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Author Topic:   Commodore Legacy

Gribbly posted 30-11-2001 09:49 AM GMT
I know this is a general discussion, but everything seems to go here now so...
Who started on a Vic-20 then?
I progressed from Vic to C-64, C-128 (why) and then Amiga. Still have 'em, still love 'em all.
Then I had to move to a Mac. I couldn't buy a PC as they are surely the cause of Commodores death - that with them sitting on their laurels too long in developing new and better Amigas. AGA was too little too late.
When I first bought my Vic (for �130 without tape deck). I had to survive for over 6 months without a tape deck so I had to type in program listings from mags, debug them myself (as they hardly ever worked), play them for a while, then switch it off again! Aaagghhh!!! Then I had to type the code in again when I wanted to play another game. Can you imagine any kid doing this today?
Was I mad, or did anyone else have to suffer this?
Also, the last Amiga mag in WHSmiths goes off the shelves next month as it changes to Digital and starts to deal with more general stuff. Sad day indeed.

CraigG posted 30-11-2001 09:56 AM GMT
Yup--well, kind of. I had an Atari console and then got a Vic20. First game I ever bought was Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time... good ol' Jeff. :)
Gribbly posted 01-12-2001 02:27 PM GMT
Actually, I had a few game consoles before my Vic. A black and white pong thing, a Grandstand multi-game colour thing (which seemed amazing) then the mighty Atari VCS. Then good old VIC came along.
Mort posted 02-12-2001 12:50 AM GMT
I had a Atari Vcs,various CGL handhelds a Zx81 and then the Vic 20. Who liked Space Snake & Antimatter Splatter then! :-)
Bazza posted 03-12-2001 12:02 AM GMT
I'll skip the various consoles I owned before getting a 'puter.
I started off with a Tandy Pocket Computer (It was actually made by Sharp). It had a whopping 1K of RAM (4K ROM), 24 character single line LCD display and a cassette interface (Pretty reliable cassette interface at that). 1K was so small, I had to stop using spaces in my programs in order to fit anything of any decent functionality in. (I wrote a father son update on this thing for my College project in BASIC :) )
Anyway, I moved on to a TRS80 16K Level II Basic unit that plugged into a B&W TV. I had the mandatory Casette interface (Extremely unreliable). Boy, with 16K, you could type for hours before filling that up :)
I'd save everything 3 times because the reload was so crappy. You'd sit watching these asterisks flash as the program loaded, if anything went wrong (which it did 9 times out of 10), then the asterisk would turn into a "?" amid screams of "NOOOOoooooooo". You had to fiddle around with the treble settings if all else failed......Still love it though.
Got sick of block graphics and Black and White, so got excited when the C64 was first anounced as being on the drawing board. When it finally arrived, snapped on up along with the clunky old 1541 (Which was a godsend after having lived with cassette interfaces of the TRS80).
First game was Commodore Soccer (On cartridge... came with the C64), but got right into Impossible Mission as the first disk Game (hmmm, maybe it was on tape.. can't remember).
As the years rolled by, I then bought an A1000 the moment they hit the store shelves here in Australia. Ah, I loved that machine. It was simply amazing for its day, but when Indy 500 was first released on the PC I rushed out and bought a 286/16Mhz clone as I couldn't resist any longer. Still clunky by A1000 standards, but a hell of a lot faster (especially INDY 500). By the time Geoff Crammonds F1GP was converted over to the PC, the days of the Amiga were starting to fad for me and I've been on the PC hardware upgrade path ever since. Of course, I was running a software development services company (read contractor), so all hardware was Tax deductible :) (even joysticks!!!)
It didn't matter how clunky or basic things were in those days, due to it all being brand new territory, it kept me occupied to near sleep deprivation. Nowadays, no matter how spectacular the games/graphics or whatever have become, its all become a bit 'old and not so enthralling. Loved those pioneering computer days wityh the miriad of british micros around.
Andy1 posted 03-12-2001 12:23 AM GMT
My first game system wasa self-assembly Pong copy that my dad put together (about 1976). My first real computer was the Dragon 32, famouose for its propensity for bright green backgrounds. It didi have a handful of awsome games though; Time Bandit, a fab version of Chuckie Egg (far better than the c64 one), Cuthbert in the Jungle (pitfall, right down to the last pixal). Great days...
Bazza posted 03-12-2001 12:29 AM GMT
AFAIK, the Dragon32 was a Tandy CoCo clone. Is that right Andy?
I always lusted after an Apple ][ until the C64 was released :)
Andy1 posted 03-12-2001 01:30 AM GMT
Yep, you're spot on mate. I would really love to find an Dragon emulator, there must be one somewhere...
Gordon posted 03-12-2001 02:18 AM GMT
Have you tried
http://mudhole.spodnet.uk.com/~dragon/emulator.htm
?
G.
Steve posted 04-12-2001 10:38 PM GMT
started with:
Grandstand
Atari VCS 2600
Spectrum
C64 (2 1541's and a double disc drive - its huge!)
