Bernardo on The Air

by Robert Bernardo

The University of California at Davis... my old alma mater. It was good to visit it again. When did I visit
it last? Certainly several years ago in order to attend Picnic Day or the Whole Earth Festival. The sights
seemed familiar, yet different. That intersection had changed. That drive-in restaurant had changed to a
Burger King. An entire shopping area had been built around a Borders Bookstore. Yes, the national
companies had been encroaching on little Davis, but the town still retained its charm... narrow,
tree-lined streets; students and their bicycles buzzing to and fro; small shops selling the wares of local
artists.

However, my visit to the town and the university was not for pleasure. I was there on Commodore
business; specifically, I was there to visit the university radio station, KDVS-FM 90.3, and interview
Justin Beck (Hard Hat Mack), the host of the only radio show in the world that broadcasts
Commodore SID music. Several weeks before my visit, I was scanning through the Usenet group,
comp.sys.cbm, and found that Justin was posting weekly updates of what was happening on the 6581
SID Show.

The Sound Interface Device (SID) is the 6581 chip in C64/128's or the 8580 chip in later C64's and
C128D's. It is a chip capable of producing 3 voices plus white noise, and it placed the Commodore far
ahead of any home computer of its day. From an Apple or PC computer at that time, a person would
hear beeps and boops. From the Commodore and its SID chip, you would hear not only sound effects
but also speech and music. In fact, I was about to find out how much of an impact SID music made in
the world.

It was a sunny, warm, mid-August afternoon in 1999 as I drove into the university campus center and
parked in the new, multi-story parking structure. From the trunk of the car, I hauled out my voice
recorder, camera, notebook, and various C= items to show to Justin, items such as GO64!,
Commodore Scene, and Commodore Zone magazines, an issue of Loadstar, and my SuperCPU 128.

I walked a few hundred feet to Freeborn Hall and tried to enter one of the doors that led down to the
basement. Many of the student union businesses were housed in the basement of Freeborn Hall, for
example, the Cal Aggie university newspaper and radio station KDVS.

The door was locked. I looked around. The university was not in session, and all of Student
Union/Freeborn Hall had closed early that day. For a moment, I thought I'd have to find a phone in
order to call for someone at the station to open the door. However, a few seconds after I had tried the
door, Justin opened it. What timing! (I had called earlier in the week to let him know I was coming.)

Mustached, shorter than I, far younger than I, very much looking like an undergrad or grad student,
Justin greeted me enthusiastically. He had realized that the door was locked and was just coming up to
wait for me. He then led me down into the bowels of Freeborn Hall and to radio station KDVS.
KDVS...what memories it brought back. I remarked to Justin that I had spent many an hour sitting in
the lobby of the radio station. During my day, KDVS had a sofa in the lobby and a loudspeaker with
volume control which was fed music from the station. Instead of using the massive study halls of the
U.C. Davis main library, I would work my way down to the radio station lobby (the doors being left
unlocked) and study there into the wee hours of the morning. The disc jockeys, who could see me
through the window of their cubicle, would never bother me.

The sofa and the loudspeaker were now gone, but everything else looked the same. Justin then led me
through the "employees only" door and into the mysterious back rooms of the station. I felt privileged to
be in an area which was so unknown before. To my surprise, there was much more space than I had
thought...several office desks with papers and other materials strewn over them...posters over the
walls...a busy, "creative" environment. Justin also showed me the station's substantial archive of tapes,
records, and CD's -- all music and vocals in keeping with the philosophy of the radio station, i.e., things
which you would not ordinarily hear on commercial radio. (In their literature, KDVS brags that it is the
only freeform, non-commercial, community radio station west of the Mississippi River.)

It was about 7:30 p.m., half an hour before Justin's Tuesday night 6581 SID Show and just enough time
to interview him a bit more. Justin was 25 years old, an alumnus of U.C. Berkeley in which he studied
cognitive science, and an alumnus of U.C. Irvine in which he did research in psychology. At KDVS he
got into talk radio first, then moved on to a progressive activism talk show, then to music, and then to
avant-garde music. Then in the winter of 1998, a friend sent Justin a CD-R of SID music. Justin was
hooked. In April 1999, he created the 6581 SID Show.

Would he ever run out of SID music to play? Not with over 11,000 files! Surprised, I asked him where
he got his music. At www.hvsc.c64.org (High Voltage SID Collection), the premiere website of SID
music. SID music was greatly admired and composed in Europe.

