After seeing their ultra-super-secret plan for world domination, I now have this urge to fill the rest of the floppy disk with What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy) playing through the PC speaker.

@mrkitty777

Жыл бұрын

Is this you Bill Gates 🤔

@BrendonGreenNZL

Жыл бұрын

@@mrkitty777 no, this is Trixter; of PC demoscene fame.

@mrkitty777

Жыл бұрын

@@BrendonGreenNZL ok, i heard about Federation Against Commodore once and they make demos about bad C64

@Trance88

Жыл бұрын

I wish that could work, but I don't think there's even enough room for a single "beep" command on that floppy.

@BrendonGreenNZL

Жыл бұрын

@@Trance88 nonsense. You can fit an entire encyclopedia onto a floppy disk.

This is AWESOME. I've been listening to InSoc since they were included on the Sega CD CD+G Sampler CD in the early 90s. Kurt had mentioned somewhere (the old website, IRC, SOMETHING that I can't remember) that this floppy existed, but this is the first time I've seen proof that it actually exists! Thanks for making this video!

@8_Bit

Жыл бұрын

I only just learned of its existence just earlier this year, and was pretty thrilled to find a copy shortly afterwards.

@davidgood840

Жыл бұрын

I also had that Sega CD disc!!! That Information Society video on there was the best thing on it, and I remember listening/watching that with some sense of mystery/wonder because it seemed to cutting-edge 🤣

That was fascinating, especially the glimpses of the C code. Of course, to a young band in 1988, that distant year of 2030 must have seemed like a long way off...

@DryPaperHammerBro

Жыл бұрын

Kinda feels like that still

It doesn't seem that anyone brought this up, but I gotta say loading up a C64 emulator on an ancient PC, JUST to use it as a calculator to solve a 30 year old puzzle has to be in the top 5 nerdiest things I've seen on KZread. Good job! 😆 Subscribed!

@RetroDawn

2 ай бұрын

Good old BASIC interpreter! I use SpeedCrunch as my calculator on Linux for the same immediacy and lots more capability and time/typing-saving features.

Cool little bit of disk archaeology. Also great to see C64S in action, it brings back great memories. Had it on my 486 DX2 in the mid 90s, IIRC it ran most of my favorite games at near-to-full speed with sound. Pretty amazing emulator for its time.

You're a legend, Robin. Thanks for these great videos. As for Information Society: I remember buying their album in their heyday as a teen. Loved it! Several years later, I was driving cross-country and a radio station started broadcasting their live performance in whatever town I was driving though. My god man... these were the days before auto-tune: I have never heard so many off-key vocals on the radio before or since that night. I can only imagine they spent 2000 hours in the studio to record that first album. Maybe I just caught 30 minutes of their worst night, but in my mind they have always been a band that only works in the studio.

@8_Bit

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, it's hard to know if it was a bad night or what. I've played enough live music to know how badly it can go; lots of the time the band has no control over the monitor mix and when a singer can't hear themselves sing, it goes BADLY. Or maybe that was late enough in their run that they were burned out and just going through the motions. Here they are live in 1988 and it's pretty good, and there's enough moments to convince me it's actually live and not just lip-synced. kzread.info/dash/bejne/rHp-rZaKgt2vmLA.html

I remember this disk! Never had an original copy, but it used to be downloadable from InSoc's website. I definitely gained access to the secret message in 2003 or so.

@8_Bit

Жыл бұрын

Nice, I hadn't heard it was officially downloadable before. Do you remember if it was just the same 3 files in a .zip file? I realize it's been a long time :)

These guys are still producing great music. I bought their _Hello World EP a few years ago, and some merch. Glad I did!

@nolan412

Жыл бұрын

Kurt singing Conspiracy Theory was good.

