X-Mas Quest: Can I do a 6502 X-mas themed game for the Commodore PET in a single day? Progress so far…

Merry Advent IV

So yesterday I was at the bank to submit a few payment slips on behalf of my father. For years, this has been a breeze: scan, see the flawlessly interpreted result on a single screen, verify, done. Now, it's apparently "A.I. enhanced": First, verify every line separately, on a separate screen, 1/2

Found this YouTube video of a long play of "PET Invaders" on real hardware (PET 4032): www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHB4... (You can get the game here: masswerk.itch.io/pet-invaders )

a dumb idea i had yesterday

I think, I finally managed to capture "PET Invaders" with sound. Grab it here: masswerk.itch.io/pet-invaders #petscii #commodore #8bit #mos6502

Ramp up your website with Mozilla banners, like it's 2000: web.archive.org/web/20000822...

Apparently, applying universal laws, applicable to everyone, to an US-held entity is to "restrict, limit, and deter the competitiveness of US service providers through discriminatory means". – Do people in the US really not know the term "universal"? arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

The Waterloo Structured BASIC option ROM is now available in the Commodore PET 2001 emulator! masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#wa... This is a peculiar BASIC extension adding support for structured programming (loops, if-else-elseif-endif, procedures) while adding no tokens of its own to the standard ones.

Time to get ready for that time of the year: updated "Season's Greetings" available for Commodore PET (40 cols). Get it here: masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#se...

Is this why LLM performance is deemed acceptable: people already falling for superficial similarities in words for a long time? BTW: The game just minimizes the distance from a ghost to a given point, e.g., the position of Pac-Man, a few positions in front and to the left of it, a given corner…

> "why doesn't my kid stop dropping the pizza on the floor?" Tzz – Just glue the pizza to the kid – as we all know, glue is the best part of the pizza anyway – and there's no reason left for questioning any why. It's alarming how unfit this generation (Altman & co) is for using A.I. effectively!

Well, this is beautiful. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iZE...

I kind of knew that our overlords were five year olds, but probably not five year olds on that much of sugar…

Continuing a theme on EOR operations for managing sprite state, as it previously arose in thread by @0xc0de.bsky.social : This is how "PET Invaders" runs at 60 fps (and also, why it doesn't fit into just 8K of memory): there are lots of pre-shifted graphics, and a table with references to them:

Ha-ha! The PET 2001 emulator now exports SVG images, rendered from the current state of the video memory and the character ROM in use. And, yes, these are optimized paths. masswerk.at/pet (SVG export is available via the screen's context menu.)

This may be an actual use-case for A.I.: for any sentence, look up the private wealth of the convicted – and if it's above a certain threshold, auto-pen a pardon.

While I'm generally very concerned about the effects of LLM-based "A.I." on society and general sanity, now I'm a bit less concerned.

This is ingenious! Why did no-one ever come with this brilliant idea, not even Tesla: just put "do not have accidents with our product" and "do not experience failure" in the TOS – and you're done, all liabilities waivered! arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Back in 1998 talking toys like the Furby could run on a Sunplus SPC81A microcontroller, a cut-down 6502 without the Y-register. Modern talking toys, like the "Large Language Furbies" of our times, are threatening to swallow the entire electronic manufacturing capacity and eventually the Planet.

Make sure to turn on your DED ("Dark Emitting Diode") when prompting your "A.I.", to hide your traces.

Whatever you ask your "A.I.", always keep in mind that the Mighty Space Blanket is watching you.

For #ChuckPeddleDay, I added an option to load the Oric Atmos ROM (1.1B that is) to the Virtual 6502 online emulator. masswerk.at/6502/

Tried to watch an informational YT video, which immediately turned out to be "A.I." generated. Decided to give it a try anyway. Now my brain hurts and is all mush.

"Sprachuhr" (Talking Clock) is a fun little Commodore PET program displaying an analog and digital clock (in BASIC) and announcing the time at full minutes (in ML). Originally program by Heinz-E. Obermann for the 8000 series (1981), port for 40-col PETs by me (2025). masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#sp...

"PET Invaders" just got a liitle bit better. (It's really just about when we stop any background sounds when a level ends. But polish is polish.) Get Rev.2025-11-19 here: masswerk.at/pet/prgs#pet-invaders

Business idea: The HyperFix The HyperFix is a hammer with small jet engines attached and driven by an LLM. It will understand you and your needs and will hammer on its own initiative. It will disrupt most tools and, indeed, the very concept of housing and real estate. – A multi-trillion market! 😀

Apparently, the famous Space Invaders for the Commodore PET (the one starting with the "how to produce sound effects" screen), was written by A. Brzenska for the PET 2001 in 1979 and then adapted for the 30xx and 40xx in 1980. Does anyone know a historic source for this? And what is "A." for?

