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Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

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71–80 of 186 posts

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#71

Memory. Then as now it’s memory that matters. Anyhow if you want a brand new Commodore 64 get it here: https://commodore.net/

An alternative that's a bit like cheating since it's not a real C64 but a lookalike running VICE is getting a TheC64.

https://retrogames.biz/products/thec64/

It looks a lot like a C64 breadbin, with an actual working keyboard, but inside there's an ARM and of course it outputs to HDMI and has USB ports for pendrives.

It's a good middle ground between "just an emulator on your laptop" and "a real C64 with all the inconveniences".

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#72
post #39

Being behind Iron Curtain I sold (well, my parents, I was too young) my Atari 65 XE + tape reader (which I received as a gift in 1988) and got C64 (the original ovalish one) with 1541 in 1990, it was bundled together with a set of hundreds (pirated of course, that was the reality back then) of 5 1/4" discs with various software and games. It was like receiving internet in a package. Entering incantations like: "LOAD…

> "LOAD .... 8,1" (I don't remember the middle part).

Interestingly this was sort of the beginning of the end of digital computers as an operator-centered environment. So, the LOAD command took three arguments: the first was a filename (which was typically the first/only file in the directory for commercial disks, so the wildcard "*" was typically used); the second was a device number on the bus (8 was the first floppy drive by convention, though you could set things up differently if you knew what you were doing), and the third was a flag that specified the file format (0 was a BASIC program, 1 was a binary file to be loaded at an internally-specified address).

Not too weird, but that's all you got in Commodore BASIC. Unlike other platforms, there was no "autoexec" or "boot sector" or whatnot to get the system/disk to do the right thing at power-on. You had to do a little work at the start to bootstrap the system, not unlike the console of a PDP-11 or whatnot.

But everyone hated it, no one wanted to learn it, and everyone just ended up typing the "incantations" in from the manual without bothering to learn the specifics, which obviously weren't important. The C64 was probably the last such system (or last popular system) shipped, where an "operator" was expected to do bootstrap work.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#73
post #9

When it released, it cost $595 (back then, not in today's money), considering the price dropped to just $229 the following year, that was not a good buy when it came out.

It's one of the more popular retro-computers, but cheap to get into, there are a lot of them around: it's still always cheaper than its original sticker price! I think I paid more for the replacement power supply (the original ones haven't aged well, and have been known to fry them).

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#74
Back when writing 500 lines of code by simply typing it line by line from the "handover" booklet the C64 shipped with. Then running it and it magically made a frog-game appear where you hit "space" and the tongue of the frog needs to catch a fly. Then forgot to save on the 5,25'' disk and everything was gone. Good times :)

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#75
I got my C64 (actually C64C) when I was 7, switched to a PC five years later just as I mastered BASIC and was starting to learn assembly.

To this day I can recite from memory a rough memory map, say which POKEs to do to switch background/border/text colors to my favourite scheme (white on black), and name the addresses of a few basic KERNAL routines.

Happy birthday, C64!

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#76
post #43

Greetings, fellow old people.

I wonder what today’s youngster hackers will reminisce over in 44 years.

I still think that I'm young, but I currently reminisce about doing real work without an always-on internet connection (and using saved-to-disk HTML documentation, physical books, etc.), and I am looking forward to reminiscing about writing thousands of lines of code, debugging tricky issues, etcetera with my own fingers and brain instead of outsourcing to an LLM.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#77

LOAD *.*,8,1

POKE 53280, 0 POKE 53281, 0 POKE 1,0

POKE 1,0 would mess up the bank switching of addresses above $A000 and switch on the Datasette motor. Probably not what you wanted. I guess you meant POKE 646,1 (white text on black screen).

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#79
post #30

Ahh, the Commodore 64. I never had one. I had a TI-99/4A with a Forth cartridge, while my friends had VIC-20s and C64s. Such an odd and wonderful time to be into computers. I managed to put together a decent Space Invaders clone in Forth that beat their Commodore BASIC version. I considered this an important victory and still have bragging rights when I see one of them. Eventually my parents realized that, despite th…

This thread prompted me to go and find out what my first computer was -- I have vague memories of it.

Turns out, it was a Sega SC-3000H, back before Sega decided it was a console company. Also, interestingly, it was really only popular in NZ/Aus (I grew up in NZ).

I have very clear memories of spending hours copying BASIC code of games, line-by-line from the monthly Sega magazine into the BASIC editor, playing it for 15 minutes, then everything dissapearing when I restarted it.

I was always envious of my friend who had a C64, but that Sega was a great little machine.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#80
post #75

I got my C64 (actually C64C) when I was 7, switched to a PC five years later just as I mastered BASIC and was starting to learn assembly. To this day I can recite from memory a rough memory map, say which POKEs to do to switch background/border/text colors to my favourite scheme (white on black), and name the addresses of a few basic KERNAL routines. Happy birthday, C64!

Literally everything you said is also true about me! and my name is also Daniel!
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