http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5E7feJHw0

The C64 is a great machine 😀. I personally prefer the older 'breadbin' style C64 with the good old SID 6581 audio chip.

Well of the course the older orignal machine was the one I was talking about

Not at all. There are tons of great games on the C64, and there are still plenty of people who use them. If you do get a C64, you're going to want a flash device to get disk images from the internet onto the C64. There are two major devices, the UIEC, and the 1541 Ultimate II. The UIEC emulates at the protocol level, so it's not compatible with fast loaders, but many games have been cracked to work with it. The 1541U-II offers complete emulation of a 1541 drive, so it is compatible with anything a 1541 will run. It has many other features like a built in REU, freezer cart images, and jiffydos support. And that's not even everything. The UIEC is the cheaper option, going for $60, while the 1541U-II is about 3 times that much.

There are other ways to get data from the PC to the C64, but these are the simplest, most modern, and featureful options.

Edit: Also, there are a ton of Commodore books at BombJack.org. He sells DVDs too, for quite reasonable prices.

You are really talking Greek to me there - I didn't know stuff like that existed.

I was just thinking - a used computer is one thing, a used drive is something else. Those drives were never that reliable - getting one used would be like playing Russian Roulette

I still have the original C64 my father bought I think in 1983 or 1984 had to be because I was playing it before I was in Kindergarden. Still have a stack of game disks for it. That is a very durable machine because I used to have temper tantrums and beat the hell out of it with some of those games. That machine made me a gamer. Did not get a Pretendo until 1989 in 4th grade, then Superpretendo in late 1992, then our first 486 sx-25 in December 1992.

Back on topic, no you're not crazy. Having the real deal is better than emulating it. Think of it as an old war re-enactment using the original equipment. I use only Playstation 1 for Playstation 1 games etc......

ncmark wrote:

I was just thinking - a used computer is one thing, a used drive is something else. Those drives were never that reliable - getting one used would be like playing Russian Roulette

That's exactly why a flash drive is such a great investment. It's hard to come by floppy media too. Unless you plan on exclusively collecting actual copies of old games, which is expensive and time consuming, a flash drive will be your best friend.

Yes. XD

And now, to read what you actually wrote, NCM...

*reads your post*

...I maintain my initial "Yes", mostly because from what I understand, C64s can be a bit temperamental nowadays due to their age so getting one in good working shape is hard enough and keeping it in good working shape isn't much easier. :P

But, the C64 is quite the little machine. I didn't grow up with one but got to spend some time with them here and there. The selection of games available is also quite massive. I say, so long as you know what you're getting yourself into, then go for it! :)

I have a 1541 drive that sat in a shoe box for about 5 years (plus however long the previous owner had it stored before I bought it), and worked perfectly with little more than a single cycle with a head cleaning disk. They are quite robust.

I seem to be moving backwards. After retiring my last DOS machine many years ago, I decided to resurrect it again last year on and old pentium 233
(would rather have had a 486, but that was what I had). Played all the way through several games in their original DOS.

I learned a lot of programing on a C64 and had actually become very good with machine code (if I say so myself). But by that time the 486 was out and the writing had long since been on the wall.

Still, I think it would be fun to have one again. Might be tempted to go back and re-program that last arcade game I wrote.

I was looking around earlier and seems like a lot of the books I was talking about are available for download in PDF format. Not sure about the legality of that, but most of those companies are gone...

I am sure there is still some equipment out there in good shape. If I were going to do it, though, I think I'd rather try to get the 3.5 - inch drive

64 is an always will be a great machine. I say go for it. You can get an EasyFlash for relatively cheap to use with it.

I see bombjack.org is already mentioned, I'm sure you can find any reference books you need there.

Also the scene is still alive (both demo and uhm... the other half of it). http://csdb.dk/ is where to find it.
You can find more programming info here http://codebase64.org/doku.php

There are huge archives available with just about anything you could ever want with C64. Just takes a little digging.

A 3.5" Commodore 1581 drive will cost you upwards of $100. A UIEC is cheaper, and I believe you can use the SD media directly as mass storage.

I was thinking about this. I know you couldn't stick a commodore disk and simply do do a DIR - but could you read it at the sector level using BIOS routines? I'll bet not..........

I really do appreciate all the comments here. It sounds like I am not the only c64 fan 😀

Hatta wrote:

A 3.5" Commodore 1581 drive will cost you upwards of $100. A UIEC is cheaper, and I believe you can use the SD media directly as mass storage.

Try finding a 1551 drive some time.

Thanks for all the replies here. It sounded interesting - for a while. I might actually try to do it eventually, but not right now - too many other projects need to be done first.