Well, fast forward 30 years later I still can't shake that feeling and urge to do exactly that again. For the past 3months or so I have started reading my huge collection of almost 5000 computer magazines from the early 80's and into the 90's. Starting of A through Z. At this point in time, I'm still at letter A :-)

Anyways, I picked out some of the type-ins that appeared very interresting for me, either based on the fact of stuff I wanted to try back in the days, or actual code snippets that can help me in whatever projects I'm doing on C64 or Amiga these days.

Enjoy a trip into the world of typing matters. Only this time, naturally everything is simply copied as OCR'd text from PDF, double-checked, notes added and code presented below.

I have referenced the issue and page number the original type-in was published in, so if you have the magazine available, read on for more details there!

I have also created fully runable .PRG out of these, so either copy the code yourselves or simply download the .PRG if you are very lazy.



This one will "listen" on the tape played back and send its data out as sound. So, yes, now you can listen to regular music tapes on the C64. Heck, should be possible to even capture the data and create a simple sampler out of it, no?


The magazine mentions that the sound quality isn't great, but that does not help alot?! What kind of sound quality are we speaking of here, samplerate or what? Well, if the people who made this understand sound, they should have said, "severly distorted" sound, because that's what's really coming out. But, what if the values played back are to be halfed by 4, what would happen?

1 rem ahoy issue 32/1986, page 62

2 rem typed by stone oakvalley october 2017

10 for k=49152 to 49176

20 read b

30 poke k,b

40 next k

50 sys 49152

60 data 120,169,0,141,17,208,169,7,133

70 data 1,173,13,220,41,16,240,2,169,15

80 data 141,24,212,76,10,192

This one will create a loader that loads another program and auto-runs it. Might come in handy someday for my recording projects (SOASC=).

1 rem ahoy issue 17/1985, page 78

2 rem typed/cleaned by stone oakvalley october 2017

5 rem - create auto-run loader -

10 rem courtesy of hacker's hardware

20 input "loader name to create";ln$

30 input "name of program to load";b$

40 if len(b$)>16 then end

50 if len(b$)=16 then 70

60 b$=b$+chr$(160) : goto 50

70 open 1,8,2,ln$+",p,w"

80 read x% : if x%=256 then 100

90 print#1, chr$(x%); : goto 80

100 print#1,b$; : if b$="" then close 1 : end

110 b$="" : goto 80

120 data 187,2,169,15,166,186

130 data 160,0,32,186,255,32

140 data 192,255,169,16,162,240

150 data 160,2,32,189,255,169

160 data 0,32,144,255,32,213

170 data 255,134,45,132,46,169

180 data 15,32,195,255,32,83

190 data 228,32,89,166,32,51

200 data 165,32,142,166,76,174

210 data 167,256,139,227,187,2,256

This one will check ram, possibly would work for detecting faulty ram chips?

1 rem ahoy issue 29/1986 page 35,111

2 rem typed/cleaned up by stone oakvalley october 2017

10 rem *** free ram check *** buck childress (01/27/86) *** 

20 rem *** p.o. box 13575 salem, or 97309 *#*

30 poke 56,peek(56)-4 : clr

40 print chr$(147)"loading and checking data" 

41 print : j=40000 : l=100 : c=11

50 for b=0 to c : read a : poke j+b,a : x=x+a : next b : read a

60 if x<>a then print "error in data line"l : end 

70 x=0 : j=j+12 : l=l+10 : if l<260 then 50

80 if l=260 then c=7 : goto 50 

90 print "data ok and loaded!" : print :

91 print "sys 40000 to activate" : end

100 data 32,68,229,169,167,162,2,133,251,134,252,134,1733

110 data 253,162,0,142,219,216,232,32,186,156,230,253,2081

120 data 162,0,160,0,138,141,219,4,145,251,209,251,1680

130 data 208,66,232,208,243,230,251,208,239,230,252,165,2532

140 data 252,197,253,144,231,201,208,176,37,32,158,156,2045

150 data 165,253,201,4,176,12,169,60,133,251,162,2,1588

160 data 32,186,156,76,86,156,169,192,162,207,133,252,1807

170 data 134,253,162,3,32,186,156,76,86,156,160,13,1417

180 data 32,194,156,160,30,76,194,156,160,20,32,194,1404

190 data 156,165,253,201,208,176,240,169,0,133,251,76,2028

200 data 124,156,160,6,24,32,240,255,160,0,185,230,1572

210 data 156,240,7,32,210,255,200,76,194,156,192,13,1731

220 data 144,1,96,166,251,165,252,32,205,189,169,45,1715

230 data 32,210,255,162,255,165,253,76,205,189,67,72,1941

240 data 69,67,75,73,78,71,32,42,42,32,0,32,613

250 data 42,42,32,79,75,0,32,42,42,32,69,82,569

260 data 82,79,82,0,17,17,17,0,294

This one will trace the CPU and whats going on currently in the running code. It appears to work with both basic and ML code running.

1 rem ahoy issue 57/1988, page 48

2 rem typed/cleaned by stone oakvalley october 2017

10 for i=828 to 1013 : read a : poke i,a : ck=ck+a : next i

20 if ck<>22127 then print "data error" : end

30 sys828 : end

40 data 120,169,78,160,3,141,20,3,140,21

50 data 3,88,169,1,141,245,3,96,186,189

60 data 5,1,133,253,189,6,1,133,254,165

70 data 254,168,201,16,176,14,169,176

80 data 141,0,4,185,229,3,141,1,4,76,137

90 data 3,162,0,56,233,16,201,16,144,4

100 data 232,76,112,3,168,232,189,229,3

110 data 141,0,4,185,229,3,141,1,4,165

120 data 253,168,201,16,176,14,169,176

130 data 141,2,4,185,229,3,141,3,4,76

140 data 184,3,162,0,56,233,16,232,201

150 data 16,144,3,76,160,3,168,189,229,3

160 data 141,2,4,185,229,3,141,3,4,32

170 data 159,255,172,141,2,192,1,240,246

180 data 192,2,208,17,32,218,3,32,159

190 data 255,172,141,2,192,2,240,4,192,4

200 data 208,242,76,49,234,160,120,162

210 data 255,202,208,253,136,208,248,96

220 data 176,177,178,179,180,181,182,183

230 data 184,185,129,130,131,132,133,134

240 data 255

This one will snoop on what the floppy drive 1541 are doing apparently. I couldn't get it to work in emulator, so maybe it would work on a real Commodore 64. I have yet to test it, but here's the code anyway!

1 rem ahoy issue 26/1986, page 87

2 rem typed/cleaned by stone oakvalley october 2017

10 rem disk status

20 rem by shawn k smith

30 r$=chr$(18) : print,r$"disk status"

100 data 234,120,169,075,162,003,141,020

110 data 003,142,021,003,088,096,173,141

120 data 002,201,004,208,006,032,091,003

130 data 032,062,003,076,049,234,169,088

140 data 162,003,120,141,020,003,142,021

150 data 003,088,165,203,201,018,240,001

160 data 096,169,008,032,180,255,169,111

170 data 133,185,032,150,255,169,000,133

180 data 144,032,165,255,032,210,255,165

190 data 144,240,246,076,171,255

200 for m=829 to m+77 : read y : poke m,y

210 t=t+y : next : t=t-8849

220 if t then print r$"**data error**" : stop

230 poke 857,peek(788) : poke 858,peek(789)

240 sys 830

250 print : print r$"cntrl-d displays status"

260 print : print r$"run/stop-restore deactivates"

270 print : print r$"sys(830) will reactivate"