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Commodore 64 Still Beloved After All These Years
techsoldaten writes "CNN is running a story about the Commodore 64 and how people are still devoted to it after all these years. "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.'"
I've played the games again sometimes with Vice. But its the music that I still love. Reyn Ouwehand (who rocks) just released this video of him jammin out to Green Beret. I guess that was an arcade game too though. Still, some of the remixes are pretty good.
I tried to make one a few years back. Not quite good enough though.
I always wished that someone would do a good remake of the game Below the Root.
The C64 was my third computer. I loved that thing. I was 9 when I got a CPM/Pet and was programming it within 6 months. Later I moved on to the venerable Vic-20. Then I got the PC that changed my life - the C64. The article got it right - no PC will ever elicit the same emotions that a C64 did for the owners of them of the time.
I got through 2 C64s, and both of them were plagued with reliability problems - in terms of build quality, my Acorn Electron was far superior. I first had the traditional brown one, then the Amiga-style model they released when my first one broke. Both models had an annoying tendency to blow an internal fuse, and I remember it was a funny glass one I had trouble finding in shops, and both broke down beyond the scope of simple repairs after a couple of years. Don't even get me started on the power packs.
So if my experience is anything to go by, you'ld have to be a real enthusiast and pretty handy with a soldering gun to have one still working after all this time.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I'm still holding on to my original VIC-20, the early production model with the 9VAC power supply.
Then again, I may have about 30 C64s in my collection, in various states of operation.
I've still got mine, but I don't have a TV that's compatible with the RF output... So I goof around with the CCS64 emulator instead, play all the great games from my childhood, and try to remember what all those addresses were I used to POKE and PEEK from to make sprites and hideous sounds from the SID.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
"I adore my 64, my Commodore 64."
I spent many an afternoon after school competing at C64 games with my friends, most notably the Epyx 'games' series, and Skate or Die.
Years later, I bought a C64, a 1541 and a bunch of those games so I could play them again as an adult.
"Memories... light the corners of my mind..." sniffle
...was a Tandy Color Computer 2, later replaced with a Color Computer 3. Last I checked, it still had a following. I found that kind of cool. If mine still worked, I'd have interacted with them. As it is, I had a moment of mourning for the little guy and moved on.
But I don't consider either the Coco or the Comodore 64 still having a following newsworthy.They're both nice enough computers, sure, but communities dying slower than someone outside them expects has always been the rule, not the exception. A certain percentage of followers of old ideas don't trade them in for new ones, they just eventually die off.
Since when does Nostalgia equate to news and stuff that matters? If I write a piece on the PCjr (my first PC), filled with nostalgia and how wonderful a machine it was, will it get a link here? After all, it was the first PC to break 640k DOS limit.
Or how about TI 99? (my first portable)
Or Apple II? (first school computer)
Or TRS-80? (first machine I programmed in Assembly on)
Nostalgia is of limited interest, almost by definition.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The C64 has what many console lovers would dream of:
:-/
It is an open platform. You can write your own games, and give them away to your friends. Remember the listings in C64 magazines? You can't do that with consoles like the Playstation, which is HARDWIRED so only "authorized" games can be booted on it. Nice move, really
When I was 8 my first computer was an Atari 800XL. I grew up on that computer and I really loved computers...until I entered the corporate IT environment. Now I hate computers and the last thing I want to do is go home and use one if I don't have to. To me they are a tool, not a toy. I use them to get work done, do research and lookup information. Yes, I look at the occasional YouTube video or whatnot, but my "love of computers" is certainly no longer strong.
Neither did the tape drive nor the disk drive. It was junk then, and nostalgia doesn't correct that in my case.
He still loves his C64 years after being liberated from the Taliban.
Sadly, my father still uses his original C64 to do his business books for tax time once a year....
:)
One of these years I have to set him up with an emulator rather than watch him suffer, swapping disks back and forth.
The computer that will never die....
The Commodore was a dependable old faithful friend. Your first true love. It had your kids. It supported you through tough times. But then came the time when you needed to upgrade to a trophy wife/super gaming rig. It saw it coming. You wanted ultra raw performance, and it just couldn't deliver it anymore. Still it thinks about you in quiet dignity, though reminiscing about love lost.
I got a catholic block.
sys 64738
I had several nerd parties where we hooked up the C=64 to the TV and fired up SIDPlayer. There were a lot of cool game tracks and techno mixes, but we really loved the pop songs with lyrics that we would sing along with (badly). "I bless the ray--yains down in Af--ri--ca . . . " "The Band" would play in the corner of the screen while graphical depiction of the music scrolled by. Good times.
Music Construction Set on C=64 got me interested in writing music of my own (also badly).
I am not a crackpot.
Pseudo Code:
10 Randomize timer
20 x=Random Number
20 Poke x
30 Print x
40 Goto 20
You can't do this on today's machines or your hard drive may fail and your OS not boot up. With a C64, its the equivalent of giving your computer drugs and watching it trip. Once I had the screen in 4 sections with some scrolling up and some scrolling down.
God spoke to me.
I wonder what kind of computer I could get my son to let him enjoy exploring computing in the same way today - perhaps an XO
I remember being thrilled to get my Zx81 kit one Christmas - the whole thing was an adventure.
Nullius in verba
I wish I still had my C-64 and VIC-20.
But I have at least a few pieces of Commodore-related history: I still have the original copies of all the magazine articles I wrote for "Ahoy!", "Compute!" and "Compute!'s Gazette".
I was the author of "64+", "Disk Package", and a few other gems back during the late-80s heyday of Commodore.
Some fond memories indeed.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Welcome back our former computer overlords!
> For millions of kids who grew up in the 1980s, that first computer was the Commodore 64.
The Commodore 64 is to your first love what the Coleco Adam was to your first love, as expressed by a priest.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Granted. Although I started on the Atari 800XL, not the Commodore (they were too expensive when I was growing up back in Chile), I'm sure the feeling is the same...
What I consider more relevant about those days is that as kids we had to be "creators" instead of "users" as it happens today. The most fascinating idea about the computer was that you could "tell it" what to do, and it would just do it. The potential was endless, but you HAD to learn some form of programming language. The more control you wanted to have, the lower in the stack you had to go. I can't emphasize enough how "mind shaping" was learning assembly language on the 6502 (with only 1 accumulator and 2 registers)...
It is hard to find the same in today's environment. You don't see a lot of 12-year-olds programming the computer any more. We have created a whole generation of "users" and I don't see an easy way to change that...
First car, what's that? I certainly loved my first computer however!
I had a c64 as my first computer - with the carts it took. I still remember playing various Carmen Sandiago games on it.
Then I got an Amiga 1000; this is the computer that changed my life. 16-bit sound, great graphics, and an OS that loaded from 2 floppies (DS/DD) into 512k of RAM. If you take off the cover, you can see in the mold where all the people that went into building the 1000 had their signatures etched on the underside. All those cinemaware games: defender of the crown, SDI, Rocket Ranger, Lords of the Rising Sun, the 3 stooges. Those were games. Brilliant games. It has always seemed to me that something was lost between now and then. All the games today feel the same, where those older titles each were unique unto themselves.
