What computer would you recommend for people who are just getting into the hobby of retro computing?

[Keatah]

I'll assume Firmware v3.1.1 is needed ?

[potatohead]

Latest one.  I have a thread here:

 

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.apple2/c/czeLuxo2US8/m/UmU0fIsKCQAJ

 

Turns out a boot delay setting on the FastChip does allow for configuration.

 

It's all working great now.

 

Might not work with CFFA devices earlier than the 3000.

Edited October 11, 2020 by potatohead

[bluejay]

I think the VIC-20 would also make an okay first computer. It's an horrible computer if you think about it, but the thing is, everything about the VIC-20 is just so fun! It's a happy computer. The Miata of the retro computer world. Underpowered, yet easy to use with great aftermarket support and super fun to use. It would make a great first computer and nothing else, especially if you don't have a ton of money to spend. A VIC-20 with a C2N Datasette along with the original manual would be brutally minimalistic, simple, and cheap option to go. A handful of cartridge games won't hurt either.

[potatohead]

The VIC has VCS type graphics, basically.  One NTSC color clock pixels.  

 

That's a cool retro look, and it kind of forces simple, doesn't it?

 

I only had one for a little while.  The lack of heavy screen DMA made it seem fast for its clock speed, almost like the Apple.

 

And not a ton of pixels to sling around.

 

Yeah.  It is one of the better, limited small RAM machines for sure as far as games and the overall experience goes.

 

I wonder, have people tried using media players and a car cassette adapter to make loading tape games easy?

 

A stock VIC 20 will load anything quick!

 

[potatohead]

On 9/14/2020 at 4:36 AM, wierd_w said:

trust me, DOS is sufficiently retro to most kids these days.

 

Totally!  My own kids saw DOS, and older stuff because I had it around.  The VCS with a pile of carts and controllers always saw a lot of love.

 

Oregon Trail.

 

Be it Apple or DOS, that seems to define early retro for 90's and some 00's kids.

 

They saw it in school, came home, played on a PC and NES, MegaDrive or maybe SNES.

 

r/Retrobattlestations is packed with people jamming on 486 and older hardware.

 

 

[potatohead]

4 hours ago, Keatah said:

happy to have all my original Apple II paraphernalia. It's all about

...for me, it's all about dorking with hardware and doing electronics projects.  The //e and + machines are great for it.  

 

And the ease with which new devices can be plugged in and just work.

 

Emulation is increasingly fine with me too.  I kind of want to keep a machine setup, but not lots of them.

Edited October 11, 2020 by potatohead

[bluejay]

The thing is, DOS only started to get impressive once the Tandy 1000 came along, and VGA and Adlib or Soundblaster along with a 386 or better processor is almost required for a DOS game to be good. And those didn't come until much, much later.

[potatohead]

Oh I don't know.  Graphically?  Yeah, minus the few who produced for composite, which basically delivered Apple / Tandy 16 color graphics.

 

But, early DOS had good games.

 

I remember hopping over to ftp.funet.fi and finding a lot of great stuff to play!

 

Same for Apple 2.

 

Bitmap games are and can be a lot of fun.  Who needs sprites when one can get screeches, clicks and goofy objects floating around?

 

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2020 by potatohead

[Mr SQL]

On 10/9/2020 at 5:06 PM, potatohead said:

There is a case for it all ending up with peeks and pokes for those wanting more than the BASIC allows for.

 

The BBC got this right with meaningful inline assembly.

The BBC was really cool for having two programming languages in ROM and being able to mix the languages easily together  -

 Assembly programming was enhanced to go horizontal with the ":" BASIC concatenator for Assembly statements as well.

 

I've implemented these design features in SuperCharger BASIC but it should also be possible to use a good BASIC without using any inline assembly or pokes and peeks as that is beyond BASIC and essentially using advanced Machine Language, necessary with the MC-10 in that link because the graphics modes beyond 64x32 semi-graphics are not accessible through BASIC like they are on the larger Color Computer models.

 

The Interact with the large text display looks similarly intriguing to the BBC Micro from this perspective with some models having four classic programming languages in ROM. 

 

[JamesD]

21 hours ago, bluejay said:

I think the VIC-20 would also make an okay first computer. It's an horrible computer if you think about it, but the thing is, everything about the VIC-20 is just so fun! It's a happy computer. The Miata of the retro computer world. Underpowered, yet easy to use with great aftermarket support and super fun to use. It would make a great first computer and nothing else, especially if you don't have a ton of money to spend. A VIC-20 with a C2N Datasette along with the original manual would be brutally minimalistic, simple, and cheap option to go. A handful of cartridge games won't hurt either.

'THE VIC20' is coming October 23rd (it's not showing it the US Amazon store, so UK only at first?). 
It's like 'THE C64' but the primary machine is the VIC, and the 2nd machine is the C64.

The 'Realms of Quest' games for the VIC look pretty cool. (I don't think that's included with THE VIC20)

Edited October 11, 2020 by JamesD

[doctorclu]

This has been a fun read and I'm glad you all liked the Aquarius jab a while back.

 

If I were honest I would say the C=64 would the cheapest and best retro computer experience to someone starting out.

