Unfettered geekiness
Not sure exactly who reads this digital garden, if anybody, but if you’re not into coding geekery, this is your trigger warning. When I get all excited about geeky stuff and wax poetic, people either join me or stare at me and back away slowly. It’s always a reminder to me that not everyone talks that language! So be forewarned.
My latest rabbit hole is retro/vintage computing and coding. My first computer love was the Commodore 64. Since I was in my late 20’s and 30’s when I got one, my nostalgia isn’t connected so much to the games as lots of other people. I’m just that old! And now that I’m almost retired and I still love coding and geeky stuff AND I can investigate stuff that I like, I’m all about the C64! Will I buy one? Probably not at this point. They’re crazy expensive in 40 year old computer shape, and I’m much more of a software guy than a hardware guy. Some people love restoring those machines, chasing down chips and power supplies, re-soldering connections, etc., but that’s not my first love. What I love is dinking around with programming, learning about the memory map, PEEKing and POKEing values, making and moving sprites around…. It’s a real charge getting that close to how the machine actually does what it does, and the 64 is just confined enough to allow people to do that.
Where from here? I know myself well enough to know that I get super excited about stuff and then drift into another interest, but I usually get back to things eventually. And with actual retirement looming in the next few months, this particular rabbit hole is beckoning.
Commodore’s aren’t too expensive if you look around and don’t impulse buy. I got a breadbin, 1541 II, tons of disks, joysticks and more off of ebay not too long ago for less than $100. (Not counting shipping) All working and in great shape.
If you’re like me and you grew up with this computer there’s nothing quite like playing an actual machine. I use VICE to play too. But I have a Commodore 64 with and Ultimate II+ sitting right next to my current PC that I play games on regularly. I also love reading those old LoadStar issues.
No room for the real thing atm, but maybe someday. VICE is working great for now! Thanks for reading and replying.
Welcome back (to the world of Commodore 8-bit)! I think you’ll enjoy your stay. I have similar sentiments to the “scene” as you do, I think. Although I do cherish my C64 and 128, most of the time I’m letting them enjoy their retirement as well and use my C64Mini or EeePC emulated system for my day-to-day Commodore-ing. You have a lot of options open to you, which didn’t exist for us a decade ago. Not saying that happily stumbling across the vintage hardware, avoiding the overpriced extortion on eBay, isn’t possible. But emulation and modern alternatives are not going to stop you from enjoying reliving the hey-day’s of C64 gaming/programming.
Happy coding!
Thanks for the reply! Right now I’ve got no room in my workspace, so getting an actual 64 with all the extras just isn’t possible. So I’m happy with emulating!
I think about getting retro hardware from time to time. I mostly think about PDP 11s or Vax computers though. But those are expensive to run let alone buy. There are emulators for them as well but I can’t get motivated to set them up. Do I content myself to coding projects in c#.