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2021-05-24 13:51

Scrap

Registered: Jan 2021
Posts: 20

Your C64 gear back in the days

Hello there...
A lot of us got their C64 way back in the 80’s or 90’s. Unfortunately, when I got my Amiga in the mid 90‘s, I sold all my C64 gear... Now I am trying to remember, what kind of hardware I owned back in the days and I thought, it would be interesting to read, what kind of gear you used and what you have dreamt of, but never got it...

I can‘t remember exactly, when I got my Breadbox, but I think it was christmas 1985. My only peripherals were a Datasette and a big old black and white tv, that I had in my room...

First thing that had to be added was a 1541 diskdrive, as using tape was just painful...
Well, a standard 1541 still was a pain in the a.. so a friend installed me SpeedDos+... ;-)
As a big old black and white TV wasn’t really a good Monitor, I got a SHARP Colour-TV. Not the fancy Commodore Monitor that I wanted but at least it had composite input, so the image was o.k. for a TV.

I am really bad in soldering but that didn’t stop me adding a lot of switches and buttons to my breadbin. I can’t remember what they all were for… Of course there was a Reset-Button, a Kernel-Switch and I remember a kind of „Pause-Switch“, that stopped everything, that wasn’t IRQ. But there were a lot more, for sure…

Later I bought a 128 KB REU, that I upgraded to 256 KB (soldering again…) I used it a lot for GEOS (i loved GeoWrite and GeoPublish) and TurboAss (I created my own Kernel called „ScrapDos“ ;-) with some nice features like backing up the memory to the REU for testing code… Off course I also had to buy an EPROM-Burner for this (I guess it was called DELA-Eprommer).

About the same time I bought a 1581 with JiffyDos. Compared to the 1541 this felt like a little harddisk. :-) And it also was great for GEOS.

The german 64er Magazine published instructions for building a 2-Bit sampler and with the help of my cousin I got one of these and used it quiet a lot, even if the quality was poor. They also published building instructions for a rudimentary scanner, that got installed on the printhead of a matrix-printer… We built that one, too… By the way, the printer was a STAR NL10.

The last thing that comes into my mind is the Final Cartridge III. I think, that must have been pretty much all of my gear, as I remember it. A bunch of Joysticks and two mice have to be added.

Off course, there were a lot of things, that I was dreaming of, but never got them…
The Super CPU from CMD was one of these things. Or one of the harddisks they sold…
I also never got a SX 64…or a Dual-SID… or a better Sampler… or a Koala-Pad...

So, what was your gear and what was the hardware, that you ever wanted to have for the C 64?

2021-05-24 14:06

Raistlin

Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 699

Wow. I guess I was much poorer ;-)

All I had really was a breadbin, colour TV, datasette and an Expert Cartridge for a very long time. I was writing cheats/pokes for Zzap, Commodore User and What Poke. The latter magazine actually sent me all the new game releases (day zero releases) before I knew about the cracking scene - I’d get an almost daily Jiffy bag with cassettes just so that I could make pokes. I never had time to play any of the games ;-) .. anyway, eventually, my Dad spoke to them and they got me a 1541 - I guess they were exploiting child Labour or something ;-) … but, yeah, that was sweet.

Later on I coded some tools for Commodore Disk User and, with the payment (up to £250 per tool!) I bought myself a hi-fi (game changer for C64 music), surround sound speakers, huge TV, VHS player etc etc.

Sadly all gone a long long time ago, including the C64, 1541 and my huge collection of disks :’(

2021-05-24 14:16

Mr. Spock

Registered: Aug 2007
Posts: 10

Hi,

a similar story here. I started on April 3rd in 1985. A Wednesday. It was raining here in Vienna. ;)

I got a combo pack, which included a breadbin and a third party Datasette. My parents were wise enough to also buy me a little Philips TV set because they saw it coming: Without one I would have occupied the family's TV set all the time :)

The first hardware I bought additionally was of course a joystick. My first one was one from Commodore, several other models followed. I finally settled with a couple of Competion Pros.