Atari ST 520 (later upgraded to 1Meg internal FD, 1Meg external FD and 1 Meg ram)
A 500 (later upgraded to 2 Meg Chip Ram, 2 external FD's
then over the years added: (dont remember what came when)
Sega Megadrive
Atari Jaguar (with CD)
Nintendo Gameboy
N64
PC XT (with colour monitor)
Atari Lynx (vey under-rated little device!)
Gamegear
ZX 81
386 25mhz laptop
Vic 20
Playstation
PS2
PC
i think thats it.
i still have them all, and still use them from time to time.
fondest memories are of the Speccy, C64 and Amiga.
oh, and i have a board a bit bigger than a standard motherboard, full of memory chips (god knows how old it is) that gave the XT (i think) an extra 1 meg of ram! :o) and a huge 20 meg hard drive to go with it
those were the days eh ?
Steve posted 04-12-2001 10:39 PM GMT
bugger!
forgot about the Atari VCS 7800 !
piginapoke posted 24-12-2001 09:56 AM GMT
Steve,
Yep, the Lynx was a very underrated console. Easily the best colour portable even now that the gameboy advance is out.
At ZZAP Towers Phil, Me and Stuart used to play 3 player Slimeworld on the Lynx (when it wasn't Kick Off on the Amiga).
You really learnt who your friends weren't in Slimeworld!!! Ahhh, the joys of trudging through slime only to watch a bomb drop through from the cave above with 1/2 a second to go on its clock. Even funnier was seeing Phil or Stu run past completely covered head to toe in slime, just ripe for sliming! When ZZAP folded (first time) we went to Phil's house and played one last game, I'd like to know if Phil and Stu carried on playing it after I went. I still want a revenge match Stu and Phil!
The retro thing is in full swing now what with Lynxes on sale in Elec. Boutique. Buy one and see what the portable Amiga should of been!
Anyone for Surfing in California Games?
Robin (Pig in a Poke) Hogg
:@)
Bazza posted 27-12-2001 12:02 AM GMT
The LYNX was actually developed by EPYX. Those guys were a class act.
Steve posted 31-12-2001 05:24 PM GMT
Slime world was a hoot !
the funniest thing for me was watching everyone cowering in a doorway waiting for the megabomb to go off :o)
Alex Ward posted 23-02-2001 05:38 PM GMT
xxx
kev posted 01-03-2001 04:32 PM GMT
Yep! started on Atari 2600 and shortly followed wth the good ole Vic 20, which was mooted as "the games computer", while the C64 was meant to be business-focused! After two or three years i left the games next to the telly and they all got wiped!!
C64 followed soon afterwards

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Author	Topic: Commodore Legacy
Gribbly	posted 30-11-2001 09:49 AM GMT I know this is a general discussion, but everything seems to go here now so... Who started on a Vic-20 then? I progressed from Vic to C-64, C-128 (why) and then Amiga. Still have 'em, still love 'em all. Then I had to move to a Mac. I couldn't buy a PC as they are surely the cause of Commodores death - that with them sitting on their laurels too long in developing new and better Amigas. AGA was too little too late. When I first bought my Vic (for �130 without tape deck). I had to survive for over 6 months without a tape deck so I had to type in program listings from mags, debug them myself (as they hardly ever worked), play them for a while, then switch it off again! Aaagghhh!!! Then I had to type the code in again when I wanted to play another game. Can you imagine any kid doing this today? Was I mad, or did anyone else have to suffer this? Also, the last Amiga mag in WHSmiths goes off the shelves next month as it changes to Digital and starts to deal with more general stuff. Sad day indeed.
CraigG	posted 30-11-2001 09:56 AM GMT Yup--well, kind of. I had an Atari console and then got a Vic20. First game I ever bought was Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time... good ol' Jeff. :)
Gribbly	posted 01-12-2001 02:27 PM GMT Actually, I had a few game consoles before my Vic. A black and white pong thing, a Grandstand multi-game colour thing (which seemed amazing) then the mighty Atari VCS. Then good old VIC came along.
