Preserving The Past: The Commodore 64
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- Опубликовано: 4 ноя 2024
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I still have my C64, and I only ever had a cassette drive. 7 minute loading times for Bubble Bobble! Mayhem in Monsterland got a 100% review score.
The Americans have floppy disc drive because they heavily supported 8track tape over cassette at the time
I also still have my C64 with like 1000+ games.
LOAD “wendell”,8,1 and enjoy some retro computing. As a kid I did learn a lot on the Commodore64
Fun seeing you here, love your work!
@@whiskeylinux Thanks!
LOL...good one, Tom. I also started on the C64 as a kid in the mid-80s and learned basic on it. Used to spend a lot of time typing in machine code for games published in compute! magazine.
Take a PEEK under the hood of some of these old gems and POKE around a bit. My buddy had a Vic20, and I later had an Amiga...great machines.
The C64 was my first computer and probably my favorite now that I think about it. There was always something magical with typing a one-line BASIC program, hearing the churning sounds of the floppy drive, and watching your game or other program appear on a television.
Hull in UK, had a phone department that was run by the local council, the rest of the country's phones where run by The General Post Office, later British Telecom, but Hull stayed independent, and did not have metered calls, just a flat call fee no matter of duration, it became the BBS capital of the country.
The commodore 64 was my first computer and it will always have a fond memories in my heart ❤️.
A childhood friend of mine had the C64 with the tape, remember going over and playing games on it, Pheonix being one of my favourite games. My first computer, another Commodore machine was the Amiga 500, which I latter sold and upgraded to the Amiga 2000 which I still have to this day. Recently I got a remake motherboard for it an spent a weekend soldering components to the board, some much fun. Unfortunatly with the current situation and the chip shortages I have not finished this project. Until I got my Amiga out of storage and started getting back into it I did not realise that such support for this machine that I thought was dead still existed.
Wendell is so wholesome how could not just love the guy
Using my commodore 64s monitor hooked up to a VCR, was my first TV. Back when I was too young to be aloud to have one, so had to hide that functionality.
Man, that brings back memories. Thanks for going through this.
I remember many... hours of listening to my tape drive spin and 1541 loading the Dungeons and dragons Heros of the Lance game. Pool of Radiance and so many more.
I remember going to Sears with my family and picking up the first Commodore 64 and then later the 128. Then there was the Amiga.. . . .
Great times. ..
Ah I love the C64, its sound chip is legendary.
8 bit guy does some really cool restorations on these, highly recommended.
Wow the memories! I had C64 with a 1541 drive. I loved playing Bruce Lee too. Elite was probably my favourite game though.
The first time I ever had a modem it was on an Amiga A500 and was near the end of the BBS era (and the Commodore era). Thanks Wendell!
I broke out my old Commodore stuff from when I was a kid several months and got it all powered up, I have a c64, tape drive, modems, 1541, 1571, 803 printer, A500, A2000, few other things …most still in box. I was shocked the printer ribbon wasn’t completely dried up. The A500 had a bad mainboard that beat me back in the day… 25 years later and 25 years of IT work and solid state repair, I fixed it it about an hour. It was fun and I’m glad I kept it all. I also remember in the early 90s I had made a cable that went between my first x86 pc (commodore pc-lll) and my 1541 for DOS that was a modified version of Norton commander that copied files from the 1541 to the pc. Guess I still run midnight commander routinely….so I’ve never moved on. Lol
“So this is a telephone“ don’t know why that got me 😄
I had an 'oh my god, I'm old' moment earlier this year while teaching. I was talking to my class about making a phone call, and made the rotor dial motion with my finger while I was doing it, and the students were like 'what are you doing?'.
Loving that you're sprinkling in these retro vids. Fallen hard on retro computing recently myself. Nothing better than when your favorite presenters tackle your favorite hobbies.
