In honor of yesterday’s departure of a few monitors, here are a few other monitor memories. The first color computer monitor my family ever owned was an Amdek, which was actually the third computer monitor we ever owned. Our first was the TRS-80 Model III’s internal black and white monitor; our second was an amber-tinted one for our Apple clone. Amdek monitors last forever and come with a built-in handle which makes toting them around a breeze. When my Dad graduated from the Apple II to the PC XT, I inherited the Amdek monitor and used it with my Commodore… (read more)
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Back in the mid-80s, next to my Commodore 64 computer sat a VIC-1525 printer. It was white like the VIC-20, not beige like most Commodore peripherals, but it was compatible and I used the heck out of it. Over the years I must’ve printed out thousands of computer documents and miles of Print Shop banners. That VIC-1525 was noisy for a dot matrix printer, but it was a workhorse and it never failed me. About three years ago I purchased a large lot of Commodore computer equipment, and I was excited to find a new VIC-1525 printer still in the… (read more) On the Commodore 64, there were all sorts of different ways to create graphics. There were hundreds of drawing programs that supported drawing tablets (like the Koala Pad) or joysticks. More advanced artists could even program their drawings in one pixel at a time. The most basic form of Commodore graphics however were the ones built right into the keyboard itself. For those who have never actually seen a real Commodore 64 keyboard in person, each alphanumeric key had two graphic symbols printed on the front (not the top) of it. Each symbol could be printed in one of sixteen… (read more) I’ve been playing a lot of old Commodore games while doing “research” for my upcoming book of game reviews (it’s a good day when you can call playing old video games “research”), and recently I ran across Aztec, a game I haven’t played in twenty years or more. Obviously influenced by Raiders of the Lost Ark, Aztec is a platform game in which the goal is to explore a tomb, find a jade idol, and make it back to the surface alive. Along the way you will encounter traps, animals and Aztec Warriors. Aztec was released before joysticks were common… (read more) The third annual Blockparty (now I believe the longest running US demo party) took place Saturday night at during Notacon. Demo parties are competitions where coders enter their programs and audience members vote on them. Along with the standard “demo” category, the organizers of Blockparty expanded to include several different categories. One of them was music, so I decided to write, record and enter my own song. My interest in demos and the demo scene goes back to the Commodore 64, so I knew up front I wanted to record a tribute to the 64. I know nothing of 8-bit… (read more) For the fourth day in a row now, I’ve continued working on my quest to convert all of my old Commodore 64 disks into modern D64 images. Over the past few days I’ve converted approximately 150 disks out of the 700 or so disks I still have. After handling 150 floppy disks in a row over the past few days, I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting which disks are going to convert, and which are going to be full of read errors. Back when I first got my Commodore 64, floppy disks were roughly ten bucks for a box of… (read more) One of my goals for 2008 is to finish all of the analog-to-digital conversion projects I started in 2007. This includes converting all our VHS tapes to DVDs, and all of our old CDs, cassette tapes and records to MP3. Another one of the projects, which has proved to be both the most rewarding and the most frustrating, is the conversion of all my old Commodore 64 diskettes to D64 images. Just to get everybody up to speed … on one hand, in the real world, you have real Commodore 64 computers and real Commodore 64 disk drives that use… (read more) 
For at least a decade, the problem with emulation has not been technological in nature. For several years now, modern computers have been able to, for all intents and purposes, faithfully reproduce older computers, videogame consoles, and arcade machines. The difference between emulation and “the real deal” is all the other things that went along with those old gaming experiences — and one of the most memorable things about those old games were their controls. Playing Atari games doesn’t feel right to me unless I’m using an Atari joystick, and playing arcade games, no matter how accurately MAME reproduces their… (read more) While skimming Craig’s List this morning, I ran across the following ad: I am moving and need to sell in two days. Come get it all for $39 in cash. 3 VCRs, 10 Commodore computers, 8 monitors, various printers, some games, Acer scanner, keyboards, cables, some computer books and magazines, floppy disks and floppy organizers, and more. Call John at … Please do not leave recorded messages. Quicker than you can say “Commodork” I was on the phone with John, arranging to pick up the stuff at high noon. Of course the minute I hung up the phone, I remembered… (read more) I have officially achieved geek nirvana. My book Commodork: Sordid Tales from a BBS Junkie was just reviewed here on Slashdot! The review is very positive (definitely reassuring!), and sales have just taken off! In fact, I’ve sold so many books in the past two hours (when the story hit Slashdot) that having enough books for my book signing in Chicago this weekend has suddenly become a concern. Hopefully I won’t dip below that threshhold. I’ve already ordered more books through Lulu.com — hopefully this system will last until the books show up on Amazon. So welcome, Slashdotters! |
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