64?

[Actor]

Just out of curiosity, without googling it, how many people here know what a Commodore 64 was?

[PaceAdvantage]

Me...never owned one...I was an Atari 800XL kid....

[MONEY]

I owned on in the early 80s.
I used to get online with something called Q-Link.

[_______]

The signature on my IPhone is "Sent from my Commodore 64".

It was my introduction to computers other than having fiddled around on my brother's TRS 80 (had an actual tape drive).

It was basically a toy that I played games on but I did get a compuserve account and accessed my first bulletin board.

Thanks for reminding me how old I am.

[headhawg]

Me...never owned one...I was an Atari 800XL kid....I talked my brother into buying an 800. I remember when we first played Pacman on it. It was just like the arcade version! I bought a 1200 when I could afford it. Ah, the good ol' days. :)

Favorite computer was still the Amiga. (Still can't call it a Commodore Amiga.)

As an Atari guy, you must remember this...

[Augenj]

I knew what it was but my first computer was an overpriced TRS-80, a "Trash 80". :D

[Track Collector]

I received a C64 for Christmas one year.

I was a bowling league secretary back in those days, and in conjunction with a software package called LeagueBowl64, I was the first person at our local bowling establishment to calculate and print the weekly bowling statistics using a personal computer.

It sure saved a lot of time over doing things the manual way!

The C64 eventually gave way to a Radio Shack laptop called the LT1400 which I soon was using for handicapping the horses! :)

[Ocala Mike]

I'll go you one better. My son's first computer was a Commodore VIC, then he graduated to a Commodore 64. This was in the early 80's when he was in his teens.

Dad (me) didn't enter into the home computer age until much later, 1996 or so, with an IBM clone that I bought off some nerd.

[OTM Al]

I knew what it was but my first computer was an overpriced TRS-80, a "Trash 80". :D
Remember those pulp mags that had the games you could program in machine language? You'd spend all afternoon inputting one and invariably there would be a typo and the thing wouldn't work.

[PaceAdvantage]

I had a bunch of computers growing up, as Dad is a bit of a geek like myself...

Let's see...

There was the TIMEX SINCLAIR (remember THAT ONE?) We actually only had that one for a few days and returned it.

Then I believe my very first "real" computer was the TI 99/4A (thank you Mr. Cosby...lol)

Then the Atari 800XL

Then a TANDY PC...an actual 8086-based PC!!

Then I think I bought my first PC on my own...a Micron Pentium-based machine (now known as MPC and now out of business...they spun off from Micron the chip maker).

Then I built my next handful of PCs over the years...and my current PC I did not build...it's an Alienware from Dell...

Ahhh...the fond memories of a Geek... :lol:

[Augenj]

Remember those pulp mags that had the games you could program in machine language? You'd spend all afternoon inputting one and invariably there would be a typo and the thing wouldn't work.
I never did that on the TRS-80 but did code machine language (1's and 0's) on other computers in schools. You're right. One wrong 1 or 0 in hundreds of characters and it was toast. Believe it or not, I used COBOL on the TRS-80, the mainframe language that had been downsized for personal computers. Basic also.

[OTM Al]

I had a bunch of computers growing up, as Dad is a bit of a geek like myself...

Let's see...

There was the TIMEX SINCLAIR (remember THAT ONE?) We actually only had that one for a few days and returned it.

Then I believe my very first "real" computer was the TI 99/4A (thank you Mr. Cosby...lol)

Then the Atari 800XL

Then a TANDY PC...an actual 8086-based PC!!

Then I think I bought my first PC on my own...a Micron Pentium-based machine (now known as MPC and now out of business...they spun off from Micron the chip maker).

Then I built my next handful of PCs over the years...and my current PC I did not build...it's an Alienware from Dell...

Ahhh...the fond memories of a Geek... :lol:

A friend's parents had an Apple Lisa. Of course being teenagers we used that cutting edge technology to draw dirty pictures on it.

I got an Alienware now too, basically because I can and building your own isn't the good deal it used to be. Does yours get a little flaky rebooting after updates? Had several times where i had to do a system restore because some update was causing it to lock up.

[PaceAdvantage]

Timex Sinclair:

http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/ts1000.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair

[PaceAdvantage]

A friend's parents had an Apple Lisa. Of course being teenagers we used that cutting edge technology to draw dirty pictures on it.

I got an Alienware now too, basically because I can and building your own isn't the good deal it used to be. Does yours get a little flaky rebooting after updates? Had several times where i had to do a system restore because some update was causing it to lock up.Mine is getting a little long in the tooth (I think it's almost 6yo by now). It's a mammoth machine...the freakin thing weighs, I kid you not, close to 50 lbs.

But the only flakiness I've seen after updates is sometimes Windows Explorer will crash shortly upon reboot after an update.

[Inner Dirt]

My best friend at the time had one, I remember the hard drive was a cassette, what was that 1982?

