Atari Video Touch Pad Programming on a C64 (also, Zellers!)

36 years ago I bought an Atari Video Touch Pad (with Star Raiders game) at Zellers with a goal of trying to read it on the Commodore 64. I was not successful then, but I finally managed it now. I also show some of the other cool stuff I got from Zellers over the years. Become a patron: https://patreon.com/8BitShowAndTell One-time donation: https://paypal.me/8BitShowAndTell Links: Zellers closing: https://www.blogto.com/fashion_style/2020/01/zellers-toronto-close-early-massive-lineups/ Download my work disk: https://8BitShowAndTell.com/downloads/tmptouchpad.d64 If you're trying the work disk, there's a LIST ME file on there to follow, but here's some additional notes; you'll need to do one of these two things to get things running: In the BASIC4 file, you can increment the addresses of the SYS and PEEK in lines 200 and 210 by one. So line 200 is SYS49154, and line 210 has PEEK(49153). Or when you load ASM9 in TMP, you can erase or comment out the RTS at the top of the file, then assemble ASM9.O to disk. Then BASIC4 will work without changing the addresses. I do actually have a comment about this at the top of ASM9 but I didn't mention it in the LIST ME file, sorry about that! Index: 0:00 About Zellers 1:13 Stuff I bought at Zellers 4:41 Star Raiders 6:56 Video Touch Pad 8:06 Continuity testing with Joystick 9:19 Reading the joystick in BASIC - doesn't work for Touch Pad 10:50 Continuity testing with Touch Pad 12:11 Reading the Touch Pad in BASIC - some success 13:24 Final BASIC proof of concept 17:11 The assembly language version 24:52 Using the ML version with a BASIC front-end 25:50 IT WORKS - finally 25:55 Walk-through the BASIC code 28:46 Thanks to my patrons! http://patreon.com/8BitShowAndTell Super Secret Lyrics: Star Raiders was just $2 In a big clearance bin at the Zellers store in 1984 It even included a controller, The Video Touch Pad Such a great deal, I had to buy two Though I didn't even own an Atari 2600 I just hoped I could somehow make the controller work at home on my Commodore 64 PEEKing and POKEing location 56321 Trying to read the 12 buttons on the face But it never responded, though I tried for days So for four dollars I got 2 game cartridges and two controllers I couldn't play But it also included the Atari Force comic book issue #3 Eventually I collected the whole set Atari Force is the best. #Zellers