One of my favourite trivia from old timers was that there where one radio show that would send programs and small games to listeners. They send them with audio, you just recorded noises they played at the end of the show to a cassette and run it on your comodore 64 🤯
ah yesss, Ben Daglish SID 8bit music was one of the best things this thing was good for. i typed load"*",8,1 faster than my shadow. and sure, i wish everyone the experience of loading a level in summer games, 15min waiting time is such fun, you think win xp took long to install? try a c64, i went shopping in between levels
I said "Summer Games" out loud a fraction of a second after I saw the first image. Some things are forever.
My first computer was a new VIC 20 with a tape drive. I than got a Commodore 64 and used the tape drive from the VIC 20 for awhile and than got the floppy drive and a 300 baud modem that plugged into the back. You had to dial on the phone and wait for the tones and than unplug the cord from the handset and plug it into the back of the modem. After a few years I got a Commodore 128, not the compact one but the large one that the monitor sat on. My last Commodore was the Amiga 500 with memory module and an extra external 3.5 in floppy. I'm glad people are preserving these machines and the software that ran on them. It sure was a fun time in those days. Each advancement in hardware was always huge and exciting. I don't get the same warm fuzzy feeling from today's tech.
I remember waiting 15 minutes for my friend's cassette of Temple of Apshai to load on my 800XL. Sometimes it would misread a bleep or blorp and we'd have to start loading from the beginning again.
Oh man this takes me back - I remember we had a notch cutter tool in our primary school lab - much more sophisticated than the chipmunk.
Double your storage in one little chomp!
Wendell, the MNOSt satisying thing about the old phones - was slamming down the reciever to hang up on someone. Almost the same feeling as slamming a flip-phone shut :)
*sigh*
Those were the days.
Picked up my dads reel to reel recorder with a load of reels a while back and one of the reels was just soviet ZX-Spectrum clone programs, definitely a wild find for me.
Oh wow!! Thanks for the blast from the past, man. So many memories came flooding back! Those were some good times.
I cut my teeth on the Apple IIe and not the C64, but a lot still applies.
I loved my C64 and my C128. Machine language at the back of the Commodore and PC books. MAN, memories. The original mechanical keyboard. Thank you Wendell.
My first computer. Was already outdated, my friends had Amigas back then. Still I got hooked and PCs followed a little later on. There's still a demo scene for the C64 btw. and their stuff is incredible given the limitations.
Confine a man tightly enough and he will become a genius within the confinement.
@@andersjjensen However, this is self-confinement by choice, sort of over 30 years since the place has been abandoned xD
Love the retro stuff. Wendell might have me beat by a bit but I remember the first game I played was Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego on a Tandy, game loaded from a cassette tape. That and I remember I wasn't allowed to play doom for the longest time because it was too graphic/scarry. Those were the days ( I mean not really, but nostalgia is a powerful drug!)
I love that the first thing shown on screen is Laser Squad - what an amazing game! It is imprinted on my memory, the colour set, the sounds everything. Very ahead of it's time as well. I think that is actually my main memory of C64 is the amazing vibrant colour set, nothing else is really like it.
I was that 13 year old who got single sided floppies & cut out the sides to double my data. had the cassette drive too. talk about long load times. I adored my 64. thank you so much for this.
I happen to have some old, somewhat historical hardware... I think I should give it to people who will care for it. That Minitel 1B is a museum piece, now.
The game on the screen was Petscii Robots and was released by the 8-bit guy in the last few years. You can get the game for multiple retro computer platforms. Shout to Wendell for cross promotion.
Petscii Robots.
@@theViomax Fixed. Thanks
Oh man, hardcore flashbacks to summer games. Such a fun game at the time. And Spyhunter too! I completely forgot about that game!
My families first home computer was a Texas Instruments TI-99. My first personal machine was a Commodore 128. Thank you for this Wendell.
My college senior project for my bsee degree was a talking voltmeter that used a commodore 64, with a voice synthesizer IC that interfaced with the IO of the 64. The hardware design was accepted for a hardware course I was taking, and the software design was accepted for a computer science course I was taking. 1988 Wayne State, I have my hand sketches for the interface circuit, I will have to dig and see if I have the basic software I did on floppy.