Christmas 1985 was the opportunity for a 1541, which I got. At that time I considered the 1541 quite fast - because I compared it to a datasette. The next purchase was a printer, a Star LC 10C, a second 1541 (in fact a 1541-II) and a Final Cartridge III as well as an Commodore 1351 mouse. Later on I got an Action Replay MK VI and also got into CMD's hardware suite by purchasing a RAMLink with 1 MB, which I soon upgraded to 4 MB. The RAMLink was a kind of hard disk replacement for me. I ran GEOS on it and it was so fast I made PC guys jealous. A FD 4000 and a SuperCPU followed soon. That was now a perfect GEOS setup. Almost. Only the hard disk was missing. However I added a Scanntronik Handyscanner.

For a couple of years I abandoned my 8 bit hobby and when I came back I also got a CMD HD with a SCSI2SD card inside. It is now maxed out, very quiet und very fast (connected with a parallel cable to my now maxed out 16 MB RAMLink). I also have "modern" hardware like a SD2IEC or an Ultimate II+ (a great cartridge BTW!).

Actually I am proud of this setup and I absolutely love it! With the years I also collected a lot of other hardware like a second and a third SuperCPU (with 16 MB RAM), a C128D, an SX64 and a lot of other C64s as well as cartridges and a Scanntronik Genlock Interface.

At the moment I am still using my old breadbin, but replaced the defect motherboard with a C64 reloaded MK2.

2021-05-24 14:37

hedning

Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 4752

I got a C64C in 1986 when it was new. I got a datasette and a B/W TV from my dad to go with it. After one year with tapes and nothing more, I got a Oceanic disk drive, and started to swap a little. I also got a small colour TV, after my parents grew tired of me installing the C64 in front of our big colour TV in the living room every day. I remember having a TFC3 and a separate reset button too. Me and my friend built our own notcher.

I remember having one or two TAC-2's, some bad Quickshot joystick and the Boss.

2021-05-24 15:48

4gentE

Registered: Mar 2021
Posts: 297

1985. C64, Datasette, Quickshot II, tiny Sharp TV. 1541 drive and Final Cartridge clone shortly after. My dad sold off my breadbin, Datasette and Quickshot II at some point, replaced it with C64C, Datasette clone and Quickshot II Turbo.

2021-05-24 17:13

Scrap

Registered: Jan 2021
Posts: 20

Quoting Mr. Spock

Hi,
My parents were wise enough to also buy me a little Philips TV set because they saw it coming: Without one I would have occupied the family's TV set all the time :)

Hehe... I remember the days, I was allowed to play my games on the "big" Color-TV, as a real feast... Just like birthday... ;-)

2021-05-24 18:07

Oswald

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5110

breadbin in 86, no tape (sometimes borrowed), drive only 1 year later, for years I had to use the "family" tv in the living room, so constant fights for TV time... no hacker / fastload cartridges or speeddos whatsoever, didnt even knew about them. I resetted the machine with a fork on the user port to rip music.

2021-05-24 18:33

Mr. Spock

Registered: Aug 2007
Posts: 10

Quoting Scrap

Hehe... I remember the days, I was allowed to play my games on the "big" Color-TV, as a real feast... Just like birthday... ;-)

The best thing: In order to keep the cost down I didn’t dare to ask for a TV set. I was happy with a C64 alone. Without discussing it my parents bought a TV set on the same day I got my C64 anyway. I have wise parents!

2021-05-24 18:42

Shine

Registered: Jul 2012
Posts: 382

I got my very first C64 on christmas the 24.12.1988.
C64 II & 1541 II from "Aldi" (German "cheap" discounter) :)

A few weeks later i got an "Action Replay MK VI".
My father needed to drive to West-Berlin, i remember, ~300km

My favorite Joystick was and is "Konix Navigator"!
Luckily, that i got almost a brandnew one a few months ago

I have 2 printers aswell:
"Star LC-10 Color"
"Commodore MPS 1230"

2021-05-24 20:22

Carrion

Registered: Feb 2009
Posts: 317

1987: Commodore 116 + 1531
1988: Commodore 64C + Datasette + X Cart
1989: + 1541(g) + Final Cart 2
1990: + Final Cart 3 + SANYO color TV 14''
1992: + Actin Replay + Burst in the 1541 floppy drive

2021-05-25 02:05

wil

Registered: Jan 2019
Posts: 64

I started with Commodore C128, a 1541, and a Joystick. Later, I added a 1084 monitor and a Star LC 10 printer. An odd thing happened when my floppy disk drive broke in 1992 and was in repair for some time. While waiting for the bus I saw a datasette in a shop's display and I bought this shelf warmer. I used it then for coding until I got my 1541 back.

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