I also connected to my first BBS on that 1000 with its 1200-baud modem. I still remember being to tell through the speaker what speed I would end up getting when the connection finished. The local store that sold amiga's was the Slipped Disk. Being an 8-yr old kid going through their cases of Public Domain software for hours on end. They also had auctions - real-live auctions every few months where the store would be packed with people bidding on all sorts of peripherals. Joysticks, steering wheels, light guns, various versions of Deluxe Paint and the oh-so-cool Video Toaster.
I can't help but think my reflections on the Amiga are nostalgia because I'm getting older, while a part of me wants to believe that things were really better back then, and that we lost something along the way...
Website Hosting
My earliest experience with a computer was with the Atari 2600, but the first experience with a real computer that had a keyboard was with the C64 and Apple ][ systems they had in Elementary school. The first thing we did with them was play around with Logo, telling that turtle how to move around the screen and so forth. We delighted in making geometric patterns with simple loop algorithms and creating subroutines that defined how to create a square or other shape.
Sadly, when I graduated high school in 1993, the computer lab that they were teaching Pascal on was still equipped with Apple ][e systems, with dual 5.25" floppy disks, no hard drive, and 64K of RAM. The library had the school's only Mac, a Mac II+ that ran some stupid pre-internet Hypercard encyclopedia or catalog or something.
I wish I had a C64, just to fire up and play with every now and then. The best thing about them was how simple they were, and therefore easy to understand. I got a good grasp of fundamental concepts because the system was so uncomplicated and had so few layers of technologies between me and the hardware. The worst was how slow they were, particularly accessing data on the floppy drive.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Hmm, well, at one time I had three different working ones (I went through 5 total.) After beginning to understand how they liked to blow themselves up, I bought them at yard sales for parts.
Oh, and I had enough pirated software for it that I could have personally filled the Arnold Archive myself.
The original one got me through college. I bought one from another student and all his gear for 50 bucks. Sweet deal. It included one of the white case ones and an original, two floppy drives, ram expansion cart, modem, and a boatload of software (albeit quite a bit of it I already had.) Was fun finding the new stuff.
Within a year after college, unfortunately I became permanently disabled. With the initial settlement, I bought a 486sx-25 (don't laugh.. stop it. I said STOP IT!), and within 6 months, like a proverbial hyena, I sold all my c64 stuff for 50 bucks to a friend. (Quit laughing!) Damn, I regret selling it.
-Kinsey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfCdNrRNS4g
... And it's almost done loading Flight Sim!
The first I've ever coded on was one like this (I was 12-13, but it actually was around '90-'91), the first I owned was a C64C, and then a C64G, which was the one I really liked, and I still have it. It's like an old friend that never pisses you off and when you sit down with him with a beer you can chat hours long :D
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Had never heard of him. Kind of puts Tay Zonday to shame.
I wish people like Reyn were the ones getting famous from their videos.
The C64 was my computer for about 5 years as a kid, from 1983 to 1988. I loved that machine, but went through my fair share of 1541 drive realignments.
:)
I just recently picked up a GP2X F200 (the linux homebrew console from Gamepark Holdings in South Korea), my first ever handheld console at the age of 33. I was ecstatic at the 64 emulation on the device.. it was perfect! I'd played VICE and Frodo on my PC before, but paying games like M.U.L.E., Jumpman and Lode Runner again on a small handheld has made my year. The only problem is that the 1541 drive needs to be emulated as well, so load times can be similar to the original game.
(Oh it also does NES, SNES, SegaCD, Amiga, GBA, NeoGeo, etc etc etc... for you people who are into that kind of thing.)
At the very least, if you owned a C64, go hunt down the VICE emulator. Lots of memories will flood back.
I felt this comment was very funny:
It was widely considered clunky, its BASIC outdated and graphics weak in comparison to the Apple II and Atari 800, according to McCracken
So the VP and editor of "PC World" still had to get a few licks in. I just have to laugh. Personally I always thought the Apple II crowd was secretly jealous of the better games, and FAR better sound on a C64. They felt they paid a lot of money for their machines, but didn't get as good a quality out of it. (hey, I gotta get my licks in as well)
AccountKiller
I loved that game. I didn't have the disk drive until a few years after getting the C64, I remember putting tapes in and just going outside to do something else while something loaded.
In the late 90's (97 to 99ish) I volunteered as computer tech for a local daycare for disadvantaged families when I was able to fit it around high school and sports.
Shortly before I began helping them they had recieved a donation of almost 50 assorted old computer systems with various pieces of software and had put them in the basement. I started working my way through fixing and trying to get as many of them working as possible. Some were going to be given to families for their own use. Nothing was faster then a 486 (there were 3 or 4 of these working) but there were about 6 C64s. I didn't know much about them and honestly still don't.
I got 4 of them working in a little computer area upstairs for the kids to play around on. There were some games for them to play but the greatest part was the three little ones who were outsiders finding something they excelled at. By the time I left the girl had the two boys working for her coding "stuff" for the 64s. I never did manage to find out what they were coding; I went off to college before they were finished and when I came home she had stopped coming to that daycare but had been given a C64 for her home.
-Lifyre
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
I'm not a big fan of blatant pimping, but this is pretty relevant, so I hope I don't get flamed too drastically...
A book (written by Andrew Fisher - who is/was a c64 games journalist back in the day) is about to be printed.
"The Commodore 64 Book 1982-199x" covers about 250 of the best games in a snazzy (we think) format, and is the companion to the earlier "The ZX Spectrum Book 1982-199x"...
If anyone wants to pre-order a copy (they should be back from the printers in late January) then http://www.c64goldenyears.com/ is the place to go.
Thanks
Andrew
The ZX Spectrum Book 1982-199x
Same here. When I went to career councilors, all of them said I should be in computers - this is after tens years in the biz and hating it. I let them know how disappointed I was in their "services".
Computers were great as a hobby, but doing it as a job is a completely different experience. I think that's the BS we're sold when we're kids that there's this one career that'll make us happy,do what you love or passionate about and the money will follow and other such non sense. Of course, there's a minority folks out there who just love law, medicine, business, and other high paying careers that love to spout this crap. But the rest of us get into the work force and become horribly disillusioned. And then we look wistfully upon the blue collar guy who just works his 40hrs, while we're working our 60+ and we have to wonder was it really worth it? Going to school getting our balls busted and for what? 60+ hours a week and to have our jobs sent oversees somewhere. Then it's to the career councilors. Don't get me wrong, a friend went to one and found her passion. She left law and became a school teacher. She teachers the IP classes and loves it even though she's making a third of what she was making as a real estate lawyer.
I guess some folks are lucking and have a passion that can actually make them a living. I know many folks who are artists and they have to do crap corporate work to pay the bills. Many are in IT, as a matter of fact.
OK, enough of my rant. I have to get back to my shit work.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
One thing that many people do not understand these days is why those old systems are still remembered so fondly. People scratch their heads and just don't understand it. As one of the people who got started on computers with machines like the TRS-80 model 1, Commodore PET(4016 and 4032), I like to think I have a bit of insight about what it was about those early days that makes many look back fondly on the games of the era.