Did he play the music directly from a Commodore into the station's broadcasting equipment? No, he
didn't. At that time, there wasn't even a computer close to the broadcast equipment. What he did was
to download the SID files to his home PC, and using the PC program, SIDPlay, he'd transfer the music
to an audio mini-disc. Then he'd bring the mini-disc and recorder to the studio and connect it to the
broadcast equipment.

What was the broadcast range of KDVS-FM? With 9,200 watts of power, the station could be heard
all the way north to Yuba City, south to Stockton, and west to Benicia -- a gigantic area and far bigger
than I had realized. However, it was still too far for me to pick up on the radio. He advised me that if I
had a computer with Real Audio, I could pick up the live feed by going to www.kdvs.org Also each
6581 SID Show would be archived at the website; all I had to do was download the appropriate show
according to date. I smiled weakly; the C128D that I used on-line every day had no such capability,
and my Amiga computers were not upgraded enough to handle Real Audio. 

Showtime was getting close. I was there to see Justin live, on-the-air. My voice recorder was ready to
capture his broadcast.

"Would you like to be my guest on the show?" he asked.

Bravely, I responded that I would be honored, and he led me into the DJ's room. The previous disc
jockey was just gathering his things before departing. Justin made some small talk with him, and then he
pointed out which seat I was to use and which microphone to talk into.

My mind was racing. I had never been on the radio before. I had to be a good representative of the
Fresno Commodore User Group, a good representative of all that is Commodore. In a sense, I was
speaking for all Commodore people. I'd better not stumble... I'd better not stutter or freeze up.

Eight o'clock p.m.. Justin played the recorded intro for the 6581 SID Show, and I watched how he
deftly, expertly flipped various switches and other controls on his console. SID music started playing.
Were our voices on-the-air yet? "No, not yet," he reassured me, and he talked about the musical piece
being played and other Commodore matters, all probably in an effort to relax me.

The mid-show break was coming up. O.K., this was it.

Hard Hat Mack: All right, and we're back on 6581 SID. And I'd like to welcome Robert Bernardo
from the Fresno Commodore Users Group. Thanks for joining us today, Robert.

Robert B.: My pleasure, Justin, and hello to all my Commodore friends out there in the world.

HHM: All right. In the background we're listening to Martin Walker doing a tune from Atomic Robo
Kid, and we were just speaking, talking about the videogame, Impossible Mission, and you might have
recognized, right at the beginning I played a short bit from that game, Another Visitor, which you might
remember from the game, Impossible Mission. But Robert, I just wanted to ask you, what's your
involvement with the Commodore scene, and well, how did you get involved in the first place?

Robert B.: Well, I've had a Commodore 64 since 1983 when it first came out, and I bought it at the
unbelievable price of $200 back then, and the only thing I could get for it for mass storage was a a
datasette recorder, because disk drives were another $200.

HHM: Oh.

RB: And I couldn't afford that back then, so I hooked my Commodore into just a regular television
through its antenna leads, and I used it like that for the longest time. And throughout the years, I've
collected whole bunches of Commodore machines, flat C128's, C128D machines, SX-64's, which are
the portable Commodore 64's, and now for the last few years I've been president of the Fresno
Commodore Users Group. And I go around during my vacation time... I go around and report on the
scene... what's happening out there in the Commodore scene. I try to look for shows, try to find people
who are interesting to write articles about, and I write about them for our newsletters in our group.

HHM: Fantastic. So how many people are involved in the users group there in Fresno?

RB: We have about 30-40 members in our group in Fresno.

Hard rat Mack: And what's the sort of age range of these folks? Young people? Old people?

RB: We have... we have, maybe, 1 young person who's below 20, I think.

HHM: Oh, wow.

RB: But all the rest range from in their 20's into their 70's.

HHM: Oh, wow. That old, huh? So people... people who are old enough to... mainly to remember
using the machine when it was around in the 80's.

RB: That's right, except for the newbies...it's all new to them.

HHM: Yeah, you really got to hand it to the teenagers who are into this stuff, because, you know, it's
probably so easy for young people to look at this ancient computer technology and think, "Aw, who
would be interested in that? Can't do anything... so primitive... and not very interesting... who cares?"

