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Radio Shack TRS-80 Vs. Commodore 64: Battle of the Titans

Posted by samzenpus on from the winners-and-losers dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "The one and only Jeff Cogswell is back with a new article comparing the two biggest competitors in the home-computing business: the Commodore 64 and the Radio Shack TRS-80. What does he have to say about these absolutely cutting-edge machines? The TRS-80 simply can't stand up to the awe-inspiring Commodore 64, which features the latest processor from MOS Technology, the 6510. Best of all, the C-64s graphics processor can display up to 16 colors simultaneously, and it can create a full screen made up of 320 x 200 'dots.' But the TRS-80 has some good points, as well, including a whopping 512 K of memory (not that you'll ever use that much, anyway). As Cogswell writes: 'Let's cover these two bad boys and provide a totally unbiased review unencumbered by any alleged kickbacks (including a brand new daisy wheel printer and a case of Schiltz Beer) from Commodore, the maker of the awesome machine known as the Commodore 64.'"

135 comments

  1. TRS-80 all the way, baby! by girlinatrainingbra · · Score: 1

    I've got (well, my dad's got, in the garage) a TRS-80 Model 1 with 4KiloBytes of RAM and Level 1 BASIC built in! It rocks! (truly!) It was the first machine I was allowed to play with as a kid.

    1. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by sheehaje · · Score: 3, Informative

      I wanted an Atari - my father got me a CoCo 1 with 16KB of memory... I was so mad - how was I going to play missile command on this!

      Anyways, what a great starting machine for the day. It forced me to program, as I didn't have the recorder to save my work or load other peoples programs. A little later on, as I moved up in models, I was introduced to OS-9 and one of its programming languages Basic09. There was some jealousy over some of my friends with C64 - they had a way better game catalog. In the end though, the CoCo I think fostered a better learning experience, at least for myself. Plus Dungeons of Daggorath still has to be one of the best games I ever played back then... I even ran my first BBS off a CoCo. When I did finally get my first IBM compatible (another Tandy) - I was a little dismayed at the assembly language being "broken" and how hard it was to multi-task with MS-DOS (unless something like deskview was installed, and that was unstable at best)...

      I still have a CoCo 3 laying around... I should replace my wifes computer with it as an April Fool.....
       

    2. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Hatta · · Score: 1

      The TRS-80 wasn't even really a competitor for the C64. It was competing more with the Commodore PET and Apple II. By the time the C64 came around, the CoCo was the relevant home computer from Radioshack. And in the later parts of the C64's lifetime the Tandy 1000.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    3. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by DougOtto · · Score: 2

      Timex-Sinclair baby!

      --
      Solving Unix problems since 1989...
    4. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Oh, I didn't RTFA. The TRS-80 referred to in the summary is the TRS-80 CoCo.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    5. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anyone remember the Atari program, To Kill a Commodore?

    6. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Informative

      I used to upset my C64 friends... The CoCo's casette deck would load a program FASTER than the C64 Floppy drive. C64 was cool, but the CoCo was the real hackers computer. I had 4 banks of ram that I could easy switch to, and with the completely exposed Address and data bus it was brain dead easy to interface the computer to things in the world. I had built a XY plotter that interfaced to the cartridge bus and even built my own eeprom cartridge that would take advantage of the paged ram I added.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    7. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Sulphur · · Score: 1

      Timex-Sinclair baby!

      Especially with the hard disk.

    8. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Hamsterdan · · Score: 1

      True, the 1541 was awfully slow, even for its time. The fastest floppy I had at the time was the one hooked up to my Apple ][e. with two drives, diskmuncher would copy a floppy in 11 seconds, vs *way* longer using fasthack'em on the 64

      --
      I've got better things to do tonight than die.
    9. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by DougOtto · · Score: 1

      No sir. Cassette all the way.

      --
      Solving Unix problems since 1989...
    10. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 1

      He's referring to a Byte Magazine "Coming Soon" from the April issue, back when 64Kx1 DRAMs cost ~$100 apiece. The blurb was about a hard disk for your Sinclair, no operating system available as yet. There was also a knife sharpener that mounted on the side of your 128K Macintosh, so you could "Knife the Mac".

    11. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by StormReaver · · Score: 1

      As is usually the case, both the C64 and the CoCo had their strengths and weaknesses. I was envious of my C64-owning friends' game catalog and sprite hardware, and they were envious of the my CoCo 3's cassette and disk drive speed, and its multi-tasking abilities (which far, far exceeded those of the C64 and the IBM clones of the time). OS/9 Level 2 was really the best reason for owning a CoCo.

      And the 6809 was the most pleasurable CPU I've ever programmed, especially for its addressing modes, though I think the 6502 had some (it not many) of the same great instructions.

      inc [,x++] was one of my favorite instructions. When I eventually had to move to Intel, I was shocked to see how primitive its assembly language was. The Intel equivalent is something like:

      (assume some address is in the bx register)

      mov ax,[bx]
      add ax,1
      mov [bx],ax
      add bx,2

      (correct me if I'm wrong. It has been many years since I did assembly language.)

      For game playing, the C64 won by a large margin. For productivity, the CoCo 3 had a big advantage.

    12. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Teckla · · Score: 1

      I used to upset my C64 friends... The CoCo's casette deck would load a program FASTER than the C64 Floppy drive. C64 was cool, but the CoCo was the real hackers computer.

