The Olivetti M24 was a fantastic PC compatible that was double the speed of the IBM PC, had built-in expansion ports, a smaller footprint, and special hi-res graphics, all at a price cheaper than the original PC. AT&T brought the M24 to the USA and sold it as the AT&T 6300, and it was very popular over here as an alternative to the PC. (Xerox also imported it to the USA and sold it as the Xerox 6060; in France, it was sold as the Logabax 1600.)

As the vintage computing hobby continues to grow, a lot of people have been coming across these and wondering if they should take the plunge. While the 6300 is among my most favorite systems ever made, I usually don’t recommend it for beginners because it uses a proprietary keyboard and monitor, and if you don’t have both, it can be extremely difficult to adapt a traditional keyboard and monitor for use with the system unit. But, if you see one for sale for cheap, and it has everything and works, I’d like to offer some modern tips on the care and feeding of these unique beasts. These hints can help get your system up to speed as a useable and practical member of your collection. (Note: When I write “6300”, I’m talking about all versions of the Olivetti M24, as they were identical hardware.)

Preparation

First and foremost: If you have a working system, IMMEDIATELY power it off, open it up, disassemble it, remove the motherboard from the bottom of the system, and carefully desolder and remove the barrel battery. It’s not needed to operate the system, and can only cause permanent failure if it corrodes the motherboard. (You can try to snip the battery off with snips, but I have broken a motherboard this way so I usually recommend the gentler option.)

If your system boots up with a ROM BIOS other than 1.43, flash the 1.43 ROM BIOS and install it. It fixes some bugs. There is an associated PAL that came with the ROM BIOS upgrade kit, but in my experience it wasn’t necessary to operate the machine (some of the hardware support introduced by 1.43 won’t work without the updated PAL, but the rest of the BIOS enhancements will work). One thing the upgrade gives you is the ability to run Microsoft Word for DOS 4.x and higher in graphical mode using the 6300’s high-res graphics.

If you don’t care about running GeoWorks Ensemble, replace the 8086 with an NEC V30 for a 20% speedup. Ensemble will no longer work for some reason, but everything else will feel zippier.

Storage

If you want to add an XT-IDE, you need to use any XUB BIOS made in the last 2 years or newer, because it has speed-optimized code that deals with the bus issues of the AT&T. The speedup is minimal, so if your XT-IDE card works as-is, it’s using the slow compatible mode and you may want to leave it that way so you can use it in any system.

Bus issues? Yes, unfortunately on the 6300, doing a word-sized read or write will accidentally transpose the values. This causes some software to break. A “bus correction kit” was available that fixed this, but they are rare. An effort on the VCF forums was made to reproduce them, but I don’t know where that project landed; sorry. If your XT-IDE card is using the wrong BIOS that tries to do word-sized reads, you may see it start up with endian-swapped lettering when it identifies the CF card: Instead of your transcend CF card showing up as “TRANSCEND”, you’ll see “RTNACSNE D” and then it will hang. Flashing a new XT-IDE XUB BIOS using the most compatible options will fix this.

You can put any 3.5″ drive in the system and get free 720K DSDD support by ensuring you have a DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS line in CONFIG.SYS with appropriate params for 720K. But that’s it; the built-in controller does not support high-density drives. You’ll have to get a replacement floppy controller and disable the onboard one if you want to do that, but IMO it’s not worth it when XT-IDE makes transferring files with modern systems easy.

Networking

Intel Etherexpress 8/16 network cards don’t work in an AT&T because of the bus issue mentioned above. Xircom parallel-port ethernet adapters work fine, albeit slowly. I’ve used other period-appropriate ethernet cards with success, although I prefer to use anything with an RJ-45 connector as I find 10 base-t ethernet transceiver dongles cumbersome.

Keyboard

The keyboard, and it’s plug and signaling, are proprietary. It is nearly impossible to use a different keyboard. There is someone on the VCF forums who came up with a hardware design to translate the signaling between the 6300 keyboard port and a PS/2 connector, but I also don’t know where that project landed, sorry.

Display

The display adapter is proprietary; it outputs a high-res 25 KHz horizontal signal, but that can only be used with select AT&T monitors. It also provides voltage (!) to power AT&T monochrome monitors. Trying to replace it with something like VGA is difficult and frustrating, especially if you don’t have the bus conversion kit mentioned earlier. My advice is to try to keep the original monitor running, as that is part of the system’s charm.

