Grimakis

Mark just got his Ti-99/4a so I imagine there will be a handful of game reviews going forward. He's always been one of my favorite YouTubers, going back like 7 years since I started watching him.

You guys w/ your Ti's! I always get jealous when I see how much fun everyone is having with their Ti99/4As. Then I almost get one, but I think to myself, "What am I going to do with another old computer?". Maybe one day...

No doubt that Ray is a champion among C64 enthusiasts. I've got one of his "System Savers", and one of his custom PSUs. And of course he fixed one of my C64s.

Could be the computer. On my C64, i could not use the Epyx Fast Load, or DigDug. I sent it Ray Carlsen, he check it out, said nothing was wrong, must be a marginal power supply. Sent it back with a good PSU. Still didn't work. I sent it back, and he pulled chips one by one. It turned out to be the PLA with a partial failure that kept it from working with SOME carts. So it could be an issue with the cart, the PSU(extra load could cause issues) or perhaps a failing IC

Very subjective. I'm going to use the Apple //e Platinum as the comparison point, as it was the last true Apple II line, since the GS is really next gen. Graphics - Commodore 64 wins hands down. Sound - Commodore 64 wins again, but if you want to include the Mockingboard, it definitely becomes closer. Price - Commodore was the king of cheap. Durability - Likewise they were built cheap, the Apple is much more durable. Expandability - Apple II line has internal expansion slots, so the edge goes here, although you could probably do similar expansions on the C64 with external peripherals. Performance - Tie BASIC Programming - AppleSoft BASIC is better than the Commodore BASIC on the 64. Just easier to use, especially to create graphics and access the DOS. Gaming Library - C64 has more advanced games due to Graphics and Sound mentioned above. Business Library - Apple II has 80-col support, most business software supported it, CP/M on Apple was good, bad on C64, so Apple wins. Keyboard - Apple, no doubt, the C64 has one of the worst non-chiclet keyboards ever made. Open-Architecture - Tie Design / Appearance - Super subjective, but I prefer the Apple because the Computer, Drives, Monitors can all be stacked into a clean setup. The C64, has wires coming out the back and side, you really need a large desk or a special stand to allow the monitor/drives to live above the C64, otherwise it needs to be off to the side. Overall, I prefer the Apple II, it's just a bit more fun to collect for, and if I were to be using one for any serious applications back in the day, the Apple would have won out. The C64 is definitely more of a gaming machine, and if I wanted it as a game console I would have gotten a C64. Although to be honest, if I just wanted games I would have picked an NES!

The reason is that the Amiga platform was much more popular in Europe than in the US so more people were developing for it. The Amiga had a much more niche following in the US, as the PC was much more popular.

And a Raspberry Pi is better still for programming. People buy and collect vintage computers for emotional reasons. There is no "practical" application in owning a Commodore 64, vs emulating it, or something else. At least not a reason that most people will be using. Unless you have important data, or processes running on a C64, there is no non-emotional reason to get one. Either you have nostalgia for it, have heard others romantic accounts, get enjoyment from using old hardware, or something else. So yes, the Plus/4 is not a very popular computer, not many people have nostalgia for it. They haven't heard any romanticized accounts of using one. So to them it may be a waste of time. I would not actively go after a Plus/4 unless I were trying to complete a collection that included all Commodore computers. Of course if I had the chance to buy one for $10-15 I would do it.

They were "Home Computers". They are truly built as games machines, as Graphics and Sound clearly are focused on heavily, while 80-col was ignored. I'm sure plenty of folks bought into the advertisements and thought they were getting productivity machines. However, the C64 versions of real business applications like Multiplan, were horrendous. Sort of the opposite today, if you need a machine for business, you'll get a low to midrange laptop, and if you want to game, you'll need the high end gaming desktop.

It's entirely subjective. If the collector get's more utility from collecting than using, then yes. Everyone has their own utility curve.

Thanks for all the references, friends. I think I may be getting a Tandy CoCo 3 in a trade, so it might be the best way for a newbie to get into it.

I wouldn't bother unless it's really cheap.

I wonder if there is a way to support both smartport and floppy emulation on the same slot? Like whenever a program goes to access the disk, it halt the current operation and injects it's own code in that prompts the selection of either Floppy or Smartport, you select, then it resumes the disk access. This feature would only work if you assigned smartport and floppy to the same logical slot. Just an idea.

I haven't done it, but I have seen it done with good results. However the issue appears to always return, as the retrobriting only does the surface. Beneath that there are plenty more discolouring agents waiting to come up to the surface.

I put my vote for Jim Brain and the uIEC.