      I had both a CoCo and C64 (not at the same time) and found the C64 superior in every way, except for the CPU (the CoCo's 6809 was better than the C64's 6510).

      The C64 had superior graphics, superior sound, more interrupt options (so you could have, e.g., a graphics mode terminal emulator with reasonable performance, since the CoCo had to poll for data, while the C64 waited on an interrupt), etc.

      I would say the C64 was -- by far -- a better hacker's PC than the CoCo. It was a lot cheaper, too.

    13. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by rbrander · · Score: 2

      The 1541 was a *serial* communicator, which kind of wasted the possible data-transfer rates off a floppy disk itself.

      I recall a review of the C64 as a machine for your kid, which offered in the unkind review comment: "For both game-playing and educational software, the slow floppy disk may test the patience of most children. In fact, it would be possible for some smaller children to actually grow up while waiting for their game to start".

    14. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but there WAS missile command for the coco.

    15. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The coco was the first multitasking home computer. but you had to add the disk drives (2) and run OS9 :)

    16. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by zugmeister · · Score: 1

      If you set the volume just right, and were really fast with the play/record controls you could make it save your code to a regular tape drive. Just don't get your counter values messed up!
      I always wanted one of those drives to auto start / stop but somehow Dad never found that to be a priority.
      Sheesh, back in those days gosub / return was hot stuff. Good times.

    17. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by TheTerseOne · · Score: 1

      "anyways"

      What are you, a 14 year old girl?

      THIS is why the ROT13 initiative is a good idea.

      --
      "Newspapers: A tiny little part of the internet, printed out yesterday, and delivered to your house"
    18. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Nimey · · Score: 1

      The 1541's port was deliberately crippled by inserting wait states, so that it would be compatible with older-model Commodores like IIRC the PET and VIC-20.

      There was a ROM cartridge you could get that'd speed the things up where they ought to be on a C=64.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    19. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by adri · · Score: 1

      There were plenty of games that installed their own loaders in order to bypass the intentionally-slow 1541 drive interface.

      They could get it up to what, ~38400 reliably? Maybe faster? I forget. It was pretty zippy for the time.

    20. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Glad you did not really do anything with your computers so all you saw was the "toaster" side.

      The C64 won only with audio. I saw things done on the coCo that blew away the C64 in graphic. And it still did not cover up the fac tthat the CoCo floppy drive was 80X faster than the C64.. Oh and the CoCo supported 4 of them out of the box.

    21. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by operagost · · Score: 1

      Wrong. The 1541 was slow because the hardware shift register code in the 6522 was buggy. Therefore, all I/O was done in software. This was written hastily, so it was easy for third parties to write optimized code (thus the proliferation of fastload carts).

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    22. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by buravirgil · · Score: 1

      Meh. The original Sinclair, before the Timex merger, with mylar keyboard and an adhesieve sticker masquerading as a heat vent, came with 4k ROM and 1k RAM. Around that same time, Sagan's Cosmos was on the TV and his book reported a typical virus held 1.4K of information. So I had managed to code (in a high level langauge thanks to some very smart people) a safe-cracking game, with graphics, and very short text adventure with less memory than a virus. According to Sagan, that is. The Trash-80 (I didn't know anyone calling their color TRS-80 "coco") was a coveted machine and dominated Christmas sales for a good three years sitting out front of every Radio Shack in every mall in America. Missle Command just made you ache. And that was the market...arcade experiences, several boards housed in a cabinet, approached by a single microprocessor with a reasonable price point. I don't know why anyone would compare a TRS-80 to the Commoder 64 because the Vic-20, Atari 400 and TI-994a were its competitors.

      --
      Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
    23. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by girlinatrainingbra · · Score: 1

      re : Oh, I didn't RTFA.
      :>(
      oops, neither did I !! I replied about our level 1 basic rom, 4KB model I TRS-80. I don't think my parents had a coco from radio-shack. My dad wasn't allowed to take the TRS-80 to college with him, but a friend had an atari 800 and another friend got a the color computer / coco when he was a senior. Perhaps I'll ask to take the trs-80 with me !

    24. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Mr+Z · · Score: 1

      You also had to account for VIC-II fetches in the fastloader, since it could cycle steal from the 6502 and screw things up.

      --
      Program Intellivision!
    25. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by msauve · · Score: 1

      That sounds right, Intel always had their operands backwards.

      6800/6500: STA $add ;store the bread in the cupboard

      8000: mov ax,[bx] ;move onto the table the bread

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    26. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by ahabswhale · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I loved the TRS-80. It single-handedly made me want to be a programmer. Sadly I didn't own one so I would go to the Radio Shack store and code on it. They had a one hour time limit before they would kick you off and I used up that hour to the last second.

      --
      Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
    27. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by LocalH · · Score: 2

      I saw things done on the coCo that blew away the C64 in graphic.

      Obviously you haven't kept up with the C64 demoscene. Might want to do that before you claim the CoCo had better graphics ability than the C64.

      And it still did not cover up the fac tthat the CoCo floppy drive was 80X faster than the C64.

      This could be mitigated through a number of ways with third-party products on the C64. Also, the C128 combined with 1571, 1581, or CMD drive had built-in fast serial.

      Oh and the CoCo supported 4 of them out of the box.

      No, it didn't. You had to buy a separate controller card in order to have support for even one drive, let alone four. The Commodore machines had built-in support for multiple floppy drives going all the way back to the PET, without the need for a disk controller. The original drive manuals always mentioned devices 8 through 11, and I think it's technically possible to use devices above 11.

