Anyone here remember the Commodore days?

[toystalker]

although as a kid i never owned an atari or a comodore or a sinclair or any other computer come to that lol

my mates did though, i would go round there homes to play them, i suppose thats why i was never in

i remember them well, the sinclair zx spectrum, the comodores 64 and 128, the amstrad 128, amiga... yeah we used to make beats on that amiga, was something like qbase or simular music studio programme lol

used to love asteroids, yeah i remember it taking a life time to load up and with all this squealing noise going on just to load up space invaders, or if you was posh you had california games or outrun

but, in my later years ive owned all those vintage consoles and computer games, once on a toy stalking adventure i found a factory stock of consoles, there was atari carts, coleco vision, frogger, expansion modules, an old computer called aquarius and a great game on it called night stalker... partly where my name come from , and many many more items, all long gone now though

ah yes the good ol days, i think ive probably bought and sold just about every vintage games console there is, sadly i didnt get to play many of them as they were still sealed in the original packs i didnt want to spoil the collectible side of that, or if im honest the sales potential

[Mikey]

My first computer was a Tandy TRS-80-Colour

After a few years I chucked it and bought the NEW Commodore 128

[Adam West]

My only memory of it was that they sold it at Radio Shack at a local mall and they used to have it displayed so you couldn't miss it if you were walking past it.

It took no time for my brother and I to figure out the simple coding to have words scroll across the screen so we used to pretend like we were checking out the computer while we quickly typed in "Radio Shack Sucks!" and have it scroll across the screen as people walked by until one of the employees figured out what we were doing.

The good old days.

[livnxxxl]

I too started copying games...more on the amiga...remember x copy..lol so simple to use.....we would all swap games and have virtually everything that came out.....downside being if you got to a hard part you didn't persavere but just put the next game in.
Some favs on the Amiga were
Sensible Soccer
Gods
Speedball 2
Cineware games...loved wings and It came from the desert.
then I upgraded to a 286 pc just 'cos I wanted to play X-wing and secret weapons of the Luftwaffe, they never came out on amiga...remember having to learn dos becuse you had to turn windows off so that there was enough memory to play games...lol

Yeah Amiga was the bomb compared to Commodore. It was like the newest Xbox compared to the old Atari. Some good copy programs at the time I recall was Mr. Nibble, Fast Hack'em (had as many versions as Friday the 13th movies had sequels), Diskbusters, This really cool (at that time anyway) two sided disk put out by Prism soft. I cannot remember the name of it now, but it was the stuff back then. It had all the parameters for the current games at the time and the company released upgraded versions of course. Kind of like the radar detector vs the radar gun saga.


I eventually graduated from the C128 to a 386 and really thought that I was the stuff then. The 386 was my first IBM PC. I think it had like a 20 MB not GB drive on it. Now it is the total opposite. That was good for back then though. Being an old die hard Commie fan I had actually liked DOS so much a that time that I did not even want to upgrade to Windows.

[Hector]

[livnxxxl]

Oh, and keeping with the theme of this thread...I have fond memories of my 64, yes, it was very frustrating to use, but it was also thrilling, since it was my very first computer, and I felt so important at the time.

I kind of figured that you were getting to that. You just wanted to build up the suspense first. Isn't it funny how certain things made us feel important back in those days. For me it was a pager. Do people even use those things any more? Everyone just had to have one eventually.

[livnxxxl]

Gemco is basically Target now.

Gemco - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ahh, I see.

I loved that store, my dad bought many Megos for me there.

Two main things Gemco was known for:

The store manager of each Gemco was always referred to over the intercom system as "Number 1," and the assistant manager was called "Number 2". The lowest paid staff member, the courtesy clerk, was called "29" or more frequently "29C" (C for shopping cart retrieval). There were not 29 levels of employees, however. The paging of "10 variety" meant help was needed at the check out registers. The paging of a "99" meant a janitor was needed, i.e., "99M" meant a mop to clean a spill or 99B" meant a broom to sweep up a mess.

I would not like being anything less than number one. Actually more like zero if that meant CEO. That is an definitely a unique system. Perhaps we should give it a try here at The Museum? NOT!!!

Karen Carpenter, of the Carpenters singing duo, lived about a quarter mile from the Downey Gemco. Legend states that she was getting ready to go to this particular store on the morning of February 4, 1983, when she suffered a heart attack in her parents' home and died. Her brother, Richard, was also a frequent shopper at the Downey store.

hmmm....that is a true shame about her having that heart attack and dying.

[Hector]

Oh, and keeping with the theme of this thread...I have fond memories of my 64, yes, it was very frustrating to use, but it was also thrilling, since it was my very first computer, and I felt so important at the time.

[Bo8a_Fett]

I too started copying games...more on the amiga...remember x copy..lol so simple to use.....we would all swap games and have virtually everything that came out.....downside being if you got to a hard part you didn't persavere but just put the next game in.
Some favs on the Amiga were
Sensible Soccer
Gods
Speedball 2
Cineware games...loved wings and It came from the desert.
then I upgraded to a 286 pc just 'cos I wanted to play X-wing and secret weapons of the Luftwaffe, they never came out on amiga...remember having to learn dos becuse you had to turn windows off so that there was enough memory to play games...lol

[Hector]

hmmm.. Gemco kind of sounds familiar. Were they a catalog based company? $100.00 was a great deal at that time. I was a proud member of a group back in the days. I eventually branched off on my own and even started my own group. A friend of mine was real close to one of the big groups leaders. Does Eagle Soft or ATC ring a bell with anyone?

