Welcome to Commodore history part 5 where
we’ll be talking about the Commodore 128. Also, welcome back to special guest Bil Herd.
Hi, Bil Herd, I’m the designer of the Commodore 128 and it’s good to be back here with The
8-Bit Guy. If you’ve watched the series so far, you’ll know that Commodore had released
a new computer design about every 2 years or so, each one being more successful than
the last, until 1984 when they came out with the Plus/4 which was a market failure. Commodore
needed another computer in their portfolio soon! But Tramiel is gone now, not only gone but
heading up the forces of competitor Atari. And with personal computer sales leveling
off, the pressure is on Commodore to come up with something new. So they introduced the Commodore 128 in 1985. Let’s take a look at the box. It appears
the two main things the marketing department wanted to tell us is that it is expandable
to 512K, and that it’s compatible with the Commodore 64. OK, let’s see what we get
inside the box. There’s a very hefty system guide. But at least it is spiral bound, making
it easy to read while working on the computer. And this is, I believe, the first time a Commodore
computer was shipped with floppy disks. Inside you get a tutorial disk and then a boot disk
for CP/M mode. Looking in the little cubby over here, you still get one of these antenna
switch boxes since they still figured a large number of people would be using these on readily
available televisions instead of dedicated computer monitors. And you get a little bit
beefier power supply. And while the voltages are the same, they did change the connector
on the end since the C128 requires more amps. Now let’s have a look at the computer itself! The design was remarkably different from the
existing bread bin C64 that they had been selling up to that point, keeping in mind
that the 64C would not be introduced until two years later in 1987. While the C64 had
an appearance that looked like something that might have been designed in the late 1970s,
the 128 definitely had the look of the 1980s with its beige color, slim profile, and sharp
lines. But what is the story behind this computer? So you might wonder why the heck did Commodore
make a Commodore 128. It in some ways seems so out of place, right? Well, I was actually
working on the LCD machine originally, Jack Tramiel had already left, management was light,
big management was missing, the middle management were breeding like sheep. But nobody figured
out to stop us. So, I laid down a design literally on that that 1 inch, that point 1 inch graph
paper and Fred and I took off with it. So, basically the answer is because nobody was
there to stop us, we felt like we were filling a hole and we thought that we could build
upon the Commodore 64 name and base and user base and get some mileage out of that. Obviously the 128 was meant to be an improvement
over the C64, so what were some of the new features? Well, on the outside, it has all
of the exact same ports on the side and the rear as the Commodore 64, but it does have
an addition of an RGBI video port, which we’ll talk about later. And much like the Plus/4
it also has a proper reset switch on the side. On the keyboard, it has an extra row of keys.
All of these keys here are the same ones present on the C64. The 128 adds in the numeric keypad
and all of these keys up here. Most of these keys don’t do much of anything noteworthy
and were mostly designed to be used by whatever software developers wanted to use them for.
However, the 40/80 key is a locking key and serves only one purpose. It sets the default
boot screen to be either 40 or 80 columns. Once the computer is actually started, it
has no effect. These cursor keys are essentially redundant to these cursor keys down here,
but despite having a key for each direction, they aren’t actually any easier to use.
The layout is awkward much like the cursor keys on the Apple IIc, only worse because
they are located high on the keyboard making them uncomfortable to use. So, that’s the outside, what makes it better
on the inside? The motherboard of the C128 looks quite a bit more complex than the C64.
So let’s see if we can break down some of the differences. First of all, there is 128K
of RAM, which is twice what the C64 had, and where the computer got its name from. And
also on the motherboard here we have a standard 6581 SID chip for sound, which is identical
to what came in the C64. And there are two input/output controllers, just like the C64
only they are on opposite ends of the board this time. And here’s where things start
to get interesting. There are two CPUs. That’s right, two of them. The first one here is
an 8580 which is basically just a newer version of the CPU that was already used in the C64.