      Before you think I'm some anti-CoCo nut, I owned both a CoCo 2 and a C64 growing up. I know which machine I preferred. However, I did enjoy both, the CoCo did have its merits. However, to say that the CoCo was better than the C64 in technical ability is just pure fanboyism.

      --
      FC Closer
    28. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by girlinatrainingbra · · Score: 1

      You exemplify what it means to love to code. Cool! My dad said he used to type programs out on my grandad's manual typewriter for two years before they ever got the trs-80. Sometimes, i write c programs long-hand along with doodles for short routines when I'm bored at school.

    29. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by stalky14 · · Score: 1

      Ugh. I remember taking an 8088 class after knowing 6502/68000 well.
      Multiplexed address/data bus, segmented addressing, little-endian, and backwards operands.
      I was like, "Is there anything left for them to be contrary about?!! How did this get to be the dominating platform?!"

      I blame Intel for single-handedly turning subsequent generations of programmers off from assembly language.

    30. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      those bitching about how slow the 1541 was didn't know anyone with epyx's fast load. :) smoking load times, dos wedge (no more [load"$",8] or [load"*",8,1] plus a 6510 monitor & disk editor...R.I.P epyx

    31. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by VernonNemitz · · Score: 1

      The article and the parent both have some errors. The article refers to the CoCo as having 512K of RAM, but that was only true for the CoCo3 --older models were designed to max-out at 64K. (There were some 3rd-party kits to get past that limit, and even on the CoCo3 there are 3rd-party kits to raise the RAM limit to 2 megabytes.) The article is also wrong in calling the 6809 an 8-bit processor. Actually, it was partly a 16-bit processor; several of its internal registers were 16 bits wide. Its instruction set also made it easy to write position-independent code, which is one of the keys to a UNIX-like operating system such as OS9. You-all might be interested in knowing that when the Space Shuttles were first built, their on-board computers used 6809s. You can bet NASA chose the best it could get its hands on. Therefore, the parent post is wrong in claiming that it is "pure fanboyism" to say that the CoCo was better than the C64 in technical ability. Both had their good points, but the CoCo was more versatile. One of the neat things about the C64, that the CoCo did not have, was a screen editor for writing BASIC code. This was purely a matter of differences in the software-in-ROM of the two machines. And I personally wrote a screen-editor that replaced the CoCo's line-editing system; when done it still fit in the ROM space, and was actually superior to the C64's screen editor. See the April 1987 issue of "The Rainbow", page144, for a review.

    32. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Golden_Rider · · Score: 1

      True, the 1541 was awfully slow, even for its time. The fastest floppy I had at the time was the one hooked up to my Apple ][e. with two drives, diskmuncher would copy a floppy in 11 seconds, vs *way* longer using fasthack'em on the 64

      That's why real men used DolphinDOS for their C64/1541. It could read a whole floppy disk in 4-5 seconds.

    33. Re:TRS-80 all the way, baby! by Hamsterdan · · Score: 1

      Sure, but then you could use other Kernal replacements. I was talking about unmodified hardware.

      --
      I've got better things to do tonight than die.
  2. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by DougOtto · · Score: 2

    Sorry to hear about your warts.

    --
    Solving Unix problems since 1989...
  3. Missing Option by Unloaded · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Once again the TI 99/4a gets left out. Anybody want a Jello Pudding Pop?

    1. Re:Missing Option by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had a TI 99/4a, and it was basically useless. You had to buy a special cartridge to do any real programming. I switched to a C64 and never looked back. POKE, PEEK, and SYS got you everything you needed.

    2. Re:Missing Option by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      Only for the n00bs. I was programming a base 99/4a in assembler, what was your excuse?

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:Missing Option by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was my first. I saved my money and bought a TI 99/4a from Wal-Mart when I was 13. Hours and hours of my childhood were occupied with this computer. I think it had 16k of memory and I saved my programs on a cassette tape. I could not afford the huge external drive but I REALLY wanted one. I wrote a combo text/graphic based space game with random enemy ships and multiple weapons. Also, a D&D character generator and dice program. Also, a breeding database for chickens!

    4. Re:Missing Option by Hugh+Redelmeier · · Score: 1

      Only for the n00bs. I was programming a base 99/4a in assembler, what was your excuse?

      I didn't know you could program the 99/4a in assembler. I seem to remember that TI tried to keep the machine locked down. The underlying CPU architecture was pretty good -- 16 bit instruction set (from TI 9900 minicomputer family) so probably better than the CoCo's 6809, which in turn was the most powerful 8-bit architecture.

      What I underestimated was how effectively assembler programmers could overcome the limited 6502, 6800, and Z80 instruction sets. As a compiler writer, I didn't want to touch them.

    5. Re:Missing Option by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed!!

    6. Re:Missing Option by 3dr · · Score: 1

      I forget which software exposed their assembly environment, but it was the third language I used on the 99/4a. First was Logo, second was their Basic & Extended Basic, and third was assembler. The poster a few parents up from here may not have known that TI's extended basic included poke, peek like other systems. TI's built-in Basic did not have those calls.

      How many of you 99/4a owners had the disk drive (180KB single-sided awesomeness) AND learned to punch holes in floppy sleeves to use the other side?

    7. Re:Missing Option by antdude · · Score: 1

      "Hey, hey, hey. It's Fat Albert! ..."