I finished restoring my 64 c about 2 months ago ,and recently I got the kungfu flash cart so I’ve not figured the cart out yet .I will .thanks for the content
SpyHunter was great! I will never forget the the day i got a rare glitch where i was a boat on the road and every car i bumped into just exploded
:)
Will Wendell transform into Adrian Black? Find out in this almost crossover episode!
The C64 was my second computer had a vic20 before. But it was on the commodore 64 that I learned the basics of programming. Loads of happy memories came up when watching the video :-)
Couple of points. It IS about nostalgia for many of us who were actually there and bought the C64 as teenagers back in the 1980s. It takes us back to a happy time when the whole idea of just being able to buy a computer and have it in your own house was a revelation. Computers were not the whitegoods they are today. They booted up instantly, came with BASIC and manuals and you could program them straight out of the box. The "so old" 5 1/4 inch disks you talk about still work today. All of my disks from the 1980s still work, and they are not that sensitive to magnetic fields. What is perhaps remarkable is the quality of the technology - 30 year old technology which lasts longer than a modern day laptop. Double siding disks was very common back in the day. Tape drives were also very common, especially in the UK, as they were way cheaper than disk drives. Acoustic modems were not used with the C64 and Commodore was actually one of the first computer companies to release a direct to phone line modem.
Mind blown 🤯 when I ran out of memory!
I was coding the game “Yahtzee” on C=64
Now, you can’t create a blank Word doc file smaller then the 64K max of the Commodore.
I still have my TWO systems, discs, joystick 🕹 etc
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I remember how cool it was to login to the local BBS and spend hours and hours. Another super cool thing was receiving Fred Fish shareware disks in the mail from the US ... back in the day when the first go to of a developer was not to send you malware but actual value. This is why we can never ever have nice things anymore.
Amiga user identified! ;-p Ah yes, the good old days. My first computer was a TI 99/4A after it dropped to $199 as I recall. Not as good as a C64, but better than no computer at all! And I taught myself how to program in BASIC on it. From there went to Amiga and have a A1000, A500, A3000.
@@SirReptitious Wow, I gave away my A500 and regret it to this day! I also remember the day I took all my floppies and put them in the trash in the late 90's after I moved to states. The regret is palpable.
Thank you for the Bruce Lee game clip. Super fun game. I'm a bit surprised nobody has brought that one back for more modern consoles.
I still have my origanl Commodore 64 bought new in 1985. I just could not get myself te let it go. Now it's a display piece in my study and it's still working
I was a teenager in the mid 80s and had one of those Commodore 64s but with a cassette player. One of my favourite games on it was called "Denaris", probably more but i can't really remember. One of my buddies back then had an Amiga 500 which totally opened a whole new world in terms of graphics and sound. What a machine, what a time.
you're right, the emotions this good computer gave me from 84-89 is hard to describe...
Wendell, loved this video. More retro stuff please.
Good selection of games!
Bruce Lee, Spy Hunter and Summer Games were definitively some of my favorites on the Commodore 64.
Just found my old VIC-20 and Atari ST - and my wife's Commodore 64(mine was sold when we got the Atari ST :() and have started restoring them.
I still have my original C64c. It now sits in the older breadbox case, DRAM retrofitted with SRAM to fix the VSP bug, c0pperdragon's component video mod, SIDFX stereo board that I fitted a dedicated +5V rail to, a 1541Ultimate-II in the expansion slot and a Padswitcher64 squatting in the joystick ports...
It's not far off being 'Commodore of Borg'...
Tape ribbon is cheap and long. With a decent turboloader, a C60 can hold MEGABYTES!
I played with C64 as a kid a lot, and it was already PC era (~2003-), but this was just what I had. I freaking loved it!
Oh man, that memory lane, always nice to go there. I grew up on C64, 10 hours a day, me and my bro ... man, i miss those times.
the best video ever, it reminded me of my old man and his fascination with computers.