If you look back, you see a lot of text based games, or ugly graphics by the standards of today, so it's no wonder that people do not understand. One thing that was true of most of the games back then, they all were NEW, and many really pushed the abilities of the computers of the time. Story, and fun were key, and while many were pretty bad, there was no shortage of good ideas that were different.
The differences are really what stand out in the minds of us "old timers". Think about it, you had a grand total of 16 colors that could be displayed at one time on a C-64, and yet, good games could be written that were not only fun, but had a story that stuck with us. Even into the early days of the PC, there were some really great games in those early days. The original Kings Quest with those really ugly 16 color graphics is an example of that same innovative spirit that makes those early days seem so wonderful. It wasn't the C-64 that was so great, it was the spirit of the game developers that made things seem to amazing.
Trying to say it was the computer just doesn't fit, because the old Apple 2 series had it, in the same way the Amiga had it. It was a love for experimentation and creation, and it seems that these things that made those old games so amazing is all but dead. How much innovation is out there in the game industry these days? New features or abilities added to older games with new graphics will NEVER seem as amazing as the "old days".
I started playing around with computers in 1976, my friend's dad was a comp-sci prof at UNLV and he would let us play with the mainframe in a limited account over teletype. Then my dad got a TRS-80 in 1978, that's when I started to program. Next, I got a TI-99/4A, which was a piece of crap but it was mine. Finally, I got a C64, and I was in heaven. So much memory, such good documentation, such a great scene including pirate bulletin boards and crazy-ass demos. I loved that computer.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The article makes a statement that the C64 was behind Apple II in graphics.
I don't agree with that one (unless you're considering text mode and number of columns). The graphics on most Apple II games were awful. If they weren't using monochrome, you lost resolution (needed two screen pixels to represent color...IIRC). I can't recall any game that wasn't far better on the C64.Have nothing respect for all the 8bit machines and have a nice collection of Apple II, C64, Vic, Tandy, Atari and yes have a Commodore plus4.
Now excuse me, I need to check to see if my 1541 drive has finally loaded Skate or Die...what's that knocking sound?
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
I was an Apple kid myself, but recently I was touring a company that makes high end guitars that's run by a guy who's got a hackerly technical bent, and they've got CNC machines that they rigged up back in the early '80s with C64s that are still running on those same C64s.
That was the most awesome testament I've seen to what computing used to be, I'm not sure I'd even trust a modern microcontroller to run reliably for 25 years in an industrial environment.
Actually, in a great feat of irony, I was listening to some Jeroen Tel right as I saw this story pop up. The High-Voltage SID Collection has a huge amount of C64 tunes available for download -- and quickly too since the files are around 5 to 50KB for a song.
Sidplay 2 does a great job playing them and there's a plugin for XMMS.
-Josh
Not only were C64s hallowed game machines, but today with an Ethernet cartridge and Contiki, they can even become web servers. It's truly amazing what we can still do with the boxen of old.
Just be careful not to slashdot that site; it doesn't have nearly the RAM or CPU power to hold all of us at once!
98% of America's teens drink alcohol, smoke, and have sex. Put this in your sig if you like bagels.
When I got my C64, it came with a 300 page manual with detailed documentation on e.g. how to program the built-in sound and graphic chips. Which values you had to write to which registers and so on. I learned how to program assembler by reading this thing, at age 11.
Of course there was also tons of undocumented stuff that you could only learn by doing. Some years ago I found out (using an emulator) that I still remembered carefully crafted tables of timing values to trick the VIC into showing nice animated color bars without flickering.
When I bought my first Intel PC, there was a piece of paper which basically mentioned how to turn the thing on. Took me years to figure out how to do file i/o and draw some pixels in VGA mode.
It didn't take long for a C= vs. Speccy war to spawn on this thread.
unfortunately, the friends that had them waited up to 45 minutes in some cases to let the disk games load in. So we ultimately gave up waiting and did something else (never got to see a C64 game being played). But I had an Atari 800XL, only took a few minutes to play those disk based games.
I love how you could use Atari 2600 joysticks on C64 for two player games. My former next door neighbor and I used to play many games. We played a lot during the summer when schools were on breaks.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I think its pretty easy to see why it was so popular. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5_ZiNXsA5c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhNJ0ifIZJo&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPHCLPlWIA0&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY2gK1MPgh8&feature=related
Yeah, I had one of those friends, who was such a control freak of his C64, that I basically rode my bike to his house just to watch him play. I think one of the reasons I am still involved in computers is because I'd have to come home to my ailing TI-99 and make it do something new and interesting. Computer graphics were a mystery to my friend, but I was playing with sprites on my machine, and although it wasn't as cool as his store-bought stuff (I made an asteroids-type game... that, er... crashed reliably about 30 seconds in), it was mine. A word to the wise: it's no fun playing your own dungeon-crawlers. You already know how to win.
But the C64 undoubtedly had some cool games. Sid Meier's Pirates! was and still is one of the best (Xbox's version was a very good remake, IMHO), and Prince of Persia was just mindblowingly awesome. Guillotines! I think that was the first game that actually make me tremble with anxiety. Thankfully, my cousin owned one of these machines, and was so fed up with trying to use it (he could never reliably punch in the LOAD commands) that I was able to log some time on one.
Anyone interested in the story of Commodore's early days in the computer industry should watch the recent 90-minute lecture by Chuck Peddle (who's also known for the MOS 6502 and the Kim-1). The video links and an explanation of the context are at in my blog.
Anyone else parse that as "Giant Vagina Sisters"?
http://www.whuddafug.com
I'm a doctor working in Spain on my way to become a neurologist. On top of the 40-hr week are 4 18-hr shifts and 2 round-the-clock-weekend shifts each month (during which I have literally no time to sleep). That makes an average of 70 hrs a week dealing with sick people and their families, which care about nothing else than getting out of the hospital or being told to stay as soon as they arrive. I earn less than 2000 euro a month, which I think doesn't add up to my years of study and qualifications (I'm 30 y/o now and still studying, speak 4 languages, supervised clinical trials, administered my University's students' sub-network while in med school, even converted 1/3 of it to Red Hat).
/. I see it can be just the same stuff, except perhaps I could sleep at night shifts.
Socialization has made private practice here very scarce. Just for the ones wealthy enough to feel it makes sense to pay double not to be treated like cattle in a crowded hospital. I'm sure a public hospital job awaits me here, which has a low earnings ceiling.
Sometimes I wish I had followed a geeky career, but by reading
It might be because it's CNN, and therefore about the history of the C64 in the US, but the article fails to mention the demoscene, which for the most part came from the European C64 user groups, and from there spread to other platforms. A lot didn't leave, though, and are still creating impressive productions.
Prior to owning the Bommodore, I had owned a TRS80, then a Compucolor II, and then an Apple ][+
Wow. Private medical practice in Spain must be REALLY lousy if it can't compete against the government.
>Yep; and it booted up instantly too.
