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Scrap
Registered: Jan 2021
Posts: 14 |
Your C64 gear back in the days
Hello there...
A lot of us got their C64 way back in the 80’s or 90’s. Unfortunately, when I got my Amiga in the mid 90‘s, I sold all my C64 gear... Now I am trying to remember, what kind of hardware I owned back in the days and I thought, it would be interesting to read, what kind of gear you used and what you have dreamt of, but never got it...
I can‘t remember exactly, when I got my Breadbox, but I think it was christmas 1985. My only peripherals were a Datasette and a big old black and white tv, that I had in my room...
First thing that had to be added was a 1541 diskdrive, as using tape was just painful...
Well, a standard 1541 still was a pain in the a.. so a friend installed me SpeedDos+... ;-)
As a big old black and white TV wasn’t really a good Monitor, I got a SHARP Colour-TV. Not the fancy Commodore Monitor that I wanted but at least it had composite input, so the image was o.k. for a TV.
I am really bad in soldering but that didn’t stop me adding a lot of switches and buttons to my breadbin. I can’t remember what they all were for… Of course there was a Reset-Button, a Kernel-Switch and I remember a kind of „Pause-Switch“, that stopped everything, that wasn’t IRQ. But there were a lot more, for sure…
Later I bought a 128 KB REU, that I upgraded to 256 KB (soldering again…) I used it a lot for GEOS (i loved GeoWrite and GeoPublish) and TurboAss (I created my own Kernel called „ScrapDos“ ;-) with some nice features like backing up the memory to the REU for testing code… Off course I also had to buy an EPROM-Burner for this (I guess it was called DELA-Eprommer).
About the same time I bought a 1581 with JiffyDos. Compared to the 1541 this felt like a little harddisk. :-) And it also was great for GEOS.
The german 64er Magazine published instructions for building a 2-Bit sampler and with the help of my cousin I got one of these and used it quiet a lot, even if the quality was poor. They also published building instructions for a rudimentary scanner, that got installed on the printhead of a matrix-printer… We built that one, too… By the way, the printer was a STAR NL10.
The last thing that comes into my mind is the Final Cartridge III. I think, that must have been pretty much all of my gear, as I remember it. A bunch of Joysticks and two mice have to be added.
Off course, there were a lot of things, that I was dreaming of, but never got them…
The Super CPU from CMD was one of these things. Or one of the harddisks they sold…
I also never got a SX 64…or a Dual-SID… or a better Sampler… or a Koala-Pad...
So, what was your gear and what was the hardware, that you ever wanted to have for the C 64? |
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Scrap
Registered: Jan 2021
Posts: 14 |
Quoting Mr. SpockHi,
My parents were wise enough to also buy me a little Philips TV set because they saw it coming: Without one I would have occupied the family's TV set all the time :)
Hehe... I remember the days, I was allowed to play my games on the "big" Color-TV, as a real feast... Just like birthday... ;-) |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5029 |
breadbin in 86, no tape (sometimes borrowed), drive only 1 year later, for years I had to use the "family" tv in the living room, so constant fights for TV time... no hacker / fastload cartridges or speeddos whatsoever, didnt even knew about them. I resetted the machine with a fork on the user port to rip music. |
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Mr. Spock
Registered: Aug 2007
Posts: 10 |
Quoting Scrap
Hehe... I remember the days, I was allowed to play my games on the "big" Color-TV, as a real feast... Just like birthday... ;-)
The best thing: In order to keep the cost down I didn’t dare to ask for a TV set. I was happy with a C64 alone. Without discussing it my parents bought a TV set on the same day I got my C64 anyway. I have wise parents! |
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Shine
Registered: Jul 2012
Posts: 333 |
I got my very first C64 on christmas the 24.12.1988.
C64 II & 1541 II from "Aldi" (German "cheap" discounter) :)
A few weeks later i got an "Action Replay MK VI".
My father needed to drive to West-Berlin, i remember, ~300km
My favorite Joystick was and is "Konix Navigator"!
Luckily, that i got almost a brandnew one a few months ago
I have 2 printers aswell:
"Star LC-10 Color"
"Commodore MPS 1230" |
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Carrion
Registered: Feb 2009
Posts: 317 |
1987: Commodore 116 + 1531
1988: Commodore 64C + Datasette + X Cart
1989: + 1541(g) + Final Cart 2
1990: + Final Cart 3 + SANYO color TV 14''
1992: + Actin Replay + Burst in the 1541 floppy drive |
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wil
Registered: Jan 2019
Posts: 46 |
I started with Commodore C128, a 1541, and a Joystick. Later, I added a 1084 monitor and a Star LC 10 printer. An odd thing happened when my floppy disk drive broke in 1992 and was in repair for some time. While waiting for the bus I saw a datasette in a shop's display and I bought this shelf warmer. I used it then for coding until I got my 1541 back. |
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Scrap
Registered: Jan 2021
Posts: 14 |
Quoting hedningI remember having one or two TAC-2's, some bad Quickshot joystick and the Boss.
The Quickshots were really bad. Didn’t survive Summer Games very long... :-) Never had the TAC-2 but I remember them, being quiet sturdy |
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Shadow
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 355 |
Got a C64C for my birthday in 1988.
In the beginning I just had the computer hooked up to the family TV in the living room, and 1530 for cassette storage.
Continuous upgrades lead to the final system which I was running early 1990 I think:
C64C
Oceanic diskdrive
TFC3
Mark 14" color TV |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5029 |
"Continuous upgrades lead to the final system " = I =continously nagged my parrents, who bought me new stuff
"which I was running early 1990"
= playing all the time |
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Six
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 288 |
December 1982 or so, my friends got a C64 and 1541 and a handful of disks.
By 1983 I had my own C64 but no drive or monitor - so I'd write programs and leave it powered on in the living room for days at a time - invariably it would get shut off and I'd lose what I was working on. It didn't take much of that to prompt me to get my own tv and 1541
After that I discovered that no one expected you to shoplift computer stuff lol. |
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