Changing disks at an "Abort, Retry, Ignore" or "Abort, Retry, Fail" prompt can have weird effects, including data loss. If the machine misread part of the volume header, but thought it had read successfully, and as a consquence looked in the wrong place for information about the root directory, that could result in a general failure error which would not be resolved by htiting "retry", because that would merely attempt to retry the read of the directory information from the wrong place, rather than starting over from scratch with reading the volume header. Although data corruption in this particular scenario wouldn't have been likely, it can occur if one attempts unsuccessfully to write information to one disk and then swaps in a different disk.

Nice to see a real programming language on your channel for once... ;) Missed opportunity to program that cleaning disk read instead of hitting "R" repeatedly like a chump. Looking forward to your Christmas video Robin! Watched your last one on Christmas Eve last year and loved it!

@granitepenguin

Жыл бұрын

yeah, write something in the C64 emulator to exercise the disk head :-)

I love this band! Fun fact, the main members went to my High School, but graduated many years before me. Nevertheless, this caused one of my friends to get obsessively into InSoc, and that bled over into me becoming a fan. I mean, "It is useless to resist us!"

@dazealex

Жыл бұрын

Cool! Barenaked Ladies, the band, went to my highschool in Scarborough, Ontario. :)

@72dodge340

Жыл бұрын

I just scrolled down to say they were in my High School, so I know where you went to school ;) They only graduated I think about 2 years before me. I never knew them, I only found out about this later.

@eugenetswong

Жыл бұрын

@@dazealex Cool! Michael J. Fox went to 1 or 2 of my schools in Burnaby, BC. The teachers talked about him, and I vaguely recall 1 of them telling us where his locker was. I wonder who will join our Canadian discussion.

I Loved downloading the disk and play around with it in dosbox! Thanks for this!

I was expecting a crumby commercial: "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine." 😁

@coryengel

Жыл бұрын

An Ovaltine ad would have been more satisfying.

After 28 years of working with ms-dos, i today learned you can copy stuff with simply using " copy . " I always have used copy *.*

OMG I love the sound of your keyboard. I am old school when it comes to my love of clicky keyboards and I would love to have one now. Also, I once had a dream that I woke up, started my computer and ended up with a DOS prompt. In some ways, I miss those early days where everything was an adventure and there was so much to learn.

Really cool find and video!! Thanks for sharing

Thanks for sharing your exploration of this disk! I have a copy of it but, alas, no longer have an old x86 laying around. This is the first time I'm seeing all the content!

16:15 The Insoc probably had people like you in mind with this bizarre calculation method. Fantastic work!

That’s awesome, I love stuff like this! I remember these guys well, they had at least one hit in heavy rotation on MTV.

That was one of the albums of my youth, thank you for this memory!!!

This is really cool! When I was at university, ca. 1996, I had a program on the local campus/community FM radio station, CJSW. I discovered Information Society in the station's record library, and played some of their songs on my program. I particularly liked "Where the I Divides" from the "Peace & Love, Inc." CD. Although I listened to "300 BPS N, 8, 1", I never got around to feeding the audio to a modem.

Commodore was making PC compatible stuff right from the start, even over here in the Aussie backwaters, our first computer in the mid 80s was a Commodore COLT, which was an 8088 CPU running a couple of floppy drives and no HDD and a green monochrome monitor. I learned to type on that thing.

I love these sleuthing videos you do. Just wish I had found them earlier in life. Still fun watching you figure them out though. 🙂

I know this is not the focus of the video but I can never get over how awesome a logo "single-color silhouettes of the band members making an X" really is

I love InSoc -- heard some of their weird stuff when I was in high school in the 90s and didn't rediscover them until about a decade ago. Had NO IDEA that this disk existed but it's absolutely right in line with what I expect from them. And on a Commodore PC, no less!

it looks like the intended way to access the last part is that it sometimes randomly lets you through instead of showing the "resticted information" message: RANDO = rand(); if ((10000 < RANDO) & ( RANDO < 16400))

That was SO cool! I remember the record store in Germany in 1985(?) where I first heard "Running". I bought, and still have, the 12 inch single. :)

I didn't know information society were from Minneapolis, I lived in Minneapolis till 92 and I just find out they were a local band today.