However, it was capable of running at twice the speed. And next to it is a Z80 CPU. This is the same CPU that was used countless
computers of the era, starting with really early home computers like the Altair, but
also used in pretty much any computer that could run CP/M, such as the Osborne. It was
also used in the whole TRS-80 line of computers, but also in less powerful home computers like
the Sinclair ZX-81 and even the spectrum and Mattel Aquarius. It was also used in every
MSX computer, and believe it or not, a variant was also used in the Nintendo Gameboy. And
this just scratches the surface. The Z80 was quite a popular CPU. So why does it have this extra CPU. Well,
it turns out that there was an issue with the CP/M cartridge that was available for
the C64. Well guess what? The CP/M cartridge didn’t always work also. We didn’t understand
what the cartridge’s problem was until we implemented our on Z80 on the board and then
we found it one day. So, to be 64 compatible, I had a problem and I had a power supply problem
because my switching supply, I didn’t want to make it an amp and a half bigger, and charge
everybody, I mean pennies count in quantities of a million. I couldn’t make the supply
bigger for the occasional CP/M cartridge. But, if I put the Z-80 into the board, I think
it was a hundred mil. It turns out the Z80 saved my tail-end. When the guys from Commodore
Texas showed up, they brought with them their magic voice cartridge and it didn’t work
on the 128. It would try to assert itself right as the 6502 reset, it didn’t k now
about the MMU and all of this stuff and so it’d crash. So, what we did, and we did
this overnight, we fixed every major problem over night. So the Z80 would wake up and he’d
go, there’s that game chip out there, there’s that magic voice cartridge and he would setup
the C64 mode all himself and then he’d jump to the reset vector and magic voice worked.
So the Z80 went from being the priah to damn glad I had that in there and actually when
you hold down the commodore key, you’re talking to the Z80 to boot C64 mode and stuff. This chip here is the VIC-IIe, which was a
newer revision of the video chip used in the C64. The video aspect itself is virtually
identical, but there are some differences in the chip itself. The regular VIC 2 chip
in the C64 was a 40-pin package, but the one in the C128 was 48 pins. So why the extra
pins? Well, believe it or not, these 3 pins here were used for the keyboard. These extra
keys on the C128 meant the keyboard matrix needed a few extra pins to be able to detect
these. Since there were no free IO pins on the existing chips, they thought it would
be cheaper to just add these to an existing chip in the computer rather than adding another
I/O chip onto the board. This pin here runs the clock for the Z80 processor, and this
pin here has to do with the 2 Mhz mode of the computer. But the VIC-II was not the only video chip
in the computer. Right next to it is another chip, called the VDC. This is an entirely
separate video chip that is used for 80 column display. And, here’s where things get really
weird. So, there is this regular round video port on the back, which is identical to the
one on the C64. However, remember that RGBI port I mentioned earlier. Well, that’s where
this comes into play. You see, the VIC-II chip drives the regular composite display.
And the VDC outputs only to this RGBI port. Which means, if you wanted to view the 80-column
display you’d need an RGBI monitor just like the ones used on IBM CGA computers. And
since the computer has two video outputs for two entirely separate monitors, you can actually
run dual monitors on the computer and have two simultaneous displays. Little to no software
ever made use of this, however. Because it uses an RGBI signal, it’s considerably
sharper than the video coming out of the composite display. However, every rule and everything
you knew about the video capabilities of the C64 do not apply when using this display.
For one thing, the memory layout is totally different. While the VIC chip shares memory
with the CPU, just like on the C64, the VDC on the other hand has it’s own 16K of dedicated
video memory. This has a few pros and cons. On the bright side, that means when using
this chip you have access to all 128K on the motherboard, freeing up RAM. But the disadvantage
is that access to video RAM is much slower. In fact, the way in which the CPU communicates
with the VDC is very strange. That thing was a nightmare, turns out to be
the only chip that was already being worked on and it was being worked on for the Z8000
and Bob Ola came to me with with the engineer responsible for the 80 column chip and he
said, can you use this instead of what you were going to use? I was using a 6848 6548,
we had a version too, but it’s the industry standard and I was going to give it multiple
bit-planes to make color and stuff. And I looked at the guy. We like using our own chips.
