Commodore Secrets

Product: Any Commodore 8-bit computer

Typing: PRINT""+-0 will crash the BASIC.

Product: Commodore PET, Vic20, 64, but not the 128

Typing: 35072121 crashes the BASIC. The Commodore 64 sometimes reports ?SYNTAX ERROR instead.

Product: Commodore PET, older versions

Typing: WAIT 6502,n Results in the word MICROSOFT! being displayed n times.

Product: Commodore 128

To get the credits and anti-war message you just need to type: SYS 32800,123,45,6

To get another hidden message, go to the ML monitor and type:

m f63f5 f640b

Product: Commodore 1571 Disk Drive (DOS 3)

The following BASIC 2 program displays the software and hardware credits and a date. 10 dv=8:sa=32770:n=46:rem device number, starting address, number of bytes 20 st$="":open1,dv,15,"m-r"+chr$(sa-int(sa/256)*256))+chr$(sa/256)+chr$(n) 30 fori=1ton:get#1,by$:st$=st$+by$:printasc(by$);:next:close1 40 print:printst$

Product: Commodore 1581 Disk Drive

error = $ff3f org $3000 lda #$79 OR lda #$7a jmp error

The two messages are listed in the 1581 dos reference guide as:

$79: Software by David Siracusa. Hardware by Greg Berlin
$7a: Dedicated to my wife Lisa

Here is a program to illustrate the messages:

10 open15,9,15:n$="m-w":m$="" 20 fori=0to3:reada:n$=n$+chr$(a):next 30 fori=0to2:reada:m$=m$+chr$(a):next 40 print#15,n$chr$(121)m$:print#15,"m-e"chr$(0)chr$(3) 50 get#15,a$:printa$;:ifst=0goto50 60 print#15,n$chr$(122)m$:print#15,"m-e"chr$(0)chr$(3) 70 get#15,a$:printa$;:ifst=0goto70 80 data0,3,5,169 90 data76,63,255