Awesome breakdown! They also had extra data on one of their albums that worked in the 3do. I might have to find those and make a video about it.

Oh that was fun. And the source code included! Definitely a band ahead of their time in digital promotions . . . Also: Gotta admit, the C=64 nerd living in my head kept screaming "just cursor up and re-use the answer!!!" every time you re-typed the calculated results for the next step! ;) Also, also: if I ever knew Commodore made DOS systems (not just Amiga add-on cards), I'd forgotten by now.

Thanks for this video. It was alot of fun.

Ha! Love the credits. Wow, that is one SLOW emulator!

@Aeduo

Жыл бұрын

It's pretty fast for running on a 386SX! :p

Great stuff. Loved that ending credits, I was laughing out loud while watching you slllowwwly type that out. 😆

This was a fun deep dive. I'm glad you didn't stop at the first disco secret. The world domination hack was a lot of fun to read about. Here's to 2030!

Wow! Refreshed the KZread page and this appeared WHILE Information Society's "How Long" is playing on my internet radio! Wow! What a coincidence! (Shout out to The Gamut-Washington DC radio station!)

Love this so much

I've become obsessed with their music recently. Love them

I saw Information Society live at Disney Grad Night in Orlando, FL in 1989. 1 of favorite groups - “I want to know what you’re thinking . . . “ Earlier in high school I was learning Basic on IBM 8088 in class. 10 Print __; 20 GOTO 10. Thanks for great content! p.s. I think I was up to a 9600 baud modem at that time - bbs boards oh the memories.

@OscarInAsia

Жыл бұрын

Holy crap! I didn't know this! I graduated a year earlier (1988) and at Grad Night we got RUN-DMC (which were fine), buy I would have rather had InSoc... Ah well...

26:13: I wonder if Kurt knew that he didn't actually need to ship the .OBJ file.

@big0bad0brad

Жыл бұрын

It would have been cool if they included only the backdoor information but not the secret content in the .C (call it an earlier version?), then some secret stuff in the .exe but the super secret stuff in the "Leaked .obj" of a yet newer version... Still sorta accessible if you hex edit it or open it in a text editor, but to actually run it, you have to figure out how to link it...

KZread be scary again. Suggested this vid and well... not disappointed. :D I had at one point the CDG of INSOC and now wish I had it in my collection again. :(

The missing "R" in the word "RESTICTED" was the hint.

Gorgeous PC-50! I’ve got a PC-5 from the same era. Beautifully designed pc compatibles.

4:10 I have found it handy to leave the foil seal on my bottle of alcohol I use for cleaning. I'll poke a pinhole or 2 in the foil and gently squeeze the bottle when I need to clean something. It saves me from spills and overdoing it.

@DenizTurkmen

Жыл бұрын

I was gonna say. He was this close to retro bright that keyboard. 😂

OMG I can't wait to watch this video. Combining information society with 5 1/4 floppies??? OMG! i'm in heaven! hahahaha how awesome!!! have you tried contacting Kurt? He used to be very responsive to emails. I once wrote him an email thanking him for the music he made, and got a very well written reply very quickly.

Had a couple dreams recently about receiving boxes of 3.5" floppies. I don't have a single one today, which is a dramatic change from my disk collection in the early 1990's. Those succumbed to several cycles of downsizing and moving. I especially wish I had some of my old amiga disks now, since I rescued an Amiga 2000 from scrap a few weeks ago. ROM 1.3, a little beaten up, but no battery leakage yet.

I thought you missed something on the super secret page. It said "PRESS A KEY TO CONTINUE". I thought it might have more to the message if you pressed the "A" key instead of the space bar, so I downloaded the files you uploaded and had to get a DOS emulator. Alas, pressing the "A" key did not do anything extra - it just took me back to the menu. Cool video, I'm going to take a look at the C code for the fun of it.

@BenDanielUS

Жыл бұрын

You're a hero. I came to the comments specifically to check if anyone had pointed that out, and to request a second pass to see what pressing "A" would do!

@drstefankrank

Жыл бұрын

@@BenDanielUS Nothing and also the required code it asks for after the backdoor is triggered just waits for 5 keypresses, if my understanding of C isn't that bad.

@eugenetswong

Жыл бұрын

Everybody, thanks for checking.

That C code looks like it might have been converted from BASIC. The formatting seems quite bizarre and strikes me as maybe computer-generated. Almost like a macro processor was used that just read in BASIC line by line and spit out fixed lines of C. Maybe something homemade for converting this specific program.

@stevesether

Жыл бұрын

Anything is possible, but honestly it looks like it was written by someone with a thick BASIC accent. I don't know those types of translators were all that common in circa 1988 when this was written. It's not uncommon for someone skilled in one language to learn another, but their coding style comes from the language they're more fluent in. Years ago I recall seeing Java code that was obviously written by someone who was primarily a C programmer.

10:25 That "origin story" is the same they put on their debut album as CD+G, minus the graphics of course.

Great video as always, thank you! ... as a very long term programmer, Kurt's brace style makes me itch though 😀

@anon_y_mousse

Жыл бұрын

Indeed, the braces should be indented the same as the conditionals and function headers and all on their own line. This is just weird with the trailing brace on the last line, the opening brace indented extra and yet on its own line.

Great concept and thanks for posting the code. But the C makes me cry. I think whoever wrote it was competent in BASIC (or maybe Pascal) and tried to write C the same way.

@8_Bit

Жыл бұрын

Yes, it seems like C code from a BASIC coder, who is just learning just enough to get the job done.

well done Robin! a bit disappointed that you didn't do the calculation in one line though...

my highschool computer class was basic programming, this makes me feel old.

great vid. thank you

Dear Mr. Robin I would love to see you do a video or series of videos where you make a game from scratch. As in starting with pencil and paper and all the back forth programming as you work it out. Like a small snap shot of what it really looks like to make a game and how to plan and write the code.

Thank You for archiving it as a ZIP and not a Disk Image!!!

@8_Bit

Жыл бұрын

I actually can’t make a PC disk image currently anyway 😊

@Mrshoujo

Жыл бұрын

@@8_Bit Don't start. 👍

@Gameboygenius

Жыл бұрын

I disagree with the instead. I wouldn't be surprised if there's hidden information somewhere on the disk, and having access to a disk image would allow one to look for it.

@Aeduo

Жыл бұрын

Not sure how to do it in windows, in linux you'd just use the cp command on the /dev/fd0 or /dev/sdwhatever device it shows up as to a file. Although there's far more ridiculous methods like kryoflux and greaseweasel which allow for a more forensic level analysis of the disk surface but since this was a mass produced piece of software, it probably just started blank then had whatever needed to be written to it written to it, so I wouldn't expect anything hidden on it at the analog level, unless this band was just that deep in to easter egg hunts. :D

@Gameboygenius

Жыл бұрын

@@Aeduo there are disk imagers for DOS and Windows. I don't recall the name of any for DOS right now but a popular one for Windows (9x and higher I believe) was Winimage. There are several ports of the dd command for Windows and if I recall correctly even DOS. I would not expect anything intentionally hidden on the disk. However, it's possible the master disk they sent for duplication was a random disk that contains deleted files which still may be wholly or partially present on the disk. Either using a command like undelete on DOS or requiring more manual analysis.

"Who's General Failure, and why's he reading Drive A?"

Thanks for sharing that! I would have expected InfSoc to use Amigas and C64's--and I say this as someone who grew up with an Adam and 4 Atari computers (and got a couple Amigas in college). IBM PC's were quite boring, comparatively. I remixed "What's on Your Mind" with my friend on his Amiga 1000 in late 88. They were one of the only good US bands at the time (I can't think of another). The UK is where all the best music was being made--and I say this as a lifelong USian. I never knew about this disk until your video--and the bitstream encoded on the album track. I remember playing their first album on my 3DO, years after getting it, to see the CD+G.

@8_Bit

2 ай бұрын

I'm pretty sure I've seen evidence that they did use C64s, if not Amigas, but I can't find it now :) I was a bit disappointed this was for MS-DOS but still had fun playing around with it, and I'm glad they made it.

Information Society played at a science fiction convention I help to operate a few years ago. They were a hoot.

22:06: I love the elegance of (octal) \333 for the 0xDB ASCII full block in code page 437. It's never occurred to me, but that looks beautiful, even in binary: 11011011.

@ShamrockParticle

Жыл бұрын

Should have been 11001001, hehe

@ropersonline

Жыл бұрын

@@ShamrockParticle Maybe you have a sense of humour I don't get, but I have no idea why you would find \311 ╔ preferable.

I enjoyed this video very much. There is a deep lesson in this hidden message :) *insert scroller here*

Thanks for the ancient C!

Chris sievey (The Freshies and Frank Sidebottom) and Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks) did some interesting coding and music projects in the early 80s on Sinclair machines,worth checking out.

Always fun to see the PC50-II. That's also my fav C= PC. BTW, I actually play an acoustic bass guitar. :)

I decoded a modem track off one of their CDs, called "300,N,8,1". It contained a funny story about a gig in Recife.

Thank you so much for the video! One thing I do not get is how this disk was distributed. Could you order it or receive it somewhere? Does anyone know how this worked? Kind regards

Pure energy

Awesome

2:10 - I miss those keyboards. I can live with today's cherry switches, but NOBODY makes the 101 layout anymore (don't mention unicrap). I hate the "windoze menu" keys and preferred gaps in the base row. I knew where my hands were on the keyboard without looking, which meant fewer typos.

Fun(ish) fact, Minneapolis hasn’t had any 7-11s since the mid 80s, when they sold to a local convenience store chain. We went decades without the glory of the Slurpee. But because the world is weird, that chain was bought by another one which was bought by…. 7-11. They’re still not branded as 7-11, but they’re owned by them. Also, less interesting fact, Peace and Love, Inc was the second CD I bought with my own money.

It's not the destination, it's the road taken to get there that makes the time worthwhile.

InSoc gave a keynote talk at the DefCon hacker conference in 2016, and I think they gave a good overview of this (I had other work priorities that year and kind of glossed over this one). It may be available on KZread…

@BrianTRice77

Жыл бұрын

I found their music set video but not the talk: kzread.info/dash/bejne/h5t_pderfsm6fKQ.html

I had that cleaning kit!

This was fun

About the painfully slow c64 emulator: maybe the Turbo button was in the wrong mode on that Commodore XT? (Nice bit of kit, BTW)

AWESOME... is it still possible to get this disk?

I love the Commodore PC 😍

Yellowing is just a sign you should invite David Murray to come over for a retrobrite party hahah.

I want to know, what he was thinking. Tell me what’s on Kurt’s mind.

Murat Konar was the original singer for Running.

Love information society!!

Muy buen video.

So sad that the band broke up before they could develop their independent space program and achieve global domination. But at least they were able to come up with floppy-disk based ARG liner note technology :)

The closing credits music sounds like it should have been in The Forbidden Planet sci-fi film.

Well now I'm wondering what else is on the disk image where Robin keeps his "CREDITSF" program. Are there secret coded plans to make all future computers use 8 bit processors again? The world may never know...

Pretty sure the "M-3 Radix" is a reference to the Ternary Number system (Base 3) being used in a Radix? Not sure what significance that has to the band or in general but that's my guess.

I got to know one of their best known songs only after I bought a somewhat controversial compilation of mock songs on vinyl, made in 1989. There were rap, house, and synthpop songs covered with replacement lyrics of high sexual content. Pump Up The Volume by MARRS was covered as Pump Up The B***y... knew that one because a very popular comic TV show used it... and then, Running by InSoc was covered as F*****g. But I didn't find the latter connection for many years. This compilation did not very specifically credit original producers of the songs, and maybe for a reason. The release may have been kinda clandestine and the remade songs might not have been fully approved by the original artists if all was done in an open manner.