RB: Yes, that's right. But with Commodore 64, there's a certain soul that you have with the machine. I
mean there's a certain spirit from it, and you don't get that feeling from modern PC's or modern day
computers. There's no life behind them.

HHM: Yeah, they're very functional, and all pervasive. But as you were saying, there's not much soul,
not much spirit to these... I mean, in my opinion, I suppose PC's and Macintoshes are more sort of for
the office. They're business machines. They're for working... Well, I mean... I suppose people use the
Commodore machine for business as well.

RB: Yes, that's true.

HHM: It's something you can have a lot of fun with, I think.

RB: Yes, why not? When I get behind my Commodore, I write my articles, I do work with it, I go onto
the Internet with it, but it's also a fun machine. I mean... even as I'm doing my work on my
Commodore, I'm thinking, "fun".

HHM: Yeah, exactly. Well, um, I was going to ask you about your newsletter. Could you talk a little bit
about that?

RB: Uh, well, we put out 3 newsletters. Our main newsletter, which is called the Interface, is a
bi-monthly newsletter that comes out, and it has a variety of articles from various sources -- original
articles, articles from other newsletters, information off the Internet. Then we have our other newsletter
called C= Voyages, the one that I edit, and that mainly features articles from my travels and from
people or places I've been to. And then we have another newsletter called the Halfling, which is full of
poetry and personal opinion and club happenings. And that's done by another editor, and she's in
charge of that. The Halfling and C= Voyages come out more irregularly, even though I try to make C=
Voyages a bi-monthly. It's hard during the summertime when I'm traveling around to keep it going
bi-monthly, so I apologize to all the members who have not received their newsletter yet.

HHM: Um, Robert, what do you do when you're not using your Commodore 64?

RB: I'm a teacher for the Corcoran Unified School District, which is 35 miles southwest of Visalia, and
Visalia is about an hour south of Fresno.

HHM: O.K., and for the European listeners who... oh, some of them may know where Fresno is... I
have a feeling that a lot of them don't... Fresno's what? Probably about a couple hundred miles south of
where we are?

RB: Yes, that's true. It's about 4 hours south of Davis. Just think of dead center of California... in the
Central Valley. So we're not near San Francisco and we're not near Los Angeles. We're like in farm
country.

HHM: Right. Right in the middle... in the Central Valley of California. I wanted to ask you little bit
about that demo party that you went to in Leeds [England]. When was that?

RB: That was the DejaVu demo party, and that was on the July 9-10 weekend, I believe. Well,
actually, it encompassed Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday... Sunday also. So it went on for 2
nights, 3 days or 2 nights, 2 days, and the demo party was... in a demo party, you have all these
programmers who congregate and what they try and do is they try and program these visuals and music
and put them up on the videoscreen so that people can judge who makes the best demo in this demo
party, and they win prizes.

HHM: We should have set you up with a pair of headphones, Robert. Sorry about that. Robert's sitting
out here in the dark, because we didn't have a pair of headphones for him. But anyway, let's... let's get
back to talking about that demo party in Leeds, England. That was this July?

RB: That was this July. I... I attended it with another person, Allan Bairstow of Commodore Scene
magazine. We went there specifically to see if there were any C64 programmers out there. There were
many PC programmers out there. There were some PSX, Playstation programmers there. There were
3 Amiga programmers there. There was only one C64 programmer there.

HHM: No!!

RB: Yes, just one. Jason... Jason Kelk of Commodore Zone magazine, but he was there busily working
on his demo. And it was finally demoed on Sunday. Unfortunately, I wasn't around to see him in his
hour of glory. But he was the only C64 person there, so he won the grand prize for C64 demos, which
was 94 pounds or approximately $144 dollars... something like that.

HHM: Not too shabby.

RB: Not too shabby.

HHM: Earlier you told me that he probably blew more money than that on the monitor he had to buy...

RB: That's right. He had to buy a little, 4-inch color monitor just to program with it. He had to have the
bus fare from his city that he lived in... very far away... 4 or 5 hours away from Leeds. So it was quite a
trip just to go over there. Programmers are in a different level, at a different level, in a different world
when they go into programming.

HHM: Yeah, not being a programmer myself, I can't exactly relate, but if I ever do get into
programming, I suppose it would be so I could make my own SID tunes.

RB: Very good. Yes! More SID tunes.