If you can’t find a working monitor, you can use an RGB2HDMI and a custom adapter to translate the signal to HDMI. It’s an RGB TTL signal that runs at 56Hz vertical and (if memory serves) 25KHz horizontal, and provides a 640×400 display.

Speaking of that display, it had more support than people realize. You can run Windows 3.0 in real mode, Geoworks Ensemble, and GEM in 640×400 if you like graphical environments.

Power

The power supply is very odd (24 V?) and is difficult to repair because it is built in two halves. It also houses voltages that can injure or even kill you if you open it up and try to repair it. Be careful, and refer to the Olivetti M24 technical reference or the 6300 Sams Computerfacts to know what you’re getting into.

Enhancement

The dimensions of the system are proprietary; they will not take replacement motherboards. In fact, the motherboard and the bus interface are two separate backplanes that interface through the display adapter (you read that right: The display adapter) so it’s impossible to adapt the case to house anything else.

I do not know which accelerator cards (ie. 286 or 386 speedup cards) work in a 6300. My guess is that most of them would not work because of the aforementioned bus issue and/or expecting an 8088 when the system uses an 8086. The only accelerator cards that are likely to work are those that didn’t use a ribbon cable to replace the CPU, such as Applied Reason’s “PC-elevATor” board.

Most, if not all, 8-bit sound cards work just fine in a 6300 as they didn’t require word-sized accesses. I recommend an 8-bit Sound Blaster clone, or a Sound Blaster Pro. DMA on those cards works fine and you can even play MOD songs on a 6300 at 24Khz or higher with one. You can also use an LPT sound dongle (ie. Covox) as there is nothing particularly odd about the 6300’s built-in parallel port.

You can put EMS cards in 6300s and they work. EMS boards are slow in the 6300 unless you get the AT&T-specific, AST-made, EEMS 3.2 board, which uses the proprietary 16-bit wacky interface unique to the AT&T, and then the EMS memory is the same speed as the main memory (and enables some other neat tricks, like expanding lower DOS RAM from 640K to 736K). Desqview also runs very well with this board installed, although a regular EMS board helps with that too.

For people who are just getting started into vintage DOS gaming, MIDI music device support in games can be confusing:  What’s MIDI?  Why don’t MIDI devices play digital sound?  If all you have is MIDI, how do you hear sound effects?  This article will attempt to explain, as succinctly as possible, how MIDI devices became a part of DOS gaming music history, and how they were used for composing and playing back game music.  This article is not an extensive technical dive, but is meant to be an explanation for the novice DOS gamer who is new to the platform.

This information originally appeared as correspondence with Fabien Sanglard, who is working on the next book in his Game Engine Black Blook series.  His previous book, Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D, is highly recommended.

What is MIDI?

MIDI is a synthesizer music control protocol, and stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It was created in the 1980s as a way to connect keyboards, drum machines, other synthesizers, etc. together. Once connected, they could do things like have one instrument (like a keyboard) control another (like a drum machine), they could all refer to the same time sync signal, and also be connected to a computer using a computer MIDI interface. Once connected to a computer, the computer could record all of the notes passing along the MIDI protocol, effectively capturing the live performance.  Once captured, the computer allowed the user to edit the performance, make changes, and play it back out to all of the connected instruments.

MIDI instruments were connected to each other using cables employing a male 5-pin circular connector.

What was the Roland MT-32?
What was the Roland LAPC-I?

The Roland MT-32 was an external, standalone MIDI music synthesizer that you could connect with MIDI cables to a computer fitted with a MIDI adapter, such as the Roland MPU-401. This hardware allowed high-quality (for the time) music playback, better than the FM/OPL-based AdLib (and later Sound Blaster) cards. Sierra supported the MT-32 (and other sound and music devices) as early as 1987 and pushed for sound/music devices to be better-supported throughout the industry, leading with their own products first.  It is fair to credit Sierra with establishing higher-quality sound devices, and the MT-32 in particular, as a PC gaming “standard”.