When I was a kid we had a Commodore monitor that we use like a TV for the Nintendo since it had A/V in. But I do remember using 5 1/4 disk in school on old Apple computers. But since I was 3 in 1985 watching this made me feel old.
sure brings back memories, I've worked saturdays and holidays so I could buy one for myself, with the 1541, final cartridge and 2 suzo arcade joysticks.
so my brother could play with me, great times :D
This was my first computer. I got it in '90 when all the spoiled kids were getting an Amiga 500. But I had a single mum. I also learned to program in Basic while the other kids only played on their computers. That turned out to be valuable later, as I didn't think C was hard at all since you didn't have to memorise line numbers and poke registers. Neat stuff. I got a slow ass 486 quite a few years later. DOS was boring as fuck because you couldn't do what you wanted. Linux was fun though. Endless tinkering while the coffee got cold in the mug... and then I don't know what happened. I think I was lost in thoughts for a moment and then everything was in gigabytes and megabits per second... But it's all still the same. Just faster and more of it. Windows is still boring as fuck because you can't do what you want. Linux is fun though... Anyhow, I digress. The TLDR is that the kids that only played back then are the god damn retards I have to help today. I'm glad we couldn't afford an Amiga 500....
If I had my life to do over again, I'd rather be a "god damn retard" with friends and a family than a sad lonely autistic computer lover. I can program but nobody cares and life sucks so hard. People are more important than machines and I never understood that until it was too late. Then again, the computers weren't mercilessly bullying me and constantly screaming, so all things considered this is probably the best I could do.
@@JB52520 Learning to think logically and analytically helped me crack "the people code" later in life. I simply started observing said retards in close details They're driven by a set of emotions that will override critical thinking in a heart beat, but there is a semi-regular pattern to it, and once you have confidence that you've figured it out, it's actually not that hard playing neurotypical. I was 36 when I met the love of my life, and we've been together for 7 years now. She thinks I'm the most emotionally stable person she's ever met. The truth is that a lot of it stems from my Aspergers... and that I've learned how to give emotional feedback instead of objective analysis.
If you want to become more of "a people person" here are some books that might help you out: "Dangerous personalities" and "What every body is saying" by Joe Navarro and "How to make anyone fall in love with you" by Leil Lowndes. The later sounds like a con job (and the author admits this in the preface), but it is really not. It teaches a lot about eye contact, mirroring, posture, etc in all social interaction, not just when trying to score. But the key point is still practice....
Live long and prosper _\\//
"so this is a telephone" had me rolling! LOL
For day to day usage I'd recommend something like the 1541 Ultimate-II+ FPGA based floppy drive emulator
If you need to read data off of floppies can't be read the normal way, then your chances may be significantly improved if you try the KryoFlux.
Thanks for this Video, this is the world I grew up in, great memories!
My dad bought me a Commodore 64 when I was about 7 (1985). I only had the audio tape deck, my neighbour who was older than me had the floppy drive which he lent to me sometimes which was cool. Mainly remember river raid & raid over Moscow.
This was one of the most awesome episodes I've seen man. God I remember being 5 years old (1991) playing the commodore 64 my old man picked up somewhere I knew how to type R U N before I could read 😂
C64 was really popular in the UK, but they always had a cassette. The cassette machine was bundled with the C64. Disc drives like the 1541 were extremely rare here.
I still have my original C64C from the late 80s, it was replaced by an Amiga 500+, then an A1200. Finally moved to PC in K6-II days.
Commodore PET 2001 (!), from the mid 70's. My first computer. The one with the real keyboard, not the Chicklet keyboard. Built in IEEE-488. Black and white screen but very high resolution for the time.
The Commodore 64 replaced the 'fast' IEEE-488 bus with a 'slow' serial bus. My friend and I competed to see who could rewrite the drive protocol to get the fastest transfer rate. It turns out that the peripherals also had 1 MHz 6502's in them and could be reprogrammed. He wrote and sold a product called "1541 Flash". I never sold my code but we both basically used the same concepts.
