Commodore 64

[Bealman]

I owned a Commodore 64 computer throughout the 80's and well into the 90's. My daughters grew up with it. Just out of curiousity the other day I googled it, and, not at all surprisingly,there's heaps of stuff about it. It made me realise just how many of those games I had! literally hundreds!

Apart from the huge nostalgia kick both me and my daughters got from the exercise, the main thing that struck me was just how much ingenious programmers were able to milk out of that machine. Any other ex 8-bitters on the forum?

[Bealman]

Yes, I remember that machine. You would find no shortage of buyers, I'm sure. Actually, I'm sorta half thinking of getting myself another 64!! When I upgraded to a 'real' computer back in 1997, I sold my 64 with it's chocolate brown floppy drive, chocolate brown printer, manuals and hundreds of programmes for the princely sum of $300!

[mickeyflinn]

Or you could always download an emulator (CCS64 is one of the better ones) and run your PC or laptop as one. You can also get a lot of the older games as ROM's of the internet too.

[Bealman]

Actually I noticed that there are emulators out there. One thing that I'm not sure of, however - a lot of those old classic games used a joystick, and if I recall, they had some sort of weird plug to connect to the computer. Where would I plug a joystick into a laptop?

[mickeyflinn]

In CCS64, you can define keys to take the place of the joystick. Not sure if a USB one would work as I've never tried.

I've also got one of the C64's that are contained inside a replica Kempston Pro joystick. You can attach it directly to your TV and play the likes of Impossible Mission, California Games, Winter Games, Uridium and a few others.

[Bealman]

Cool!

[brbluewill]

still have my commodore and hundreds of games stored in the attic along with a zx spectrum :Dgod how annoying were those games when loading them jet set willy loyal

[RChook]

Any other ex 8-bitters on the forum?

Yep, started with a ZX81 and programed it in its Sinclair Basic, interesting but slow. Soon graduated to programing its Z80 microprocessor in its own machine code(hex) brill.

Much later (new wife- new family - finances - violins) aquired the horridly over-priced BeebB with its (earlier generation 6502 micro but) better interface to the real world with an on-board a/d interface.
Lots of fun controlling temperature and humidity in poultry incubators and monitoring environment temperatures and seismograph outputs etc&etc !
Ah, those were the days, all so much more complicated now in Windoze,,

[Bealman]

Cool stuff! Yeah... the Beeb machine. Even had it's own set of TV shows and a book to go with the TV series, if I recall. Eek.

I originally began with a VIC-20 and purchased all these cottage industry add-ons, such as a memory expansion card that would plug into the back, giving you an awesome 28K!!!

At the time, the Voyager probe was approaching Saturn, so I used all that memory up and programmed in BASIC a simulated approach to Saturn! Oh, and it was plugged into our 70's TV at the time, so I did it all sitting on the floor. Ah them's was the days.....

Dunno what happened to that. Must have been sold with the VIC when I upgraded to the state of the art C64.

Anyway, I know that the cottage industry also supplied a lot of C64 add-ons, including devices to control the real world. I believe there were a couple of train driver simulations around too. In fact I think I had one.

Later in the life of the C64, someone came up with GEOS, which if I recall stood for Graphical Environment Operating System, which endowed the C64 with a Macintosh (just new out) style operating system.

Heady days, indeed. But, as I said when I kicked off this post, it is amazing what clever programmers managed to achieve on this machine..

Enough nostalgia... if I do download a C64 emulator it'll probably get me off restoring my layout. Dangerous. Plus I have this vision in me head that if I retro my laptop to C64 status, it might stay there. Eek!

[Pete Mc]

I still own my Commodore 64 as well.I got mine for my 15th birthday in 1984.As we all know there was fierce rivalry between the main platforms,the C64 and ZX Spectrum.Before the C64,I shared a ZX spectrum+ with my younger brother for a few years before I got my C64.In our house,my brother called the C64 a rather derogatory Commodore blocky four due to its slightly blocky graphics,obviously.What could never be criticised was its sound chip,with what was at the time,absolutely brilliant.

My retort on my brother giving the C64 its nickname was to label the ZX Spectrum,a ZX Spackertrum.It was almost 30 years ago so nothing offensive was meant by this.

Over the years there have been simolar rivalries with machines such as the Atari ST and Commodore 128,Sega Megadrive and Nintendo Cube,Sony Playstation,xbox and Sega Dreamcast and latterly,the Sony Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

I still own my Sega Megadrive,Xbox,Sega Dreamcast and Xbox 360 and will continue to do so for some time as retro gaming is an up and coming craze that is sure to push up values of these consoles in the future,thsn I might sell them.

