Commodore 64 is now 25 years old

ScottM

ScottM

Taxi to Parking
Joined
Jul 19, 2005
Messages
42,530
Location
Variable, but somewhere on earth
Display Name
Display name:
iBazinga!
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/07/c64/index.html

Like a first love or a first car, a first computer can hold a special place in people's hearts. For millions of kids who grew up in the 1980s, that first computer was the Commodore 64. Twenty-five years later, that first brush with computer addiction is as strong as ever.
Click to expand...
Hard to believe it was that long ago. I remember all the newbie computer geeks with their C-64s, TRS80's and lots of cassette tapes creating simple programs. Who would have known what it would have really evolved into?

At the time of the C-64 I was getting to play with some pretty cool tech as well. HP-1000s, IBM360s, Dec machines, etc. I never owned one of the C-64s, my first PC was a TI-99/4A and then I did not own one until just a few years ago. I always seemed to have had a computer form my work though. My first laptop was issued to me in 1992, it was an Apple one.
 
The C-64 was my second computer, an upgrade from the VIC-20.

The VIC-20 had 3.2k of free memory, so I was pretty darn excited about the 64k of memory the C-64 would have, though I really couldn't imagine any way to actually use all of it.
-harry
 
smigaldi said:
Hard to believe it was that long ago. I remember all the newbie computer geeks with their C-64s, TRS80's and lots of cassette tapes creating simple programs. Who would have known what it would have really evolved into?

At the time of the C-64 I was getting to play with some pretty cool tech as well. HP-1000s, IBM360s, Dec machines, etc. I never owned one of the C-64s, my first PC was a TI-99/4A and then I did not own one until just a few years ago. I always seemed to have had a computer form my work though. My first laptop was issued to me in 1992, it was an Apple one.
Click to expand...

Wimp ;)

I built my first home computer - a Z80 kit from Jade Computer Products, and later a Heath Z-100. We had a C-64 in the office, along with an early Unix box. 10 MB was a lot of hard disk.... My ex- got me an IBM XT/286 at employee pricing.

I did get to play with HP-1000, IBM370 & 3090, PDP's, VAX, and others, I remember wrangling a CMS account & IT center mailbox from a professor so that I didn't ever have to set foot in the punch card room again :D (the CMS account made dealing with the engineering problems easy - edit and test programs on CMS, then send the job to the punch machine & printer, pick up at the mailbox).
 
wsuffa said:
Wimp ;)
Click to expand...
Naw, computer spoiled. I had a Dec micro vax in 1985/86 and access to a Cray XMP that was in the building next door at the same time. It was really hard to even try and use an IBM pc (8086 cpu) at the time due to the poor performance of PCs compared to large mainframes.
 
I went from maybe 6 months on a VIC-20 to my Osborne 1. I remember I had to track down a very roughly made serial card for the VIC so I could go online to CompuServe with my direct connect 300bps Radio Shack Modem 1, which I had been using on a typewriter. You think stuff is expensive now...

The IBM PC was only put on display at Computerland next to the Osborne another 6 months later. The IBM PC cost twice as much and came with no software, not even an OS. By comparison the Osborne had $2000 worth of software in the box and it was "portable."
 
Last edited:
My first was TRS-80 - I. Full blown at 48K, dual floppies and 300 baud modem. Used it as the development platform for Z-80 based printer buffers and printer controllers.

First portable was a TRS-80 100. At least I think that's the model number. I still have it in the basement. Fired it up a year ago it still runs. Has an 8 line display, 64 characters I think and a built in modem, word processor and spreadsheet.
 
RMCN172RG said:
First portable was a TRS-80 100. At least I think that's the model number. I still have it in the basement. Fired it up a year ago it still runs. Has an 8 line display, 64 characters I think and a built in modem, word processor and spreadsheet.
Click to expand...

I still have one of these somewhere, TRS-80 pocket computer:

http://oldcomputers.net/trs80pc1.html
 
I have a mint condition circa 1984 Apple IIe sitting about 5 feet from me at this moment.
Two 5.25" drives. Get this, it has an extended 80 column card for a WHOPPING I could never will use that much memory = 128K total. COLOR high res graphics, super serial card and even a sound/music/voice emulator card. I remember everyone was attempting to slobber all over it in college.

I still love that computer and run it occasionally. It's honest and peaceful. It still makes me smile when I turn it on.

Hmmm. I need to get my act together and building a good stand for it at the navigator seat so I can play with it again.
 