@conrad4667

Жыл бұрын

Research found: Sex in the House / Sex in the Hood by Connoisseur Records

@jussikuusela7345

Жыл бұрын

@@conrad4667 yup, that one.

Fun Fact: I'm watching this from Curitiba/Brazil. However, I wasn't living here when they played in town :(

7:49: This is a nitpick, but actually it's NOT fully archived - neither on the C: nor on the B: drive. What you really would need to do to archive it completely is to find a way to copy the boot sector from the A: drive/INSOC disk to the B: drive and maybe to some backup file in the C: directory too. Even though that boot sector won't actually boot DOS, it still has that message, which might be worth preserving too, because it's part of that original, I have however kind of forgotten the precise steps and tools to use to do that, so if anyone remembers or figures it out, please let the rest of us know.

Pure Energy..... Pure Energy

It would be interesting if Commodore was still in business today to see what they would have. I am imagining some sort of PC that can not only run all the lastest versions of Windows or Linux but would be fully capable of executing code from disks made with old Amigas, Commodore 128s, 64s and similar computers. I can imaging people may have been running Amiga OS on certain models of Macintosh computers (Power PC based). I am not sure if there is an x86 version of Amiga OS or at least one that is not just a custom Linux. I tried one and it was Linux really and I could not figure it out. I was only looking for a glimpse of what it was like to own an Amiga.

Because why not, I managed to compile the code in modern Windows. Actually surprisingly easy, I was expecting some far pointers or asm blocks but none are found. Things of note: I think the integrated Windows headers would work, but if you can't use them (for example, Clang doesn't seem to include them by default) you'll need to wrap some functions. getch() seems similar to getchar(), though you need to press enter to pass the characters with the latter. If you have a proper CLI library it should have a better function for this. _clearscreen() would be replaced with a screen-clearing function, but since the only way to clear the screen is to use an inaccessible function I just replaced it with printing some newlines. You also need to define _GCLEARSCREEN as it's passed to _clearscreen() yet not defined within the file.

Hi. Thanks for this interesting video. I am desperately looking for a 5.25 floppy-disk drive but it seems they are not on the market. Do you have an idea if there are still any dealers or private individuals in the USA who sell them? Actually, I just need to recover the data from a couple of floppies and transfer them to a USB-Stick, CD or other actual medium. Thanks.

@8_Bit

Жыл бұрын

If you search eBay for 5.25" disk drive you'll find many, though you'll need to make sure it's a model that's compatible with your computer, and that it's coming from a reputable seller who has tested it, etc. There are also a few companies who will do the transfer for you; this isn't a recommendation as I haven't dealt with them before, but there's a company called Data Recovery Masters who does this, easy to find on Google. Hope that helps.

well, now we know what's on their mind

So world dominance in 42 years. Sounds like they are also Hitchiker's fans.

I had this disc!

Sorry if it has been done but did you made a video about the secret message from the thompson twins disc as well?

@8_Bit

Жыл бұрын

Is it the Thompson Twins Adventure game that was on a record? I haven't covered that but there are a few videos about it on KZread already.

Tut tut! You have to calculate the highest charted position on the Billboard chart!

12:12 - Many of us have solved this puzzle. We try not to post the answers anywhere so that new fans can enjoy cracking the puzzle themselves. It is useless to resist us! 🖖

@8_Bit

Жыл бұрын

It's not just that the answer isn't available, but even the existence of the disk (or puzzle) itself is almost entirely unrecorded. I suppose that does help it stay secret though!

@slycooper1001

Жыл бұрын

You can also crack the code via looking at the actual code And looking for the text the program is actually looking for. And then just writing that down.

line 597 : if (SELECTION == 50) Displays the screen you saw.

The answer to the question can be found in looking in the .c program source code on line 595. if (SELECTION == 32)... the ascii number representation of the key press of "2".