HHM: Yeah, well, there could never be too many SID tunes, I suppose. And of course, for the
listeners who are not familiar with SID, this is all music which is composed on the Commodore 64
home computer. And I'd like to extend thanks to all the people involved in the High Voltage SID
Collection, because that's where I get all my material from. The High Voltage SID Collection is the
largest collection of SID music anywhere in the world. Their website can be found at:
www.hvsc.c64.org and pretty much any type of machine that you're using... if you're using Windows or
a Macintosh operating system or even if you're using Linux, you can access this site and download over
11,000 Commodore 64 tunes. It's quite an impressive thing they have going on and utterly essential for
my radio show. So I can never be too thankful for that project and all the hard work that goes into it.
Um, I wanted to ask you, Robert, does the Fresno Commodore Users Group have a website that we
can look at?

RB: Um, we only have a web page, not a website.

HHM: A web page? That's fine.

RB: The web page, if I can remember it very quickly, it's at... um... Oh, it skips my mind right now. I'll
probably have to remember it a little bit later.

HHM: Hopefully, we can find it with a search engine.

RB: I know it's at Gaelyne Gasson's website...oh, I think I remember it now, O.K.. It's:
http://videocam.au/fcug.html

HHM: O.K., great. The web videocam... does that mean when you have your meetings, you have a
webcam up?

RB: No. No, we don't have a webcam, unfortunately.

(Laughter)

RB: However, there is a person who has developed an interface to connect a webcam up to
Commodore machines.

HHM: You're kidding?

RB: Yes!

HHM: That's very cool.

RB: Yes, Nate Dannenberg out of the Midwest. He has his interface, and well, you have to build it
yourself, but he has the plans, and...

HHM: Wow, I'm still registering that in my mind... a webcam for the Commodore 64. That's just so
amazing to see.

(Laughter)

HHM: It just goes to show how cool the Commodore 64 machine is. And, uh, isn't there a new Amiga
system coming out?

RB: Well...

HHM: You can't exactly talk about that.

RB: Yes, there is. There have been reports in Forbes magazine and some of the other magazines about
the new Amiga coming out at the end of the year or the beginning of next year with the new operating
system.

HHM: O.K., well, I think I'll start putting ads in the newspaper for my, uh... to get rid of my PC. Start
saving up money for the new Amiga system.

RB: Of course, everybody knows that Amiga is owned by Gateway.

HHM: O.K., well, is there anything else you'd like to say to the people living out there in Europe or the
rest of the United States.

RB: Well, I just want to say, Justin, that you're providing a great service here, I mean, providing SID
music here at KDVS-FM radio station, and you're making SID music available to people who have
never heard it before -- a lot of these tunes I've never heard before -- and I believe that you are... in
your own way you are at the forefront of spreading SID music...Commodore SID music around the
world. And I'd like to thank you for your involvement in what you're doing and wish you the best of
luck and hope that you continue for a long time to come in your radio program here.

HHM: Thank you so much, Robert. I really would like to thank you, too, for taking the time to come
down to the KDVS studios, and I forgot... we forgot to even mention that you're a graduate of U.C.
Davis, class of 1977.

RB: Right, class of 77. Aw... that... there goes my age right there.

(Laughter)

HHM: That's all right. Not exactly, but maybe we can guess with some sort of range there.

RB: *That* range!

HHM: Yeah, but anyway, Robert, thanks for coming by the KDVS studios and talking with us over the
air. I hope the listeners have enjoyed this interview, and we're going to play some messages and get
back to the SID music.

RB: O.K., thank you, Justin.

HHM: All right, Robert. I'm Hard Hat Mack, and in just a few moments, we'll be back with some more
SID tunes. So please stay tuned.


HHM: Yeah, exactly. Well, um, I was going to ask you about your newsletter. Could you talk a little bit
about that?

RB: Uh, well, we put out 3 newsletters. Our main newsletter, which is called the Interface, is a
bi-monthly newsletter that comes out, and it has a variety of articles from various sources -- original
articles, articles from other newsletters, information off the Internet. Then we have our other newsletter
called C= Voyages, the one that I edit, and that mainly features articles from my travels and from
people or places I've been to. And then we have another newsletter called the Halfling, which is full of
poetry and personal opinion and club happenings. And that's done by another editor, and she's in
charge of that. The Halfling and C= Voyages come out more irregularly, even though I try to make C=
Voyages a bi-monthly. It's hard during the summertime when I'm traveling around to keep it going
bi-monthly, so I apologize to all the members who have not received their newsletter yet.