The Roland LAPC-I combined the MPU-401 MIDI interface with an upgraded version of the MT-32 called the CM-32L into a single ISA card, so adding just that card would give you “MT-32” music playback, plus 33 additional sound effects.

The MT-32 was primarily a music synthesizer. Like any traditional musical keyboard synth, it had over 100 preset instruments, and some canned sound effects (gunshot, rain, explosion, wind, etc.). It also had the ability to change the parameters of those instruments and modify them to sound differently. Changing an instrument was done via SYSEX (SYStem EXclusive) MIDI commands. The MT-32 was not based on the Yamaha OPL series like the AdLib/Sound Blaster, but used a Roland-proprietary combination of prerecorded samples and subtractive synthesis.  You could not fundamentally create your own instrument or sound effect, but you could modify what already came with the MT-32.

The MT-32 only communicated via MIDI. MIDI does not have the ability to transmit PCM samples, so it had no ability to play custom digitized audio. The LAPC-I also lacked this capability:  While it was an add-in ISA card, it didn’t add digital sound playback to the existing CM-32L + MIDI interface combo it was designed to reproduce.  (A later card, the RAP-10, added this functionality.)

What was the Roland SC-55?
What was the Roland SCC-1?
Why were they a significant milestone of DOS gaming music?

The Roland SC-55 was the very first General MIDI standard device. The General MIDI standard was significant in that it defined 128 instruments that every device following the standard could adopt. Before General MIDI, there was no standardization: Instrument #4 could be “organ” or “flute” or “snare drum”, etc…  but in General MIDI, instrument #4 is always “Honky-Tonk Piano”. This standard was the real breakthrough for DOS gaming music, because it meant all MIDI music devices following the standard could reproduce the music nearly the same, as they would all be using the same instruments.  (That said, the SC-55 also had outstanding sound quality, which was also a breakthrough.)  Of the 128 instruments, 16 were sound effects.  An additional 46 percussive sounds (snare drum, hi-hat, etc.) were also available on a specific playback channel.

Like the MT-32, the SC-55 connected to the computer using MIDI cables and a MIDI interface installed in the computer. The Roland SCC-1 was like the LAPC-I: It combined an SC-55 and an MPU-401 onto a single ISA add-in card.

How was MIDI music for DOS games composed?

Standalone synthesizer modules like the MT-32 and the SC-55 can only be controlled via the MIDI protocol, sent over MIDI cables to the module. If you want to compose music to be played back on those modules, it is best practice to compose the music using the module itself. Because the module has no musical keyboard attached, it was common to use a synthesizer keyboard connected via MIDI to control the module. This was typically done by capturing a live performance on the keyboard into a MIDI note recording program called a MIDI sequencer, usually on a computer. Once captured on the computer, it could be edited like any media.

Why do I still need a Sound Blaster to hear sound in DOS games?

MIDI devices like the MT-32 and SC-55 were primarily designed as music synthesizer modules, and only contained a small number of sound effects.  The sound effects were so limited that most games didn’t bother trying to support them, so if one of those devices were all that you had, then you only heard music in a DOS game and no sound effects or speech. So, most DOS gamers also installed a card to play PCM sound, such as a Sound Blaster.  To hear both sound devices at the same time, users could run both to a mixer which output to a single set of speakers, but a cheaper option was to run the audio output of the MIDI module into the “line in” jack on a Sound Blaster, then connect the “line out” jack of the Sound Blaster to speakers.  Then the Sound Blaster internal mixer could be adjusted via software such that Line In was mixed into the output even while not recording.

While most games didn’t use MT-32 or SCC-1 canned sound effects, there were a few exceptions.  Sierra games using the SCI interpreter would occasionally use them (see Space Quest III for an example of MIDI sound effect use on the very first gameplay screen), and Another World (USA title “Out Of This World”) used the additional effects in the LAPC-I/CM-32L.

What music device should I pick when running a DOS game that has multiple options?