It supports ASCII text as well. I have dialed in from my Apple IIe and Tandy 102 portable. Once it says connect, hit return a few times to get it goinf.

check out BorderlineBBS as well... very active and running on a C64. borderlinebbs,dyndns.org:6400

Hi all, I just picked up a Mac 512k for a very good price, and have set this guy up on a spare desk. Unfortunately I don't have a boot disk. I've got a few possible options. 1) Buy a boot disk w/ MacTerminal and other utilities. Get an RS-232 to RS-422 adapter and a pile of blank floppies. Transfer software from PC via xmodem. 2) Drop some serious change on a Flash device. http://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/ This Floppy Emu is about the only option I could find for my model, although I'm sure there are others. Anyone been down this road yet? Pros and cons to both ways?

Again, it really depends. Cards on eBay go for a lot now, because the supply is incredibly limited. What happens when you put 300 of them on eBay? Once the 50 or so people who are willing to pay $300 get theirs, it'll go down to $250, then $200, $150. And since eBay auctions don't last forever, you might end up with some going for less than $150. He would have to put a minimum price of $160 and then very very slowly release the cards. If all of them go on eBay at once, there's no way that they will be selling at $300 a piece.

Again, it really depends. Cards on eBay go for a lot now, because the supply is incredibly limited. What happens when you put 300 of them on eBay? Once the 50 or so people who are willing to pay $300 get theirs, it'll go down to $250, then $200, $150. And since eBay auctions don't last forever, you might end up with some going for less than $150. He would have to put a minimum price of $160 and then very very slowly release the cards. If all of them go on eBay at once, there's no way that they will be selling at $300 a piece.

So I'm running into a dilemma. The Apple //e just doesn't have enough slots for everything. Right now I have the following setup: AUX Slot 64k/80col Slot 1 Microsoft Softcard Slot 2 Super Serial Card Slot 3 Empty Slot 4 Empty Slot 5 Empty Slot 6 5.25" Disk Controller Slot 7 RAMFactor 1MB Card You might think, what problem does he have? Well I want to expand. I plan on adding a CFFA3000 in Slot 5, and a Mockingboard in presumably Slot 4. However there is at least one other card worth having in this system and that is the Mouse Card which we know goes in Slot 4 as well. I believe the Mockingboard can be moved around a little more easily, as some games allow you to point to the correct slot. However that still leaves me full up. The only compromise I can think of, is to either swap the RamFactor for a RamWorks, thereby moving the RAM to the AUX slot and freeing up Slot 7, allowing me to shift everything around. Or I could swap the Softcard for a Premium Softcard IIe which then frees Slot 1, and I can shift things around. However both of these are fairly pricey swaps for me. I believe RamWorks is also kind of a downgrade for me, as I believe you need a seperate utility to make a RamDisk as opposed to using the utility stored on ROM on the RamFactor. I think the Premium Softcard IIe would be an upgrade though. Also I am using a stock PSU, at what point with this become an issue? Right now it seems fine, but I'm afraid adding all these cards might cause some trouble. Any thoughts?

If the price were raised on the next run, you'd end up with "more stock" even if you don't produce any more. Price Increases, Quantity Demanded Decreases. At $300 a pop, you might be able to sell them to some people, but certainly not all the people who were buying them at $165.

Again, I agree with the concept. However I do have serious doubts about the ability for something like a sprite card today to be very successful. Unless the price is very low, you are probably looking at demand in the very low hundreds of cards. This is in contrast with the infinitely useful CFFA3000 which continues to surprise us with the amount of interest. Off topic, but since you guys seem to know about A2 expansions: Which cards will work in Slot 3 of an Apple IIe that has an 80-col card in the AUX slot without causing collisions?

I agree with that statement partially. The CFFA3000 is a replacement for Floppy Drives, Hard Drives, and all sorts of finicky old mechanical storage devices. Basically anything that would have worked with a Floppy or HDD will work with the CFFA3000. Essentially every piece of software that wasn't distributed via audio cassette. The Mockingboard is indeed a standard. It had a fair amount of support back in the day, and popular games such as Ultima were written to take advantage of it. Which sprite board exactly is considered the standard, and how many pieces of existing software were written to take advantage of it? Meaning, is there enough software that collectors would actually use on their IIs to warrant reproductions of these sprite boards? A sprite board only would improve the experience if the software existed to run on it.

I think the demand is just too low for getting sprites on Apple II. People are barely writing new games as it is.

From: http://www.bluerwhite.org/2012/08/sprite-boards/ You'll never get a standard at this point.