The Commodore C-64 is back!

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Wahoo - the computer that ushered many people into the computer age has made a comeback.

The console looks the same - but inside, there's a Linux operating system.

Who will be the first to buy one? Prices start at $595

http://www.commodoreusa.net

From the website:
Units come with the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS operating system on disk ready to install.
Commodore OS 1.0, along with emulation functionality and classic game package, will be mailed to purchasers when available.

[Rich Schmidt]

I was just reading about this the other day. A Commodore 64 was my first computer as a kid, and I have very fond memories. In fact, I still had it in a box in my basement until a flood ruined it a couple years ago.

FWIW, it looks like their website is down temporarily. But that is the correct link that Scott shared, for anyone who's curious.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

I was just reading about this the other day. A Commodore 64 was my first computer as a kid, and I have very fond memories. In fact, I still had it in a box in my basement until a flood ruined it a couple years ago.

FWIW, it looks like their website is down temporarily. But that is the correct link that Scott shared, for anyone who's curious.

I think their website is swamped with curious visitors. The first computer I ever ran was a TRS-80 and the first I ever owned was a TI99-4a. Next came the C-64 which I dearly loved. Maybe they'll come out with a 1541 disk drive next. I started out using a cassette player with my C-64 but before long I bit the bullet and got the 1541. Later on, I had a dream setup: C-64 hooked up to a color TV and not one, but two 1541's.

Those were the days!

[Rich Schmidt]

I think their website is swamped with curious visitors. The first computer I ever ran was a TRS-80 and the first I ever owned was a TI99-4a. Next came the C-64 which I dearly loved. Maybe they'll come out with a 1541 disk drive next. I started out using a cassette player with my C-64 but before long I bit the bullet and got the 1541. Later on, I had a dream setup: C-64 hooked up to a color TV and not one, but two 1541's.

Those were the days!

They certainly were! With two 1541's, you could leave the program disk in one and put different data disks in the other! What a setup!

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

They certainly were! With two 1541's, you could leave the program disk in one and put different data disks in the other! What a setup!

I can go even farther with it. I actually had 1 1541 and the second drive was a third party disk drive. Some copy protected stuff wouldn't run on the third party drive, but it was the faster of the two. I could boot off of the 1541 and run the programs on the other drive, so it most often speeded things up. Later on I got a fast loader cartridge, so I could use both drives for programs and data. It worked great when running GEOS.

I also had a third party power supply. For some reason, Commodore built their power supply and then filled it with some kind of hard, clear glue. Those power supplies were notorious for overheating and the first component to break down would somehow send too much voltage to the computer and fry it. Someone built a power supply in a vented metal case. I kept it on a board on the floor with a little fan blowing on it and it ran 24 hours a day with no problems.

I can tell you something else about the 1541. It had an innovative design. A computer chip in it caused it to change the amount of data being stored on a disk based on whether it was writing near the center or out on the edge. Other disk drives took the center amount and used it throughout the disk. Because of the C-64 design you could get more data on a disk. That was pretty neat. Also, you could cut a notch in the disk and actually use both sides - again, it doesn't sound like much, but those floppies were somewhat expensive in those days.

Memories!

[Jim Chabot]

Neat, it's kinda like a backwards imac! Funny how things come back around.

My first was also a TI 99-4A, with cassette tape storage! After that I moved up to a TRS-80 Model 4 with 128k of memory and a huge 5meg hard drive. Not a lot of space on that hard drive by todays standards, but it was huge!

I can remember running my business with a template on Visicalc. The whole program was 17K

I remember the notch trick, I was afraid to try it.

http://kirchhoff.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/trs80m4.jpg

[Jon Twitchell]

It will surprise some of you, but I remember notching floppies for both Trash-80s and TI-994As.

I mostly remember playing "Hunt the Wumpus" and "Parsec" on the TI994A... and learned a little bit of Logo.

I suspect I was one of the first kids in my class to have access to a home computer... Dad was a High School Physics teacher, and saw the benefits of having technology at home.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

It will surprise some of you, but I remember notching floppies for both Trash-80s and TI-994As.

I mostly remember playing "Hunt the Wumpus" and "Parsec" on the TI994A... and learned a little bit of Logo.

I suspect I was one of the first kids in my class to have access to a home computer... Dad was a High School Physics teacher, and saw the benefits of having technology at home.

I actually did some programming on a TI99-4A - I wrote a math quiz program that would generate a series of problems and then report the score. I gave it to my son's Junior High teacher and they used it in the classroom.

Later on I wrote a program for the C-64. It was a quick search program for use with ham radio nets. When a person checked into the net, the net control could type in the last part of the callsign and get an immediate readout of their full callsign, name, and location. I sold it as shareware before there was such a thing and took the proceeds and bought my first IBM (DOS) computer. I kept the C-64 for a long time after that, but ultimately the DOS machine won out. I also came to Windows late because it was so much slower than running the same computer under DOS.

