Can a 1980s computer talk to the SPACE STATION?! 🛰 Commodore 64 vs ISS

on the menu today now all we can do is track  the iss and wait for it to come overhead   so that's your line okay got it welcome i'm sure  the first dog in space is still completely fine oh   hello chip dippers welcome back to retro recipes  it's so nice to see you here again and here on our   little channel we're going to keep reaching for  the stars as she reaches for her well never mind   because we're going to be trying to contact the  international space station from a commodore 64.   yes now that crazy-haired  looking lady is on the iss   right now at least in that video but here's  what really spurred this project along   i was chatting with one of my patrons simon clucas  who works for esa yep the european space agency   and we've been discussing an idea of whether it  might be possible to send a commodore 64 in some   form into space now elon musk if you happen to be  watching this uh from one tesla owner to another   well the owner of tesla we could really use your  help with this project so please do reach out   better than my cable reaches   now there's going to be much more  on that coming up in this new year   so do make sure you are subscribed if you don't  want to miss out on the evolution of that project   but it inspired another patron lee volante to get  in touch because he is an amateur radio enthusiast   and long story short instead of putting a  commodore 64 in space and talking to it from earth   the idea was born to use a commodore 64 on  earth to talk to space but the iss we've been   able to see it with our naked eyes for the  last 22 years it orbits the earth 15 times   a day a speed of 22 000 kilometers per hour  at a height of just over 400 kilometers away let's take a step outside  go and see if we can see it and of course the iss is controlled  by well mission control is over in   "Hoo-ston" texas Ladyfractic: "Hew-ston" texas  Perifractic: No it's "Hoo-ston" look i'll prove   it BBC News: "Whitney 'Hoo-ston' seemed to  have it all" see bbc Ladyfractic: "Hoo-ston"   we have a problem Perifractic: i mean you don't  say Hugh Grant do you it's Hoo Grant anyway   we're going to look at the internaytional spak  stashion from here do you are you okay yeah so   it's actually going to be behind us so take  a couple of steps back and backwards damn it! okay let's see if we can see it that was quick see is that actually  it yeah we timed that really well   do you see it wait where's it gone it actually moves surprisingly fast and it goes  around the earth 15 times per day quite busy   aren't they they're busy and dizzy so what exactly  are we looking at that's a very good question well before the pandemic i was lucky  enough to visit the johnson space center   in hoo-uston texas to take a look at  well the full-size replica of the iss   itself this is a kind of disjointed version of the  iss sitting in the world's largest swimming pool now i have seen a lot of cool things in my time  met a lot of cool dogs but i tell you when i saw   that i said to myself this is the coolest thing  you have ever seen you can probably see some of   the childhood wonderment in my eyes seeing our  space station right there in front of me just   incredible i also was lucky enough to go inside  a replica not in the pool of the iss where it   did a little floating around just like her and  also visited the iss control room i even saw   the original apollo missions control room which is  now preserved as it was for visitors to go and see   it seems to have sent puppyfractic  into a bit of a trance oh you are awake okay so how can we communicate using a commodore 64   with the space station well the answer is amateur  radio plus a modem here on the desk i've got a   couple of example modems now this one is called  the master modem for the commodore 64. and this   is actually one for the vic-20 the vic modem  let's actually open this one up and take a look and all you would do is plug this into the user  port the back of the computer set it to data   and plug in your phone line with these  connections here - i'll do that again and with that all set up you plug this into  your landline something i don't have anymore   and away you go but actually it's kind of  lucky that i don't have a landline because   we're not going to be using wires now when  computers talk to other computers it's kind   of like as you probably know two fax machines  speaking to each other through the landline so i want you to think about our project talking  to the space station is essentially like two fax   machines communicating through cell phones cell  phones essentially just use radio waves and   just like our little project they encode your  voice and we're going to be encoding some text   into binary data they send it through the radio  waves and if you could intercept it from your   cell phone it would sound just like a fax now  you could even build your own modem using some   of the schematics available on the internet  and to produce the pcb we recommend pcp way   sorry way because as we all know pcp stands  for planet communication boards doesn't it now i've always been fascinated by amateur  radio before i have my first ever apple 2e   which you can see over there first ever computer  my dad never brought home they got me a computer   we had a cb radio you'd pick up your mic and  you'd be on the main channel which i think was 14   and you'd say like 1414 for a copy, copy copy  now i was eight years old i even met a girl   through cb radio silver stallion if you're  out there little badger here um drop me a...   i don't know how you'd communicate anyway  things kind of moved on after that and we got   our computer and indeed a lot of the community  moved on to bulletin boards chat rooms on those   that continued to evolve into what we  now know is things like slack and discord   which explains why they still use terminology  like channels and of course i've still got my   own channel here only now my handle  is perifractic not little badger hm so that's the context and the other part of what  inspired this idea is back in september the iss   received this device so that astronauts could  