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Commodore 64... is back (sort of)

Mtnmedic

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Cool. I love retro stuff. I had both the Commodore Vic-20 and the 64 at one point back in the day, along with a few others like the IBM 5100 and the TRS-80. My first computer was a MITS Altair 8800. If that's not geek cred, I don't know what is. In fact, I still have my original TRS-80 Pocket Computer! It works well and I play with it from time to time.


TRS-80 PC-3 Pocket Computer
Released: June 1983
Price: US $99.95
Weight: 3.8 ounces
CPU: SC 61860
RAM: 4K (1.4K user)
Ports: Proprietary-out only to optional printer
Display: 24 X 1 text LCD display
Power: 'button' batteries
Storage: Optional audio cassette
Peripherals: Optional printer
OS: BASIC in ROM

Michael "Spam, spam, bacon, eggs and spam. Hold the bacon and eggs." Sent from my iPad 2 using iPF
 

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Tim SPRACKLEN

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I have one too - and the printer. I have just a couple of rolls of the special paper for it too, so I'm hoarding those. Nothing like it today. The closest I come is with the app 'Basic!' on the iPad, which allows me to write a program in Basic, just like the old days.

Tim
 

Mtnmedic

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Tim SPRACKLEN said:
I have one too - and the printer. I have just a couple of rolls of the special paper for it too, so I'm hoarding those. Nothing like it today. The closest I come is with the app 'Basic!' on the iPad, which allows me to write a program in Basic, just like the old days.

Tim

Not KIDDING? Gotta go get that! Whoo...time for some serious flashback!

I also had the bigger "portable" TRS-80..the tan one with the eight-line green monochrome screen. Even had a built-in speaker though you could only get tones out of it. I ended up giving that to a friend.

Michael "Spam, spam, bacon, eggs and spam. Hold the bacon and eggs." Sent from my iPad 2 using iPF
 
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The Alternative

The Alternative

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Like many of the old timers on this forum I still have my old computer. A TI-99/4A from the mid 80's (also still have Extended Basic, Speech Synthesizer and a couple dozen cartridges.) Sadly the thermal printer and PEB box got lost in a move back in the mid-90's. Ah, those were the days.

More on the TI home computer here: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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Karyyk

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Very cool. A bit impractical considering what it ultimately is, but still, very cool.

I still have mine somewhere (probably in a bin in my mother's attic alongside my old Atari 800XL). I need to do some hunting next time I'm there.
 
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The Alternative

The Alternative

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The Alternative said:
Like many of the old timers on this forum I still have my old computer. A TI-99/4A from the mid 80's (also still have Extended Basic, Speech Synthesizer and a couple dozen cartridges.) Sadly the thermal printer and PEB box got lost in a move back in the mis-90's. Ah, those were the days.

More on the TI home computer here: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tan or black / silver ?

Sent from my iPad 3 using iPF


Black and Silver. Actually, never saw a tan unit. Were they rare?
 
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The Alternative

The Alternative

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I still have my cassette recorder and some tapes I saved some programs on. I can remember sitting there typing for hrs out of a magazine to load a program.

Always numbered my lines of code by 5's so I could go back and sneak in a line if I missed one.

Memories !!,

Sent from my iPad 3 using iPF


Oh yeah, I remember spending hours on end copying code from a magazine only to be really diappointed by the 12 seconds of output :D

Back in those days I'd wish fervently for some kind of scanning tool to read the code for me. The leaps and bounds we've taken in computing in 25 years is truly amazing.
 

miket5au

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My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 in 1981 in the UK. I think it cost me about 50 quid. My first experience of a computer was a couple of years earlier when I helped a friend build one from a kit (I made helpful comments). I don't remember what it was. That was in Singapore.
 

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