Speaking of which, I first developed an interest in flying as a result of these two flight simulators on the C-64:
http://www.migman.com/ref/1980_civil/IFR/IFR.htm
http://fshistory.simflight.com/fsh/fsii.htm

I called the local flight school at KMTN, and asked how much taking flying lessons would cost. I think their number was $3000, which was a little more than I could afford at the time (I was 15). It took another 20 years for me to get back to it.
-harry
 
First computer at home was the Commodore 64. Bought it in November 1992 (the date is on a label on the bottom of the unit if I find the box it's in in the garage). 64K of RAM. Wow. Beat what Apple and Atari were offering at the time for substantially less money. Started out with the tape drive for mass storage and used the TV for a monitor. Added a dedicated monitor and floppy drive later on. That floppy drive was EXPENSIVE. The controller was in the drive which kept the cost of the base computer down.

C-64 was $595 when first introduced. I bought one of the first 'discounted' units as the store gave me $20 off because the box was already open. :P The power supply quit later on. The 5 Volt regulator chip failed. I bought a new chip and installed it myself and that one worked flawlessly from then on. The original had an inadequate current rating. Easily fixed.

At work I was using an HP 9000 model 500 desktop machine. The first 32 bit microprocessor. While the C-64 was running about a 1 MHz clock, the HP was running at 18 MHz. The C-64 run interpreted Basic - slow. The HP did a run-time compiled Basic. Compiled each line of source code the first time it ran, then ran the machine code for each subsequent use of that line. It was FAST. I had a program for magnetics analysis that I wrote in FORTRAN and HP Basic. The HP 9000 would outrun the VAX 11/750 in the basement, even if (when, typically) I was the only user on the machine at the time. When I left Martin Marietta to go to Tandem Computers HP was bugging me to come to work for them in the Denver area as I had as much or more experience programming and using the HP 9000 than anyone they had. Oh, and it had a mighty 10 MByte hard drive. :P And a 3.5 inch floppy drive. Disks were about $65 a box of 10. The good old days? I don't think so.

My Core(tm) 2 Duo based machine smokes them all. :D
 
Ghery said:
First computer at home was the Commodore 64. Bought it in November 1992 (the date is on a label on the bottom of the unit if I find the box it's in in the garage). ..
Click to expand...

You sure that's not 1982?
 
I started back when 300 MB disk drives were the size of a wash machine and twice as deep.

The Control Data Video traning equated the read head to the disk surface like flying a 747 a 1/2 inch from the ground. The spring driven down force on the head = the force of the air bearing under the head keeping the head from crashing.:rolleyes:

Of cousre 253 of those = the 84 gig drive in my laptop.:yes:

Just think of those electric and cooling bills:hairraise:
 
The Sperry Univac AYK-10 General Purpose General Computer was part of my gear to maintain on the S-3A Viking. The CPU took up approximately four cubic feet among four modules with each holding about ten large circuit cards.

A couple years after I got out, I was given a Commodore 64 to use. I swear the Commodore had to be a hundred times ahead of the Viking's AYK-10.

Actually, I think the Timex Sinclair I had was well ahead of the AYK-10!
 
I started on a PDP-8 sitting in the back corner of school. My first computer is a Timex Sinclair 1000, moved up to the C-64. I still have the Timex & C-64 (and software for both). We used to play the original flight simulator on the Timex in college.
 
fgcason said:
I have a mint condition circa 1984 Apple IIe sitting about 5 feet from me at this moment.
Two 5.25" drives. Get this, it has an extended 80 column card for a WHOPPING I could never will use that much memory = 128K total. COLOR high res graphics, super serial card and even a sound/music/voice emulator card. I remember everyone was attempting to slobber all over it in college.

I still love that computer and run it occasionally. It's honest and peaceful. It still makes me smile when I turn it on.

Hmmm. I need to get my act together and building a good stand for it at the navigator seat so I can play with it again.
Click to expand...
Great! I also have our IIe from 1984. Didn't have the color graphics, just the monochrome monitor. We did have a 300 Baud modum from a guy near by that built them in his garage. What a thrill to check bulletin boards, and even get on the internet through Michigan State University. You could read faster than the text came up.
Ours still works fine - and has that nice musical sound when it boots up. B)
 
My dad had a Z80 with dual humongous floppy drives, running CP/M. I used it for WordStar and Tictactoe. We played a flight simulator on a Commodore PET at school. One slow step at a time! Plus the regulation-issue TRS80, of course. I college I bought a FatMac - wow!! DS floppy! 512k memory. My friends with the original Mac were soooo jealous. I upgraded to a Meg of RAM AND an external floppy and figured I was set for life. Spent some time with VAX/VMS at work, but the super-coolest was having a Compaq Luggable to take to project sites. I preferred the one with the amber display. What was it, all of 5" screen and probably 30lbs?? Of course, we had to carry a wide carriage dot matrix line printer with us to print out on green bar paper:eek:.
 
mikea said:
... so I could go online to CompuServe with my direct connect 300bps Radio Shack Modem 1
Click to expand...