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    8. Re:Missing Option by Mr+Z · · Score: 1

      You either needed a PEB + Editor/Assembler (which I didn't have), or you could by the Mini Memory cartridge which comes with the Line-by-Line Assembler (which I did have) that left you 768 bytes free to program at location >7D00 (out of 4K total battery-backed memory)

      You certainly could not, however, program assembly code on an unexpanded TI-99/4A. You needed at least the Mini Memory cartridge.

      TI Extended BASIC didn't have PEEK and POKE in the same sense as other Microsoft BASICs. In other computers, you could literally read and write any location. TI Extended BASIC let you PEEK certain locations, but not really POKE anywhere.

      The Mini-Memory did add a PEEKV and POKEV that let you manipulate VDP RAM, but again, that required the Mini Memory cartridge. (I don't know if E/A also provided anything like that; I didn't have E/A.) And if Mini Memory's plugged in, you don't get TI Extended BASIC.

      --
      Program Intellivision!
    9. Re:Missing Option by CaptainPhoton · · Score: 1

      The software was called Editor Assembler. I remember that it came with a large 3-ring binder of documentation, a cartridge, and some disks.

    10. Re:Missing Option by CaptQuark · · Score: 1

      Programming assembly on the TI-99/4A was very educational. And like the poster above, I found Intel's assembly language limited, confusing, and missing so many commands. Plus, the assembly language used software registers so you would get a new set of registers each time you changed your frame location. Intel's hardware registers were much faster, but you spent so much time moving things into the registers, operating on them, then moving them back to memory that the RAM-based registers seemed just as fast. You could multiply two numbers together in RAM without worrying about the registers. Plus, the TI-99 was a 16-bit machine which gave some advantages with larger numbers. You could multiply large numbers without converting everything into BCD (binary coded decimal) first.

      It has been almost 30 years since I programmed assembly on the TI-99 but I remember it was much easier than learning and coding around the limitations of the x86 assembly.

  4. Hah! by operagost · · Score: 5, Funny

    And to think all my friends and family said that conversational Klingon course I took was a colossal wast of time!

    --

    Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
  5. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Agreed. Slashdot is completely useless on April 1. One joke is ok. All jokes is not funny.

    Does someone actually llike the April 1 Slashdot shutdown?

  6. submit to the trollfiesta... by Thud457 · · Score: 0

    It's incontrovertible : Isaac Asimov >> William Shatner

    Although my tribe's spokesman is Alan Alda. And I think everyone is in accord that Bill Cosby just doesn't have games.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    1. Re:submit to the trollfiesta... by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 2

      Redirecting Isaac Asimov's output onto William Shatner is just rude.

    2. Re:submit to the trollfiesta... by hedwards · · Score: 1

      I know, at least have him buy Shatner dinner first...

    3. Re:submit to the trollfiesta... by chromas · · Score: 1

      Parent is actually on-topic. Each celebrity represents a computer (ad):

      • Asimov—Radio Shat
      • Shatner—Commodore
      • Alda—Atari
      • Cosby—Ti
    4. Re:submit to the trollfiesta... by Weaselmancer · · Score: 2

      A... robot. May not... InjureA human BEING or... through inaction, ALLOW a... human being to.. ComeToHarm. Mister.

      --
      Weaselmancer
      rediculous.
    5. Re:submit to the trollfiesta... by dublin · · Score: 1

      You forgot Alan Greenspan for Apple. No really - long before he was Fed chairman, he was a spokesman for Apple in a series of ads, both print and TV...

      At least one of these ads around this time (IIc vintage, IIRC) was memorable because Apple's ad/marketing folks had lots of fun with the "fine print" legal disclaimers - it helpfully pointed out that the weight quoted was for the computer alone, and that it would weigh more with monitor, printers, and/or several bricks(!). Can't find a link to that one, but it's out there somewhere...

      --
      "The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last ./ post
    6. Re:submit to the trollfiesta... by yurtinus · · Score: 1

      Be fair, I used to play the *crap* out of BurgerTime on my 99/4a!

      --
      +1 Disagree
    7. Re:submit to the trollfiesta... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hunt the Wampus!

  7. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by 91degrees · · Score: 4, Funny

    For all you know he may find anal warts hilarious and is enjoying April Fools Slashdot.

  8. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The word "subtle" fell by the wayside with "satire" due to the high volume of morons who will believe anything.

  9. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by 91degrees · · Score: 1

    Trying way too hard on April Fools day has become something of a Slashdot tradition now. I think I'd actually miss it if they stopped doing it.

  10. Ehhhh... by Jintsui · · Score: 1

    The program in the article will cause a nasty loop...

    1. Re:Ehhhh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      New here? No worries, here's how it's done

      1) remember to NOT read the article
      2) if you're not on the payroll of microsoft OR apple
      3) make a semi-random comment which completely misses the point (if any) made in the summary
      4) ???
      5) profit

    2. Re:Ehhhh... by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      well reading the article is a total waste since the writer starts off ok and then just drifts into non technical nonsense and doesn't do a very good comparison of the two computers at all.

      you know what's really funny? there's two comment threads on the story both on slashdot.org. on the original "topic" story and then this one. slashdot is sure ran by people who are at times really retarded.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  11. Childhood memories...The C64 by lazycam · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My mother and father were programmers, so they came up with many creative uses of the C64. In his free time, my father would program math-based games to teach us multiplication tables and would allow us to play chess. Mom was the only one to get copies of games for us to play. In general, I have many warm memories of sitting in front of the tv playing games on the ol' C64 with my siblings. I also remember solving boring math problems. In all, I played plenty of games and excelled in math enough to obtain a PhD. I have admit the C64 played a big part in that. I know nothing about TRS-80, but I'm sure my childhood would have played out the same way. As a professional, I understand the technical differences between the hardware, but still...