We are so much in control. We can do good things making our own chips, usually. So,
I had one question which is, “is this a superset of the 6845?” And he answered,
“yes.” And, I should have asked, “do you know what that question means?” So,
I made an error. I remember those 3 seconds I made that error. So, basically I bought
into a chip thinking I knew what it could do, and it turns out it didn’t. It did things
like it would only transfer 256 characters at a time. Well, that’s 2 and a half rows
of 80 columns. What good is that? It turns out it didn’t have an interrupt when you’re
done. And when I figured out well, the 6845 has got an interrupt, why don’t you? I asked
the designer, he said “well you can simply look at a register. And that’ll tell you
that its now time to do another 256 byte transfer.” From then on we had this running joke where
nobody would wait for the phone to ring, we just all kept checking our phones whenever
this guy was around and he finally asked what’s with that and “we always could just check
the phone to see if there’s an inbound phone call.” So the 80-column chip was pretty
much a mess. As we got to CES show in two weeks, two weeks
away. The final rev of the chip comes and it had been broken, I can’t even tell you
all the different ways it was broken. At one point, I had had to ground out this little
tab here to the ground pin. They had tried to slip in something called a back bias generator
and it was new and it was supposed to save power and it slowed the chip down even worse
and we lost our fist column of display. And when I ground this out, I’m grounding out
the substrate that the chip is made on and the first column came back. So, let’s talk about the capabilities of
the 80-column chip. So it’s primary purpose was to be able to output 80 columns of text
at 25 lines, essentially double that of the C64. And it could produce 16 colors. And for
this purpose, it did a pretty good job. But what about graphics capabilities? Well, it
also had a bit-mapped mode and could do 640x200 pixels. However, there was a problem here.
You see, that resolution requires 16K of RAM. So there’s no RAM left over for any color
information. So, with a stock C128 you’re choices were essentially 16 color text, or
monochrome graphics. But the chip itself was capable of addressing up to 64K of RAM. So
eventually some of the tech-savvy owners started to desolder these RAM chips and replace them
with higher capacity chips, giving it 64K of video RAM. In fact, even today you can
buy aftermarket products like this one, which is designed to make the job easy by just putting
this daughter card in. No soldering is necessary. Then With this, color was possible using color-cells
much like on the C64. However, the cells were much smaller, at 8x2 pixels, which was a good
thing. However, it does not support any sort of multi-color mode so there are strictly
two colors per cell, and it does not support sprites. So with these capabilities, combined
with the slow access time for reads and writes, this chip was essentially useless for video
games. It’s not that the 80 column chip couldn’t
be used for games, it’s just that there was no particularly good reason to do so,
being that the 40-column chip was so much better suited for it. And also, not everyone
would have access to an RGBI monitor. Speaking of monitors… Commodore also made the perfect monitors for
use on the C128, such as this 1084. It has connections for composite video, or separated
LCA video, and RGBI for use with 80 columns. They added a button to the front that would
allow you to switch between composite and RGBI modes so you could easily get access
to your 80-column applications with just a single monitor. To enable the 2 Mhz mode, you can type FAST
at the command prompt. However, if you do this in 40 column mode, the screen goes blank
because the video chip cannot operate at this speed. Typing slow will bring it back to 1
Mhz mode. The only use here would be if your program had some calculations to do that didn’t
require the screen, it could go into fast mode while doing them, then return to slow
mode for the result. However, if you use the 80 column mode, it works fine and you’ll
get twice the speed. So, just as an example, you can see how fast this program is operating,
and then when fast mode is invoked, you should be able to see a significant difference in
speed. Of course, the benefits of the C128 didn’t
end at just the enhanced hardware. They also included a much better BASIC. Much of the
enhanced graphics and sound commands from the Plus/4 made their way into the C128’s
Basic version 7. So, it was possible to use BASIC to write games or other applications
that used graphics without needing to know how to use POKE commands to control the chips
directly. In fact, the demo disk that shipped with the C128 was actually written in BASIC
to show off the command set and give people a brief overview of how to use the new graphics
commands. The new commands even allowed for creating and controlling sprites. And while
this demo isn’t particularly impressive from a hardware standpoint, it was certainly
impressive for having been written in BASIC. In fact, it was possible to do entire works
of art by just using a series of line draw, circle, and fill commands such as this code
here which draws Bart Simpson on the screen. The C128 also included new disk drive commands,
also borrowed from the Plus/4 line such as Directory, and DLOAD. And also like the Plus/4.