Basically we used the fact that the peripheral AND the PET (or Commodore 64) both had a 1 MHz 6502 in it. i.e. exactly the same frequency, which meant that we could use a timed loop without any handshaking after a pre-amble synchronization sequence to synchronize the two CPUs. So to do the transfer we would disable interrupts for the transfer, do a little synchronization between the two processors, and then stuff bytes (or bits) on one end and read bytes (or bits) on the other end in a timed loop with ZERO handshaking. For the IEEE-488 version I literally just had a LDA / STA loop on the computer side and on the drive side also a LDA / STA loop to read the data off. I'm trying to remember how many cycles it was ... something like 10 cycles per byte.
Lets see. LDA abs,x, STA port, INX, DEY, BNE loop... something like that was the core loop. No handshaking. Fastest peripheral transfer for the day. The serial version that 1541 Flash! used was a bit more complicated because the blasted serial port was so primitive.
--
Another thing I did back then was use the PET's screen, which actually had a TTL input for the data line, as a cheap oscilloscope for digital logic. Left all the vertical refresh scan logic intact and just pulled out the data line and used it to probe around the board. Pretty cool!
Those were great days. We found hardware bugs in the 6522 (one of the main I/O and timer chip). If a timer interrupt occurred just at the wrong time, the interrupt would be lost.
-Matt
I'm a 90's kid, but always lived and breathed computers. I got a Commodore in the early 2000's to play with. I still own it, disks, and all, looked after it :D and i own spyhunter aswell! :D
Loved this episode, remember playing bruce lee game and having all my game on tapes… those were the good times. Thanks for this Wendell!
I had a Commodore 16 as a kid.
(I also had about 5 ZX Spectrums but that's another story)
At the time i felt that you could code almost anything with if's and goto's.
Hey, I still own my original (first computer) Texas Instrument TI-99, with a couple of accessoires. My dad bought me this thing back in the 80's. (he wanted to teach me basic if I recall) Yup, brings back memories for sure!
That "special tool" we used to make single-sided disks double-sided was just a hole punch. Also, I had a friend with a trash-80 and we used a basic tapedeck with regular cassettes.
There actually was a specific tool for the task. It's effectively a hold punch in mechanism, but the cutter is the right size and shape to make a proper notch.
C64 came with "Datasette", a digital unit that used compact cassettes. But you could use other home computers with any old tape recorder, it didn't need to be good, it just needed to not be totally run down. Most of these encode the data into 1kHz and 2kHz tones, you definitely need more than a few percent of tape wow&flutter to upset the data, easily resilient enough for whatever most people could find.
If you want to have some fun replace your telephone at home with a rotor Dial and watch your kids try to figure out how to use it. My wife and I were literally crying watching our daughter trying to figure it out.
I guess my handle gives it away, but the C64 is my favorite computer of all time next to the C128, so many memories of C64 games growing up like Giana Sisters, Tetris, Commando, Bulldog, etc.. but GEOS really opened my eyes to early online networks by including Q-Link on the back o the disk, and then people on Q-Link giving me BBS numbers, and BOOM!! I've been hooked ever sense on being online.
Had these in my HS '83 and '84 with Commodore Pets and Tandy TSR-80s.
Then I graduated and joined USN turning wrenches in ship's engine room. Eight year later, 386sx25, my first PC.
That brings back memories of my first computer...a Commodore 64, 300 baud Westridge modem that was later upgraded to a 1200 baud, and a total of four 1541 floppy drives. Of course, you had to have the Epyx FastLoad! Cartridge or you'd be waiting multiple minutes for your game to load.
Fun fact: when these came out, phone phreaking was still a thing and the Commodore had many programs to aid in this. (You know, in case you had collected all the games from local BBS's and wanted to collect some from out of state or country) Shout out to Dynamic Duo in Germany!
I watch Adrians digital basement he has a lot of video's dealing with old computers glad Level 1 tech is doing it do more of this.
That was the Bruce lee game at 1:57 . I had that :-) I actually had 2 C64's I bought the newer version with a Data cassette drive then sold it, then I found a C64 with a 1541 Disk Drive at work and asked if I could have it. I was originally given a Vic20 for my 13th birthday as they were current then and remember playing Pirate Cove, Impossible Mission and a few other titles. Learnt to program in basic too on that Vic20. Waiting 30mins plus for a Tape game to load, those were the days.