[Flysofree]

My first computer and I fell in love with it was a Radio Shack Tandy. But I didn't buy it at Radio Shack. I bought it from a guy selling them out of his trunk with a horse race handicapping program built in. He had given a demonstration at Pimlico racetrack earlier in the day before the races started. It picked the top 4 horses from information you entered from the Daily Racing form. I probably used it for 2-3 years before loosing it one summer afternoon at Delaware Park. It wasn't cheap, but I remember hitting some nice exactas and tris with the top 4. I wish I could recall the name or details....I can't.

[raybo]

I went from a TI-99 to a Tandy Colortrac II (I think that's what it was called), to a very weak PC (and was hooked after discovering spreadsheets). Today, if it runs Excel and can get on the internet, that is fine with me. I don't care about speed and power, just don't force me to switch the OS I have!

[_______]

My best friend at the time had one, I remember the hard drive was a cassette, what was that 1982?

On the C64? That's interesting.

I was about to post that they didn't make one for it (I never saw one) but I googled and see they were available in Europe.

Did you grow up across the pond or somehow get one over here?

[Red Knave]

I wrote some programs in Fortran at university (1967) using punch cards but you never actually saw the actual IBM 360/75. It was in it's own air conditioned room. I remember them telling me the floor had a 12" space under it for cabling.
My first micro pc experience was with a Commodore Pet with a 90k diskette (1980?). It was an introductory course at the local community college and, of course, I was using it to write harness race handicapping software in Basic.
The first computer I owned was an Acorn Atom (1981). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Atom I hobbled it by buying a cheap tape player and never really got much out of it.
Then, I cajoled an employer to buy me a KayPro II with a "monster" 9" monitor (that's what the ad said)(1982). I updated the diskettes so I had 4 360k drives! :)




There was the TIMEX SINCLAIR (remember THAT ONE?) We actually only had that one for a few days and returned it.

A friend had one of these (the wedge shaped one) that he used as a doorstop until just recently. :D

[Rise Over Run]

I wrote some programs in Fortran at university (1967) using punch cards but you never actually saw the actual IBM 360/75.

Yeah, my dad talks about running the punch cards for Fortran programs in the early 1970's. I had a TI=99/4A growing up in the early 1980's with the external cassette tape "hard drive" that loaded programs. Dad got us an Apple IIe in the mid 1980's and then I graduated to an 8086 in 1989. I still remember there was a button on the front of the computer that would "speed" up the processor to 8 megahertz from 4 megahertz, I think. We were accessing bulletin boards to download games at school in 1990.

This is an oldie, but a goodie; this is either a mid 1980'ss photo of PA writing the original code for this website or CJ developing figures for Garden State Park. :lol:
http://pawcurious.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/geek.jpg

[Inner Dirt]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inner Dirt
My best friend at the time had one, I remember the hard drive was a cassette, what was that 1982?




On the C64? That's interesting.

I was about to post that they didn't make one for it (I never saw one) but I googled and see they were available in Europe.

Did you grow up across the pond or somehow get one over here?

Oops it wasn't a hard drive, it was a data storage option. I just relied on memory without refreshing it through Google. I think that thing was bought in a Radio Shack in California.

[PaceAdvantage]

Yeah, my dad talks about running the punch cards for Fortran programs in the early 1970's. I had a TI=99/4A growing up in the early 1980's with the external cassette tape "hard drive" that loaded programs. Dad got us an Apple IIe in the mid 1980's and then I graduated to an 8086 in 1989. I still remember there was a button on the front of the computer that would "speed" up the processor to 8 megahertz from 4 megahertz, I think. We were accessing bulletin boards to download games at school in 1990.

This is an oldie, but a goodie; this is either a mid 1980'ss photo of PA writing the original code for this website or CJ developing figures for Garden State Park. :lol:
http://pawcurious.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/geek.jpgBelieve it or not, I am STILL using that keyboard!!!

I have kept a late 1980's (1989 I think) IBM keyboard as my keyboard on every single desktop I've built or purchased over the years. It's that good...and that durable. AND I GOT IT ORIGINALLY SECOND HAND, from my Dad's office when they were ditching their old PCs!!

I am so in love with this keyboard, I will never part with it, and I don't think it will ever break. It's a tank, and it's awesome.

This is my current keyboard, and has been my keyboard for close to 25 years:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/psjZzAC6dKI/maxresdefault.jpg

[DeltaLover]

Believe it or not, I am STILL using that keyboard!!!

I have kept a late 1980's (1989 I think) IBM keyboard as my keyboard on every single desktop I've built or purchased over the years. It's that good...and that durable. AND I GOT IT ORIGINALLY SECOND HAND, from my Dad's office when they were ditching their old PCs!!

I am so in love with this keyboard, I will never part with it, and I don't think it will ever break. It's a tank, and it's awesome.