If you have an emulator configured for all possible DOS game sound standards — or, if you’re lucky and rich, a choice of sound hardware to put into a vintage DOS gaming system — then you should usually pick General MIDI with any sound extensions first, then General MIDI, then FM-based.  Here is a general list of sound options listed from best MIDI music quality to worst MIDI music quality; pick the highest option you have available:

1. General MIDI (Yamaha XG or XG extensions)
2. General MIDI (Roland SCC-1, Roland SC-55, Roland GS extensions)
3. General MIDI
4. Turtle Beach Multisound
5. Roland LAPC-1 or CM-32L
6. Roland MT-32
7. Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster Pro 2 (Yamaha OPL-4 or OPL-3 FM compatible)
8. Sound Blaster Pro (Yamaha OPL-2 stereo FM)
9. AdLib or Sound Blaster (Yamaha OPL-2 FM)
10. Creative Music System or Game Blaster
11. Tandy/PCjr 3-voice audio
12. PC speaker

Confusing expanded (EMS) memory with extended (XMS) memory happens all the time in the vintage PC/DOS computing hobby for those new to those terms.  Which is which?  What does my hardware support?  Do I need them?  This article will attempt to explain, as succinctly as possible, what each “type” of PC memory is and how it is used.  This article is not an extensive technical dive, but is meant to be an explanation of DOS memory conventions for the novice DOS user who is new to using DOS.

Protected Mode memory (DPMI, VCPI, DOS extenders, etc.) are not mentioned in this article because they typically don’t require any user intervention to work (ie. DOOM comes with DOS4GW.EXE and it just loads and works automatically).

Terminology used in this article

PC: Any IBM PC  or compatible system from the 1980s and 1990s running DOS.
8088: Shorthand for the entire 8086 CPU class, which includes the 8086, the 8088, the NEC V20, and the NEC V30.
640KB: The typical limit of memory DOS can access.  (Exceptions for DOS to access higher than 640KB exist, but are not mentioned to keep this article understandable for the layman.)

Quick history of memory on the PC

The 8088 CPU in the first IBM PC could access up to 1MB of memory.
Later, PCs built with the 80286 CPU could access up to 16MB of memory.
Later still, PCs built with the 80386 CPU could access up to 4GB of memory.

All PCs can directly access the first 1MB of memory.  Accessing memory beyond the first 1MB requires functionality only 80286 and later CPUs have.  Memory that extends past the first 1MB is called Extended Memory.

Because 8088 CPUs can’t access Extended Memory, special memory boards were created for them that fit into their system expansion slots.  These boards contain extra memory visible somewhere in the first 1MB, where the 8088 can see it.  The memory provided by these special expansion boards is called Expanded Memory.

Memory types in detail

EMS, XMS, conventional memory, UMBs… what does it all mean?  Here are some definitions:

Conventional Memory

What is it?  The first 1MB of memory visible to all 8088 and higher CPUs.  DOS is loaded into the area from 0-640KB and manages it.  The area above that, from 640KB to 1024KB (1MB), is typically used by the system hardware and not generally available to DOS programs.
How do DOS programs use it?  DOS provides function calls for allocating, resizing, and deallocating memory blocks for program use.  (Alternately, programs can directly access any portion of the first 1MB of memory they want to, although doing so can be risky if the programmer is inexperienced.)

Extended Memory

What is it?  Memory visible beyond the first 1MB, usually physically located directly on the motherboard, but sometimes provided by adding memory cards.
How do DOS programs use it?  Via an API called the eXtended Memory Specification, also called XMS.
What provides XMS?  XMS is provided by a driver called HIMEM.SYS, loaded by CONFIG.SYS at boot time.
How does XMS work?  XMS provides function calls that DOS programs can use to copy data between conventional memory locations and extended memory locations.

Expanded Memory

What is it?  Memory provided by special expansion cards.
How do DOS programs use it?  Via an API called the Expanded Memory Specification, also called EMS.
How is EMS provided?  Via a driver provided by the expansion card manufacturer.  Each card has a different driver and you must use the correct one for your card.  The driver configures the card for use, and provides EMS function calls that DOS or programs can use to access the memory on the card.
How does EMS work?  EMS boards provide a small “window” into the memory they contain, and this window is located somewhere in the first 1MB of RAM where 8088 CPUs can access it.  To access more memory, programs issue EMS function calls that “move” the window to a different area on the card, changing what portion of the larger memory shows up in the small window.

A quick note about EMS:  If you want to run a program that uses EMS, but you don’t have an EMS board in your computer, don’t fret: You can emulate EMS on any 80386 or higher.  This is done by loading a memory manager such as EMM386 or QEMM.  One of the services provided by a memory manager is to section off a portion of Extended Memory and present it in response to EMS function calls, like a real EMS board would.