Ahh the memories, our high school installed these the year after I was kicked out of computers. I had the joy of using the Commodore Pet 4k (there was one Super Pet at 16k) which you used cassette until the advanced course and then you were able to use a shared floppy. I wonder what my teacher would think now that I have been in IT for the past 30 years...
I use to connect to Bulletin Board Systems on a C64 and it's associated modem back in the day. I was stoked to get a floppy drive for it too.
14:14 previously I said the mechanical keyboard was the nerdiest thing you have done, THIS is even cooler!
Loved the vid!
I've looked on and off for years, game from early to mid 80's - You managed a hydro electric dam to kleep generate electricity and managed the fish ladder and it was a year round so when fish were runing you had to make choices as to how much water was put toward fish ladder vs the turbines vs the spillway. There were black out and brown out warnings. If anyone knows the name of this one please post it.
While I had a Commodore64c growing up I also had an Atari 800XL and a Amstrad CPC464. It Annoys me to no end how the C64 dominates at the expense of other 8bit computers that also deserve to have some love bestowed upon them
There are likely tons of additional channels, but a few to check:
The 8-Bit Guy
Retro Recipes
Adrian's Digital Basement
They each cover their flavor of retro computing and so forth, but worth a look if you want to get more in-depth into this stuff.
I miss my C64, we could definitely not afford the 1541 and used the tape-based setup. The good thing on the C64 was that it could control the start/stop automatically. I learned a fair bit of programming skill with that, and the manuals were awesome to get started in basic at least.
Love all of this ...TY Wendell... still have all 4 of mine by the way... :)
oh my .. the good old c64 :) still have 2 or 3 c64s and some drives. First Computer was 1983 the VIC20 with a Datasette and one year later i got the C64 with the 1541. Now i use a MIST FPGA Computer or a Raspberry Pi for playing the old games or other Software. Thanks for the video! :-)
thanks for the memories.. upgrading a 1200 baud modem to a $500 "Supra 2400 modem" was life changing back then...
(please do the Amiga next.. it has a deep dark pirate/bbs "scene" history!.. )
those where the days.this video somehow made me remember my favorite game. The Pawn
what fun times !!
kept a C=64 for years running GEOS - it took PC's to move to Pentium to make me move. but boy those day's were great, Daisy wheel printer for papers , both 1541 and 1581's , GEORAM , c ruising the BBS , elary arpanet and usenet groups. watching stuff download line by line across the screen using first a 1200 then a 2400 modem. even the first time celebrating First Time New Years on the Internet with others on the other side of the world. Amazing how far we have in my lifetime.
Back when I worked at the BBC, we had to upgrade from 8 inch floppy to 3.5 inch in the subtitling department. I literally had to walk down the road to Television Centre from White City to go to the basement and pull up the 8 inches so I could take it back and someone would copy it across and resync it. Add to that the fact that Windows '95 had just come out but we weren't allowed to have that, so I kinda had to setup printer access and solve most IT problems because actuall IT support was "yeah, we'll get to it in a week or so". Man, I miss those days.
My cousins had the C64, probably guessing around 1986, the game that seems to stick with me was "Eddie Kidd jump challenge" on it, it was one of the computers I never had, I had a ZX81, Sinclair Spectrum..the 48k and then later the 128k with the built in tape deck (RIP Sir Clive Sinclair) an Amiga 1200 with floppy drive and no HD...can remember the fun of playing Monkey Island II across 11 disks lol...after that its all been PC's since.
This was not what I was expecting, but I'm happy I watched it all the way through. I thought this was a retro mechanical keyboard review, I didn't realize that was the PC. It was rad seeing Street Fighter on the C64, my first video game was Super Mario World on SNES. I chuckled a little because even in the 80's, PC gaming was better than console :P I love NES, but the C64 graphics were leagues ahead of NES.
this brings back memories.. we used to get the computer gazette magazines and they would have code for programs on the commodore 64 and vic 20 i think. i would spend hours typing this code and searching for the typos to get a very simple program to work.