This is my current keyboard, and has been my keyboard for close to 25 years:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/psjZzAC6dKI/maxresdefault.jpg

:ThmbUp: :ThmbUp:

A mechanical keyboard is the way to go..

The one I am using:

https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1365

[PaceAdvantage]

It's good to know there are enough of us out there who love mechanical, "clicky" keyboards, are enthusiasts for the "buckling spring" design of the keys, that certain companies continue to produce keyboards like this (not very many though, which is a shame).

If and when I ever need to replace my vintage IBM Model M (and honestly, I don't think it's ever going to be necessary...the thing is as solid as a brick and basically indestructible), it's comforting to know I have options! :ThmbUp:

[wilderness]

I've still one of these.
Dated 1984 and Part # 1391401

Off an old 8088.

Seem to recall using one of these old keyboards at one time and it required an adapter from PS1 to PS2 (perhaps I'm mistaken?)?

[wilderness]

I wrote some programs in Fortran at university (1967) using punch cards but you never actually saw the actual IBM 360/75. It was in it's own air conditioned room. I remember them telling me the floor had a 12" space under it for cabling.

In the late-60s (in Detroit) I used to do cleaning at a computer company.
They had most of the 2d floor of a very large building.
Recall one of the guys showing me all the cabling and cooling under the floor.
They used to discard boxes and boxes of keypunch cards.

One of the programmers was a horseplayer, thus we had much to talk about.

The massive machines had all those reel-to-reel tapes that required frequent changing when doing data searches.

The geeks would spend days looking for simple syntax errors in programing.
The damned screen they worked with wasn't very large, perhaps smaller than those old 12" desktop monitors.

[PaceAdvantage]

I've still one of these.
Dated 1984 and Part # 1391401

Off an old 8088.

Seem to recall using one of these old keyboards at one time and it required an adapter from PS1 to PS2 (perhaps I'm mistaken?)?Yeah, now it requires PS1 to USB...for lunatics like me who refuse to give it up

[Augenj]

In the late-60s (in Detroit) I used to do cleaning at a computer company.
They had most of the 2d floor of a very large building.
Recall one of the guys showing me all the cabling and cooling under the floor.
They used to discard boxes and boxes of keypunch cards.

One of the programmers was a horseplayer, thus we had much to talk about.

The massive machines had all those reel-to-reel tapes that required frequent changing when doing data searches.

The geeks would spend days looking for simple syntax errors in programing.
The damned screen they worked with wasn't very large, perhaps smaller than those old 12" desktop monitors.
That was me at an aerospace company in Los Angeles about that time. ;)
First as an operator on IBM mainframes with raised floors and those tape drives you mentioned, then a (horse playing) programmer,
systems analyst, systems programmer, etc. I spent decades with mainframes.

[Actor]

Remember those pulp mags that had the games you could program in machine language? You'd spend all afternoon inputting one and invariably there would be a typo and the thing wouldn't work.There was a way around that. If it did not work the first time you typed it in a second time and saved both files. If the second time did not work then you wrote a little file compare program that would stop a the first number that did not match. That told you where the typo most likely was because it's unlikely you would make the same mistake twice. You could refer to the mag and and find the correct code. Only once did I have to type it in three times. Of course that assumes the typo was not in the magazine but if the magazine was doing it right the type was set by machine leaving humans out of the loop.

[Actor]

Believe it or not, I am STILL using that keyboard!!!How do you get an old keyboard to work with a USB port?

[Actor]

I'll go you one better. My son's first computer was a Commodore VIC, then he graduated to a Commodore 64. This was in the early 80's when he was in his teens.

Dad (me) didn't enter into the home computer age until much later, 1996 or so, with an IBM clone that I bought off some nerd.My first computer was a PET with the calculator keyboard. The second was a VIC 20. The third, fourth, fifth, ... were C64s. Somewhere around 1985 I bought an IBM clone with two floppy drives and no hard drive.

When the price got down to around $200 or less Commodore had this policy where they'd repair it for a flat $59. You shipped them the computer and a $59 money order. But they didn't actually repair it. They just trashed it and shipped you a new one. Their wholesale price was $50 so they were making $9 on the deal.

My first programming job was on a Hewlett-Packard mini with about a dozen terminals. The hard drive went bad and it cost $100,000 to replace it. It was a 128 megabyte hard drive. Each user was allotted 64K of the mini's memory. Someone suggested we trash it and by everyone a Commodore 64. They finally did trash it, bought about 50 IBM clones and put them all on a LAN.

[Longshot6977]

How do you get an old keyboard to work with a USB port?

Something like this will do the trick; a PS/2 to USB adaptor http://www.amazon.com/Replacement-PS-Keyboard-USB-Adapter/dp/B0009RKLMG/ref=pd_sim_147_5?ie=UTF8&dpID=41QztyK9A6L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=1SY5S2SXFFJ6J76J83QC

Or just convert it to USB like this guy did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8thH3EoIGx4