This is the best Linux forum I have visited

[cthisbear]

" No condescending attitudes, no RTFM, just friendly people. "

What!!!!! I've been ignored.

Where is Google when I need it...not happy.

Chris.

[poorguy]

deleted.

[starhawk]

@Mike Walsh -- what was your first computer, if I may ask?

[Mike Walsh]

@Mike Walsh -- what was your first computer, if I may ask?

Hey, starhawk.

Only the best computer of its generation, mate. The Commodore 64.....what else? Anybody trying that keyboard for the first time in 1983, would never even consider going back to the ZX Spectrum (it's main competitor at the time.

I've heard the Spectrum's keyboard described as feeling like you're typing on dried-up, dead fish! Whatever, the damn thing had a truly horrible 'user interface'.)

The Datasette was a real eye-opener, back in the days when programs loaded off Philips tape cassettes, and if you didn't get the volume control on your cassette recorder just right, you could forget all about loading or saving anything. The Datasette connected straight to an 'edge-connector' bus on the back of the main circuit board.....and it just worked. Every time.


Mike.

[starhawk]

Should have guessed. Only the best-selling single computer model of all time no, really -- check the record books, it's in there.

I have two that need memory problem diagnosing... they are currently awaiting sufficient boredom and/or motivation to be attacked both are of the 'breadbin' case style; one has an acrylic plastic (you'd probably call that Perspex rather than Plexiglas) keyboard cover with a friction-fit mount/bezel at the back of the unit. I can't remember if it's that one or the one without the keyboard cover that a key fell off of... I have the loose cap, just needs the proper glue if I can ever find it.

Basic symptoms are that they appear to boot fine, at least into BASIC mode -- and then all goes to garble when you press a key. C64s used DRAM chips (rather than the more common back then SRAM chips) basically because of cost concerns, and the ones they used were *ahem* not the most reliable memory chips ever produced

Agreed about Sinclairs, though -- my father had, at some point, a ZX80 -- it no longer exists, sadly, but it had a membrane keypad of the sort you'd find on an older microwave oven. Oh my, I do not even want to think about typing on that. Ugh!

[6502coder]

@Mike Walsh and starhawk

Sorry, but I can't just stand by and let the C64 fanatics implicitly trash the REAL best 6502-based home computer of its generation, the Atari 800.

Commodore didn't have a best-in-class machine until it brought out the 68000-based Amiga, and even then it was only because they got Jay Miner, the genius behind the Atari's graphics chips, to do the graphics for the Amiga.

[starhawk]

C64 sold considerably more, sorry. Keep in mind that the system was sold continuously for roughly twelve years (closer to 11-1/2 but we don't care...) -- you can't say that about any eg Dell model out there...

In all fairness, the Atari 2600 was a masterpiece of cost engineering -- three chips. A cut-down 6502 with no interrupt capability (aka the 6507), a 6532 "RIOT" (containing 128 bytes of RAM, two I/O ports, and a timer circuit -- Ram/IO/Timer = RIOT), and the specialized Television Interface Adapter (TIA) which did not have a standardized chip number because it was proprietary to the system.

There is a book out there about how devilishly hard the 2600 was to program -- it's called "Racing the Beam", after the fact that you had IIRC twenty-seven CPU cycles in between each vertical refresh on the TV. Because the 2600 had no native OS, you had to program it "bare metal" -- machine code. Your game had to have all the functions an OS would normally provide, that it needed, baked in already -- not to mention the actual game stuff! -- and it had to do so in one hundred and twenty-eight bytes of memory at a time. That task in-and-of-itself is nearly impossible, but on top of that you had to keep careful track of how many cycles your instructions used and when -- since if your code waited till say twenty eight cycles had passed to start redrawing the screen (at the end of the vertical refresh), you got a pile of garbled junk instead of an intelligible screen.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
Started off on a TRS-80.
Stayed with Tandy until the coco2.
You had to write your own mouse software!
Then I switch to the C64. Really great machine for its time.
Being able to flash between screens and Shadow memory was a revolution in graphics. Then I got a 128D. That's right it had a floppy Drive!
My first hard drive was 10 megabytes.
Ah the good old days..