    --
    my mom posts on slashdot.
  12. Okay, enough by Zedrick · · Score: 1, Insightful

    A few of the April 1st-jokes on slashdot has been kind of half-amusing. But this? What kind of audience is it written for? It is written by somebody who obviously doesn't have any interest in computers, and doesn't care about computers other than as tools. I know there are plenty of people like that out in the real world, but on slashdot?

    "Huh huh computers were so primitive in the 80's and now we have faster computars that are better so old computers are funny, huh huh"

    A joke like this would perhaps make sense in some fashion magazine, but not on Slashdot.

    1. Re:Okay, enough by nightfury · · Score: 2

      I took it as a nostalgia piece, and actually found it to be a welcome relief from all of the other April Fools things.

    2. Re:Okay, enough by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      I took it as a nostalgia piece, and actually found it to be a welcome relief from all of the other April Fools things.

      did you actually read it? I took it as such as well first and went on to read it. it degenerates to "we were bribed with free beer" joking halfway through.. just when it would need to start to get technical to have nerd nostalgia value. it's a lazy ass piece of shit turd piece of writing that's a waste of time even more than this comment.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  13. Eh.... msx? by santax · · Score: 1

    If you say the two biggest home computers without naming the MSX you really have no clue what you are talking about. Either you haven't actually been part of the 80's or you well, you weren't exactly informed... For both there is no excuse since all this stuff can be googled now. There are 2 big home computers MSX and Commodore. Commodore had nicer sound out of the box. MSX had nicer, well, everything and with a fm-pac or/and scc, even better sound.

    1. Re:Eh.... msx? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Dude.. MSX came almost 5 years later, mostly by manufacturors who realized they already missed the boat. Commodore was king - with the Vic20, the C64 and later the Amiga. Competition came from the british Sinclair, Tandy, Philips, the BBC, Acorn, Atari, and a few more.

      When MSX finally came to market, most of those hobby computer users were already making the switch to the slowly-getting-affordable IBM clone pc's. MSX was outdated at the time it was released. It was also not as standard as it suggested it was. And was way outperformed on graphics and audio by the Amiga before MSX ever got popular.

      Get your facts - MSX has never a competitor of the C64.

    2. Re:Eh.... msx? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      sure, and we got a 8086 two years after 386 had been introduced. funny world eh?
      msx was still hugely popular. much more so than trs-80 and competed on the from mid 80's to late 80's market directly with c64. it's not like they stopped selling c64's when they introduced amiga - back then there was huge overlap in computer generations that lasted for years.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:Eh.... msx? by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      msx was still hugely popular. much more so than trs-80 and competed on the from mid 80's to late 80's market directly with c64.

      That's *very* much dependent on where you lived.

      MSX may have been a success in Japan- which is apparently where the concept was invented, and a lot of whose manufacturers were involved. And it also enjoyed success in certain European countries (but nothing like all of them) and elsewhere.

      But in the major North American market- probably a far more disproportionate percentage of the world total than it is today- it went absolutely nowhere against the established C64. Similar in the UK where the ZX Spectrum was the undisputed leader of the pack with the C64 in strong second place; MSX was generally behind even the lesser-supported formats here (e.g. the BBC Micro, Atari 800, Commodore 16), I was barely aware of it at all- think I saw an MSX game for sale *once*(!)

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    4. Re:Eh.... msx? by dietdew7 · · Score: 1

      I've never heard of the MSX. It wasn't popular in the US.

    5. Re:Eh.... msx? by Miamicanes · · Score: 1

      Did MSX even *exist* as a computer you could buy at any halfway normal retail store in the US, as opposed to importing one from Japan & paying more than you'd have spent to buy an Amiga 500?

      The only remotely interesting exotic (by US standards) computer I remember from that era was the Sinclair QL.

    6. Re:Eh.... msx? by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      Did MSX even *exist* as a computer you could buy at any halfway normal retail store in the US, as opposed to importing one from Japan & paying more than you'd have spent to buy an Amiga 500?

      Don't know personally, as I lived in the UK- however, I don't recall ever seeing one for sale here, and I don't know anyone who owned one.

      Must have been *some* people who did as Mastertronic (a famous UK budget games software house) apparently made quite a few games for it, but it didn't seem to get much support at all in general.

      The Sinclair QL... yeah, unlike its predecessor (the massively popular ZX Spectrum), that one didn't succeed even here, in its home market.

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    7. Re:Eh.... msx? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MSX? Just some not-so-compatible clones of the SpectraVideo that missed the 8 bit boat... I did like the built-in joystick of the Spectravideo but when it fragmented into MSX you couldn't rely on them having the same peripherals - for example Yamaha machines had musical keyboards IIRC.

      1978 was TRS80, PET, Apple2
      1980 was CoCo vs VIC20
      1982 belonged to the Zx spectrum and Commodore 64.
      With 1984 seeing the release of "16 bit" 68000 based systems such as Sinclair QL (Jan 1984), Apple Macintosh, Atari ST and Commodore Amiga,
      there was not much of a space for 8 bit systems like MSX (later 1984) to be seen as up-to-date.
      As for seminal computers most 32 bit CPUs these days stem from the Acorn Archimedes (1987).
      Admittedly I was a couple of years behind in each of those generations of machine.