[Rich Schmidt]

Also, you could cut a notch in the disk and actually use both sides - again, it doesn't sound like much, but those floppies were somewhat expensive in those days.

I did that all the time! I think we were able to use a regular hole punch... but I remember using scissors, too.

I graduated from the C-64 to the Amiga sometime in high school, and then switched to a DOS/Windows computer in college. I used a variety of those until buying my first MacBook Pro in 2006.

To put some timeframes on all of that, I was born in '74 and graduated high school in '92.

[Dave McClung]

I think their website is swamped with curious visitors. The first computer I ever ran was a TRS-80 and the first I ever owned was a TI99-4a. Next came the C-64 which I dearly loved. Maybe they'll come out with a 1541 disk drive next. I started out using a cassette player with my C-64 but before long I bit the bullet and got the 1541. Later on, I had a dream setup: C-64 hooked up to a color TV and not one, but two 1541's.

Those were the days!

I was visiting with John Bowling, president of ONU, this week. He said that the first personal computer he ever saw was at my house -- the TRS-80, model 1, level 1. I bought the 16K version.

I had my name on the list for months before the TRS-80 came out. There werre two versions, the 4K version and the 16K version. I asked the manager at Radio Shack, "Why would I want the 16K version?" He said, "Someday, you might write a really big program."

[Marsha Lynn]

I did that all the time! I think we were able to use a regular hole punch... but I remember using scissors, too.

I graduated from the C-64 to the Amiga sometime in high school, and then switched to a DOS/Windows computer in college. I used a variety of those until buying my first MacBook Pro in 2006.

To put some timeframes on all of that, I was born in '74 and graduated high school in '92.

Another Amiga owner! I loved the Amiga 500. We graduated to it from the Commodore 64 sometime in 1987. When the keyboard went bad on the first one several years later, rendering the all-in-one box very frustrating to use, we bought a second one. It was still far ahead of anything Microsoft and IBM were doing. In all, we used the Amiga 500 for seven years (several eons in technological terms) before the falling support curve for Commodore's superior product finally met the rising curve for Windows. (It was the most striking lesson I have ever encountered for the power of marketing.)

BTW before the C-64, my younger brother was the first one in his class to have a home computer -- the Commodore Pet.

BTW again, my husband and I bought our C-64 in July of 1983. I remember because we decided to invest in a floppy drive on our first daughter's due date. However, our 1980 VW diesel Rabbit developed mechanical problems as we drove into the parking lot of the computer store. Oh, the quandary. Both the computer store and the VW dealer across the street on the far side of the mall were about to close and we were 45 miles from home. What to do, what to do. Was it more important to get the car fixed or have a way to store our computer programs? Our solution was for me to go to the computer store while he drove to the dealer. I bought that heavy floppy drive and carried it the half mile or so to the dealer. And that baby still didn't show up for another 10 days!

Yep, those were the days.

:smilies1722:

[Marsha Lynn]

Last evening I was feeling too pressured by unfinished tasks to drop everything for an outing that involved some driving time. I hoped to work on some files in my dropbox on the road (after the sun quit turning my laptop screen into an overpriced mirror) but then discovered I had neglected to turn on my laptop at home to sync up after updating the files on another computer. That left me with just some stored email to read. Then I played a game of Jezzball, which I recently ran across and dumped on my laptop for old times sake.

Ah, Jezzball and Chip's Challenge. Toward the end of our Amiga days, we had graduated to 3 1/2 inch floppies (and even had a hard drive). Windows was on the rise and floppies started being sold with IBM formatting. We accidentally bought a box that way and got a bonus disk of games that we couldn't use until we finally bought our first Windows machine. That was in 1994 with Windows 3.1. And yesterday I played Jezzball, a totally self-contained program (no dlls or registry entries), in Windows 7. Do you know how far away we are from that first floppy that brought it to us?

[Marsha Lynn]

According to BBC (http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/view?q=view%3Apopular&a=9UlyyvqWtcrIXM&source=news&type=embed), Linux is not the only option.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

I haven't seen anything about a hard drive for the new C-64 - I wonder what they are putting in it.

[Rich Schmidt]

I haven't seen anything about a hard drive for the new C-64 - I wonder what they are putting in it.

It looks like you can order anything from a 160GB hard drive to a 1TB one. It's in their store: http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_C64Select.aspx

[Gina Stevenson]

That left me with just some stored email to read. Then I played a game of Jezzball, which I recently ran across and dumped on my laptop for old times sake.

Ah, Jezzball ............................

That was in 1994 with Windows 3.1. And yesterday I played Jezzball, a totally self-contained program (no dlls or registry entries), in Windows 7. Do you know how far away we are from that first floppy that brought it to us?

Ahhh, Jezzball ... something played while waiting for laundry in the basement [a bit easier sitting down there, than up & down & up & down] on the "antique" computer down there. ;)

BTW, forgot to add that I remember seeing that C64 long ago ... somehow remembered that name/number combination. Anyway, a young teen son of a gal I knew when living on the East side of MI back in early 80's had this; first I'd ever seen a computer in a home.