It includes a machine language monitor built into ROM, which is very handy for troubleshooting
or even writing small machine language programs. But here’s something totally new, there
is also this command which brings up a built-in sprite editor. So you can design your own
sprites, whether they be monochrome or multi-color mode. And then you can save the sprites to
disk or use them with your BASIC programs. Beyond just a better BASIC, they also finally
addressed the issue with slow disk drive access. Along with the 128 came a brand new disk drive
designed specifically for it, known as the 1570. It looked similar to the 1541, but when
this disk drive was paired with the 128 it used something called Burst mode which gives
it much greater speed. By comparison, the standard load routines on the 1541 was about
350 bytes per second. The 128 connected to one of the new drives was around 4,000 bytes
per second, over 11 times faster, finally making it somewhat competitive to disk drive
speeds of other computers. Also the new disk drive was able to read MFM formats so that
the C128’s CP/M mode would be able to read native disks from computers like the Osborne
and the Kaypro, as well as MS-DOS formatted disks. However, the 1570 was really just a stop gap
and was only produced for a short time. The main issue is that it still used a single-sided
drive mechanism so, that really limited it’s ability to read other disk formats since most
of those were double-sided disks. The 1570 was discontinued as soon as the 1571 was ready,
which is the drive they originally envisioned as a companion to the C128. The 1571, had
a more modern appearance but also had the double-sided drive mechanism allowing it to
store twice as much data on a disk without the need to flip it over, but also made it
possible to read most disks from other computers. Add to that, they finally put dip-switches
on the back of the drives so that it was easy to change the device number for systems with
more than one disk drive. Soon after the 1571, Commodore released another
disk drive, called the 1581. This drive finally allowed Commodore users to make use of the
higher capacity 3 and a half inch disks. And while this drive was backwards compatible
with previous Commodore machines, even as far back as the VIC-20, when connected to
a C128, it was also capable of the high-speed burst mode along with the ability to read
other disk formats. The Commodore 128 was really designed to be
a Swiss-army knife of computers. I mean, it really does a little bit of everything. It
was also advertised as being 3 computers in one because it actually has 3 entirely different
modes of operation. Obviously you have your regular C128 native mode, which is how it
boots up. And then you can type in GO-64 at the BASIC prompt if you want to enter C64
mode. Alternatively you can hold down the Commodore key on startup to achieve the same
thing. Once in C64 mode, the computer really is like a C64 in just about every imaginable
way. That means that there is no access to the extra 64K of RAM, no access to the Z80,
no access to the 80-column chip or the RGBI monitor port. And no access to the enhanced
BASIC commands. All of these extra keys on the keyboard will not work, including the
number pad. And to top it off, the disk drive access is back to the usual slow C64 speeds.
So, quite literally putting the computer into C64 mode makes it into a C64. This was a very different approach to what
other manufacturers like Apple, Atari, and IBM had been doing, where their new computers
were better, but they were still more or less backwards compatible with the old computer
without having to go into sort of any special mode. If you wanted to run CP/M software, you could
insert the CP/M boot disk that came with the computer before power up. It would auto-boot
the CP/M operating system. Speaking of, this is another new feature to the C128, it can
auto-boot disks rather than having to type a command after powering it on. One big problem that CP/M always had was that
while the software was standardized, the disk formats were not. So, you could not take disks
from an Osborne for example and expect to read them in a Kaypro. However, Commodore
took this into account and the 1571 can read most all CP/M formats. So I’ll insert this
Kaypro perfect calc disk, which is a common spreadsheet program from the time. And when
I try to list the directory, it will pop up a message at the bottom recognizing it as
a Kaypro format, but even Kaypro had more than one format, so I can use the arrow key
to select Kaypro 2. Which is what this disk is, press return and voila! It just reads
it. In fact, I’ll go ahead and load up Perfect Calc like so. And there it goes. It works
perfectly, and so in theory if you were using CP/M at the office, you could take your work
home with you and use it. Some common programs that could be used included
things like M-Basic, which was Microsoft’s BASIC for CP/M machines as well as various
spreadsheets and word processors. You could even run the Infocom series of text-adventures
such as Zork in CP/M mode. However, CP/M didn’t run very fast on the C128. So as an example,
if you remember this game I showed back when I reviewed the Osborne called Catchum. See
how fast it draws out the play field here? And it actually runs fast enough that you
can actually play the game. Now, let’s watch it run on the C128. Drawing out the playfield
is painfully slow. And the game moves so slow that it is essentially unplayable. This was
probably not a big deal since games made up a very small portion of the CP/M library as
most of it was business software and it ran at at least acceptable speeds on the C128.