  14. Damnit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't login since I am using someone else's computer right now. Guess no slashdot today.

  15. A c64 never impressed me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They were nice, flashy, and colorful... but I was never that impressed by it. The only two computers that I ever actually had any nerdlust for back then were the trs-80 model 1, and a few years later, the Apple 2e.

    I couldn't convince my parents to get either of them for me, however.

  16. juvarl-nff fynfubg pbzcynvaref by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shpx bss naq cbfg lbhe xnezn-jubevat qeviry fbzrjurer ryfr. Gur bayl guvat jbefr guna n unezyrff Fynfuqbg Ncevy Sbbyf wbxr ner gur pelonovrf zrjyvat bire ubj bssraqrq gurl ner ol vg. Nf pregnva shpxgneqf ner dhvpx gb fnl, lbh qba'g unir gur evtug gb or abg bssraqrq, fb tb trg lbhe juvarl-nff fryirf onpx gb qbvat gur jbex gung lbhe trggvat cnvq gb qb, lbh ynml zbsb'f.

  17. dots? really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They have been called pixels since the fucking 60s, and every reference book on C64 graphics called them pixels.

    1. Re:dots? really? by wiredlogic · · Score: 1

      Actually the nomenclature wasn't set in stone during the 60's. Pels and rasters were strongly in the running through the 70's.

      Your welcome.

      --
      I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
  18. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by tmlwoodson · · Score: 1

    April fools - it's a joke, let it go.

  19. I like the encryption.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It makes not reading the articles even more legitimate.

    1. Re:I like the encryption.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It makes not reading the articles even more legitimate.

      But now, you don't even need to read the summary!

  20. I would like to see an actual review. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Fake" doesn't automatically equal "Funny".

    Am I the only one who would like to see a real review?

    I get the joke "hur dur, let's pretend we're reviewing some really old computers", but I would genuinely like to see benchmarks and stuff.

    It would also be funnier to compare the c64 to the WiiU, complete with benchmarks.

  21. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by Hatta · · Score: 2

    Slashdot is completely useless the rest of the year too.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  22. Article by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 1

    Nerval's Lobster writes "The one and only Jeff Cogswell is back with a new article comparing the two biggest competitors in the home-computing business: the Commodore 64 and the Radio Shack TRS-80. What does he have to say about these absolutely cutting-edge machines? The TRS-80 simply can't stand up to the awe-inspiring Commodore 64, which features the latest processor from MOS Technology, the 6510. Best of all, the C-64s graphics processor can display up to 16 colors simultaneously, and it can create a full screen made up of 320 x 200 'dots.' But the TRS-80 has some good points, as well, including a whopping 512 K of memory (not that you'll ever use that much, anyway). As Cogswell writes: 'Let's cover these two bad boys and provide a totally unbiased review unencumbered by any alleged kickbacks (including a brand new daisy wheel printer and a case of Schiltz Beer) from Commodore, the maker of the awesome machine known as the Commodore 64.'"

  23. Wasted day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It looks like every single article posted today is going to be an April Fool's joke. I can see doing it a couple of times, but every time. C'mon! I like these articles. :-(

  24. Love the 64, but TRS-80 has a place in my heart by filesiteguy · · Score: 1

    I've got my TRS-80 on my desk. Yeah, the C64 has better graphics, but I learned BASIC on this puppy...

    http://perfectreign.com/stuff/trs80_level1_4kb-sm.jpg

    --
    The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
    1. Re:Love the 64, but TRS-80 has a place in my heart by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      But which TRS-80? The I, II, III, IV, 12, 16 Or Coco?

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    2. Re:Love the 64, but TRS-80 has a place in my heart by filesiteguy · · Score: 1

      I have a 1 (Level II basic) and a CoCo. In all honesty, I bought the CoCo at a garage sale for $1.00 about ten years ago, so I've only used it a few times.

      --
      The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
  25. Just Stop! by Githaron · · Score: 0

    The first one was OK. The second was annoying. All the others were frustrating. Just stop! We don't need a dozen April Fool's feeds.

    1. Re:Just Stop! by commodore73 · · Score: 1

      It will be even less funny when someone reads their headlines tomorrow.

  26. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by Hatta · · Score: 1

    The best was the one year when the joke was that there was no joke.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  27. how much a collectors item? by k6mfw · · Score: 1

    last month at a flea market someone had a Commodore 64 for sale about $25. He also had a couple Apple ][ (about $100 each). I was very tempted, something interesting for a shrine of sorts. I didn't purchase as I got enough stuff as it is. Just wondering.

    --
    mfwright@batnet.com
    1. Re:how much a collectors item? by Webcommando · · Score: 1

      I was very tempted, something interesting for a shrine of sorts.

      I've been collecting interesting 8-bit waste computers and historic machines for a long time. I give them a home before someone throws them out (no need to buy) and think someday it will be cool to look back at them. I actually have had a chance to bring a bunch of my dinosaurs and discuss the history of computing with my daughter's tech club at school. This included a demonstration of an ENIAC simulator too!!