We all loved those great jokes about what you could do while you waited for your C64 to boot. But now, with the modern Windows computer, the old C64 just seems normal.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
I learned to program in BASIC, Hex edited my game, and modified the Speech simulator in Poker. Was introduced to Temple of Apshai and of course the greatest games of my youth Wasteland, Moebius, Lode Runner, Wizard, and Impossible Mission. C-64 was my first PC...and I still have it in its orignal Box in my library, with its 1541 Drive...of course it no longer works(to my great chagrin) though my wife's Atari 2600 is still rocking out.
I was always more of a ZX Spectrum geek than a Commodore geek
but the sound was definitely awesome, even now
but I did manage to pickup an old Commodore 128D from a friend of mine in college for a fiver
I'm not sure but I think this model might have been quite expensive originally (metal box version I think $500)
inbuilt 5 1/4 disk drive, originally used on an oil rig (large square cream box)
the keyboard is separate from the main unit (connected with a short but hefty 30core or something wire)
state of the art IEEE1384 interface (whatever the hell that is)
there was also a separate double disk unit which connected to the interface which had 2 x 5 1/4 drives in
and weighed an absolute frickin ton
(non of your fancy pants blu-ray here me-lado)
I remember a relation of mine managed to code a game for it, back in the day, which somehow managed to get around the colour limitation within sprites on the graphics chip, by using a strange quirk in the chip he'd discovered
unfortunately it never got to market before the next generation of devices came along
Damn right!
:-)
Someone even produced an excellent Commodore 64 fanboy video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CaXVdwWuU-A
Nothing like that for the Spectrum or Atari.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Macintosh Classic. Dark Castle was my first addiction I think.
My how things have evolved.
Bought the ticket, taking the ride.
I believe it first saw the light of day in Altair BASIC (later Microsoft BASIC). Way back in the day when Bill Gates actually wrote code, and you got Altair BASIC on a paper teletype tape.
I have no proof, but it seems logical.
Altair BASIC (1975) predates the Commie and even Apple I. Prior to that, Basic ran only on shared minicomputers. PEEK and POKE would have been a Real Bad Idea, as it would have the potential to crash the entire system, which would make the other users unhappy.
Altair Basic, as the first BASIC written for a single-user microprocessor system, logically would have been the first one to contain the PEEK and POKE commands.
And, yes, I used the paper-tape version, and I recall that it had PEEK and POKE. The work I was doing was in factory automation, and we couldn't have done what we were doing (controlling odd and unique devices) without PEEK and POKE. I don't think there was any linkage to assembly language code from within BASIC at the time. We did all our device control in BASIC with PEEKs and POKEs.
Anyone know of a previous use of the terms?
Totally out of context, but I am sure seriously amusing to slashdotters, while refreshing my memory, I came across the Open Letter to Hobbyists on Wikipedia. In it, Gates chides computer hobbyists for stealing copies of Altair Basic. My favorite quote: "Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
Murray still has one in his office... until it was replaced with a PC by the office IT girl.
Only 20 years and these things already need to be replaced.
At best they worked and were horribly slow. At worst they were horribly unreliable, tempramental and... horrifically slow.
Although it was supposedly twice the speed of the C64's deck (default 300 baud), for some reason there were never any turbo loader games that worked with the standard Atari deck. Maybe it wasn't possible with the way the tape subsystem was designed. At any rate, it was slooooow.
The speed may have been acceptable when it was designed, memory was small- and consequently, so were games. It wasn't so much fun when games were being written to fill the memory of the larger models... 48K games could easily take 15 to 20 minutes to load. The multiload cassette version of "Ace of Aces" took around 25-30 minutes to get airborne. (Probably written with a disc drive in mind, as the US market would have been almost exlusively disc-based by that stage. Actually, a lot of UK Atari owners had disc drives too, but the retail channels were still based around cassette software, so I had to put up with the stuff even though I had a disc drive!)
I even remember the difference in sound between a "healthy" load and a failed load, and while it doesn't really annoy me the way it used to (quite simply because I know I'll never *need* to rely on a tape deck to load data again), it's something I've no interest in returning to.
Really, if you're not well into your twenties, you probably won't realise how clunky and annoying loading from cassette was. And yet, it's only when I stop and think about it that way, in a modern context, that it strikes *me* just how archaic it seems. The Atari floppies would seem slow and low-capacity to a child growing up these days, but at least they'd almost always work first time (or did back then) and games loaded in a time comparable to modern ones. Once they'd finished laughing at the obvious limitations and datedness, they'd still be able to relate to it.
Loading from cassette, though? It would seem like something from the stone age to them.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
My main box was the TI-99/4A. We stayed TI-99 people *way* longer than was reasonable (until I could afford junker DOS PCs from my own money some time around '93.) My father was kicking out desktop publishing (of a sort) and doing finances on the old beast until '95 or so.
Fascinating community. I'd suggest that the Atari and TI communities were even more like the Open Source world. Commodores and Apple ][s were being made, and commercial software for them was developed through the early 1990s. Lots of Apple ][ people kept using Appleworks and Oregon Trail and Print Shop (and the culture of copying those programs, along with the escalation copy-protection and cracks lingers today). The TI was abandoned much earlier (1983), and the commercial world dried up soon thereafter. But, there were thousands of shareware programs still being written, distributed through floppies and user groups. Very few people ever expected to make a penny writing TI software, but they wrote a lot anyway.
oldschool
I remember a friend of ours had a 64 and we would go over to take turns playing beach head. we would always quote the "I need a medic". there was also this game where you had to climb a mountain the fastest. not sure why we enjoyed that one.
Can I bum a sig?
So where is this "Sweden", I never heard of that state?
I must be brief. The Taleban spies know about the Commodore.
Junis.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
The C64 is the one computer that I ever felt I was capable of completely understanding and came closer to doing so than with any other machine.
I remember writing random data to the character space, and then typing blind to enter hex in the right places to get readable 0-9A-F characters. I remember being surprised to find that there was 16K of memory space in the disk drive.
With enough time, you could learn every corner of the C64 and control the whole thing to do whatever you wanted. And so many people did.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Ahh. I remember my commodore 64 quite fondly. I saved my money and bought myself a TI99/4A. I got a C64 for Christmas after that. I loved that thing! Peeking and Poking memory, reading and rereading the programmers manual I bought at the mall. Sitting in class writing programs to try out when I got home. I didn't have a storage device. I would type in programs, run them, and turn it off. If you wanted to run your program again, you just type it in again. Then I got a tape drive and thought I was in heaven! I could save my work and thus write more complex programs.
Does any one else remember Compute's! Gazette? I think that was the name of it. It had program listings in there for games and things. I use to type those bastards in too. They were pages and pages long and took quite a while to enter. Debugging my typos was a great way to learn code too.
Now we all have kids and jobs and no time to play with the fun stuff. On top of that, every person who is an aquaintance of an aquaintance thinks that your are their personal tech support every time they screw up their computer becuase they visit too many p0rn sites.
I miss the good old days when people who had computers were geeks and gamers and either knew what they were doing or quickly figured it out with a little help. Today, every drooling idiot has a computer and thinks that you are supposed to help their stupid ass's if you are an IT professional.
A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding...