HHM: Um, Robert, what do you do when you're not using your Commodore 64?

RB: I'm a teacher for the Corcoran Unified School District, which is 35 miles southwest of Visalia, and
Visalia is about an hour south of Fresno.

HHM: O.K., and for the European listeners who... oh, some of them may know where Fresno is... I
have a feeling that a lot of them don't... Fresno's what? Probably about a couple hundred miles south of
where we are?

RB: Yes, that's true. It's about 4 hours south of Davis. Just think of dead center of California... in the
Central Valley. So we're not near San Francisco and we're not near Los Angeles. We're like in farm
country.

HHM: Right. Right in the middle... in the Central Valley of California. I wanted to ask you little bit
about that demo party that you went to in Leeds [England]. When was that?

RB: That was the DejaVu demo party, and that was on the July 9-10 weekend, I believe. Well,
actually, it encompassed Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday... Sunday also. So it went on for 2
nights, 3 days or 2 nights, 2 days, and the demo party was... in a demo party, you have all these
programmers who congregate and what they try and do is they try and program these visuals and music
and put them up on the videoscreen so that people can judge who makes the best demo in this demo
party, and they win prizes.

HHM: We should have set you up with a pair of headphones, Robert. Sorry about that. Robert's sitting
out here in the dark, because we didn't have a pair of headphones for him. But anyway, let's... let's get
back to talking about that demo party in Leeds, England. That was this July?

RB: That was this July. I... I attended it with another person, Allan Bairstow of Commodore Scene
magazine. We went there specifically to see if there were any C64 programmers out there. There were
many PC programmers out there. There were some PSX, Playstation programmers there. There were
3 Amiga programmers there. There was only one C64 programmer there.

HHM: No!!

RB: Yes, just one. Jason... Jason Kelk of Commodore Zone magazine, but he was there busily working
on his demo. And it was finally demoed on Sunday. Unfortunately, I wasn't around to see him in his
hour of glory. But he was the only C64 person there, so he won the grand prize for C64 demos, which
was 94 pounds or approximately $144 dollars... something like that.

HHM: Not too shabby.

RB: Not too shabby.

HHM: Earlier you told me that he probably blew more money than that on the monitor he had to buy...

RB: That's right. He had to buy a little, 4-inch color monitor just to program with it. He had to have the
bus fare from his city that he lived in... very far away... 4 or 5 hours away from Leeds. So it was quite a
trip just to go over there. Programmers are in a different level, at a different level, in a different world
when they go into programming.

HHM: Yeah, not being a programmer myself, I can't exactly relate, but if I ever do get into
programming, I suppose it would be so I could make my own SID tunes.

RB: Very good. Yes! More SID tunes.

HHM: Yeah, well, there could never be too many SID tunes, I suppose. And of course, for the
listeners who are not familiar with SID, this is all music which is composed on the Commodore 64
home computer. And I'd like to extend thanks to all the people involved in the High Voltage SID
Collection, because that's where I get all my material from. The High Voltage SID Collection is the
largest collection of SID music anywhere in the world. Their website can be found at:
www.hvsc.c64.org and pretty much any type of machine that you're using... if you're using Windows or
a Macintosh operating system or even if you're using Linux, you can access this site and download over
11,000 Commodore 64 tunes. It's quite an impressive thing they have going on and utterly essential for
my radio show. So I can never be too thankful for that project and all the hard work that goes into it.
Um, I wanted to ask you, Robert, does the Fresno Commodore Users Group have a website that we
can look at?

RB: Um, we only have a web page, not a website.

HHM: A web page? That's fine.

RB: The web page, if I can remember it very quickly, it's at... um... Oh, it skips my mind right now. I'll
probably have to remember it a little bit later.

HHM: Hopefully, we can find it with a search engine.

RB: I know it's at Gaelyne Gasson's website...oh, I think I remember it now, O.K.. It's:
http://videocam.au/fcug.html

HHM: O.K., great. The web videocam... does that mean when you have your meetings, you have a
webcam up?

RB: No. No, we don't have a webcam, unfortunately.

(Laughter)

RB: However, there is a person who has developed an interface to connect a webcam up to
Commodore machines.

HHM: You're kidding?

RB: Yes!

HHM: That's very cool.

RB: Yes, Nate Dannenberg out of the Midwest. He has his interface, and well, you have to build it
yourself, but he has the plans, and...