I love it, do more old school tech. I'm an ancient person myself and use to have a Commodore 64. Hell I had a Commodore 64, an Amiga 500, a PC Jr, with the printer & cassette deck. I wish every day that I had kept that stuff but it's all gone now :(
VIC 20 w/ cassette my first computer I bought. The 64 with a 5 1/4 FDD was my second. Fun times programing and playing...
Third best computer I used as child/teenager, No. 1 being the ZX Spectrum followed by the Amiga.
Btw, tapes were the primary storage for C64 here in the UK, only the well off could afford the disk drive as it was the same price as the computer itself.
This video makes me feel old, nice video though, I still use my c64, c128 and amiga. Almost every day, came across a 100 plus dsdd nos never been opened floppy disks, I also have my 8/12 Mhz.286.
Thank you for making this video, it brings back memories.
Still have my breadbin commodore 64 here in the UK where tapes were the main method of software distribution. nowadays i use an SD2IEC paired with a Turbo Chameleon V2 for VGA output, 1541 drive, cartridge emulation and 6510 Turbo function. and my 1541 drive is an original one but doesn't register disks in any way at the moment. but for my current use, i'm happy with SD2IEC and TCv2 for practical use.
Damn this makes me feel old, so many days/nights were lost trying to figure out Impossible Mission, also loved Henry's House and Barbarian.
@4:50 i had that square punch tool to write to both sides. posted pics of my original c64, in box with receipt on L1T forums about a year ago. found it while cleaning out my pop's property. 1 game to rule them all....blood money.
YAASSS! I had one and the 1541 drive! My buddy had the cassette drive! I had an automodem! Woo Hoo!!!! Really fancy!!!
I worked for a neighbor in his yard for 2 weeks to buy this computer when I was 15. My first computer experience was a Timex Sinclair and then a TRS-80 where I first learned to program in basic.
You found a "Flippy". You could use a hole punch to create one. You would have also been crazy to try to use a regular cassette recorder. The Commodore datasette was probably my best investment in high school. It's right up there with my first car.
Yeah I remember the C64 back in the day. I couldn't afford it so I got a Timex Sinclair computer. It was fun, but when I got my 1st Amiga 500 I was blown away. But 2 weeks later I bought a SCSI HD 40 MB. It cost more than the computer w/ 2 floppy drives and a joystick. It did everything I needed for years, productivity, video, and desktop publishing. Of course I played games on it. But games have NEVER BEEN CHEAP!
One of the coolest devices for the C64 I have is a SD2IEC. It is essentially a SD card reader... but for a C64! and just works, so special software, or cartridges just plug it into the floppy drive port, and feed it 5V power,
The way it works made me realize how forward thinking the C64's floppy drive kinda was.
Normally a computer would have the floppy controller on board, or in an expansion card, and the computer would directly control the floppy drive. If a new storage medium was invented, and you wanted it, you'd need to get a controller card to operate it.
Not Commodore. The Floppy drive is it's own computer, and the Commodore is essentially just communicating with it, like it was a NAS on a network. The C64 never cares how the device on the other end works, it could be a hard disk, floppy disk, CD, SD card, NVMe SSD, as long the device speaks the protocol. The Floppy drive also didn't care what kinda computer was asking for the data, so as long as Commodore kept making machines that could use the protocol, it would feed them data.
I had the latest version, the 1541-II, a friend had the first brown one, and with a serial cable we connected them together and used them like a floppy copying machine. Copying software was on an expansion cartridge, so it booted almost instantly.
Had the "Comodore 64" and an "Apple II plus"... and a ton of "Floppy discs"... Sadly all gone now [in the '2007 flood' in Villahermosa, Tabasco, México].
Regards from Tabasco, México [Land of The Olmecs]!
I saved my money for over a year to upgrade from my Atari 400 to a C64. Then I had to save for the floppy drive, had to settle for tape drive for a few months. Miss that little machine. Thanks for saving those games, I hope other kids get some enjoyment out of them like I did back then.