McCracken must have been ON crack, because that would be the exact polar opposite of reality. C64 screenshots were the ones shown on game boxes for years. Why? They were the best ones. Always. There was a BRIEF period when the Atari ST was the standard, and of course our friend the Amiga, but the Apple II? The Atari 800? I think not. Don't take my word for it. Compare for yourself: Ultima III screenshots
I'm sure other, better examples, could be found, but I'm supposed to be working and stuff.
For what its worth, I miss my souped-up Commodore 128. I had JiffyDOS installed, a 1571 5 1/4 drive, and the rare 3 1/2 1581, which, with JiffyDOS, was a relative speed-demon. I took my SSI Goldbox games, which had no copy protection, and consolidated them onto 1-2 3 1/2 disks as opposed to 6-8 sides of a 5 1/4 disk. Good times.
You see me now, a veteran,
Of the old computer wars.
I've been waiting on this load so long,
But my sound chip's better than yours.
And my raster tricks are nifty,
But I sure could use more RAM
The demoscene will last forever...
I've got so much more that there's left to play!
LOL
I am using C-64 songs (Delta at the moment) as ringtones, thanks to Sidplay.
You can see it on my own geek t-shirts list :-)
The author of the article is kidding, right? I mean, Apple's graphics were great circa 1977, but were really weak by the time the Commodore 64 came around. The Atari 8-bit's had the best graphics of the era, prior to 1982, but the Commodore 64 outclassed that machine in almost every respect (except for being able to display multiple shades of colors)... The Commodore 64 was originally designed to be a NEO-GEO-like arcade machine console, in which arcade vendors could effortlessly swap arcade games... When that didn't pan out, they decided to make it into a home computer instead...
The author did get the fact that Commodore's Basic was garbage... It was basically the same basic that was in the old PET computers, and had absolutley ZERO support for its superior graphics and sound capabilities. It was not user friendly, and discouraged programming in the younger generation... It was a lot easier to type LOAD "SUPERFUNGAME", 8, 1 than the cryptic peeks and pokes (in decimal no less) to do anything on that machine. It became primarily a game machine by default, and led the way for the resurgence of the gaming consoles. The idea of a computer being a tool to create died with the C64. Instead, the C64 encouraged users to be passive... a legacy that still lives with us today...
Computer History Museum has an event next Monday "Impact of the Commodore 64: A 25th Anniversary Celebration". Here is the link: http://www.computerhistory.org/events/index.php?id=1193702785 This event is to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the C64. Speakers will include Adam Chowaniec, Chairman of the Board, Liquid Computing, William C. Lowe, Chief Executive Officer and President, NEPS, Jack Tramiel, Founder and CEO, Commodore International, Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder, Apple Computer, and Moderator, John Markoff, New York Times Journalist
...even though they were one year off, this is still a retro-nerd-heaven-pop-video!
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
If you have kids and want them to understand how computers work, in hardware and software, get them a C64. The C64 is a fully documented system, comes with a basic operating system that can't be broken, and most of its functions can be tasted by POKEing from BASIC, but require assembly language to be really interesting. It's like a simple but versatile microcontroller with a 40x25 screen and a keyboard. Before the C64, the learning curve was much steeper, and after the C64, computers became too complicated and stopped being instant-on and unbreakable. It really is the perfect learning machine, and fun too.
Mine was a TRS-80 Model 1 Level 1 with 4K memory. It got expanded to Level II 16K within a month.
I did the lowercase modification on the motherboard by myself.
About 4 months later I picked up the expansion interface, two disk drives and a voice synthesizer. It was a fully optioned out system by that point. I can remember the speed increase that disk gave you over tape!
And when I noticed dropouts on some of the characters on the screen I knew the machine well enough that I could trace it down to the specific memory chip that had gone bad. Went to Radio Shack, got the replacement chip for a few dollars. Interestingly enough Tandy had socketed all the memory so it was easy to do things like this.
I loved that machine and my DC-1 modem.
those were the days
next n
i had both the apple and c64 (6 drives, 2 tape players, 3 printers...daisy chaining ruled...)... by far my fav of that time was the c64...i started by prg'ing young and wont ever forget my fist - c64 :-)
Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy
http://tpgblog.com/
I didn't even have a tape drive. I had to spend all day typing in those games from computer magazines back then. Then they went to hex and it was painful when you mistyped any characters.
My Very first box! I also had my first taste of call-back!!! I am talking about callback on the telephone. I experienced this when attempting to swipe some free time on Compuserve. After connecting and going through some files and reading a bit. I received call back from their modems, and then from them. They said I owed them some $400 dollars for connection charges. Ahhh, go figure with a 9600 Baud Rate modem. That thing was blazing; so was that floppy compared to tapes. LOL I loved this thing. Was on it before and after school punching away at the program books I bought. Some of the projects were like blooming flowers, that took two to four days to type. This was when I was a one-fingerer. Time was of no essence though, the technology had me stunned. I got this in 1984 and finally let go in 1988. The C64 served me more than well, during the time I owned it. I loved it myself.
This site is like CRACK; hooked on the first use!!!
Is what I had, my cousins had the 64 which was so much cooler than mine.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
Easily the best computer ever...still got my Brown C=64 & C=64c, complete with games, Compunet Modem & a handful of games!
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
I don't think "80s" is specific enough - a lot changed through the 80s.
:) ) was always the computer that fit me best, until I went to college and got a Mac SE in 1987.
For me:
In 1981, the Osborne 1 - 132 columns of text! Perfect for 300 bps BBSes and Infocom games as long as you didn't mind getting LASIK 20 years later
1982 - Timex Sinclair TS1000 - Sucked, returned it after two days and got a...
1982 - Vic-20 - Hey, it had some games. Lasted until
1984 - Apple ][+ - First *real* computer - shout out to the Apple-Cat II and CatFur users! GraFORTH and UCSD Pascal rocked! Call-151!
I toyed with TRS-80s in the late 70s and C-64s in the early 80s at school of course, but the Apple ][+ (and a Laser 128
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
A friend of mine had a C64, God I loved it and wanted one for myself but my parents wouldn't bite. I can remember my Dad telling me that computers were a fad. That kills me now when I think of it, lol. My first was a Timex Sinclair 1000, not the best of experiences. Thank God for my iMac, we've come along way baby!
"I reject your reality and substitue my own." ~ Adam Savage, Mythbuster extraordinaire.
I've heard as much from other professions both here and overseas.
The truth of the matter is, the grass always looks greener, but frequently isn't.
That's why it's so important to do what you love. From an IT career standpoint, it does come with high risk (risk of layoffs, risk of insta-obsolesence, risk of stereotyping, getting-old-no-one-wants-to-hire-you, and a few others) but I don't believe in any way we are alone.
I feel fortunate to not work out in the hot sun, exposed to dangerous chemicals, diseases (in your case), some sort of awful mine, etc. Life could be, and for so many other is, so much worse.
For the fondness of those 8 bit machines from the past ( regardless of what brand ) --- they worked. And STILL do...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've thought of doing it myself. There's three ways I'm thinking of approaching it:
1. As-is clone of the game. Same graphics, sound, gameplay, everything, coded and compiled to run on today's computers.
2. Same gameplay, but with new graphics and sound.
3. New graphics and sound, and additional content (side quests, more interactivity, etc). Anything new would be consistent with the book trilogy it's based on. Very good books, by the way. The author is Zilpha Keatley Snyder.