talk to students and sometimes enthusiasts as well   as part of the ARISS program this radio features  an over-the-air modem or TNC which encodes   short bursts of data to be sent via the iss's  antenna which you can see being installed here   but crucially it can also receive data packets  sent from earth where it will retransmit them back   down to earth now one benefit of this and a reason  why they did it is it allows two places that are   otherwise out of radio reach with each other  to be patched into each other via the iss but   cooler still even those messages will be visible  to the astronauts on the screen of their device   so yeah it is possible that they're not only  going to re-transmit it but they might actually   see that we've sent something from 1982 so let's  see if our trusty old c64 can do the sending   first we'll need our amateur radio tuned to  145 megahertz vhf that's the channel reserved   for space communications and an antenna in the  garden and on the c64 we're actually going to use   this tiny2 modem from 1987 powered by its oh so  powerful z80 processor that's the same one found   in the zx spectrum computers and we're just  going to connect this to the c64 using rs232 now finally we need to be able to  type a message on the c64 keyboard   to the iss for that we should be able to use  any terminal program and fortunately there   are exactly 500 million of those albeit zero  of which were ever designed to talk to space and for that we've chosen novaterm version 9.6c   and because we're connected through  the user port of the commodore 64   just go find that option select the user port  and let's see if turning on our modem works hoo-ston [badly dubbed by Perifractic] we have  a problem yeah the tnc doesn't want to talk with   our commodore 64. i'm just going through the  pre-flight checklist here with puppyfractic um   could you avert your gaze to the checklist please  we've set everything up okay um it's running at   1200 bps and eight data bits no parity bit and  one stop bit of course commonly known as 8n1 right right so let's connect the commodore 64 directly  to a pc that way we can troubleshoot whether the   modem or the commodore is at fault and with the  terminal loaded on the pc as well whatever we   type on the commodore 64 keyboard appears on  the pc screen and vice versa whatever we type   on the pc's keyboard will appear on the commodore  screen so it's clear that the connection from the   commodore 64 user port is working correctly so  why isn't the modem wait a minute uh when we   actually read the instructions properly it's even  underlined it says the wires must be connected   as shown in the table and actually the cable we're  using has extra wires for flow control which is   sending signals that are basically messing  up the connection so long story short here's   the cable cut in half and those flow control  wires disconnected and the rest of it wired   back together we'll tidy that up later but for  now i just want to get on try and contact space yes! and there we go we can see the  modem is now talking to the commodore 64.   at copyright 1985-1994 now one thing we want  to configure is the commodore 64 function keys   to send predefined messages the reason for  this is we're gonna probably have to try   several times if it will even  work at all to reach the iss   so we don't have to keep typing the  same thing so let's set that up now okay so the commodore 64 is connected to the  modem, the modem is connected to the vhf radio,   and the radio is connected to the antenna outside,   and that will hopefully connect to the iss  antenna, the next thing we need to do is know   when the iss will be overhead and within range  and luckily there are some very cool websites   that will actually tell you when the iss will  be overhead for you pretty exciting right   now all we can do is track the iss and wait  for it to come overhead and i'm just going   to leave you with the sound and sight of the  machines doing all the work fingers crossed well the station is traveling out of  range and we're running out of time   let's wait for about 90 minutes for the  next pass of the iss and we'll try again well i think we'll just give it one more try  and then we're gonna have to call it a day. THERE IT IS!! THAT'S IT!! Um cq comma  na1 ss is the call sign for the space   station 1 space station - sent from  a commodore 64 exclamation point!   so that means that the iss received our  transmission sent from a 1982 computer,   saw it on the screen on the display where  the astronauts could have seen it too,   and they rebroadcast it to earth, guys  we essentially put commodore 64 in space! and knowing how much i've always  wanted to be in space myself   it was time to see if they'd  re-transmit one more message for us Astronaut:   uh houston what's a perifractic? isn't that incredible that is truly out of this  world and it is quite fitting at that the next   expedition to the iss is going to be expedition  64. can't write this stuff even though she writes   most of it for me uh speaking of which if you  have any wacky ideas of things we can do with the   commodore 64 or any other of these computers let  me know in the comments below i try to respond and   interact with every comment that is left because  of course any of these computers could have done   that as long as they have the ability to connect  a modem through that rs232 port even a zx spectrum   or an apple 2e well other than that all that  remains for me is to say thank you so much for   watching subscribe and support below it's time  for puppyfractic's walk i should not have said   that out loud uh i better go or as we say  in the business 10 10 till we meet again I don't know if you can hear that  the coyotes are serenading the iss   and puppyfractic the second is serenading  the coyotes Ladyfractic: is that your kin?

Channel: Retro Recipes

Views: 158,978

Keywords: C64, classic computers, retro computing, Commodore, Commodore 64, 8 bit, retro, 1980s, LGR, ISS, International Space Station, Modem, CB Radio, Amateur radio, Space Station, NASA

Id: WJVU1stPPlQ

Length: 17min 39sec (1059 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 16 2021