----Commodore Trivia Contest Edition #35 Questions and Answers Preface---- Below are the answer to the Commodore Trivia Contest Edition noted above. I will wait a few days for the answers to circulate and any errors to surface and then score the entries. The newest edition of trivia should already be available. I encourage you to enter it. This edition of trivia answers has been posted to the following locations: USENET newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm, alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.amiga.advocacy FIDONet Echoes: F-CBM CommNet Message Bases: Commodore Software Support This edition and previous editions of the trivia can be obtained from the following locations: FTP: ftp://ftp.jbrain.com/pub/cbm/trivia/ WWW: http://www.jbrain.com/trivia/ (HTML) http://www.jbrain.com/pub/cbm/trivia/ (TEXT) Email: ftpmail@mail.jbrain.com Body: open cd /pub/cbm/trivia get triviaX.txt (replace X with number_ quit To receive automatic email with the newest questions and answers, please subscribe to the Commodore Trivia mail list: To: listserv@mail.jbrain.com Body: subscribe trivia-dist Firstname Lastname help quit Feel free to use these trivia answers in newsletters, magazines, and other publications (please see disclaimer). If you use the trivia, I would appreciate knowing where it has ended up. If you intend to use this information, please wait a few days after the posting date to allow for major errors to be corrected. Please mail any new questions for upcoming trivia (with answers) to: trivia-submit@mail.jbrain.com ----Commodore Trivia Contest Edition #35 Questions and Answers (BEGIN)---- Q $220) What 3 bytes must reside on track 1, sector 0 of a disk in order to autoboot that disk on a C128? A $220) The abovious "CBM" bytes must be present. Q $221) Let's suppose you pick up a printer at a flea market and it says CBM on the decal. However, it lacks the familiar logo and further investigation reveals it isn't a Commodore printer. The printer was made in 1984. What company sold the printer? A $221) Citizen Business Machines (Citizen). I had a lady inquire about a printer so marked. Q $222) Which company came out with the first parallel printer interface for the VIC-20 in the US? A $222) CardCo, Incorporated. Q $223) If you boot up a 1540 disk drive and read the error channel, what model number is indicated in the power-up string? A $223) V170. Possibly, this is the code number for the drive. Dunno, Q $224) Who produced the very first Commodore diskette drive? A $224) As close as I can tell from research, a company called "Convenience Living" brought out the first Commodore disk drive, beating Commodore's 2040 by many months. The system was a dual drive 100 kB per unit single sided drive. The company changed their name or sold the unit to "CompuThink" upon introduction. Q $225) What company wrote the initial BASIC for the Commodore computer line? A $225) Your archenemy and mine, Microsoft. When the PET series was introduced, Microsoft's Gates and Paul Allen made big bucks licensing BASIC for small computers. Microsoft BASIC was small and ran on minimal hardware, making it an ideal language to bundle with early machines. Commodore modified the BASIC after 1.0 and Microsoft was not involved past the initial porting effort. As an aside, it's rumored that Gates and Allen might have lifted the source for BASIC from the University computers where they attended, but who knows :-) Q $226) What was the last modem Commodore produced for the 8-bit line? A $226) The 1670. Q $227) Which came first, the 2040 or the 2031? A $227) The 2040. In business, it's generally considered bad practice to deliver a smaller numbered model after a larger numbered one, especially if the units perform the same function. Commodore didn't use such logic :-) Q $228) Which came first, the 4040 or the 8050? A $228) Again, Commodore rebelled and delivered the 8050 long before the 4040 showed up on the scene. This time, the reason was more logical. The drives served two different markets and were keyed with the prefix number of the machines they were marketed with. The 4040 sold with the 40XX series, while the 8050 came with the 80XX systems. Q $229) Where were VIC computers introduced first: US or Japan? A $229) Japan. Commodore introduced the PET in the US first, but found the US market "fickle", so they introduced the VIC overseas first, since that market was easier to penetrate. Q $22A) Which Commodore 64 model came out after the C64c and sported an "off-white" case? A $22A) The C64gs (Graphics Station). I am uncertain, but believe this to be a non-US machine only. Q $22B) Commodore produced two "Pong" type video games. Name one model. A $22B) CBM 2000K and 3000H models. Both were simple machines with unknown processors. Q $22C) What significance does the name "Gortek" have with respect to the VIC-20? A $22C) "Gortek and the MicroChips" were characters introduced to help people learn how to use the VIC-20. Q $22D) What person actually developed CP/M for the C128? A $22D) Von Ertwine Q $22E) The 8563 VDC IC in the C128 was originally designed for another Commodore computer. Which one? A $22E) The Z8000 machine, another machine that never saw the light of day. Q $22F) Name the single bit in the status register of the 6502 that can be set externally. A $22F) The Overflow (V) flag can be set via pin 38 of the 6502, the SO pin (Set Overflow). The information in this between the lines marked by (BEGIN) and (END) is copyright (c)1997 by Jim Brain. Provided that the information between the (BEGIN) and (END) lines is not changed except to correct typographical errors, the so marked copyrighted information may be reproduced in its entirety on other networks or in other mediums. For more information about this contest or using these questions, please contact the Commodore Trivia Administrator. Quick Resource List: General Trivia Information: trivia-info@mail.jbrain.com Trivia Submission: trivia-submit@mail.jbrain.com Enter the Contest: trivia-contest@mail.jbrain.com Comment on Trivia: trivia-comments@mail.jbrain.com Contact Trivia Administrator: trivia-admin@mail.jbrain.com Commodore Trivia WWW Site: http://www.jbrain.com/trivia/ Commodore Trivia FTP Site: ftp://ftp.jbrain.com/pub/cbm/trivia/ Trivia Contest Administrator: Jim Brain Trivia Postal Address: 10710 Bruhn Avenue Bennington, NE 68007 Commodore Trivia Phone: (402) 431-7754 -----Commodore Trivia Contest Edition #35 Questions and Answers (END)-----