      Many of these machines are in original boxes. As I was a Commodore guy in the past I have C64, C128, Plus4, Vic20, Amiga 500 and 2000. Also have the great pleasure of having Apple Mac 512, variety of Apple IIe's with accessories, and Apple IIgs. I have a few miscellaneous including an Atari 400, 800XL, and have a 3rd revision CoCo. My crown of the collection is an Osborne Executive...not too many of those laying around.

      The only disappointment is the lack of time to fire them up and make sure everything keeps working. I'm sure the capacitors, floppies disks, and TV modulators/monitors will all be flaky if I ever get a chance to start actually playing with them.

      --
      I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
    2. Re:how much a collectors item? by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Yeah $25 for a C64 is about right. I generally say $20 for the C64, and $10 per 1541. So two drives and a computer for $40. Then go and spend $60 on a uIEC (flash drive) and you're all set up for $100.

      Apple II computers can bring a high price, or they can sit with that high price for a long time. Pricing them is kind of tricky, as the most capable platform is the most common which makes demand hard to figure. An Apple II Plus can't do much, but it's a better collectors item than a IIe. $100 is about fair for a IIe with disk drives, but I'd offer $60 and see if you can meet in the middle.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    3. Re:how much a collectors item? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What, no commodore executive? It has a nice colour screen and built in disk drive! It is a bit heavier than your usual laptop though.

  28. C64 still works by chelip · · Score: 2

    Got a Commodore 64 in 1985 and it still works. Amazing how things made back then were made to last

    1. Re:C64 still works by jdigriz · · Score: 1

      Heh, lucky you. I bought a c64 a couple years earlier and only the third one lasted more than a couple of weeks. The other 2 had to be returned for a blown power supply and a defective keyboard.

      Now admittedly that last one lasted at least 12 years or so. For all I know it may still work, but I had to get rid of it.

    2. Re:C64 still works by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      You should read up on Survivor Bias.

  29. C64 by Enry · · Score: 1

    The C64 has the edge. I seem to remember a certain former /. contributor who told the story of Afghanis getting their C64s out of hiding after the US invasion, connecting them to the Internet, and watching movies.

    Couldn't do that with a Trash-80.

    1. Re:C64 by LodCrappo · · Score: 1

      Actually, you can do that with a Tandy Color Computer:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42jBBrqn70w

      --
      -Lod
  30. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if you hate it so much why have you been here for 15 years?! go back to posting your witty banter on youtube bieber videos,...

  31. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by swb · · Score: 1

    But how will the "editors" account for the 80% lost productivity last week not to mention the "team dinners" they ran tabs on?

    It was all to plan the "massively funny" April 1st edition and EVERYBODY got to get their item in since they couldn't decide whose was best.

  32. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by hedwards · · Score: 1

    That was my thought. Considering how few people even read the TFS these days, I'm guessing this could be an improvement over the usual griping about the grammar and spelling errors that the "editors" left in.

  33. ROT-13 encoding keeps getting more funny! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please continue the ROT-13 coding. I find it more amusing the more pages I go to throughout the day.

    Getting a huge kick out of it.

      - K

    1. Re:ROT-13 encoding keeps getting more funny! by T.E.D. · · Score: 1

      So you AC's don't like getting repeatedly trolled by Slashdot?

      The irony in this is so delicous, I don't even need the popcorn. Please, rage on AC's.

    2. Re:ROT-13 encoding keeps getting more funny! by Thud457 · · Score: 1

      Wot, no free ROT13 decoder in Commodore basic?!!

      encoder $9.99 in the C= appstore...

      --

      the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  34. BASIC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ugh... it's been a long time since I've used BASIC... but I still remember that string vars have dollar signs appended to them.

  35. The next squabble by ananamouse · · Score: 1

    Next lest squabble about whether Hollerith is better than ebcdic.
    .

    1. Re:The next squabble by Hugh+Redelmeier · · Score: 1

      Next lest squabble about whether Hollerith is better than ebcdic. .

      I don't get that. Hollerith is the coding on the punch card, EBCDIC is the coding in the /360. They don't compete.

      Paper tape vs. punch cards, now there's an interesting culture clash. Or Williams Tubes vs. delay lines.

    2. Re:The next squabble by ananamouse · · Score: 1

      In the mid 70's someone gave me a stack of punched cards that were a fortran version of the text based Startrek game. I loaded it onto the what ever I had an account on, probably a 360/370 system, and got something less intellegable than ROT13. The swami of the department told me I needed a Hollerith to EBCDIC converter. Somehow I got a hard copy listing of the thing.

      The math department had a "calculator" made by HP that had a 32 char led dot matrix display, a casette storage and 8k ram that had been hopped up to 16k. Also, there was an attached typewriter that was fed fanfold greenbar. It was a typewriter that whopped one key at a time and every so often the ribbon had to be replaced. While it was on the books as a "calculator" it spoke basic and they left it unlocked at night. After a while we had it killing klingons and I had figured out how to program.

      I still have the deck of cards somewhere. I suppose I could load it 50 cards at a time with the Fujitsy scansnap. Also, I have some old DEC system stuff on paper tape. Maybe I should feed that to the Neat scanner...

  36. Bitter and angry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was a bitter and angry Apple ][+ user, who kept seeing all these upstarts interfering with the Apple's true position as leader of the 6502 pack.

  37. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I certainly would miss the opportunity to make whiny, karma whoring complaints about Slashdot's April Fools jokes. Mods are complete idiots when it comes to these kinds of comments. It's ridiculously easy to get +5 Insightfuls whenever you pretend to "go against the herd", or stand up to the "echo chamber", or point out instances of "group think". It's all mushy Randian pablum, and the mods eat it with a spoon.