Or, come to think of it, how about additional content but with the original graphics?
I'm sure I'd have to get Mrs. Snyder's approval (for option 3 at least). And it would be great if I could contact the original programmer, Dale Disharoon.
I tried to purchase a copy of the the C64 game on Ebay, but someone snatched it up 30 seconds before the auction ended.
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. --Hofstadter's Law
I used to love the text-based games, like "Zork" and "Leather Goddesses of Phobos." Add to that a couple of excellent turn-based games that, to this day, fit on my list of the best games ever created. For Role Playing, there was "Pool of Radiance" and it was amazing at the time. However, my favorite was the original "Questron." I spent days playing that. Not to be forgotten were some of the turn-based wargames, like the ones put out by SSI. I liked the "Wargame Construction Set" a lot.
Something missing in many games these days is that a well-designed, turn-based game is a lot of fun. It is also something you can play without feeling pressed for time. I like stuff based in real time, but there is also something to be said for the turn-based stuff. It just doesn't work well when people want to play over the internet.
Oh, and "Forbidden Forest!" You kill the monsters with your arrows, then your little stick figure archer dude dances while funky music plays!
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
I remember the slow 1541 disk drive, but folks, don't forget -- Epyx's FastLoad cartridge solved 90% of these problems. And for the remaining 10%, they had their own fast-loading software.
And if you got your software cracked, which was probably like 99% of the people out there, they all came with the cracking crew's fast loader...
Anybody remember SYS64738? Gotta love it.
But are you half a million to a million in debt on top of it? You're doing good in comparison to a lot of American doctors who come out of school with massive debt, then have to go through the same internship/residency BS for 5-10 years. After that, they've accumulated a huge amount of interest on that debt, have a family to support and are 35-40 years old.
So what do they do? Focus exclusively on making cash. It's the only sensible thing to do. And people wonder why so many doctors treat them poorly - after you've been treated like a piece of meat for decades, you'd have to be insane to not "return the favor". Unfortunately, the patients aren't the ones who were abusing them in the first place.
As always, count your blessings. It could be worse. You could even be a GP or pediatrician in the US, where you'll be retiring just as you finish paying off your debt! Those "high" salaries are only real in US private practice for the elite - surgeons, folks who run labs and such. It's the banks that are really making the money.
My first one was also a Tandy CoCo2 with 64K RAM and a tape drive (no diskette). Later on in the mid to late 90s I got back into it and even bought a 512K CoCo3, which is the only one I have now. I used to take part in the mailing lists and everything on a semi-regular basis.
It's fun to take out now and again and feel the keyboard layout, look at the flashy cursor and green screen... or even dig out some of the program cassettes or ROM packs with some old sesame street games i played as a kid (or Konami's Pooyan... or some Imagic games like Demon Attack or Dragonfire).
I don't feel like coding on it though. I seem to recall hearing somewhere once that a CoCo controlled the fountain/light show at some Vegas casino. It's probably been updated though. I also once spotted a CoCo in an episode of Mr. Wizard's World (I think).
It isn't, but there's universal health care for anyone, no questions asked. Anyone can go to any hospital and receive a full treatment for free, regardless of his legal/illegal status or if the person pays for SS.
The people that can afford private practice usually pay taxes and SS, so they're paying for something they won't use. They will go see a private doctor to be well treated and to have a nice conversation. The overwhelmed social security is more like "What are your symptoms? OK. Get this test made, take that medicine. See you in a year. Next!".
But whenever people need something expensive such as an MRI or surgery, they go straight to the social security. Thus, there's private practice but mostly on the first level of attention. Hardly any place for private specialized clinics (and the only ones work hands-on with the SS).
Hey, did anyone else have Simons' BASIC? It was a cartridge that you stuck in the back of the C64, and it gave you extra commands to play with! I never used to program in normal BASIC!
I remember the horrible dilemma I was faced with when I used my Dad's C128: did I insert the Simons' BASIC cartridge, or the cartridge (I forget the name) that gave a graphical user interface?
Yep. It's always the investors that really make the money. Most professionals do the thinking, but the money goes to the ones that know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run.
Easy as it may sound, I'm sure it takes more than high IQs to be like that.
Well, you either have to convince yourself that it's productive, or not really care whether you are productive. In short, either amoral or not quite the top of the class - IQ 120 not IQ 150.
Plus a whole lotta balls.
That's capitalism for you! Like Churchill said about democracy, it's a terrible system - but all the other systems are worse.
Soldering your way to an upgrade.
No support for anything beyond the stock ram.
Trivial parts that you just had to have to make shit work, hard to find and cost too damned much.
Trivial upgrades being sold as a new model "Now with tint control", and software geared toward that upgrade.
Having to buy upgrades that were processed through the main company, which are no different than the stock part with the exception of a minor Rom tweak.
Spending hundreds/thousands on a given platform only to have it be abandoned.
Rats nest of wires. Wires for your disc drive, extra wires for your printer port, each requiring it's own power supply.
I know it's popular on Slashdot to bitch about Microsoft, but imagine if Commodore won the computer revolution, or Atari.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
If you go a little further back in time, remember when the entire ROM OS was listed out in the apple ][ manuals?
Or when CP/M came in source form, where you were *expected* to modify it to run on your hardware.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The C-64 was actually my third computer, after a Sinclair ZX-81 (which is still in my parents' garage...wonder if it works???) and then a TRS-80 Model III, but I've still got a soft spot in my heart for the Commodore. While graphics, processing speed, memory and storage have improved immensely since the C-64 era, the 6581 SID chip was way, way ahead of its time. IIRC, the guy who designed the 6581 went on to found Ensoniq or one of those pro synthesizer companies.
I'd still love to get my hands on a pair of 6581s to see if I could build a decent hardware synth with them.....
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Seriously, my biggest problem growing up as far as planning for my future was figuring out "what I wanted to be when I grew up." Problem was that everyone else seemed to say or be satisfied with "finding that one passion." I had too many passions. Programming, Flying, Music, Languages, Astronomy...but everyone (counselors and many other adult types) kept telling me to "pick something."
Might not have been so frustrating if they had actually suggested that I could change my mind later if it didn't work out, but that certainly wasn't the paradigm of the time as it is today. Not that it was impossible at the time, but it just wasn't the generally accepted way of doing things.
Now, though, people seem to juggle multiple careers and it's the norm.
Conclusion? Find what you enjoy doing and do that. Live where you enjoy living and live there. If you can't find those things, just keep looking. The money? As long as you can make enough to live off of and you're happy with the rest of your life, who cares about the money?
Now if only following my own advice were so easy =D
Do You Experiment?
This story also appeared on Digg a few hours earlier. I know there's a place for both, but would it be too much to ask that Slashdot at least has different headlines for the same story and writeup?
It's just bizarre.
I remember I had to hammer the potting compound of the power supply to free the transformer and the PCB. Tape drive was broken beyond repair, so I made interface to standard Hi-Fi tape deck. It was simple smith-trigger made from CMOS gate IC and few other components. With such interface any tape drive or line-level sound source is good enough.