 

The Atari 8-bit, a close second.   And for that an Atari 800 XL for a good base experience.   Atari 800 beige for someone wanting to do a bit more work, but great for more of that retro/typewriter look.

[fimbulvetr]

I don’t know where cheap C64s are anymore. The price on them, at least ones available to me in Canada, have gone crazy lately. Atari is a cheaper option from what I can find.  I may get a The C64 Maxi when they start shipping in November, as for US$130 it seems to be an excellent all-in-one 8bit with new hardware, and a lot less than what it would take for me to get even a basic C64 setup.

 

Since I first commented I picked up a CoCo 3 for a surprisingly good price, and I will amend my previous assessment. I found the CoCo 2 lacklustre, but the 3 with a $20 512k ram upgrade and a CoCo SDC is a fantastic computer with a much better game library. Highly recommended.  

[phoenixdownita]

3 hours ago, fimbulvetr said:

I don’t know where cheap C64s are anymore.

That's so weird, they sold a crapton of them (30+ M) and even if a good chunk of them is likely in landfills by now I wouldn't think it is rare ... but then again it is just demand/supply, the more people want one the higher it'll cost and when someone finds a long lost one in an attic he wants to sell it at the high price and round and round we go.

[fimbulvetr]

1 hour ago, phoenixdownita said:

That's so weird, they sold a crapton of them (30+ M)

I KNOW! Drives me crazy! There is no real good reason for those prices, and yet here we are. 

[Arnuphis]

Ebay is not a good place to get a C64 or any common computer for that matter. Prices are jacked up due to Ebay/Paypal fees and a sense of collectable value. Best best is local ads or a computer club. I got given a ton of them by people who were clearing out lofts/garages etc. once they knew I was in a local club.  I cleaned them up and sold them for $20 each at a computer show to cover the cost of the heatsinks I put on the chips. It was hard to get people to even pay that. I still have a few left.

 

But yes the new 'The64' is a great choice. I bought one last year and I was very impressed for what it was. It felt like 1985 again when I opened the box.

[Hwlngmad]

On 10/11/2020 at 5:53 PM, JamesD said:

'THE VIC20' is coming October 23rd (it's not showing it the US Amazon store, so UK only at first?). 
It's like 'THE C64' but the primary machine is the VIC, and the 2nd machine is the C64.

The 'Realms of Quest' games for the VIC look pretty cool. (I don't think that's included with THE VIC20)

Got mine on pre-order from Amazon UK to ship to the States.  Not cheap, but could be well worth it.

[Arnuphis]

5 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

Got mine on pre-order from Amazon UK to ship to the States.  Not cheap, but could be well worth it.

Me too. Got my 'TheC64' from the UK last year. Just bought a US PSU and ran it through my TV that supports PAL refresh and all was good. I know 'The VIC20' is essentially the same machine in a different case but the Vic-20 was my first computer so having a new one in a box again takes me back to when I was 13. 

Edited October 14, 2020 by Arnuphis

[JamesD]

18 hours ago, fimbulvetr said:

I don’t know where cheap C64s are anymore. The price on them, at least ones available to me in Canada, have gone crazy lately. Atari is a cheaper option from what I can find.  I may get a The C64 Maxi when they start shipping in November, as for US$130 it seems to be an excellent all-in-one 8bit with new hardware, and a lot less than what it would take for me to get even a basic C64 setup.

 

Since I first commented I picked up a CoCo 3 for a surprisingly good price, and I will amend my previous assessment. I found the CoCo 2 lacklustre, but the 3 with a $20 512k ram upgrade and a CoCo SDC is a fantastic computer with a much better game library. Highly recommended.  

Yeah, what is a good deal usually depends on what you have to pay for the computer, and eBay is usually not the place to find a good deal.
Accessory prices for CoCo upgrades used to be high, but competition has changed that in recent years.
People also said the C128 was expensive, but Commodore made around 7 million of them.  That's as many as there were Apple II's, so there should be plenty of deals out there.

There has been some speculation that Commodore didn't sell as many machines as they said.
Bill Herd even mentioned this in a VCF East video recently.  He said he chose not to believe that (or something like that), but I was left with the impression he suspected that to be true.
This is a guy that previously stated that shipped sometimes meant sitting in a trailer in the Commodore parking lot, so Commodore wasn't exactly against fudging the numbers.
Even if Commodore only made 20 million C64s, and half ended up in landfills, that still leaves more than any other machine.
Like every other 8/16 bit machine, there are probably fans that have dozens of them in their garage, and they will only pop up once they die and the kids are trying to figure out what to do with them.
In one such post, someone had 20+ Amiga 2000s that were in dad's garage.
 

[fimbulvetr]

4 hours ago, Arnuphis said:

Ebay is not a good place to get a C64 or any common computer for that matter. Prices are jacked up due to Ebay/Paypal fees and a sense of collectable value. Best best is local ads or a computer club. I got given a ton of them by people who were clearing out lofts/garages etc. once they knew I was in a local club.  I cleaned them up and sold them for $20 each at a computer show to cover the cost of the heatsinks I put on the chips. It was hard to get people to even pay that. I still have a few left.