    +1

  38. Re:This is as funny as anal warts by gl4ss · · Score: 1

    I agree that this is not funny but why the fuck did you link to an old hoax that was a joke that only seriously retarded people took seriously?

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  39. Re:watching movies by DocSavage64109 · · Score: 1

    Are you serious? I have a very hard time believing anyone could watch a movie on a C64. It was amazing just to have an 8 second audio clip play on those things like "last V-8, return to base immediately!"

  40. Re:watching movies by Enry · · Score: 1

    I'm serious that this was reported here. I'm also serious that not a single person here believed it.

    Ah, found it:

    http://tech.slashdot.org/story/01/11/17/204207/message-from-kabul

  41. Re:watching movies by DocSavage64109 · · Score: 1

    Awesome. Thanks for the link to what I'm sure will be an entertaining read!

  42. Re:1st post! by ThurstonMoore · · Score: 1

    Fuck u Slashdot and April fools day.

  43. Jurer'f gur Nccyr Ybir? by sl3xd · · Score: 1

    Lrg gurer'f ab zragvba bs gur pbzchgre V phg zl grrgu jvgu: Gur Nccyr ][ naq
    pybarf.

    V unir sbaq zrzbevrf bs sylvat zl svefg syvtug fvzhyngbe, cynlvat Jbysrafgrva sbe gur svefg gvzr, naq yrneavat gb cebtenz -- nyy ba na Nccyr ][ Pybar.

    Va snpg, V cynlrq frireny syvtug fvzhyngbef ba zl Nccyr ][ pybar - sebz Zvpebfbsg Syvtug Fvzhyngbe gb Puhpx Lrntre'f Nqinaprq Syvtug Genvare.

    Nalbar erzrzore Oebqreohaq'f "Gur Cevag Fubc" jurer lbh pbhyq cevag pneqf, onaaref, naq cbfgref sbe gur svefg gvzr? Ubzrpbzvatf unir arire orra gur fnzr jvgubhg n qbg-zngevk cresbengrq onaare.

    Fbeel, ohg V'yy gnxr uneqjner ol gur Jbm nal qnl.

    --
    -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
  44. Re:watching movies by DocSavage64109 · · Score: 1

    The original summary doesn't specify what model of Commodore it is. According to this post, there were IBM compatible Commodores sold up through the Pentium (Not sure which Pentium) era in Europe, so it is at least theoretically possible to watch movies in low quality on such machines.

  45. Apple ][ ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you were anyone, you had an Apple ][+ or an Apple //e with dual disk drives and a modem, hanging out at the Midwest Pirate's Guild. All the Atari 400/800, Commodore 64 and Trash-80 users were wannabes.

    1. Re:Apple ][ ! by Saffaya · · Score: 1

      ATARI 800 could use quad linked disk drives, and also had modems, thank you very much Mr wannabe troll :)
      http://oldcomputers.net/atari800.html

    2. Re:Apple ][ ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, you had an IMSAI 8080 and an acoustic coupler modem...

  46. Re:C64 still works -- so do my Color Computers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And I have several Tandy Color Computers 1, 2 and 3 that all still work as well. Also there is vcc a very good emulator and to top it off, there is a company that still sells new hardware for the Coco --- Cloud 8 Tech

  47. Having worked with both back in their heyday.... by dcigary · · Score: 1

    ... (I owned a C=64, worked on a TRS-80 Model III in High School), I have to say that the C=64 blows doors off the TRS-80 Model III. Sorry, but the music chip, color graphics, and all the other misc hacks that were produced for it (ICEPIC, scanning audio files through the tape drive, etc) were fantastic.

    I do, however, have a place in my heart for the Model III,. My High School computer lab partner and I wrote a Monopoly game for it, complete with kiosk "graphics" (wrote out "Monopoly" in cursive, plus some other rudimentary graphics), choice of number of players, play the computer, and, of course, a cheat mode where you were presented with a menu of "1) Steal money from bank 2) Steal money from opponent 3) Move houses from your opponent onto your properties 4) Destruct game - (basically swiping the board off the table in a 3am drunken stupor when you're not winning)" and a few others I believe. We displayed 7 spaces at a time - 3 ahead of you and 3 behind, and indicators if you had houses, who owned it, etc. I learned quite a bit about programming from that project!

    --
    ...my Karma ran over your Dogma...
  48. LOAD "*",8,1 by BigTunaTim · · Score: 1

    SEARCHING FOR *
    LOADING

  49. 64K RAM max for TRS-80 by Thyrsus · · Score: 1

    The Z80 processor had no memory management unit, so there was no virtualizing the 16 address lines to anything more than 65536 bytes. The bottom 8k or so were reserved to the operating system and basic interpreter in ROM. I don't know where that 512 K number came from. Was that the max storage on the 5 1/4 " floppy?

  50. king of the trolls, forgotten in the mists of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It makes me literally weep with despair that all these n00bs don't remember the time the universally despised JonKatz got TROLLED HARD by an plucky Afghan boy named Junis.

  51. whats the rot13 deal again? by cellurl · · Score: 1

    whats the rot13 deal again? I use theoldreader.com instead of google reader. Can I use a reader with slashdot? Do I have to be logged in? Can I pay $10? What do I do????? Thanks for any leads...