Kroc Camen’s collection of rare and stupidly rare Commodore 64 programming books

I am selling my collection of Commodore 64 programming books / manuals which include quite some rarities. If you are a collector, or you are looking to start out on or sharpen up your C=64 programming skills then this is the book collection for you, nothing else out there is as comprehensive a cover of the computer’s capabilities.

All of these books are at least 28 years old! Quality varies from practically pristine to poor; I’ve detailed this in the full descriptions below.

You will want to check out my other items for sale, which include Simons Basic and Elite Gold Edition.

Advanced Machine Language Book for the Commodore 64

• Author: Lothar Englisch
• Publisher: Data Becker / First Publishing Limited, 1984
• ISBN: 0-948015-055
• Size: W:150mm (5.9″) H:210mm (8.3″) D:11mm (0.4″) / 300g (10½ oz)

This exceptionally rare 1984 programming book for the Commodore 64 is in very good condition. The pages within are pristine and the cardboard binding is slightly worn at the edges with a crease in the front top-right corner, but otherwise in good condition. This is the First Publishing Ltd. UK version 1984, not the more common American edition by Abacus.

An excerpt from the book:

In this book we will show you how to make use of many the Commodore 64′s special features and capabilities using machine language.

The book is divided into three major sections. The first section concerns the internal representation of numbers on the Commodore 64 and describes in detail how the computer performs calculations and how its math routines can be used from machine language. In addition to the conversion of numbers between the various formats, the main emphasis of this section lies in writing arithmetic functions which can be used from BASIC with the help of the USR function.

The second section deals with a specialty of the machine language: interrupts. After explaining some of the terms, interrupts are discussed in detail. Many sample programs illustrate the variety of uses for interrupt handling. At the close of this section, a machine language program demonstrates how BASIC subroutines can be controlled with interrupts.

The third and final section presents the concept of vectors in both BASIC interpreter and kernal. The individual vectors are described and the procedure for adding your own commands is explained. The implementation of the REPEAT-UNTIL structure is used to demonstrate this.

Commodore 64 Programmer's Reference Guide

The comprehensive manual to the C64's innards, including even a circuit diagram! This chunky book (nearly 500 pages) is a must-own of any C64 programmer.
My copy is in somewhat poor condition unfortunately, but all the material is there.

The Companion to the Commodore 64

• Author: Keith Bowden
• Publisher: Pan Books Ltd., 1984
• ISBN: 0-330-28479-7
• Size: W:152mm (6″) H:233mm (9.1″) D:15mm (½″) / 250g (9 oz)

An extremely interesting read for being deeply technical and informative but also written in a loving and characteristic manner.

Rotating sprites

This subject appears to cause a great deal of confusion. There is no hardware on the Commodore 64 to rotate sprites. It has to be done with software, i.e. sprite animation. One day, sprites may well consist of sets of three dimensional data, and it will be possible to not only move them around the screen, but also to view them from any desired distance or perspective. Until then, we have to rely on generating the data for each view in advance, switching the sprite pointers between the data blocks to create the effect of rotation.

As a child, this was very inspiring to think there would be a future where one could easily describe characters and worlds in 3D. I thought Starfox (Starwing in the U.K.) was as good as it was ever going to get.

This item is in okay condition. The cover is worn, bent and marked and the pages within are yellowed.

Sixty Programs for the Commodore 64

• Author: Robert Erskine, Humphery Walwyn, Paul Stanley & Michael Bews
• Publisher: Pan Books Ltd., 1983
• ISBN: 0-330-28358-8
• Size: W:152mm (6″) H:233mm (9.1″) D:24mm (1″) / 450g (1 lb)

This chunky compendium does what it says on the cover. Notable games I enjoyed are Stellar Run which was simple and easy to hack and Fall Guy, an interesting two player game where you must slide walls around to get your guy to fall under gravity to the bottom of the screen. The book also includes “Evolution”, a three part program that is almost the exact precursor to Spore containing an amoeba stage, a monkey stage and a ‘global thermo-nuclear war’ stage.

This item is in poor condition. The cover / spine are worn and bent, and are scratched with pen nib marks. The pages inside are yellowed and occasionally marked.

Commodore 64 Exposed

• Author: Bruce Bayley
• Publisher: Beam Software / Melbourne House (Publishers) Ltd., 1984
• ISBN: 0-86161-133-0
• Size: W:140mm (5½″) H:210mm (8.2″) D:14mm (½″) / 310g (11 oz)

This is a dense, learning / reference guide book that covers the whole spectrum of the Commodore 64. It’s chocked full with a full reference of BASIC commands—including examples, memory maps—including a listing of all of the 64’s RAM/ROM addresses with what each address does, a Kernal routines reference, 6510 opcode reference, an invaluable “Keyboard Graphics and how to get them” legend—essential for typing in game books—and lots more. As a book to both learn from and serve as a reference, it’s invaluable and right up there as a lightweight alternative to the official Commodore 64 Programmer’s Reference Guide.

Quality of this book is okay; the outside carboard cover is scratched a lot, but has not broken through the lamination. The book’s page edge is uneven due to the way this book is bound and the pages have yellowed at the edge but not on the page-face. There will be some pencilling on a few pages from me where this book has had a lot of use.

PCW Games Collection for the Commodore 64

• Author: Jeremy Hammett
• Publisher: Century Communications Ltd., 1984
• ISBN: 0-7126-0622-X
• Size: W:135mm (5.3″) H:214mm (8.5″) D:12mm (0.4″) / 275g (9½ oz)

A traditional program-listing book providing the source code of 20 games. This is how things were done before we had the internet—you typed in 10 pages of code from a book and hoped you made no typos. This collection is quite good, notable for a number of good board games: Splash!, Omniopoly (a Monopoly clone) and Othello. Splash is particularly interesting a game and plays very well, especially two-player.

Condition of this book is very good, the pages have yellowed around the edges a few millimetres, but the condition of the pages is excellent (no rips). There are some pencil numbers written on the contents page (mine, but I don’t recall why they’re there or what they mean).