HHM: Wow, I'm still registering that in my mind... a webcam for the Commodore 64. That's just so
amazing to see.

(Laughter)

HHM: It just goes to show how cool the Commodore 64 machine is. And, uh, isn't there a new Amiga
system coming out?

RB: Well...

HHM: You can't exactly talk about that.

RB: Yes, there is. There have been reports in Forbes magazine and some of the other magazines about
the new Amiga coming out at the end of the year or the beginning of next year with the new operating
system.

HHM: O.K., well, I think I'll start putting ads in the newspaper for my, uh... to get rid of my PC. Start
saving up money for the new Amiga system.

RB: Of course, everybody knows that Amiga is owned by Gateway.

HHM: O.K., well, is there anything else you'd like to say to the people living out there in Europe or the
rest of the United States.

RB: Well, I just want to say, Justin, that you're providing a great service here, I mean, providing SID
music here at KDVS-FM radio station, and you're making SID music available to people who have
never heard it before -- a lot of these tunes I've never heard before -- and I believe that you are... in
your own way you are at the forefront of spreading SID music...Commodore SID music around the
world. And I'd like to thank you for your involvement in what you're doing and wish you the best of
luck and hope that you continue for a long time to come in your radio program here.

HHM: Thank you so much, Robert. I really would like to thank you, too, for taking the time to come
down to the KDVS studios, and I forgot... we forgot to even mention that you're a graduate of U.C.
Davis, class of 1977.

RB: Right, class of 77. Aw... that... there goes my age right there.

(Laughter)

HHM: That's all right. Not exactly, but maybe we can guess with some sort of range there.

RB: *That* range!

HHM: Yeah, but anyway, Robert, thanks for coming by the KDVS studios and talking with us over the
air. I hope the listeners have enjoyed this interview, and we're going to play some messages and get
back to the SID music.

RB: O.K., thank you, Justin.

HHM: All right, Robert. I'm Hard Hat Mack, and in just a few moments, we'll be back with some more
SID tunes. So please stay tuned.

(SID music plays for several minutes.)

HHM: Hard Hat Mack back here on KDVS radio in Davis, California, and on the Internet,
www.kdvs.org . You probably recognize that from the Exorcist, a sound made... a tune made famous
from that movie. The composer was Mike Oldfield. The name of the song was Tubular Bells, but the
person who composed the song on the Commodore 64 is unknown as of this date. Maybe we'll find
out one day. That's from 1985. Robert and I wanted to get back on the air and talk about the Vintage
Computer Faire [a.k.a. Vintage Computer Festival], which is coming up this September in Santa Clara.
Is that right?

RB: October 2 and 3.

HHM: OK, so tell us about the Vintage Computer Faire, Robert.

RB: This is its third year. I've been to Commodore computer shows in Illinois and Michigan, and
people have always asked why don't we have a West Coast Commodore computer show, and our
clubs out here don't have the organization, don't have the wherewithal to put on a show ourselves. But
the Vintage Computer Faire is there already... they have the site... I mean, it's going to be at the Santa
Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California, just a few blocks away from Great America. It's a
great venue. They have the tables all set up. They have the organization. They have the sponsors. And I
thought to myself, well, why don't we have, you know, Commodore users come into the Vintage
Computer Faire. I mean our group, the Fresno Commodore Users Group... we're going to have a table
there, we're going to be promoting the latest in Commodore, like Wheels 64 and Wheels 128 and the
SuperCPU's. It's a two-day event. Last year, VCF was reported on C-Net Central, a television show
on Sunday morning on the Sci-Fi Network.

HHM: Wow!

RB: So they've had coverage of the show. I'm sure this year it'll be bigger and better than ever. I mean,
even if you're not into Commodore and if you want to see older computers from the past, like from the
1950's, 60's, and 70's, come to the show, and you'll be surprised at what they have there. I mean,
there'll be many displays there from the Computer History Museum also.

HHM: So do you have any contact information that people can use to find out how to get into this
convention?

RB: Yes, you can e-mail to Sam Ismail; that's I-s-m-a-i-l, and his e-mail address is: (spelled out for the
audience) siconic@jasmine.psyber.com He's the organizer of this show; in fact, he's been reported on
in the San Francisco newspapers about his shows in the past. Also they have a website at
www.vintage.org/vcf

HHM: Vintage Computer Faire, this October in Santa Clara.

