Keatah Posted November 9, 2014 Share Posted November 9, 2014 (edited) 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 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. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 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! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iwantgames:) Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 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 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BydoEmpire Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 Apple II - wish it had true hardware sprites C64 - wish it had a faster floppy drive and ability to boot directly into a program 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am1933 Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 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. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awhite2600 Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 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. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhd Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 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...). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seob Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 I wished i had a color monitor for my cpc-464 back in the day. We only had a monochrome one. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 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. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 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. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0078265317 Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Back in the day probably internet. Facebook would of been cool when I was a kid. And speed. They were so slow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awhite2600 Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 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. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20ohm20 Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 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). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 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). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 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!" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 Hard disk for my 8-bit Atari. I wasted hundreds of hours waiting for assemblers to compile huge sources from floppies. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
82-T/A Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 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. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gozar Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 A good 80 column solution for my Atari 8-bit, preferably a PBI solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FastRobPlus Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 More colors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tickled_Pink Posted December 7, 2014 Share Posted December 7, 2014 A hard drive for my XL. I had just about everything else that was useful to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra Commander Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 (edited) 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fujidude Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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