Upper Memory

What is it?  The upper portion of Conventional Memory located between 640KB and 1024KB (1MB).  There is typically no user-accessible memory in this area, but 80286 and higher systems can relocate portions of Extended Memory into this area for use by DOS programs.
What is it used for?  The total amount of upper memory available is typically very small, between 64KB to 128KB, but this amount can still be useful for loading small memory-resident programs or drivers outside of Conventional Memory.
How do DOS programs use it?  XMS provides functions for allocating and deallocating memory in this area in units of “blocks”, called Upper Memory Blocks, or UMBs.
How are UMBs provided?  For 80386s and higher, DOS comes with HIMEM.SYS and EMM386 which, loaded together, provide UMB functionality.  For 80286s and lower, there are programs (such as QRAM or USEUMBS) that use “shadow ram” functionality provided by the 80286 system’s chipset to perform the mapping.
How does upper memory access work?  Once a program is provided an upper memory block via a UMB functional call, it can be accessed the same way conventional memory is accessed, ie. directly.

Guidelines to running DOS programs

1. First off, simply try to run a DOS program.  Most run without needing any special memory configuration.
2. If you have an 80286 or higher, always load HIMEM.SYS in your CONFIG.SYS file.  There’s no harm in installing it even if programs don’t use it.
3. If you want to load a single program on a 386 or higher to manage all of this for you, install QEMM.  QEMM will manage all of your memory and provide your programs with either XMS or emulated EMS based on what each program asks for.
4. Finally, if a program claims to support both EMS and XMS, choose EMS.  EMS is faster than XMS.

If you sell rare, unique, or otherwise irreplaceable items on ebay, do not use eBay’s Global Shipping Program.  Doing so grants eBay’s partners the right to effectively take your item and resell it without your knowledge.  What follows is an explanation of what the Global Shipping Program is, why it exists, and why you shouldn’t use it for items that are difficult or impossible to replace.

Shipping internationally is a hassle in the USA: It requires multiple forms, a declaration of value, and for anything over a certain size, interaction with a shipping service employee.  However, if you’re selling rare items with global interest, such as vintage computers or software, dealing with international shipping is a necessary evil.  You could always not ship internationally, but that cuts out a large section of your audience and potential profits.

To try to ease the pain of international shipping for USA sellers, ebay introduced the Global Shipping Program (“GSP”).  The GSP allows a USA seller to market to international buyers, but then ship to a central USA domestic address.  Once received, ebay then handles delivery of the item to the international buyer.  The benefit to both parties is straightforward: The buyer gets access to more sellers that will ship to their country, and the seller only has to pay for a domestic delivery and avoid international shipping hassle.

The central USA address facility is subcontracted out to Pitney Bowes  (“PB”).  PB is a business, and they need to make money too, so they collect many packages to a single destination country and then ship them all off at once in a single freight shipment.  (This is usually facilitated by repacking items into smaller boxes so that PB can fit more items per shipping container.)  Large freight shipments are much cheaper than shipping packages individually, so the difference between what the international buyer paid, and what the eventual shipping cost is, becomes PB’s profit.

What most people don’t realize is that eBay’s agreement with PB allows PB to steal your items and resell them.  Worse, they get caught doing it all the time.

The Global Shipping FAQ contains this language:

What happens to lost, damaged, or undeliverable items?

GSP items purchased by your buyer may be covered by an eBay Money Back Guarantee or PayPal Purchase Protection program. eBay and Pitney Bowes shall have no liability and shall have, in their discretion and in any manner that they prefer, the right to dispose of or liquidate parcels (and their contents) that eBay or Pitney Bowes conclude are undeliverable.

At first glance, this seems like protection for PB such that they won’t get in trouble for shipping things that are dangerous or prohibited by a certain country.  In those cases, the parcels are likely disposed of.  But this wording gives PB the right to “conclude” that any item is “undeliverable”.  Remember, PB is a business, and they need to make money, so what happens when they have only a few huge boxes (for example, vintage computers) to ship to an international destination, and/or the contents of those boxes are fragile and cannot be repacked and made smaller to fit into a shipping container?  PB would lose money passing them on to the buyer, and they’d also lose money returning them back to the seller.  So, rather than lose money in either case, they classify the item as “undeliverable” and it goes nowhere.  Their agreement with eBay (wording above) grants them the right to do this.