With regards to the C64,my favourite games were Revs,which was a big success on the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron,Elite which was also first released on BBC Micro and Acorn Electron and other games such as Pitstop 2,Way of the Exploding Fist,Rambo,Match Day and lots of others.I have two shoe boxes full of games in my bedroom wardrobe.Mine was the one that used a Commodore Data Recorder,not the floppy disc drive so I had to wait for the thing to load up from an audio tape.

I used the C64 on a regular basis right up to 1993,at which point,my wife and I split up and I could buy a Megadrive without being told off.

Actually,what made me buy the Megadrive was when Sega brought out VirtuaRacing for it.I also owned the next generation Sega machine that came out before the Dreamcast hich I can't remember the name of right now,but it had a kickbottom cobsole conversion of such arcade greats as Virtua Cop 1 and 2,Virtua Fighter,Daytona USA and last but definately not least,the mighty Sega Rally Championship.This was and still is a fantastic rally simulation game that would still stand up against the Colin McCrae (RIP)Rally series to this day.I still find myself having a go if I see one in an amusement arcade although I haven't seen one or been in an amusement arcade for some time now.

Certainly brings back memories.

Pete

[Bealman]

Thanks for that contribution! Seems like a lot of us trainheads were also computerheads even back then! Dear oh dear, Pete - 15 in 1984. Eek that's was two years after I was laid in bed next to the missus saying "I refuse to get up yet 'cos it's not 11am therefore I ain't thirty until 11am and that's when I'll get up."

But I love the nostalgia. I think when I look at all these old games with their chunky graphics and the famous sounds from the SID chip, it's like listening to a song from that era on the radio. Reminds you of what you were doing at the time. I feel that way when I look through old model railway mags, also.

But, my point remains that it is amazing that programmers worked their way into every software nook & cranny (so to speak) and squeeze every last drop out of a machine that was almost obsolete when it was released. For what it was, it had a longevity thanks in no small part to those very innovative (and probably very whacky) programmers.

Cheers! 

[longbridge]

I remember having a Commodore Keyboard given to me and plugged it into my TV set, I started typing and I thought wow we have got a Computer  what a moron 

[Pete Mc]

I remember when or around the time I got my C64,I used to go into Boots,which at that time sold TV's,video's,hi fi and computers as well as toilettries,make up,developed films and was a dispensing chemists,and drooled over the C64's graphics and sound capabilities.Now,I remember one day,some chap came in and loaded a floppy disc into the disc drive and after a bit of whirring,the screen showed some writing that moved about.You're probably thinking that this isn't very remarkable,but what came out of the speakers was something to behold.It was a note perfect rendition of Harold Faltermeyer's Axel F,the music from Beverley Hills Cop 2 if memory serves me right,starring Eddie Murphy.The music was produced by a chap called Rob Hubbard,again,if memory serves me right.

There was also a games writer who produced many top C64 games called Alan Minter,who looked as mad as a badger from the pictures I remember.

Who remembers some of the magazines that went with the various different computers?

I had a paper round at the time and I always got my monthly copy of Crash! for the Spectrum before I got my C64 and Zzap64! after I got it.I thought this was the bee's knees at the time.

I also remember the program listings that some magazines printed for simple games for you to program yourself using BASIC computer language,I never got the hang of machine code,but they never worked!

I'd spend hours typing in all the listings correctly only for it to start then after a few seconds an error message came on screen,so I would check the listings meticulously for my mistakes only to find none.So with that,I just didn't bother saving the listings to tape,then a month or two later,in the letters pages,someone would write in with one single number error on line 754 of data that was wrong.Always a slap to the head moment out of frustration!

Its funny how these things come flooding back.

Pete

[Bealman]

Cheers, Pete - I have exactly the same sort of memories. I used to get an American magazine every month which I think was called Commodore User or something like that. Anyway, it was a thick, quality magazine. One month it came with pages upon pages of machine code you could type in which resulted in a word processor specifically for the machine, ie. able to handle the graphics characters printed on the side of the keys, and was able to talk to Commodore printers. Anyway, I meticulously typed it in night after night, and lo and behold it worked! I was actually still using that word processor when I got rid of the machine over 10 years later! I still have documents I printed out with it.

Anyway, Dave - nothing wrong with that... after all, the blue screen would come up with "READY" and you could type! 

[Pete Mc]

Well after my useless crack at doing BASIC programs,I just reverted to the standard and very short listings that comprised:

10 PRINT"whatever"
20 GOTO 10

So it'd print whatever down the left hand side of the screen,sometimes I even added a line of programming that made it go diagnolly down the screen of varying speeds and also changing the colour of writing,borders and screen,such was the prowess of my programming genius!!

Pete