RB: Santa Clara, October 2-3.

HHM: Wonderful. Once again, Robert Bernardo, I'd like to thank you for being on the show today.
Robert Bernardo is from the Fresno Commodore Users Group, and it's been a real pleasure having him
on 6581 SID today. Thank you, Robert.

RB: Thank you, Justin.

HHM: O.K., so we're going to continue on with the SID music just for a couple more minutes, and then
Justin (a different Justin) and the Evil Spider will be up at 9 o'clock, playing you the best in punk rock
music. So I think you should stay tuned.

(SID music plays -- "Take a Chance on Me" from Abba)


Thus ended my first foray in broadcast radio. While Justin wrote down some notes, the next DJ
entered. Justin and I got out of the disc jockey's booth, and I gathered my Commodore materials. It
was getting late. Justin being a Star Wars fan, I promised to send him some Commodore Star Wars
demos and games as we walked out of the Freeborn Hall basement into the cool, night air. He invited
me to come back and visit anytime. I thanked him and said that I would consider it. We waved to each
other as he and his girlfriend, Danae (another KDVS DJ), walked off into the darkness and I headed
toward my car. I was famished and aimed myself toward downtown Davis in search for a nice java
shop and live music. And I found it!

-----

Skip forward to March, 2000. On comp.sys.cbm, Justin announced that KDVS was having their yearly
fundraiser from April 9-16. Not only were monetary donations needed, but to make it extra special,
Justin would offer Commodore prizes to those who donated. He needed C= hardware or software to
give out.

Knowing that our club had a glut of extra hardware/software, I e-mailed him, writing that we would
gladly donate some of our stuff for such a worthy cause. Justin reassured me that all C= materials
donated would be fully tax-deductible. I told him not to worry about it, and I then started making my
contacos.

FCUG newsletter editor, Dick Estel, had a complete set of our older disks-of-the-quarter ready to give
away, in addition to a set of public domain Print Shop graphics and other odds-and-ends. Todd
Obermann, of Clovis, California and a former C= user, had a complete C128 system (minus monitor)
plus peripherals and original software. All I had to do was to pick the stuff up and transport it to Davis.

Friday, March 31, I left school early and drove to Fresno, driving to Todd's house first. I was amazed
at the excellent condition of his boxed equipment and thanked him profusely for his donation. He said
that his brother had even more C= materials, and when that was ready in a few weeks (but too late for
the fundraiser), I could pick it up, too. Before I left, I had to urge him to stay with Commodore, even if
it meant getting an emulator to work on his Pentium. He agreed, and I felt my mission was
accomplished.

Then it was off to Dick Estel's house. We talked about PC-to-Commodore and Commodore-to-PC
graphics conversion, and on his PC, he showed me the operation of Congo 3.0, a PC program which
could handle such conversions. I was pleased that such an efficient program served the needs of us C=
users and wondered if a similar program were available for my other computer, the Amiga. I couldn't
stay too long, because I had another 2-hour drive in front of me, and so, Dick packed his materials into
my car. Off I went to the nearest Burger King for some chicken sandwiches, and not long after that, I
was on the road to Stockton, my stopover for the night at my parents' house. I arrived at 11 p.m.,
exhausted but happy, the entire front and back seat of my car crammed with C= stuff (the trunk was full
of school stuff).

The next day, Saturday, Justin e-mailed me to meet him at his Davis apartment at 7 p.m., the time he
got off of work. I spent most of the day meeting with best friend and fellow C= user, Kevin Baysinger,
and talking about his house, my current C= adventure, and chowing down at a nearby Chinese
restaurant. In no time at all, I had to leave for Davis, a little more than an hour away. I arrived at 6:30
p.m., searching for Justin's apartment address in the dark. Fortunately, I knew that area of Davis, and it
didn't take me long. I went to the third floor, knocked on his door, and waited. Nobody appeared,
except his next-door neighbors, another young couple going out.

I asked about where Justin was and reassured them that I was a friend, bringing computer materials for
him. Satisfied with my explanation, they smiled and remarked he must still be at work. I went down to
my car and waited. Twenty minutes later, I went back upstairs and tried again. Justin had just walked in
through the door, and a few minutes later, Danae showed up.