And while CP/M doesn’t technically support any graphics or sound, it was possible to
write custom C128 software in CP/M mode that used the Z80 and took advantage of the C128’s
graphics and sound hardware, such as this game. However, as a result this game will
only run on a C128 and not any other CP/M machines. And there was really no good reason
to do thus other than just as a proof of concept. So, Why CP/M? Did we think CP/M was going
to be used? Well, we didn’t know. But, it wasn’t our job to really know, it was our
job to put as much stuff in there that might be used and let the users figure out what
could be used. That’s the way I looked at it. I also wanted something that could use
the 80-column, day one, and you could. You plug in the CP/M and there’s wordstar and
all these things already written for 80-column monitors. In the end, CP/M was rarely used on the C128
and there are numerous reasons for this. For one, in order to use it you really needed
to have an 80 column monitor and a 1571 disk drive. A lot of 128 users ended up with composite
monitors or televisions and a cheaper 1541 disk drive. But a bigger reason is simply
lack of available software. CP/M software was not sold in most computer stores, certainly
not in the type of stores you would buy a Commodore computer. And since the vast majority
of CP/M software was business software, most home users were simply not interested. But,
I think the biggest reason is that CP/M arrived in 1974 had already had its heyday in the
late 1970s. Many computer magazines stated the CP/M was dead as early as 1983. Certainly
by the time the Commodore 128 arrived on scene in 1985, CP/M was virtually gone from the
marketplace. The 128 also came in more than one variety.
The next year in 1986, the 128D was introduced to the USA. It had a more desktop style appearance
to it, with a built-in 1571 disk drive. The keyboard plugs in via a 25 pin connector on
the side of the computer. Although it has a larger desktop footprint than the C128,
it actually can end up saving space since the monitor can be sat on top of it. And although it is almost identical in function
to the regular 128, it does have some newer ROM updates that fix a few bugs, and they
included 64K video RAM for the 80-column display so there was no need to upgrade it. So, why was there a C128D? Or what’s the
story with that? Was that, did this come later, I get asked. And the answer is no. There was
always going to be two types of C128. I’ve got one of the original D Plastic ones here.
I have to say plastic because somebody came out with black diesel, which is the metal
case one designed, I guess, in Germany or something after I’d gone. And you can tell
it’s got noisy video and my keyboard snaps up underneath here and it’s got a handle.
It’s really cool. But we were always going to make a D. The production boards all have
these two holes in the PC board for the D. Those are support posts. Well, if you look
at the PC board very carefully, that defined how many traces I could get from this side
of the board to this side of the board, so those two holes, Oh man they were a pain.
That’s literally why on the production board it lists RIP and it lists our names and stuff
because we spent 3 days trying to get like the last 20 traces from one side of the board
to the other side. And that’s a whole story I could tell you at some other time. So the
D was actually my favorite! It’s got the disk drive built in, it didn’t cost us any
more to make. The plastic was shot, the tools were done and everything. I leave Commodore
and they sidecar’ed the D and I. I wasn’t till later that I think I heard that, well,
one I heard the rumor it didn’t pass FCC. Wrong, I I signed off on FCC myself. They
both passed at the same time. The other thing was, Commodore didn’t have the cash to roll
out two products at a time. OK, that one I believe. And guess what? The LCD got axed
at the same time. And that was never my intention, that by producing a Commodore 128, which is
at best just a baby step after the 64. It was meant to fill in a year. We thought the
128 would sell for a year, year and a half, right? It was meant to go to the CES show
and have something in the booth. I mean, that was the cycle. But the LCD machine was truly
evolutionary. We were the only US owners of an LCD plant, a glass plant as we called them
back in the day. That we’d gone out to buy, and bought, so and we could have broken into
portable computers, the only competition were these horrible computers from Radio Shack,
the gold and the blue screen. We’d have cleaned up. It got axed also. But this time
we had a new CEO named Marshall Smith and he made the decision no LCD machine. So, if
it were up to me, we should have done away with the 128 and done the LCD machine instead. If you look at the 1987 Commodore buyer’s
guide, which is the official product guide produced by Commodore, in the 1987 version
it clearly shows they were still selling the 64C, along with the 128, and on the next page
you’ll see the 128D. However, looking at the 1988 revision, it shows all 3 computers
on the front cover, but when you actually open it up, only the 64C and the 128D are
shown, meaning the flat 128 had already been discontinued. So how did the Commodore 128 do in the marketplace?
