Commodore 64 reborn

MixMan · (This post was last modified: 2010-12-17, 09:19 PM by MixMan.)

Commodore 64 reborn. Really beautiful cases.
http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_Home.aspx

I newer used one. I had a Sinclair Specrum that had the Basic commands on the keys. I did some programming at that time, but I ended up working with hardware installations at Intergraph.
But it is fun learning some programming again by exploring PHP.

bdgbill · 2010-12-17, 02:24 PM

I wanted a Commodore 64 badly. I had several friends that had them. I got an Atari 400 for Christmas instead because the guy at Sears told my mother it was "better". This effectively ended my pre-pc era interest in computers. Maybe if it wasn't for that one douche at Sears we would all be using BBPVR right now.

[Image: atari400open.jpg]

ACTCMS · 2010-12-17, 07:19 PM

I still have a few ZX81s and Spectrums up in the attic somewhere. I worked for the company who actually built them for Sinclair. My kids used them for games like Manic Miner but I never really did much programming on them - I was developing on a VM/370-CMS system at work and the Spectrum seemed a bit well... basic

***sub*** · 2010-12-17, 07:28 PM

bdgbill Wrote:I wanted a Commodore 64 badly. I had several friends that had them. I got an Atari 400 for Christmas instead because the guy at Sears told my mother it was "better". This effectively ended my pre-pc era interest in computers. Maybe if it wasn't for that one douche at Sears we would all be using BBPVR right now.

lol

I started with the ZX81, and later got Sega SC-3000 (which was pretty much a Sega MasterSystem with keyboard etc and basic rom). Later I had an Amiga before moving on to PCs.

[Image: sega_sc3000.jpg]

gEd · (This post was last modified: 2010-12-17, 07:56 PM by gEd.)

Back circa 1983, I eschewed the spectrum in favour of the Oric.

I wrote a basic program to turn the keyboard into a synth that enabled you to record and playback your tunes...what a masterpiece that was.

johnsonx42 · 2010-12-17, 07:51 PM

The Atari 400 was pretty bad. The Atari 800 was FAR superior with a real keyboard and 3 times the RAM with further upgrade potential. The 800 was my first computer. Had your mom bought the 800 instead you'd have been a lot happier (though certainly there is something to be said for having the same computer as your friends... then again if your friends were commie-dorks then maybe you needed better friends Big Grin

).

A family friend had an early 400 with a casette tape drive; it was a real pain to use, though he did quite a lot with it. I'm very glad I got started with an 800 with an 810 floppy drive. I actually still have it in a box somewhere along with the 810 floppy and a later Indus GT floppy drive (twice the disk space, 4x the speed); I have no idea if it still works though, haven't booted it in close to 25 years. I still play some of my old favorites with MESS on my arcade cab.

***sub*** · 2010-12-17, 08:09 PM

Man, I always wanted an Atari. The games looked very cool and arcade like - centipede, defender etc.

johnsonx42 · 2010-12-17, 08:45 PM

The arcade conversions were pretty good. I still have cartridges for Defender, Centipede, Galaxians, Pac-Man, a few others. I actually have both the real arcade Defender and the Atari 800 defender on my arcade cab... they're pretty similar; the arcade version has better graphics, while the Atari 800 version is a lot easier.

bdgbill · 2010-12-17, 09:26 PM

I had the cassette tape drive on backorder with sears for something like 8 months until I gave up and lost interest. I used to buy magazines that had the basic code for games written out over several pages. I would spend days or sometimes a week typing this code into my machine. I had no tape drive or other means of backup and the only place to plug the computer in was an outlet controlled by a wall switch. This led to many an explosive tantrum on my part. The last time it happened, I unplugged the thing, threw it in a box and never turned it on again. As I remember, I asked for and received a Vectrex system the following year. Although this machine was far more satisfying, it had far fewer educational possibilities.

mvallevand · 2010-12-18, 12:14 AM

I started on the Commodore PET and the C64 was a big upgrade. And yes, I remember all too well typing in code from Computer Gazette and some other magazines. Fortunately they came with some checksum utilities, PAR would have come in had. At least I was lucky and had a tape drive and a disk drive, I even had an addon SCSI drive that was faster and didn't click.

Speed was all relative though, I remember using a utility that actually allowed the tape drive to load faster than the disk. I do have fond memories of hours online crawling at 300 baud.

Martin