The reason this doesn’t turn into instant outrage on an hourly basis is that eBay compensates both the seller and buyer when this happens.  The seller gets to keep the money they received for the item, and since the item can’t be delivered, the buyer gets a refund for what they paid.  If the item is something common, then the buyer can just start their shopping again from a different seller or store.

But what happens to the original item if PB doesn’t want to deliver it?  The wording in the agreement grants PB the right to “liquidate” parcels.  While most people think liquidated means destroyed, it doesn’t:  In this context, it means apportioned, which is another way of saying reallocated and redistributed:

What happens to items that can’t be delivered to my buyer?

If eBay and/or Pitney Bowes determines that a GSP item is undeliverable eBay and/or Pitney Bowes may elect to dispose of, destroy or liquidate the undeliverable parcel, at which time title to the GSP item shall transfer automatically from you to eBay and/or any third party designated by either eBay or Pitney Bowes

In other words, the original item is given to a third party who can do whatever they want with it.  And what the third party does is resell it… back on eBay… using your original listing!

Need proof?  Here’s a listing from someone who sold an IBM PC to an international buyer:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/-/273283847165?nordt=true&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l10137

They then were informed by eBay that their package was undeliverable, and both parties were compensated.  Then, a few weeks later, this listing showed up on ebay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Working-IBM-Personal-Computer-Model-5150-PC-No-Monitor-/163169047795?epid=1900490613&hash=item25fda214f3%3Ag%3AVRAAAOSwgVlbWhO1&_nkw=ibm+5150&_sacat=0&_from=R40&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc&nma=true&si=xcoEA3o5aXAEajzy2eboTpHSO70%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Not only is the original item for sale (with “No international shipping” predictably part of the shipping conditions), but the pictures were lifted wholesale from the original listing.

This is surely cause for outrage.  However, by merely using the GSP, you transfer all of your rights and have no recourse.  eBay’s official wording makes it clear that once the item is received by PB, not only do you lose all title to the item, you also lose any intellectual property rights your listing may have had:

Will content from my original listing be used if the item is liquidated?

Yes.In the event eBay or Pitney Bowes elects to dispose of or liquidate a GSP item, you grant to eBay, Pitney Bowes and/or any third party designated by either eBay or Pitney Bowes (as eBay and Pitney Bowes may elect) a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to any intellectual property rights in the text or images presented in the original listing related to the GSP item, which exists or ever existed, including, but not limited to, the right to reproduce, prepare derivative works base on or display, any copyrightable elements, for the limited purpose of disposal or liquidation of the GSP item. You acknowledge that eBay or Pitney Bowes’s election to dispose of or liquidate the GSP item and allow you to retain your buyer’s payment for the GSP item is sufficient consideration for the transfer of title to eBay and/or any third party designated by either eBay or Pitney Bowes (as eBay or Pitney Bowes may elect in their sole discretion) and the grant of the license.

Always read the fine print.

Bottom Line

If you are selling something irreplaceable, such as a vintage computer or highly rare vintage software, do not, under any circumstances, use the GSP to sell internationally.  Doing so grants eBay the right to effectively destroy your item on a whim instead of delivering it.

Losing a vintage item is much more painful than simply being out the money you paid (or received) for it — the true cost is the loss of something that cannot be replaced.  Any seller of such items cannot, in good conscience, allow rare items to be put in this position.

I’d like to thank my colleagues at the VCF Forum for investigating and bringing this to light.

If you like vintage computers, and you like vintage people operating vintage computers, then come to the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest on September 9th and 10th this year.  I will be there, if you have always wanted the chance to laugh and point at me in Real Life(tm).

What makes VCFMW such a great show, in my totally biased opinion, is that it is 100% free to attend or have a table.  You use your table(s) to exhibit your collection, hold a competition or workshop, or even sell stuff — all are welcome as long as it relates to vintage computing.  There are things to see, things to operate, presentations to watch, and there’s a heck of a lot of Commodore stuff too.