Small update to "PET Invaders" for Commodore PET / CBM (Rev. 2025-11-12) Get it / play it here: masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#pe... (Press RETURN on the "Score Advance Table" screen to see the revision you're currently on.) #retrogames #PETSCII #mos6502 #commodore

"PET Invaders" is now available at itch.io, as well: masswerk.itch.io/pet-invaders

PET Invaders – Release! As the Earth Space Monitoring Network sounds alarm, you and your LASER tank are Planet Earth's only hope… Exciting space arcade PETSCII action for Commodore PET (40 cols, 16K RAM)! Downloads & online emulation at: www.masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#pet-invaders

Thinking of a physical media kit (for download & self-recording)… Also, I've now a PETSCII-to-SVG renderer!

The total lack of rotational symmetry of the human body is truly appalling to the more mindful in the universe… (This is why they never show up here. If you see any UFOs, these are actually some of their early AI governed crafts hallucinating a location in the more decent sectors of the universe.)

I think, I've found a way how we may all profit from the AI revolution: Make AI companies keep track of references and award a penalty for each factual error or misrepresentation payable to the author. E.g., this summary of www.masswerk.at/nowgobang/20... is worth 15 credits for 15 severe errors:

Finally: "PET Invaders" - Public Beta! My personal take on Space Invaders for the Commodre PET. Link to online-emulation: masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#pe... Beta testers and feedback welcome! #commodore #petscii #mos6502

Thinking about an AI startup utilizing a cheaper, but viable and more sustainable alternative to GPUs…

BTW, quite impressed by Google AI Overview: every sentence and every half-sentence of this summary is utterly wrong and completely misses the mark and sense of that short piece, and is factually wrong. – Clearly, this is the future! Compare: www.masswerk.at/nowgobang/20...

Just in time for Halloween, I'm hoping to finish sound for my PET port of the original Space Horror Survival Game today. Enjoy a pseudo matrix printer hardcopy of the game play:

Ok, so I kind of know now why I find programming sound so tedious: I knew that I've an aphantastic condition, but I had no idea that this can extend to sound, as well. Compare: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

He, he… (Mind the font!)

Spectacular progress: added another sound… 😀 (But I also experimented with a background sound engine, which should be convenient for playing the saucer sounds.) Meanwhile, enjoy a fake matrix printer hardcopy:

I've just spent more than an hour on 4 diatonic sounds on the PET (for the Space Invaders move sound). I never enjoyed programming sound – and I have no idea why this is. (If it had been about visual feedback, it would have been a blast.)

Is it just me or does the recent update of YouTube player icons feel somewhat childish? The look and feel for the AI Age, I guess…

Slightly amused by learning that the Royal Navy had a vessel named HMS Grampus (which may be an dolphin/orca or an alternative spelling of Krampus). Indeed, it brought you all the bad presents, if hadn't been nice. I.e., a minelaying submarine. youtu.be/0eKQhHJm2h8?...

The most alarming thing about "AI" is that it's left to "engineers", who are too lazy to inform themselves on the very matter, they're dealing with. For years, they had belittled the idea that quasi-autonomous productions could arise from a semantic field and its internal structure, AKA text theory.

Updated "The Abominable iPhone Zombies", the original PETSCII Horror Doom Scroller for the Commodore PET (any 40-cols PET, 8K min RAM). (Now featuring reliable keyboard detection. Also prepared for sound, which, eventually…) Download and online emulation link: masswerk.at/pet/prgs/#ip...

So, I managed to solve this: instead of checking magic numbers, I'm now "parsing" the PET editor ROM (at $E000-$E7FF) as a more general approach to detecting the keyboard type. And this seems to work.

Trying to find out what PETSCII #133 ($85) may be on the Commodore PET, Google AI Overview provided the following "helpful" "information" (see image). Fun fact: "cursor down" is PETSCII #17 ($11). PETSCII #133 is "F1" on the later 8-bits, like the VIC, C64, C128, C16, etc.

Finally tested the "PET Invaders" on VICE (xpet), which offers some broader hardware suport than my own PET 2001 emulator. – Turns out that the PET 4016/4032 hangs on the "score advance table screen", where we identify any joysticks. And it's only with the graphics keyboard, business is fine!

And here is a blog post on the matter of the PET keyboard test program (includes #mos6502 code): www.masswerk.at/nowgobang/20...