Pickings are much, much slimmer in my part of the world up here in Canada.  Old computers rarely come up in local ads, there are no local retro computer clubs, and ebay is often the only option and we get screwed on shipping and import fees. When I do see local ads, people are usually asking more than what I can get things for on ebay just by being patient. I've gotten a couple good local deals over they years, but they are few and far between. Much smaller market here, so there was much less to begin with and I think a lot of stuff was recycled. 

 

Pretty well 100% of the time I see someone chime in with something like "Don't get ripped off on ebay! Buy it on Craiglist!", it is someone from the USA. (Craiglist isn't really a thing here, although we do have the crappy little wannabe, Kijiji).

 

It's frustrating!

[fimbulvetr]

18 minutes ago, JamesD said:

Like every other 8/16 bit machine, there are probably fans that have dozens of them in their garage, and they will only pop up once they die and the kids are trying to figure out what to do with them.
In one such post, someone had 20+ Amiga 2000s that were in dad's garage.

I have no doubt the bottom will fall out of the retro computer market in the near future... I look at my father-in-laws huge toy train collection that he amassed over decades at great expense, and now he can't find anyone to even give it away to. I can see the writing on the wall for old electronics as a lot of us (and the machines) age. 

[Keatah]

1 hour ago, fimbulvetr said:

I have no doubt the bottom will fall out of the retro computer market in the near future...

Do you think that applies to all vintage computers? Or might there be certain brands/models that are immune to such fate?

[fimbulvetr]

17 minutes ago, Keatah said:

Do you think that applies to all vintage computers? Or might there be certain brands/models that are immune to such fate?

Hah! If I only I had a crystal ball to predict! I'm guessing the rarest of the rare will maintain some value as historical artifacts. The rest of it is just so much consumer-grade junk churned out of the factory.

 

I think that realistically, to anyone born born in the last 20 years, 8-bit computers from the 70's and 80's to them are what tech from the 30's to 50's are to someone from my generation. I appreciate the tech of a nice vacuum-tube radio or whatever and all, but most of the collectors of those are currently aging or dying off, and you don't see a big crowd of younger people clamoring for the stuff.  They are dust-collectors and space-eaters. I watch Antiques Road Show, and it is always fascinating to see them explain to somebody that if only they sold it 10 or 15 years ago it would have been worth a mint, but now that market is gone. 

 

The current prices of a lot of this stuff is aimed at middle-aged folks like myself with disposable income. In 10 years or so a lot of us will probably start thinking of offloading our horde. I know I am already starting to have more difficulty and frustration with repairing old electronics as my eyes age. At some point it will probably just be a pile of crap taking up space and collecting dust. My kids have no interest in my old electronics. They are just dad's ancient computers. It's a fun hobby for me now though!

 

 

[adamchevy]

Hah! If I only I had a crystal ball to predict! I'm guessing the rarest of the rare will maintain some value as historical artifacts. The rest of it is just so much consumer-grade junk churned out of the factory.

 

I think that realistically, to anyone born born in the last 20 years, 8-bit computers from the 70's and 80's to them are what tech from the 30's to 50's are to someone from my generation. I appreciate the tech of a nice vacuum-tube radio or whatever and all, but most of the collectors of those are currently aging or dying off, and you don't see a big crowd of younger people clamoring for the stuff.  They are dust-collectors and space-eaters. I watch Antiques Road Show, and it is always fascinating to see them explain to somebody that if only they sold it 10 or 15 years ago it would have been worth a mint, but now that market is gone. 

 

The current prices of a lot of this stuff is aimed at middle-aged folks like myself with disposable income. In 10 years or so a lot of us will probably start thinking of offloading our horde. I know I am already starting to have more difficulty and frustration with repairing old electronics as my eyes age. At some point it will probably just be a pile of crap taking up space and collecting dust. My kids have no interest in my old electronics. They are just dad's ancient computers. It's a fun hobby for me now though!

 

 

 

That’s the sad fate of classic cars as well I think.

 

It’s strange how something that was so wonderful to a generation a couple before you can be viewed as crap.

 

I think that phenomenon won’t take hold of gaming as strongly because it reaches so far.

[Arnuphis]

You are probably right. I think the 'iconic' machines will still have people looking for them every time the generation at the time goes through a 'throwback' phase but in large as we all die off most if not all of what we have with end up in yard sales or just dumped. Sad really but then we will be long past caring!

[Keatah]

That's true about gaming. Games can be fun no matter how old they are or what they look like. As long as they can be played via emulation or real hardware they're good to go.

 

I was thinking about how much presentation an appearance affect whether it's gramps' old junk, or maybe something cool to hang on to. Because. Currently. I still have a room or so haphazardly and disoranizedly filled with leftover Apple II stuff. As it sits right now it looks like a rotting mess. Nothing speaks "old" better than that pile.

 

Some weeks ago I let the wife have at a master closet and she got everything cleaned up nicely. I don't even remember or care what was in there. It's gone and that's that. Save for the console I had as a kid (and in the 80's) I feel like more and more of the "collection" is transmuting itself into useless junk. It's like a creeping disease almost.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Keatah