[rokytnji]

Supposedly to some in the Linux world.

Root is the root of all evil.

Lucky for me. I've always liked diving into curve when it comes up on a road.
The sling shot effect always gives me a rush.

Laid back and going fast. Who can complain about living like that?
Thanks from me for all you guys do. I have been a fan since 2008.

http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2008/09/com ... ws-95.html

[Mike Walsh]

Hello,
Started off on a TRS-80.
Stayed with Tandy until the coco2.
You had to write your own mouse software!
Then I switch to the C64. Really great machine for its time.
Being able to flash between screens and Shadow memory was a revolution in graphics. Then I got a 128D. That's right it had a floppy Drive!
My first hard drive was 10 megabytes.
Ah the good old days..

Oh, my Lord.....I'd forgotten all about the 'Trash-80'. Supposedly called because it had a nasty habit of spontaneously dumping (and losing) the entire contents of RAM, seemingly on a whim. Never used one, but I remember a couple of folks who did. Like the old saying goes, 'When I'm good, I'm very very good.....but when I'm bad, I'm better (whoops, watch out, I'm gonna have a mad one...)' The TRS-80 was apparently like that; when it behaved, it was a very capable machine. When it was throwing one of its famous wobblies, you wanted nothing more than to take a heavy hammer to it!

But the C64s; my word. D'you know, they're still going strong, even now. Certain enthusiasts have taken customization to a new level. They still look like a C64.....but there, the resemblance ends. Big-time.

Dual-, even quad-core CPUs. SSDs. Gigs and gigs of RAM; DDR2, even DDR3. PCI-e. Graphics cards. BluRay. All the modern video connectors you could possibly want ( and then some.) USB3. Even Thunderbolt. The list just goes on, and on.....(and on!)

I'll have to dig some pictures out for y'all to have a gander at.

EDIT: How's about this for a giggle?

http://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-build-a-m ... ore-64-pc/

.....and this?

http://www.instructables.com/id/Commodore-64-Laptop/

There's tons more out there..! And why should there not be, when all of it's been inspired by the most iconic, game-changing machine of the home computer revolution?


Mike.

[bark_bark_bark]

Seeing vintage computers destroyed makes me cringe a bit.

[starhawk]

I agree, to a point. If the computer is functional in any real way, or can be repaired -- it's not right. But if the machine is permanently toast, I don't see an issue.

I have two Commodore 64s, two Commodore Plus/4s, two 1541 disk drives, a TRS-80 Model II (IIRC), a Tandy MC-10, an Apple IIgs with a bunch of hardware, and one very stubborn PC-XT. The Commodore 64s are damaged, as mentioned in this thread.

The PC-XT is a project for sure but one of the Plus/4s concretely does not work and cannot easily be fixed -- the ribbon cable for the keyboard is damaged, and the machine boots to a black screen -- might be the keyboard, might not. Given the difficulty of troubleshooting a machine that gives no errors but simply fails to properly boot, and considering that replacing the keyboard cable would be a serious pain in the you-know-where -- I consider that one machine fit for salvage and scrap.

There's also the consideration that the Commodore Plus/4s were about as popular as a bag of flaming dog doo in their day -- even the press at the time called it the Minus/60! It was a nasty-quality cheap machine, hard to program for games, but not really suited to its intended (business) market, either. Its built-in software would've been a bonus if it hadn't been so unbelievably crippled as to be utterly useless. Most fatally of all, it was software-incompatible and mostly but not completely hardware-incompatible with the one Commodore product that everyone knew and loved and wanted and bought, the Commodore 64. Three strikes -- it's out!

...that said, even if it were actually worth something other than a few odd looks, it still wouldn't be worth the time and effort to fix.