Well, it was both a success and a failure. You see, it was a success because it sold
for over 4 years, and it sold over 4 million units, which is about 10 times more than its
nearest competitor, the apple IIc. So, in that regard, it was a success. But where it
was a failure was in its software library. If you recall from the last episode, the Plus/4
suffered with its software library due to developers wanting to target the low end C16.
This approach meant software companies could get the largest market with a single product
release. The VIC-20 also suffered from the same problem, with most software targeting
the stock 3K system instead of taking advantage of RAM expanders. Well, the C128 was no exception. Because at
least 90% of users bought Commodore machines with the intention to use it for games, and
being that the 128 didn’t really offer any improved sound or video performance, software
developers felt it was easier just to code games for the C64. They knew that 128 users
could simply switch to C64 mode to run the game. That’s why most every game after 1985
states on the box that it works with the C64 and 128. But in reality, they were just regular
C64 games. In fact, just a glance on Mobygames for C128 specific games only shows 23 games.
The sad part is, over half of these games are text adventures that just happen to use
the 80-column display, but don’t really offer any new gameplay aspect as compared
to the C64 versions. And none of these games are exclusive, meaning they are essentially
just souped up versions of C64 games. One game that I think definitely deserves
a mention is Ultima V, warriors of Destiny. This one actually runs in native C128 mode
making use of the faster disk drive access, and the extra RAM so that it can load more
of the map in at a time. But the biggest difference is that it has a musical track. The C64 version
ended up having to cut out the music due to developers not being able to fit it in RAM.
So if you want to play Ultima V on a Commodore, the 128 is definitely the computer to use. So, in the end CP/M was probably used by fewer
than 1% of 128 owners, and only perhaps 10% of customers ever actually used any native
128 software, since most users were just looking to play games. However, it did have a few dozen productivity
applications that supported it, specifically for the 80 column screen. One such killer
application was no doubt Desterm as it allowed 128 users to call and connect to bulletin
board systems that supported ANSI, which was used mostly by MS-DOS and Amiga users. But
without a doubt, the most important one is GEOS 128. While you could run GEOS on the
64, GEOS 128 took advantage of the 128’s extra RAM, double the CPU speed, and the higher
resolution of the 80-column display. Running GEOS on the 128 put the C64 version to shame.
GEOS on the C64, even at half the resolution could be hard to read on composite monitors
or televisions, but an RGBI monitor on a C128 delivered crisp graphics and text. There have also been a few impressive demos
written for the C128, the most interesting being this one which actually runs on the
80 column display, showing off some of the things that can be done with it. And so the 128 represents the end of the 8-bit
era. And not just for Commodore. This was actually one of the last 8-bit machines ever
produced because by 1989, most other manufacturers had already starting producing 16 and even
32 bit machines. However, this is not the end of the Commodore series, though, because
in the next episode we need to tackle the Amiga. So, be sure to stick around for that
episode, and thanks for watching!
Surprised there was only the very briefest of references to the two different models of 128D (the plastic D with a handle, and the metal DCR ["cost reduced"] version).
Hell, all these years I didn't even know there were two different kinds until I started shopping for a 128D earlier this year. Would have been nice to document that a bit more pointedly.
The 8-bit guy ran my program!
yeahoo!
Edit: Link to youtube I made showing me running the progrram.
tl;dw .. if you're in the market for a 128, get the 128D
Such a great machine. A shame the full C64 compatibility put a dampener on software development for 128-mode, so we didn't see many titles taking advantage of the 80-column display or second bank of RAM. BASIC 7.0 totally ruined my ability to use C64's.
I had no idea that the 80-column mode was so poorly suited for games.
I knew, of course, that the C128 was crippled softwarewise because most titles still came out for the C64's much larger installed base, but I wonder if game publishers that considered developing 128-native games quickly changed their minds after looking at the technical specifications. And if so, why would they not stick with the C64, as opposed to a 128-only game that only uses C64 graphics modes? This would also explain why, relatively speaking, so many more productivity software came out for the 128, as graphics aren't so important.
CC: /u/zeekar
Enjoyed this one and the random stuff from bill herd. Dave you’re a champ
The 8-bit Guy hs his cursor keys messed up, but a nice video , indeed! I love my 128 (and D-CR)