I was astounded at how much Commodore stuff had been already collected. In the middle of his
compact, 2-bedroom apartment was a pile of keyboards, disk drives, disks, and software -- enough to
fill a wheelbarrow or two. With the load of stuff I brought in, that tripled or quadrupled in size. 

He then showed me his Pentium 100 tower computer, which ordinarily wouldn't interest me but was
made special because he had SIDPlay installed in it. On the monitor screen, SIDPlay was divided into
several windows, one of which showed the list of SID tunes he had saved. I asked him how many he
had; he replied that he had the entire High Voltage SID collection (now up to over 12,000 files)! Then
what astonished me even more was that he started playing some of the SID tunes through his stereo
system, and the tunes exactly sounded as if they were played from a Commodore. How was this
possible? Was he running a Commodore emulator? No. There was a cable which extended from the
PC and plugged into the user port of an actual, brown C64. Then from that C64, the audio was routed
to the stereo. The special PC-to-C64 cable was not very expensive, but Justin had to order it from one
of his European SID friends.

After all of the Commodore talk, we had a vegetarian dinner at the apartment of the aforementioned
next-door neighbors, and I spent the night in Justin's spare bedroom. The next day Justin had to go to
work for a few hours, but I would be leaving before he returned. We said our good-byes, and I asked
him to keep me up-to-date on the fundraiser.

He departed, and I then packed up my things and got ready to attend Sunday services at the local
Catholic Newman Center, a place I had not visited since I was a graduate. Then after grabbing a
sandwich at a local coffee shop, I was on the road back to Stockton.

-----

April 10 -- it was Tuesday and the second day of fundraising week for radio station, KDVS. It was
also the night of Justin Beck's 6581 SID Show. I really wanted to find out what was happening... how
everything was going with the fundraising during his show. I also wanted to donate some money to keep
the radio station going, to keep the SID music coming.

Though I was too far away to pick up the radio station over the airwaves, I knew that it would begin at
8 p.m.. I waited for a bit to allow Justin time to get the show rolling, and then at 8:25, I phoned in.
Justin picked up the phone, saying that I was live on-the-air at 6581 SID. I greeted him and responded
that I wanted to donate some money. He asked who I was, and I identified myself. He immediately
thanked me, Dick Estel, and Todd Obermann for generously giving our C= software and hardware and
time in helping to make the 6581 SID Show a success during the fundraiser. At that point, I asked
about how much money had come in during the show. With my donation, it was up to $240. Not
wanting to take up any more airtime, I thanked him for the SID music, and he then transferred me to an
operator who would get the specifics of my donation.

I was switched to another person who manned one of the 4 phones in the phone bank. I gave my name
and address, and I asked for complete information on where to send my check. Then the operator
asked me to select a C= prize as a reward for my donation. A bit surprised, I related how I had
brought in most of the software/hardware they were giving away and that it wasn't really necessary for
me to receive a prize. The operator did say that SID audio CD's were also available. Suddenly, I was
interested, and I agreed that they could send me the CD's.

A few weeks later, I received a letter from KDVS, thanking me for my monetary donation and stating
how much the radio station had gathered during the week -- a record-breaking $35,853.12. I found
out later that the 6581 SID Show itself had gathered $1,110 -- three times that of any other KDVS
program.

A few weeks after that, I received a large package in the mail -- a nice Commodore sticker and 4
audio CD's, Back in Time I, Back in Time II (both autographed by the editor, Chris Abbott), Hard Hat
Mack's SID Spectacular volume 1, Hard Hat Mack's SID Spectacular volume 2. Justin also included a
CD-ROM named the High Voltage SID Collection v3.5; I'd have to play those files from a PC,
transfer them from a PC to my Commodore with the use of Little Red Reader 2.7 for the Commodore,
or read them via a CD-ROM drive connected to a CMD hard drive with the use of CD Commander
128. Now I had many more hours of SID music to add to my SID audio CD collection.

KDVS 90.3 FM
14 Lower Freeborn Hall
University of California, Davis
Davis, California 95616
U.S.A.

Main office:    530 752-0728
Business office:  530 752-2775
Request line:    530 752-2777
FAX (c/o KDVS):   530 752-8548
Internet:      www.kdvs.org
www.kdvs.org/6581SID (which includes interview articles and Real Audio archives of each show)
Justin Beck:    jrbeck@ucdavis.edu

From The Interface, newsletter of Fresno Commodore User Group, via the Commodore Information
Center http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html