Jelly Load Lets Your Commodore VIC-20 Obtain Video games — by way of YouTube Video

Tynemouth Software program’s Dave Curran and The Future Was 8-bit (TFW8b)’s Rod Hull have been mixing the previous and the brand new as soon as extra with the intention to make retro-gaming streams a little bit extra interactive — by letting viewers obtain the sport to their authentic classic {hardware} as they watch.

“A few months in the past, I constructed a [Commodore] PET serial interface, and was speaking to TFW8b [Rod Hull] about it,” Curran explains. “They revealed a secret plan they’d been engaged on was alongside comparable traces. A scheme that will later be known as… Jelly Load. The thought was to inject knowledge into movies on the TFW8b YouTube channel within the type of flashing symbols within the nook of the video. ‘Would not it’s cool in the event you may obtain the sport I used to be taking part in while you have been watching the video, after which play it your self?'”

Jelly Load, in its most simple kind, is constructed atop the concept by flashing a bit of the display screen on and off you may talk binary zeroes and ones — and {that a} photodetector wired to the serial port of a Commodore PET, VIC-20, or different classic machine may obtain this knowledge and switch it into an executable program as soon as extra. The core idea is not novel, however there is a wrinkle: it must survive YouTube, the platform on which TFW8b streams and is understood for heavy compression and forcing sure body charges.

“The necessities have been,” Curran explains, “it have to be included within the video and survive no matter put up processing YouTube applies; it have to be quick sufficient to slot in a standard video, 5-10 minutes possibly; it have to be acquired by a [Commodore] VIC-20 (different machines will comply with) utilizing minimal easy {hardware} that will have been out there on the time.”

There’s prior artwork for such initiatives: the BBC used its Ceefax service to broadcast “Telesoftware” for Acorn’s BBC Micro household of microcomputers within the Eighties, although this was acquired immediately utilizing a TV tuner add-on; utilizing a visible factor in a reside broadcast has additionally been achieved, however including YouTube to the combination affords a brand new problem — and one that might imply a discount within the theoretical throughput achievable from the system, making it tough to transmit a whole program by the top of the video.

To get round that, the pair determined to make use of a matrix of flashing lights — making a 3×3 grid of photoresistors that will, theoretically, ship 9 instances the throughput of a single detector. Connected to the monitor within the right place — and with the video window sized in order that the flashing lights, created by filming a 3×3 matrix of LEDs, line up with the photoresistors — and the machine is ready to obtain the info encoded into the video and retailer it in reminiscence. The proof: a 3.5kB recreation of Snake Pit, transmitted totally in-video.

“Why load your 8bit issues by way of the comfort of cassette, disk or cartridge when you may load issues by way of YouTube video? As a result of it’s horribly gradual that’s why,” Hull jokes. “However it’s fairly cool! And if like me you’ve received 1,000,000 fine details mendacity round the home, you could even have sufficient digital buy left-overs to begin making your personal Jelly Load interface proper now!”

The venture is documented in full on TFW8b.com and Tynemouth Software program.