I use PC / MP3 player to load the games and PC's sound card line input to save them.
I am not quite certain why the internal fuse blows up but it might occur because of short circuit in the tape drive cable.
Personally, I liked Atari. I started programming on a CBM, then a Vic 20, but the first computer I owned myself was an Atari 400. I still have it, as well as the 800xl I replaced it with. Who knew that machine would lead to my career as a programmer! Basic was a nice language, but things really took off when I learned 6502 assembly, and then the machine code itself. I learned every part of that system! Every register, every memory location, the innards of Dos 2, 2.5, and 3.0... I loved it! I finally picked up an 800, and another 800xl for my collection, along with the appropriate peripherals (810, 830, 410, a few 1050's, printer, plotter, etc.) and still enjoy running them from time to time. Most of my disks and cartridges still work!
Logic is the beginning of reason, not the end of it.
The C64 always appealed to me as the embodyment of the modern hacker mentality. It just happened to have a decent amount of power and capabilities that just made you want to tinker with it. It also gave birth to many copy protection wars. I've heard stories about companies that would go all-out to create the best proprietary copy protection measures they could, only to later receive cracked copies by mail from groups taunting the company over just how easy it was to reverse engineer and defeat their latest and greatest measures.
Evidence of the attitude that drove C64 hackers later expanded out to the PC, as many of the more expensive DOS applications were often cracked and released into the wild with the same style of gloat messages.
Of course, the other aspect of the attitude were the little musical tunes that would often accompany the gloat notes, as though to say' "bask in my glory". (it would not surprise me if this attitude indirectly lead to widespread use of music cues in videogames as a way of ranking the player's actions.)
The only other place I've seen the C64 attitude running wild would be the in the earily days of the dial-up BBS, up until the internet took over.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I got mine when I was 13 and used it until I went to Grad School and wanted a notebook computer so I could work from anywhere. My word processor was this application I had to type in line by line from a book (dozens of pages of assemble code) and didn't have spell check, but it worked for my limited needs.
:)
I logged onto my first BBS, and logged into the internet for the first time (via my shell account, not actually IP to the C64, but still...)
It was a great machine. It introduced a lot of people to computing. It was much cheaper than the Apple IIc, it's main competition of the time.
I still have it
Peace, or Not?
no PC will ever elicit the same emotions that a C64 did for the owners of them of the time.
I hear ya and I pretty much agree, but nothing matches the rabid ferocity that Amiga fans have.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Was 300 baud. Reason was a bug in the hardware that the firmware had to get around.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
It gave me great pleasure when I discovered emulators back around 96-97 and relived some of my favourite c64 games. Since switching to linux a few years ago, I haven't been able to do so. Linux is pretty good for the most part with emulation (mame, various psx, snes, genesis, gameboy emus), but is sorely lacking regarding the c64.
There is basically vice and frodo. Vice isn't bad on the windows side, but they are fairly awful on the linux side. This is mainly due to neither of them using something like sdl to do fullscreen emulation. They both use weird vesa modes or something and it's a nightmare to try and get a good screen mode for anything usable. Supposedly the last version of vice does have an sdl mode, and I was eager to try this and compiled the latest without much success. Frodo planned an sdl version as well but that doesn't seem to be in much active development anymore.
It's 2007 and there still isn't a good c64 emu for linux. That is just sad.
Back then with Commodore we were proud to be the precursor of the 64 bits architecture. Oh, wait...
...are the same dudes who still piss their beds.
It's a tired extremely antiquated calculator. Get over it already.
Back in Egypt in the early 1980s, the Commodore 64 never caught on in homes. I have seen it in offices though, along with the TRS-80, Apples, ...etc., but not in homes. Perhaps the price was a factor, perhaps other choices were, don't know, but it did not catch on.
The Sinclair ZX Spectrum on the other hand did catch on. It was my first computer. It was reasonably priced, and capable. I still remember it fondly. My brother and I used to buy computer magazines and type in listing character by character. We had two games for it, Jumping Jack and Blue Thunder (I think).
I later loaned it to a friend after I got a PC compatible. That friend (jokingly) had a proper name for it (Mes3ed!) The power supply or something else died.
I moved on from Sinclair to Mainframes, PCs, and minis with UNIX, then later Linux.
That Sinclair changed the course of my life.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Frankly, C64 didn't have anything special to offer compared to other 8-bit computers. In many aspects it was even worse than some other architectures, and had nothing really special to offer. (Well, expect the SID sound processor, which was better than most others.)
C-64 basically got popular because it was a natural continuation to the popular VIC-20. Amiga got popular later for the same reason. It was like the C-64 v2.0. Or VIC-20 v3.0. (Or PET v4.0?)
I believe that many arctitectures like MSX, Atari 800XL, Amstrad etc. were technically better than C-64, but eventually lost the battle because they didn't gain the "critical mass" (enough people to share illegal copies of software with their friends. Yes, much of the success of the C-64 was because of PIRACY!). That being said, the mentioned computers were still pretty popular compared to some other failures.
Probably due to the combination of the okimate color thermal printer (also available for C64) and that awesome Camera grab program. Vision something. Allowed you to print t-shirts and stuff from photos. It was another 10 yrs before PC's could do it as well.
I did envy the C64 guys with their giant mounds of disks. We moved on to apple iic and I got my giant piles of floppys too.
This whole thread has me firing up the emulators again, thanks a bunch Slashdot, another weekend lost to nostalgia and The Little Green Desktop.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Woah there, cowboy. Anecdotal evidence here, but I was one of those "younger generation" types in the era of the C64 and Commodore's BASIC was what got me interested in coding to begin with because it was easy. When I realized that I had gotten as far as I could with BASIC, I headed into assembly language / machine code to do the rest, which I believe was a valuable education. Why did I bother? Because of all those cool looking, cool sounding games. I wanted to make them. I wanted to know how they worked. I wanted to improve them.
It wasn't until Windows 95 (or possibly sometime during the console wars) that I think we saw the zeitgeist toward passive computer use. Once you couldn't look under the hood anymore, it was just too difficult to figure out how things worked.
I believe you have grossly underestimated the imagination of "the younger generation." If they have the tools, I believe they will use them. If all they are given is "SUPERFUNGAME" without the tools to play with it, that's when I think the creativity begins to slide in favor of passive entertainment. I think numerous comments on this article can back me up on this one.
Do You Experiment?
Today's kids drink red bull to stay up all night and play Xbox live. Real C64 users stayed up all night programming machine language cause we loved it.
End of line
My favorite business software for the C-64 was Peachtree Accounting (yep, THAT Peachtree). With the massive speed of the dual 1541 drives (!), it would take nearly a minute PER TRANSACTION to save an entered check or deposit. By the time you entered a year's worth of activity, it was next year.
BTW, did anyone mention my favorite C-64 game? M*U*L*E
Nah, I doubt many here will understand what the hell a "Hamster Reset" is... except maybe you. heh (pins 1 and 3, btw) ;-)
:-) What about the software tools like The Hacker's Toolkit? I had others but I am forgetting the titles now. lol
:-)
btw, yeah, I had the FastLoad cart too. And IcePick... and Final Cartridge. Cool tools!
