What is the one thing you wished your Classic Computer had back in the day?

[Keatah]

What is the one thing you wished your Classic Computer had back in the day? This could be a feature or peripheral you wanted but couldn't afford. It could also be a feature not ever made either. But in all cases it must have been a need from back in the day. With technology from back in the day. Like you can't say you wished your Vic-20 had modern SD based storage devices, or internet archives full of romz, or ethernet adapters and disk emulators.

 

So.. Back in the day I wished my Apple II had cartridges and Game Programs like the VCS did.

 

I also wanted the Apple II to have a small simple blitter chip. Something that would fill in large areas in games like Cavern Creatures, or Neptune, or Pegasus II. You could see these games (and others) which had scrolling terrain change speeds directly proportional to the amount of stuff visible.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Keatah

[Trebor]

For my PC clone "Turbo XT" 4.77/10 MHz switchable - I wish it had EGA. It was CGA/Composite only, and while the composite did look rather respectable for the few titles I had that supported it, the vast majority were only in 4 color. My cousin's C64 and friend's Tandy 1000, just made me all the more so wishful.

 

Especially the case with the Tandy 1000 from seeing the same exact titles on both machines. Going from 4-colors and PC speaker boops-beeps to the 16-colors 3-Voice Tandy sound was like night and day. Indeed, sound difference was noteworthy, but for me the greater wish was more than 4 colors for the bulk of titles I played on my humble XT.

 

Years later, after obtaining my P100 with Ensoniq Soundscape card, I think I played every single game I ever tried/owned under my XT all over again and basked in the glory of it all...lol.

[Omega-TI]

Back in the day, I so wanted a HARD DRIVE for my TI-99/4A. I've always disliked having to mess with floppy disks. Back in the day, computer stuff was NOT cheap. The controller card was expensive, hard drives were expensive, and when you are much younger, and have little kids, there is little money left to spend on "Daddy Toys".

 

Hell, I'm having much more fun the second time around with my Classic Computer than I did in my first go around. To me, THIS is the golden age of computing!

[Iwantgames:)]

To me, is the golden age of computing!

Totally agree, all the cool new TI add-ons these days makes me glad I decided to start getting into it now

[BydoEmpire]

Apple II - wish it had true hardware sprites

C64 - wish it had a faster floppy drive and ability to boot directly into a program

[am1933]

I wish I had a PEB for my TI99/4a when I was younger, also wished I had access to all the goodies you had in the US for the 4A.

[awhite2600]

I wish I had a second 1541 disk drive for my C64. It would have made things much easier when creating "backups". If the sky's the limit then I would have loved a commercial disk duplicator that could copy all of the protection schemes.

[jhd]

I was still using cassette tapes with my Coco as late as 1988 (when I got a PC for Christmas); I badly wanted a disk drive -- most of the better/newer games were only available on disk-- but that cost about as much as the original computer did.

 

I also badly wanted Bard's Tale (and popular RPG games generally), but these were never ported to the Coco (and they would still have been on disk were they ever ported...).

[Seob]

I wished i had a color monitor for my cpc-464 back in the day. We only had a monochrome one.

[+Ksarul]

I was always looking for a TI-99/8 to upgrade my TI-99/4A. I was also trying to find a FORTI card for my /4A (it used four TI sound chips to make some truly awe-inspiring sound). I never did find either one back then, but within the last 10 years I've found and bought both of them. . .much to the chagrin of my wife, who does not like computers all that much.

[+Gemintronic]

I wish I had chosen an Amiga with a PC sidecar instead of a PC. Hindsight is 20-20 I guess. Spent hundreds more trying to get my PC up to Amiga standards.

[0078265317]

Back in the day probably internet. Facebook would of been cool when I was a kid. And speed. They were so slow.

[awhite2600]

I wish I had chosen an Amiga with a PC sidecar instead of a PC. Hindsight is 20-20 I guess. Spent hundreds more trying to get my PC up to Amiga standards.

 

The Amiga Sidecar wasn't as great as it appeared. It was a very low end PC (original 8088 specs) at a very high price. If your main intent was PC gaming then the Sidecar might have been a letdown.

[20ohm20]

I desperately wanted a hard drive for my C64 or Apple //e back in the day. I also badly wanted a PEB for my TI-99/4A; I didn't get one of those until 2012.

 

I didn't have a hard drive until I got my Amiga 500 in 1989. (It was a Trumpcard 500 w/a Seagate 80MB SCSI drive and a 1 or 2MB RAM expansion, if I remember correctly).

[Rybags]

First one was Atari 400 with only 16K and tape drive.

Obvious wants were more Ram and a disk drive (it already had one of the aftermarket "real" keyboards).

[MarkO]

For my Apple ][e, a Hard Drive, got a Second Floppy Drive in about 1985. Also a Graphic Chip and Better Sound, I guess the ][GS delivered this in 1986.

 

For my SX-64, FASTER Floppies, and a Hard Drive The Epyx Fast Load cartridge was wonderful, but ProtoDOS on the Apple ][ was unbelievable...

 

For my ZX-81, a Floppy Drive, Sound and HiRes Graphics.

 

MarkO

[ClausB]

Market share. There were plenty of Ataris out there at first, so that our club (CHAOS) was active and vibrant. But once the C64 outsold them, it deprived many more people of the great Atari experience. I resented it then and even moreso now, because every time I mention retrocomputing to an acquaintance, I hear, "oh yeah, I had one of those C64s!"

[flashjazzcat]

Hard disk for my 8-bit Atari. I wasted hundreds of hours waiting for assemblers to compile huge sources from floppies.

[82-T/A]

I was super privileged growing up when it came to computers or technology. My parents basically bought whatever seemed new and would provide any kind of educational value.

 

Once I hit 14 though, anything computer I wanted, I had to buy myself. But in the 80s... top of the line KayPro PC-10 with a 20mb HD. We only had monochrome for like a month before my parents bought a Logitech SVGA monitor (800x640) and a Genoa Systems SVGA graphics card. 8-bit with 512k ram on it. This was in 1987... the graphics card alone was over $500 bucks, the monitor, almost $5,000... it was insane.

[MarkO]

I was thinking about this topic, ( again ) the last few days.. I wish I would have bought more Applied Engineering products for my Apple ][e.

 

I bought the RAMWORKS III card and the Z80 Card, but I should have got the Extra RAM Daughter Card and the RGB Daughter Card. And a Clock card..

 

MarkO

[gozar]

A good 80 column solution for my Atari 8-bit, preferably a PBI solution.

[FastRobPlus]

More colors.

[Tickled_Pink]

A hard drive for my XL. I had just about everything else that was useful to me.

[Cobra Commander]

I wish I had a computer when I was young. I liked the C64's at the library though. I wish they had me as a regular user.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Cobra Commander

[fujidude]

Back with my Aatari 800XL system I wanted a HDD. By the time I could afford it, the money was put into a 486 machine instead. The other thing I always had wanted for the system was a well integrated 80 colum solution. I had an XEP80, and it was very useful with Bobterm, but it was very limited in which software it was compatable with.