Salon - - Commodore 64

Blacknight · #1 06-03-2002, 12:56 AM

In my readings here I have seen a few references to this venerable old piece of machinery, and so I thought I'd start a discussion about it if anyone is interested. I was the President of a Commodore user's group for several years, and up until just recently I actually had quite a stockpile of things Commodore. I miss it sometimes, and the simplicity of those days when 8-bit and 64,000 bytes were sufficient for LOTS of tasks.

G. Couch · #2 06-03-2002, 10:45 AM

When I took Astronomy in college (this would have been 1996) they were still using a Commodore 64 to run one of the telescopes!! Those were and still are, great computers. I still have my old Vic 20 computer collecting dust in the attic!

DJ Dubovsky · #3 06-03-2002, 10:55 AM

In 1978 in a college course on Basic I was introduced to the Commodore 64. It was cool, but I tend to be a visual person so I think I was glad when Windows came on the scene. I had had enough of that "Syntax Error" warning by then.

But it's important to never forget your roots, as they say, and how far you've traveled.

DJ

rondon · #4 06-03-2002, 11:03 AM

anyone else have "paint" or "paintshop " on there ?... remember what would happen if you got more than a specified number of colors too close to each other ?
just finally carted all mine off... had gathered a lot of extra hardware in thrift stores etc.

Blacknight · #5 06-04-2002, 10:23 PM

I taught myself BASIC when I couldn't find (or afford) the programs to do what I wanted the computer to do for me. Quite a learning experience, for which now I have no usage for.

It had what they called screen graphics, which were various odd shapes used in combination with the letter keys and either shift or the "commodore" key. I really got into creating images with that "medium" because it seemed so limiting. I actually sold some of them to a Commodore "magazine" on disk called LOADSTAR. Anybody remember that?

The users of that particular computer and the others that were out at the time were fierce in their loyalty to their particular platform. Mac users and PC (or Windows, more precisely as PC stands for Personal Computer of which Macs are!) users used to be that way a little, but I think that has declined recently.