Mort	posted 02-12-2001 12:50 AM GMT I had a Atari Vcs,various CGL handhelds a Zx81 and then the Vic 20. Who liked Space Snake & Antimatter Splatter then! :-)
Bazza	posted 03-12-2001 12:02 AM GMT I'll skip the various consoles I owned before getting a 'puter. I started off with a Tandy Pocket Computer (It was actually made by Sharp). It had a whopping 1K of RAM (4K ROM), 24 character single line LCD display and a cassette interface (Pretty reliable cassette interface at that). 1K was so small, I had to stop using spaces in my programs in order to fit anything of any decent functionality in. (I wrote a father son update on this thing for my College project in BASIC :) ) Anyway, I moved on to a TRS80 16K Level II Basic unit that plugged into a B&W TV. I had the mandatory Casette interface (Extremely unreliable). Boy, with 16K, you could type for hours before filling that up :) I'd save everything 3 times because the reload was so crappy. You'd sit watching these asterisks flash as the program loaded, if anything went wrong (which it did 9 times out of 10), then the asterisk would turn into a "?" amid screams of "NOOOOoooooooo". You had to fiddle around with the treble settings if all else failed......Still love it though. Got sick of block graphics and Black and White, so got excited when the C64 was first anounced as being on the drawing board. When it finally arrived, snapped on up along with the clunky old 1541 (Which was a godsend after having lived with cassette interfaces of the TRS80). First game was Commodore Soccer (On cartridge... came with the C64), but got right into Impossible Mission as the first disk Game (hmmm, maybe it was on tape.. can't remember). As the years rolled by, I then bought an A1000 the moment they hit the store shelves here in Australia. Ah, I loved that machine. It was simply amazing for its day, but when Indy 500 was first released on the PC I rushed out and bought a 286/16Mhz clone as I couldn't resist any longer. Still clunky by A1000 standards, but a hell of a lot faster (especially INDY 500). By the time Geoff Crammonds F1GP was converted over to the PC, the days of the Amiga were starting to fad for me and I've been on the PC hardware upgrade path ever since. Of course, I was running a software development services company (read contractor), so all hardware was Tax deductible :) (even joysticks!!!) It didn't matter how clunky or basic things were in those days, due to it all being brand new territory, it kept me occupied to near sleep deprivation. Nowadays, no matter how spectacular the games/graphics or whatever have become, its all become a bit 'old and not so enthralling. Loved those pioneering computer days wityh the miriad of british micros around.
Andy1	posted 03-12-2001 12:23 AM GMT My first game system wasa self-assembly Pong copy that my dad put together (about 1976). My first real computer was the Dragon 32, famouose for its propensity for bright green backgrounds. It didi have a handful of awsome games though; Time Bandit, a fab version of Chuckie Egg (far better than the c64 one), Cuthbert in the Jungle (pitfall, right down to the last pixal). Great days...
Bazza	posted 03-12-2001 12:29 AM GMT AFAIK, the Dragon32 was a Tandy CoCo clone. Is that right Andy? I always lusted after an Apple ][ until the C64 was released :)
Andy1	posted 03-12-2001 01:30 AM GMT Yep, you're spot on mate. I would really love to find an Dragon emulator, there must be one somewhere...
Gordon	posted 03-12-2001 02:18 AM GMT Have you tried http://mudhole.spodnet.uk.com/~dragon/emulator.htm ? G.
Steve	posted 04-12-2001 10:38 PM GMT started with: Grandstand Atari VCS 2600 Spectrum C64 (2 1541's and a double disc drive - its huge!) Atari ST 520 (later upgraded to 1Meg internal FD, 1Meg external FD and 1 Meg ram) A 500 (later upgraded to 2 Meg Chip Ram, 2 external FD's then over the years added: (dont remember what came when) Sega Megadrive Atari Jaguar (with CD) Nintendo Gameboy N64 PC XT (with colour monitor) Atari Lynx (vey under-rated little device!) Gamegear ZX 81 386 25mhz laptop Vic 20 Playstation PS2 PC i think thats it. i still have them all, and still use them from time to time. fondest memories are of the Speccy, C64 and Amiga. oh, and i have a board a bit bigger than a standard motherboard, full of memory chips (god knows how old it is) that gave the XT (i think) an extra 1 meg of ram! :o) and a huge 20 meg hard drive to go with it those were the days eh ?
Steve	posted 04-12-2001 10:39 PM GMT bugger! forgot about the Atari VCS 7800 !
piginapoke	posted 24-12-2001 09:56 AM GMT Steve, Yep, the Lynx was a very underrated console. Easily the best colour portable even now that the gameboy advance is out. At ZZAP Towers Phil, Me and Stuart used to play 3 player Slimeworld on the Lynx (when it wasn't Kick Off on the Amiga). You really learnt who your friends weren't in Slimeworld!!! Ahhh, the joys of trudging through slime only to watch a bomb drop through from the cave above with 1/2 a second to go on its clock. Even funnier was seeing Phil or Stu run past completely covered head to toe in slime, just ripe for sliming! When ZZAP folded (first time) we went to Phil's house and played one last game, I'd like to know if Phil and Stu carried on playing it after I went. I still want a revenge match Stu and Phil! The retro thing is in full swing now what with Lynxes on sale in Elec. Boutique. Buy one and see what the portable Amiga should of been! Anyone for Surfing in California Games? Robin (Pig in a Poke) Hogg :@)
Bazza	posted 27-12-2001 12:02 AM GMT The LYNX was actually developed by EPYX. Those guys were a class act.
Steve	posted 31-12-2001 05:24 PM GMT Slime world was a hoot ! the funniest thing for me was watching everyone cowering in a doorway waiting for the megabomb to go off :o)
Alex Ward	posted 23-02-2001 05:38 PM GMT xxx
kev	posted 01-03-2001 04:32 PM GMT Yep! started on Atari 2600 and shortly followed wth the good ole Vic 20, which was mooted as "the games computer", while the C64 was meant to be business-focused! After two or three years i left the games next to the telly and they all got wiped!! C64 followed soon afterwards