you're lucky, you can find a low-end netbook on clearance at Best Buy or the like for $199. Other than that, you do seem to have to go digging online. Deeply.
- protomyth 15y ago
  yep. Before the phone app era, I hoped someone would try to pull a Sinclair, Atari, or Commodore and introduce a cheap computer based on Linux (well, I was hoping one of the BSDs but still) with a HDMI output. Something that could be programmed, surf the web, and play some games. Heck, a box with a JVM and minimum OS (JavaOS at the time) would have been fine.
gjm11 15y ago
$200 in (say) 1985 ~= $400 in 2011. You can get a computer you can program for $400, and it will be a lot more capable than a Commodore 64.
- protomyth 15y ago
  That nice an all, but I'm pretty sure a lot of kids could afford the $200 and not the $400. Technology is supposed to be cheaper and not a doubling.
  - gjm11 15y ago
    Perhaps I wasn't clear enough? Inflation means that $200 in 1985 is, for most practical purposes, the equivalent of $400 now. Prices now are about double what they were then. Salaries now are about double what they were then. The number of children who could afford $200 then is probably comparable to the number who can afford $400 now.

polo 15y ago

I remember FCopy and its successors (esp. FCopy++) with fondness from my childhood. In those days many heated discussions arose around which copy program was fastest, most accurate, or, ah, most "useful" when it came to "backing up" games :-)