A new C-64

[robcat2075]

It's a PC in a Commodore-64 case. And it will also run C-64 programs.

 

 

http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_C64.aspx

 

 

 

 

 

 

It sounds silly but I remember seeing an ad for the C-64 on the back of a magazine in 1982 and reading all the things it could do (graphics! music synthesizer! Programming!) and not being able to stop reading it. I probably re-read that page more than anything I've ever re-read in my life.

 

[DJBREIT]

Talk about a blast from the past and it is funny since I still have that computer and the vic 20 at my parents home.

[yoda64]

Good, old breadbox .

Starting really programming on such a machine back in 1990 , buyed it one day after the monetary union from FRG and GDR ....

The first programming steps are on a Robotron K1840 at work , are You remember the 8'' disks and amber monitor ?

[robcat2075]

Good, old breadbox .

Starting really programming on such a machine back in 1990 , buyed it one day after the monetary union from FRG and GDR ....

The first programming steps are on a Robotron K1840 at work , are You remember the 8'' disks and amber monitor ?

 

I can beat that!

 

My first programming steps were in high school math classes in the 70's and we didn't have a monitor, it was all on a teletype terminal connected to a central computer by an acoustic modem that offered 30 characters per second which I guess would be about 240 baud.

 

And we stored our programs on paper punch tape.

 

And we liked it!

 

 

In college I had a class where it was all on punch cards. You'd type up a deck of cards, give it to a clerk who would put it in line to be run and you'd come back the next day to get the output which, for me, was usually all syntax errors. I didn't learn much in that setting.

 

So when i saw that ad for whole computer, that I could have at home, that would run programs right away, and i hook to my TV, that was like a miracle.

[John Bigboote]

My High School computer teacher told me that if I didn't do better at COBOL, I'd never make it to FORTRAN and I would end-up a punch-card operator for the rest of my life. He had vision.

 

JUST THINK if the Amiga had kept developing... we'd have 3 choices today. I loved 'Deluxe Paint' on the Amiga.

 

I sold the C-64 and Vic20's at an appliance store in the early 1980's... people would come in and say 'what is it?' the answer... 'a computer'... 'what does it do?'... 'I don't really know... you type into it...' pause... 'I'll take an Atari 2600'... 'good choice'.

[johnl3d]

Have a few 64's some inherited one may even work, Amiga 500 and 1200 for the 1200 still have an industrial size monitor that displayed Pal

[Roger]

I can understand the appeal to nostalgia, but dear god why put an Atom in it? Even a dual core atom is not going to be that fast compared to even a bottom of the barrel core i3. Depending on what they are pricing it at, a core i3 would be much more bang for the buck. I looked for pricing info but I can't imagine this is cheap, either.

 

I see they are also trying to resurrect the poor Amiga - I never owned one, but I remember being impressed by the technology at a time when PCs were lucky if they could do 16 color graphics and make beeps and boops for sound. I came very close to buying an Amiga at one point, but didn't. It had its day in the sun and in away would be wonderful if it could come back, but I don't think that will ever happen.

[Fuchur]

I can understand the appeal to nostalgia, but dear god why put an Atom in it? Even a dual core atom is not going to be that fast compared to even a bottom of the barrel core i3. Depending on what they are pricing it at, a core i3 would be much more bang for the buck. I looked for pricing info but I can't imagine this is cheap, either.

 

I see they are also trying to resurrect the poor Amiga - I never owned one, but I remember being impressed by the technology at a time when PCs were lucky if they could do 16 color graphics and make beeps and boops for sound. I came very close to buying an Amiga at one point, but didn't. It had its day in the sun and in away would be wonderful if it could come back, but I don't think that will ever happen.

 

This is not for benchmarks or so... it is only for people who owned one back then... nostalgic reasons...

An i3 or and x4 is maybe too hot or two big to be in that "case".

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

I had an AMIGA too and loved it. It had a graphics mode called "HAM" that did 4096 colors which to most eyes looked like full color.

 

It was very painful watching watching Commodore collapse in the 90's.

 

Every month "Amazing Computing" magazine would come out and the "Bandito" column would reveal the latest disaster. I don't think we ever found out who the Bandito was except that it was more than one person.

 

I believe Martin Hash's Animation:Apprentice started out as an AMIGA program.

[John Bigboote]

And... this conversation would not be complete without mention of the infamous 'Video Toaster'... who here remembers the 'Kiki-Wipes'?

[Shelton]

I loved all the computers that were not IBM. Had them all; Commodore, Amiga, Atari, Macs. I even had an Atari store and sold the full line of products up until their demise. I still have several machines in one of the closets. I miss those days and the excitement those machines caused.

 

Steve

[NancyGormezano]

While you young'uns were fiddling with your toy computers, I was playing with this bad boy at Nasa-Ames in Mountain View, Ca, the Illiac IV

 

So close, but no cigar. Never did what it was supposed to ... ever .... Write once, read never... 256 Parallel processing units, on the arpanet (precursor to internet), front ended with PDP-10, and PDP-11's.

 

I had a teletype in my home linked in to that mess via accoustic coupler (110 baud - eventually upgraded to 300 baud)

[MJL]

I used an abacus once.

[NancyGormezano]

I used an abacus once.

 

Hee hee! love it.

 

___________________

 

Some personal trivia about the Illiac IV project. I was hired by John Warnock, as one of my first jobs as a computer programmer, to work on the Illiac IV project. It was probably John's only professional mistake in his life. At the time, we were employees of E&S (Evans & Sutherland), and worked as government sub-contractors to the Illiac project. John went on to become one of the founders of Adobe Systems. A wonderful, terrific, generous, kind man who deserves all the success he has obtained.

 

Another person who was working there at the same time, and who I had some contact with (but not as much as John) was graduate student Charles Simonyi. In 2007, Charles was the very same civilian who payed $20 million? to have a 14 day adventure trip as a space tourist to the International Space Station. On wiki-pedia, it is also reported (do not know if this is true) was that Charles at one time was the boyfriend of Martha Stewart! yikes.

[robcat2075]

Evans and Sutherland! You're CG royalty, then.

 

(Not that you weren't already, of course)

[NancyGormezano]

Evans and Sutherland! You're CG royalty, then.

 

(Not that you weren't already, of course)

 

I would more say I worked with and met CG royalty, including Jim Blinn, Christie Barton, et al.

 

I wasn't doing any CG work at Illiac, was mainly doing application support type programming for the Illiac. But I did go on to work for Link Flight Simulators, where I did CG development exclusively for 12 years. I was one of the project leads in developing the real-time systems for the computer image generators (CIG) that were used for, in particular, the Space Shuttle, F111, Apache helicopter, B52, B2 mission and flight trainers.

 

While I was doing that (imagine me in a structured world, hoo-hah!), I always wanted to play with the technology to make pretty pictures. This was all so long ago, & mercifully, I've forgotten everything.

 

That is why, it is amazing to me what I have before me, to play with daily, in the form of A:M.

[John Bigboote]

That is why, it is amazing to me what I have before me, to play with daily, in the form of A:M.

 

 

HERE-HERE!

 

32 million for the iLLIAC? geez-louise! and it had 16 meg of memory? NOW I see why the C64 was such a breakthrough! The company I still work for (I hope) hired me in 1991 to learn their Symbolics computers... which they had 2 of. I never took to it and they mothballed them... they cost $500thou apeice. The Mac came out shortly thereafter and the learning process was much more humanly. A:M is but a fun toy... my computer game.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolics