The return of the Commodore 64

[Boyd]

I had an Apple ][ back in the day, but thought the Commodore 64 was pretty cool too. This might be fun, price is supposed to be about $70....

https://thec64.com
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It’s 1982 and a new home computer graces the scene. Out goes the silent black and white experience and in with 64KB of RAM, colour graphics, and synthesizer sound.

Roll forward 35 years and kick nostalgia into overdrive with the release of THEC64 MINI. A tiny but perfectly formed 50% scale replica of this much loved machine.

 

[enormiss]

Remember my friends father typing code from a magazine to play "pong". Dont think he could do anything after that because there was no drive to save it to LoL. When I got one tying up the phone with all night downloads, then my uncle getting me a 1200 baud modem to upgrade from my 300. How times have changed!

 

[this_is_nascar]

I had one and the external 5.25 floppy drive to save the programs I coded. High tech in its day.

 

[46er]

I have one still,, buried in my box of old computer stuff, next to my box of old camera stuff, next to my box of old.... Not sure it still works and the last to use it were the kids. Still have a few old floppy's as well.

 

[Mike Lansing]

We're looking for the MIDI controller company that was known as Cherry Hill (which may have been located in New Jersey). Back in the day, we recall speaking with one of the technicians there over the phone and the technician remarked about the difficulty in decoding saxophone switch logic. The controller that we built (me and Forrest Mims [Getting Started in Electronics] and other authors of books) used Radio Shack logic gates coupled to a MIDI system (musical instrument digital interface) run by a Commodore 64. The Prophet 600 synth had opto-isolators placed under the keys and the saxophone had switches under its keys to connect the circuit to the synth for programming via MIDI. A Drumulator and Arp Axxe baseline was part of the system. Unlike Cherry Hill's controller, this system allowed chord-making capability directly from the sax, an option no woodwind player had up till then. In addition, the Commodore 64 ran a Rhino XR-2 robot arm (used by Pontiac Motor Division for training).