Commodore 64 reborn

[ReggiePerrin]

Hi

I love nostalgia threads; this was my first computer a Compukit UK101, it arrived as a PCB and a bag of bits. Luckily we knew a neighbour who knew how to solder and my father built a wooden case to put in. I lost it a few years back.. a real shame

[zed]

You guys had it easy. My first computer was a Motorola evaluation board called a D2 kit (yes, it was about the time of the first Star Wars movie and a subsequent add-on was called an R2 kit...honest). Anyway, the D2 was a couple boards and a bag of parts and was intended to be given to folks interested in developing with the MC6800 MPU. It ran at a little over 600KHz and had a hex keyboard, 128 BYTES or RAM (upgradable to 512 BYTES), a six digit LED readout for a display, and a cassette recorder interface. Machine language only, entered via the hex keyboard. A cross-assembler was available for IBM & DEC mainframes. It had a wire-wrap area so I put together a CRT interface (16 lines of 64 characters) that drove a B&W TV. It could plug into a backplane so I got a 16kb memory board to go with it. Pretty spiffy for 1978. Next was a system based on the MC6809 MPU with 64k RAM, another CRT interface (80x24), and two SS/SD 5.25" floppies (85k each, formatted, IIRC). I hacked an operating system from an outfit in San Antonio (SWTP) that sold commercial versions of a 6809 system. I had a Pascal compiler, word processor, and some games for it. Next was a home-built version of the Radio Shack Color Computer. After that I splurged and bought an IBM PC with 640k RAM and two DS/DD floppy drives. No more wire-wrapping for me...

So do I win?

[johnsonx42]

So do I win?

Probably, at least until someone comes along who built a computer out of individual transistors, or better yet, vacuum tubes.

[Fatman_do]

How about Zenith HeathKit computers that you had to put together yourself. I remember taking chips and bending the contacts, pressing into the board, and viola, color (I think 8). I was about 12 at the time. My mother's boss, an ex-special forces, army black knights sky diving team, Korean war POW, computer guru was our High school computer teacher. Taught us COBOL in the late 80's on a mainframe with "thin clients"...i.e. diskless terminals. Built the computers from those kits with a buy one get one free discount. I helped him build ours for our home to replace our TSR-80. I ended up more of a hardware guy as I thought the coding was tedious. Honestly, who teaches 17 year olds COBOL?

Edit:
I think it was the Z-100 we built that had 8 colors. Not the Z-89. Those we had in his class for adult ed when my mom took the class.

[SickBoy]

I grew up playing Hardball, Pac Man, GI Joe and a ton of other games on the C64. Very fond memories. I kinda wonder if the family friends that we gave it to still have it.

The 1541 disk drive really was a boon for that machine. We had zillions of games because aforementioned family friends also had a C64 and made lots of game copies for us.

[steeb]

I think I was 1st introduced via BBC Micro, then Vic 20, then Commordore 64. That rocked (Commordore 64) way more powerful than everything that had come before. Did some programming in the early days then got bored with the maths. Wish I had kept it up I may have had a proper living by now Oh and those early days of loading everything on tape, superb, didn't just watch the kettle boil, you had time to make a pot of tea, and drink it

steeb