[8Geee]

First home computer was a real ZX81, 64k RAM-pack.
2nd was a Sinclair QL (IBM Super-Basic clone) This had a 68012 CPU, and I tossed the colorTV Xtal for a real 8MHz. 256kRAM. 9"colorTV. I did lotsa games carried over from my College days (76-79).

GF's first was a C64 w/gOS. Sweet machine with a 1541 and a 15" monitor (RGB).
Her 2nd was 486-DX2/66. Defacto standard.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
GEOS was cool.
I hung on to my 128D for years, until it eventually destroyed all my floppies.
I remember when Windows came out.
Revolutionary? psst...
Been there done that.

I still have a copy of every version of Windows, all the way back to 1.1.
Having started with BASIC, I was a huge Microsoft fan boy. And a geek.
I had a 486 dx 4-66 chip framed. I got to go to Intel and see the Pentium while it was still in development... (they really do wear space suits like in the commercials) but of course at that time all I knew was Windows.
My disenchantment didn't really start until Vista.
About that time I discovered Puppy Linux.
The advantages over a fully installed monolithic system like Windows were incredible.
Frugal install, backing up your save file, booting from CD USB hard drive SD card.
It was phenomenal...
A free operating system with an easily installable programming environment?
Now that truly was revolutionary.
Then I discovered bash and gtk dialog.
With Puppy its easy to go from owner to breeder!
Hee hee... lol..

[poorguy]

Howdy,

I am amazed that I have been on other forums requesting help for problems I occasionally encounter with Linux only to discover that no usable solution for my problem is available.

I come to this forum and post the same problem and in less then a day have a working solution to my problem. It is then applied and problem solved.

IMO some of the other forums could learn a thing or too from this forum.
This forum and its members KICKS ASS.

Thanks.

The PoorGuy

[Mike Walsh]

Hey, PG.

I am amazed that I have been on other forums requesting help for problems I occasionally encounter with Linux only to discover that no usable solution for my problem is available.

I come to this forum and post the same problem and in less then a day have a working solution to my problem. It is then applied and problem solved.

IMO some of the other forums could learn a thing or too from this forum.
This forum and its members KICKS ASS.

So why bother with the others?

You're right, though; Puppy RULES, and does indeed 'kick ass'!!!


Mike.

[poorguy]

So why bother with the others?

Hey Mike,

Well let see, because I originally started with a different Linux distro other than Puppy on this computer. When I could not find solutions I thought it may have been the other distro I started with. I then installed Puppy on the same computer and had the same problem so I came to Puppy forum to seek help in solving this problem. Problem solved and now using Puppy Tahrpup 64.

I feel it is unfair to seek help for a non Puppy distro from a Puppy forum. If I'm using Puppy then I feel it is fair to seek help from a Puppy forum. Just a matter of courtesy . And that is why .

The PoorGuy

[dejan555]

I love seeing posts like this because they show that this forum is equally helpfull to newbies now as it was when I was a newb myself. Puppy community is one of the reasons why I like puppy and I share your amazement, even after years of using it and being part of this forum.

Regarding search, there's still this page on my site and there were few similar ones on other sites. Just choose "Puppy Forum" from drop down menu instead default "WWW"

[Pete]

I love seeing posts like this because they show that this forum is equally helpfull to newbies now as it was when I was a newb myself. Puppy community is one of the reasons why I like puppy and I share your amazement, even after years of using it and being part of this forum.
.....

Couldn't agree more.

EDIT:

Sorry forgot to list my previous computers:

1) ZX80
2) ZX Spectrum
3) Spectravideo SV128 MSX
4) XT
5) ...and all the way up to now with the usual X86 stuff.

[Packetteer]

Hi All
I agree with all the praises of Puppy.
My first computer Vic-20
Second C-64
Third a 8088

Then from there the normal progression 286 and so on.

Best Regards
John