300 baud -- when you could watch individual letters appear on the screen. (And now I'm pi$$ed when the website with sound and video takes a couple extra seconds to load up!)
 
Sam Doolittle said:
300 baud -- when you could watch individual letters appear on the screen. (And now I'm pi$$ed when the website with sound and video takes a couple extra seconds to load up!)
Click to expand...

Two words for you:
Acoustic modem
:yes:
 
Ghery said:
Yeah, and integral to the TI Silent 700 terminal, with its thermal printer. Oh, we're talking some old stuff here.
Click to expand...

I recall one Christmas day when a family friend, a TI employee, came over to join us. He brought a Silent 700 to use to play one of those "YOu are standing outside a cave..." type games.

By the end of the day, the phone had been dialed-in to (whatever computer he had dialed-up, maybe a VAX?) for about 14 hours, and there was a pile of thermal paper about 18" deep on the balcony where the terminal was set up.

Ah, memories.
 
I think I bought my C-64 (my first computer) in 1983 or 84. IIRC, it cost me about $450 with the tape drive. I bought the 5.25" disc drive a year later.

I thought it was hot stuff to write my homework up on a computer. I think the first two programs I bought were a very rudimentary word processor and a game called "The Legend of Farsword" or something like that. That game seemed to take forever to load up off the tapedrive.
 
SCCutler said:
I recall one Christmas day when a family friend, a TI employee, came over to join us. He brought a Silent 700 to use to play one of those "YOu are standing outside a cave..." type games.

By the end of the day, the phone had been dialed-in to (whatever computer he had dialed-up, maybe a VAX?) for about 14 hours, and there was a pile of thermal paper about 18" deep on the balcony where the terminal was set up.

Ah, memories.
Click to expand...

And it was a non-local number for you so you got a $600+ phone bill from Southwesterm Bell. :D

I really did have $600 CompuServe bill once. I had no life even then. I'm ashamed.
 
Frank Browne said:
Ah yes, the good old days...
Click to expand...
That is far too modern. One has not lived until they did their programming on one of these babies!

ibm-029-keypunch.jpg
 
Frank Browne said:
What the heck is it? Looks like the control panel in the Transporter Room.
Click to expand...

It is a keypunch machine. Used for punching cards. A standard way of inputting a program into computers back in the dark ages. I used these in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
 
smigaldi said:
That is far too modern. One has not lived until they did their programming on one of these babies!

ibm-029-keypunch.jpg
Click to expand...

Kewl, I remember those, punch up your cards, put the JCL cards on the bottom, load them in the hopper, and away you go.

Then after a while, you wait your turn by the printer for your header to print, then look at your work.

The reader also had a duplicator, so you could punch a dupe deck for archival purposes. (Or, God forbid, you drop you deck on the floor....Oh, Lordy)

The computer room was called the cave, aptly named. My last year, we actually got CRT terminals. Did the same thing, except you had a small amount of storage to electronically store your cards. You still submitted batch jobs, provided you wrote the JCL correctly.

Ah, the "good" old days...
 
Last edited:
Frank Browne said:
What the heck is it? Looks like the control panel in the Transporter Room.
Click to expand...

Ghery said:
It is a keypunch machine. Used for punching cards. A standard way of inputting a program into computers back in the dark ages. I used these in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Click to expand...

We were movin' on up when we got to use the machine. A lot of times you went home with your cards and a number two pencil and colored in the dots. The 'big kids' had priority access to the punch card machine. Heaven help you if you got a card wrong or even worse the got out of order.
 
They also had an "interpreter" function where they would read the holes and print the values along the top. Useful if cards had been punched by a computer that didn't print the values at the same time.

Shell Oil Company used punched cards for their bills back when I first had a card in the early 1970s. I ran one through the interpreter before sending it back with my payment one month and never got a punched card from them again. I'm sure it had to be coincidence. I know I sent a message - if I can read it, I can change it - but for them to react that quickly? I'm sure I just did it on the last one before they changed systems. But, it was funny at the time. Ah, college students with too much free time in the computer center. :P
 
Ghery said:
It is a keypunch machine.
Click to expand...
Ever see a Key Verifier? You loaded your already punched cards in, and then re-typed the data from the original source document. It was looking for typing errors. Frequently used when the input contained lots of numbers.

There is a job that must have had poor job satisfaction!

-Skip
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top