I used to love the Demos that the various groups put out.

Gemco is basically Target now.

Gemco - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I loved that store, my dad bought many Megos for me there.

Two main things Gemco was known for:

The store manager of each Gemco was always referred to over the intercom system as "Number 1," and the assistant manager was called "Number 2". The lowest paid staff member, the courtesy clerk, was called "29" or more frequently "29C" (C for shopping cart retrieval). There were not 29 levels of employees, however. The paging of "10 variety" meant help was needed at the check out registers. The paging of a "99" meant a janitor was needed, i.e., "99M" meant a mop to clean a spill or 99B" meant a broom to sweep up a mess.

Karen Carpenter, of the Carpenters singing duo, lived about a quarter mile from the Downey Gemco. Legend states that she was getting ready to go to this particular store on the morning of February 4, 1983, when she suffered a heart attack in her parents' home and died. Her brother, Richard, was also a frequent shopper at the Downey store.

[livnxxxl]

Ah yes, the C64. I bought one as soon as they came out (based on advice from my "computer genius" friend, who now works for IBM, so I guess his was good advice to take!).

Actually I would have considered it pretty good advice at the time. I learned a lot from that little machine believe it or not. I probably would not have had an interest in programming and ML had it not have been for the Commodore when I was younger.

The downside of being an early adopter was that there initially wasn't very much good software available for the 64, and about a year or so later, I could have bought it for a fair amount less money (I never learn, I still do that with electronics!).

I finally learned that lesson the hard way as well. I stopped when I paid $300.00 for my 3DO gaming system. I do not feel quite as bad as another friend of mine bought it when it first came out and paid an ungodly $600.00 for it just to be the first to have one. I could care less about being the first anymore in regards to most electronics anyway. I know the prices will fall like a rock eventually and it is always a buyers market.

After that, I had tons of great games to play, and any actual educational benefits of the machine fell by the wayside.

I hear you there. Those were the days. The same thing happened with me as well. The c128 was bought for initially bought for schooling and it was used for school AT FIRST that was.

The 64's disc drive add on was VERY tempermental, and mine finally crapped out and I sold everything at a yard sale for a song. But I got a good 6 or 7 years use out of everything at least. Not bad compared to computers these days,considering how fast everything becomes obsolete.
.

I sold a non working 1581 back a couple of years ago for parts. I was just going to throw it away like most then I ended up getting offered $20.00 for it so I guess it was worth holding onto after all. It is amazing what sells well and what does not. I did not think that it would have been worth $20.00 especially in non working condition. The guy said he wanted it for parts so who was I to disappoint.

[livnxxxl]

Yep. Count me in as a proud Commodore 64 owner. I still have it - MIB naturally. I haven't hooked it up in decades, but get the urge once in a while. My younger brother used to run a BBS from his 128 and got me about 20+ disks filled with games. I bought mine when Gemco, anyone remember them???, had a going out of business sale - so, it only cost about $100. A great deal for the time.

David

hmmm.. Gemco kind of sounds familiar. Were they a catalog based company? $100.00 was a great deal at that time. I was a proud member of a group back in the days. I eventually branched off on my own and even started my own group. A friend of mine was real close to one of the big groups leaders. Does Eagle Soft or ATC ring a bell with anyone?

I used to love the Demos that the various groups put out.

[cjefferys]

Ah yes, the C64. I bought one as soon as they came out (based on advice from my "computer genius" friend, who now works for IBM, so I guess his was good advice to take!). The downside of being an early adopter was that there initially wasn't very much good software available for the 64, and about a year or so later, I could have bought it for a fair amount less money (I never learn, I still do that with electronics!).

But when it finally came into it's own it was good. I bought Compute's Gazette too, and input all those endless lines of code to play some so-so games. Soon after, I became a part of a huge bootleg video game trader group at high school (it helped that our computer lab, equipped with Commodore PETs, had a Commodore 4040 dual disc drive that made copying discs a snap ). After that, I had tons of great games to play, and any actual educational benefits of the machine fell by the wayside.

The 64's disc drive add on was VERY tempermental, and mine finally crapped out and I sold everything at a yard sale for a song. But I got a good 6 or 7 years use out of everything at least. Not bad compared to computers these days,considering how fast everything becomes obsolete.
.

[trekfan]

Yep. Count me in as a proud Commodore 64 owner. I still have it - MIB naturally. I haven't hooked it up in decades, but get the urge once in a while. My younger brother used to run a BBS from his 128 and got me about 20+ disks filled with games. I bought mine when Gemco, anyone remember them???, had a going out of business sale - so, it only cost about $100. A great deal for the time.

David

[livnxxxl]

I also remember those days of ZZAp 64 (a computer mag for 64 gamers), that would print(in the early days) pages of computer langusge to type into your system for a free game...4 hours of one fingered typing later you would hit start and get :
Syntax error line 13....and youd finished over 500 or more lines of data.....that was a day wasted...but oh the anticipation....lol

Remember Computes Gazette and Run 64? I have some of those issues stashed away somewhere. Probably in the attic with all the rest of my obsolete stuff. I been there done that on the ML and it sure does suck big time.