Another thing I remember from loading those games back then was how the pirates always had to give shout-outs to their buddies and that crazy "midi" SID music jamming out on the load screens. lol *sigh* I miss that in a silly nostalgic way. I do love how pirates now {with keygens and such) seem to keep that spirit alive.
Damn! I tore my shuba! Gotta go... haveta find a token and buy another one. heh
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
Let's just say that comparing graphics was not an easy thing to do back then or now. True, Ultima III didn't look so hot on the Atari (I believe it used psudo colors in the 'hires' mode like the Apple II did), BUT I could give you a number of other examples of games that completely redefined quality gaming.
:)
Throughout the early 80's, the top selling computer game was Atari's Star Raiders - and for good reason. Unbelievable graphics for 1979, great gameplay and sound. In fact, I don't believe anything approaching the quality of that game appeared for years afterward (I'm thinking Wing Commander here). I remember that it was still on the top 10 games list well into 1984. Do you know of any other game that could claim almost FOUR years of shelf life and still be a top seller?
Take a look at the first four Lucasfilm games - in particular - Rescue on Fractalus and Ballblazer. What GAMES! Because of the different graphics modes you had the best gaming experience on the Ataris. But again, you could give me Impossible Mission or Blue Max on the C=64 with their impeccible sprite-based graphics and they were sharp as well.
It was harder to program that sort of thing on the Atari computers. You had to worry about different memory specs, a changing ROM (that really threw off compatibility and disgusted a number of developers), and numbers (Commodore's advertising back then was just amazing!) You also didn't have a lot of help from the hardware. If you wanted good sound generation, you'd have to dev that yourself as the hardware didn't support any sort of ADSR or multiple wave selection. If you wanted sprite-based stuff, again, you'd have to develop that from scratch. There were those who did a great job with it though. Examples that come to mind are, 'Alley Cat' and the 'Shamus' series by Synapse, and Bounty Bob Strikes Back by Big Five. Some of the best gaming ever on the Ataris, or anywhere for that matter!
Here it is, breaking it down:
Atari's Strengths:
- Multiple display types available on the same screen. You could mix different resolutions and color palettes on the same screen.
- Display lists could include 128 colors at once.
- Faster 6502 processor (1.83 MHz as opposed to the C='s 1.0)
- Disk drives that didn't make you hang your head in shame.
Commodore's Strengths:
- Sprites! With color even. Atari's limited player/missile gfx left much to be desired comparatively.
- Only three voice sound but GOOD sound, not just basic tone generation like on the Ataris.
- Memory - with 64K as a standard, programmers didn't have to futz with trying to cater to different computer specs.
- ROM that stayed the same, even through the C128 years. Compatibility was never an issue with the C=64 line. It was on the Atari.
In all, I'd have to say that both computers were very competitive on spec. But look at how OLD the Atari was before the C=64 came along! With very few changes, that computer system was still competitive until the ST/Amigas arrived. Atari got stomped on by C='s marketing, Jack Tramiel's price war, and the fact that even Atari was buying directly from MOS Technology for the ROM's and 6502. MOS Tech - you remember, right? That wholly owned subsidary of Commodore, International?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Am I the only one that had GEOS? Remember that? It was the attempt to give a "Windows-like" GUI to the C-64. I remember being amazed at what it could do. I remember being impressed by the word processor that came with it too. It bailed me out when my other word processing program crapped out on me when I needed to do a paper for school. lol
:-)
Another goofy thing I had for the Commodore that nobody I know had was the 4-pen plotter. Did anyone here have that? It had demo software that would draw crazy shapes. I remember really loving playing with that, but the pens were micro-tiny and held like no ink. The paper roll was uber-pricey and the replacement pens were too. It ended up being a short-lived fascination... I couldn't get my parents or grandparents to buy more supplies for it. lol Kinda wish I still had that little plotter, but I remember tossing it ages ago.
I also had a light-pen, but that was uber-crap. I always wanted a Koala Pad. lol
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
I had (and still have) Wico Bathandle joysticks. Best joystick ever made. :-) You could bounce those things off of a concrete floor and they would keep on trucking.
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
To be fair the Epyx Fast Load cartridge and later similar items helped a lot with the load times. I also remember someone releasing a 3 minute disk copier early on versus the standard 20 minute one. The 1541 was a pain in the arse but the built in 6502 was highly programmable and people squeezed every last bit of performance out of them. I even had a program which played the song "Daisy" on the disk drive by musically grinding the heads. *ouch*
The worst offenders were the terrible copy protection routines that caused horribly slow loading and were unforgiving of any degree of head misalignment. I remember sitting and staring at the Electronic Arts logo color cycling for eternities of my childhood. I used a memory dump cartridge (anyone remember ISEPIC or the Super Snapshot series?) to save off the initial boot of EA games. The dumped file would load in seconds versus minutes.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Check it out, it's in english: http://www.c64-longplays.de/downloads.html
Game related more than computer... I remember the first time I saw Donkey Kong at a local convenience store. I remember saying "WOW! Now games will have stories!" The simple stupid story of King Kong translated into a video game. Just the fact that the game had characters and motivation for them (as basic as that was). Before that point most games just didn't. WHY AM I SHOOTING THE ASTEROIDS?
Sometimes my arms bend back.
http://askville.amazon.com/lyric-hit-shift-O-quote-dollar/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=2395018
Sometimes my arms bend back.
LOAD"$",8,1 My favorites were: Castles of Dr. Creep Bruce Lee Phantasy 2 Seven Cities of Gold
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
All the ones you see at work are diseased or have something else wrong with them.
My choice on the whole Apple/Commodore/Radio Shack/etc. argument is probably reflected in my handle (I was borne in 1973). My brothers and I saved up about $200 to buy a C64 when I was something between the ages of 10 and 12. They were interested in the games but this machine is really what got me into programming. I also worked with Apple things and TRS80s but for me there was sopme special charm in the Commodore platform for which I still long during my everyday technical tasks on modern PCs. Maybe it's just that for me, being an IT professional has taken away some of the fun of working with computers - I don't want to spend evening time at a keyboard after a whole day in front of a keyboard. Peeking and poking was a great way to understand how the system really worked at the bare metal level, which is generally extremely abstracted in today's environments. Working with the relatively constrained resources was challenging in a fun way (actually more challenging on the Commodore VIC20 - Tic Tac Toe is possible in BASIC on that platform but for me at least Connect4 could not fit in the available memory), and retyping hundreds of lines of hex code from a magazine in order to play a game taught me to save cautiously. And when the machine started to experience issues, I just turned it off, unscrewed the case, blew the dust off some components and started working again.
I went from ZX spectrum 48k to a 386 sx.
However a lot of my friends had C64, and while some programmed on it, it was mostly for games. In someways I always saw it more as predecessor to gaming consoles than PC's.
Fond memories of gathering at friends house and playing c64. There's a certain chart to having to use screwdriver to tune the tape drive head, it made loading the game a little game of it self.
C64 was a great computer, but I still love my ZX more, its rubber buttons, Jetpac and that really cool quickshot joystick I got later...it had an autofire option.
Bah, while computing is much, better, easier and more useful these days...much of its charm is gone.