aries-mu wrote on 2023-09-26, 08:35:

...a car is just a car....

Are... you ... serious?

Paint a car, wrap a car, pinstripe a car, matte, glossy in any colour of the rainbow. Lower it, raise it, 15 22 30 inch wheels, gas engine, diesel engine, electro . leather, fabric, plastic on your seats, halogen, led, xenon lights. recaro sparco, seats, brembo brakes. widen it, give it a sunroof. get a truck, a convertible, a stationwagon, a pickup, a van, a mpv a sportscar, a sleeper...

The car scene is probably the largest community on the planet. Its not just transportation, its a way to express yourself in the open world .... and not just in the internet by posting pictures of your pc.

DerBaum wrote on 2023-09-26, 08:48:

Are... you ... serious? […]
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aries-mu wrote on 2023-09-26, 08:35:

...a car is just a car....

Are... you ... serious?

Paint a car, wrap a car, pinstripe a car, matte, glossy in any colour of the rainbow. Lower it, raise it, 15 22 30 inch wheels, gas engine, diesel engine, electro . leather, fabric, plastic on your seats, halogen, led, xenon lights. recaro sparco, seats, brembo brakes. widen it, give it a sunroof. get a truck, a convertible, a stationwagon, a pickup, a van, a mpv a sportscar, a sleeper...

The car scene is probably the largest community on the planet. Its not just transportation, its a way to express yourself in the open world .... and not just in the internet by posting pictures of your pc.

🤣!
Well, I didn't consider 'modifying' a car. Just driving it. Cause I'm not a car-tuning car. Just a car-using guy.

aries-mu wrote on 2023-09-26, 08:35:

Scali, your analogy, although interesting and clear, might not be applicable to the topic at hand. Because, in the end, a car is just a car. Yes, you can put some music in it, but it only does ONE thing: it carries you around.

No, because that's the thing.
PC's are just computers that are boring and can do everyday chores. It doesn't matter if you use an IBM or a Compaq, or a brandless Taiwanese clone or whatever.
They all run DOS and all run the same software.

The C64 however has its own world of software and hardware, which you cannot enter with any other machine. C64 games just have a certain look-and-feel, that you don't get from PC games.
It has that certain X-factor, which you also find in Ferrari's, Jaguars, Aston Martins etc, but not your average family saloon.

Trust me, PCs are the boring shit, C64 is the fun car (that's exactly the argument you started with: apparently the C64 fans are more passionate and committed). That's why the C64 is now a classic, and old PCs are just generic old PCs. Not even the original IBM models have managed to reach classic status.
You are mistaking 'fun' with 'practical'. A Ferrari isn't exactly the most practical car out there. That's what people use SUV's, station wagons etc for. But those are the boring ones.

Scali wrote on 2023-09-26, 09:05:

No, because that's the thing. PC's are just computers that are boring and can do everyday chores. It doesn't matter if you use a […]
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No, because that's the thing.
PC's are just computers that are boring and can do everyday chores. It doesn't matter if you use an IBM or a Compaq, or a brandless Taiwanese clone or whatever.
They all run DOS and all run the same software.

The C64 however has its own world of software and hardware, which you cannot enter with any other machine.
It has that certain X-factor, which you also find in Ferrari's, Jaguars, Aston Martins etc, but not your average family saloon.

Trust me, PCs are the boring shit, C64 is the fun car (that's exactly the argument you started with: apparently the C64 fans are more passionate and committed). That's why the C64 is now a classic, and old PCs are just generic old PCs. Not even the original IBM models have managed to reach classic status.
You are mistaking 'fun' with 'practical'. A Ferrari isn't exactly the most practical car out there. That's what people use SUV's, station wagons etc for. But those are the boring ones.

Mmm.... I guess that depends on the angle one sees and experiences it.

Evidently, I experienced PCs in a more fun way. Indeed, now that you make me think about it, my approach with PCs was: "lemme put my hands on whatever software or game I can get and try the heck out of them", and same approach for hardware. So, it was a very explorative journey. In a way, I 'used' PCs in a C64-like way...
So, I guess your analysis of PCs use (and analogy with cars) is based on perhaps a more 'common' use of PCs: just to do some office work.
But, POTENTIALLY, what PCs could give you in terms of experiences is much more and broader than C64.

So, I'd say that the C64 was more capable of drawing creativity and willingness to explore out of its users than PCs. But if somebody pushed the use of PCs to their edge, then the experience would be stronger than that with C64s.

But that is kind of a anachronistic way of interpreting events.
I got my C64 in 1984. In theory PCs existed, but they were WAY out of the price range of a C64. So not many people would have a PC at home. They were office PCs.
And early PC games were REALLY REALLY bad. PCs had the horrible CGA standard for graphics, which was slow, ugly, and had no hardware support for things like hardware scrolling or sprites. And sound was PC speaker.
Compare that to C64, and it was no contest.
I got my first PC in around 1988, so I already had my C64 for 4 years by then. I got a 10 MHz turbo XT with Hercules and two floppy drives, no HDD. It was still WAY more expensive than C64, and still horrible at most games.
It was later "upgraded" with a CGA monitor, and games were still pretty horrible compared to C64. Then upgraded again to VGA (very VERY expensive at the time, both the card and the monitor)... finally the graphics were slightly better than on C64, but it was still WAY slow, and still only PC speaker sound.
It wasn't until a few years later, when I upgraded to a 386SX-16 with a Sound Blaster that you could finally play games with proper music, scrolling, sprites (still in software, but with enough bruteforce to match what the C64 could do)... At which time the C64 was over 10 years old.

Gee, what a surprise... a PC that is 10 years newer than a C64, and costs a shitload more, can play better games.
Before that, PCs couldn't actually do most of what a C64 did.
Yea, they could do office work, but the C64 could do that as well. I had word processors and a printer on my C64. GEOS even gave me fancy fonts and WYSIWYG long before Windows became a decent alternative.
When I moved from GeoWrite to WordPerfect on my first PC it was a shock: you actually have to type everything in text mode, with all sorts of special codes, and then generate a 'print preview' to see what it looks like?

Scali wrote on 2023-09-26, 10:07:

But that is kind of a anachronistic way of interpreting events.

I got my C64 in 1984. In theory PCs existed, but they were WAY out of the price range of a C64. So not many people would have a PC at home. They were office PCs.
And early PC games were REALLY REALLY bad. PCs had the horrible CGA standard for graphics, which was slow, ugly, and had no hardware support for things like hardware scrolling or sprites. And sound was PC speaker.
Compare that to C64, and it was no contest.
I got my first PC in around 1988, so I already had my C64 for 4 years by then. I got a 10 MHz turbo XT with Hercules and two floppy drives, no HDD. It was still WAY more expensive than C64, and still horrible at most games.
It was later "upgraded" with a CGA monitor, and games were still pretty horrible compared to C64. Then upgraded again to VGA (very VERY expensive at the time, both the card and the monitor)... finally the graphics were slightly better than on C64, but it was still WAY slow, and still only PC speaker sound.
It wasn't until a few years later, when I upgraded to a 386SX-16 with a Sound Blaster that you could finally play games with proper music, scrolling, sprites (still in software, but with enough bruteforce to match what the C64 could do)... At which time the C64 was over 10 years old.

Gee, what a surprise... a PC that is 10 years newer than a C64, and costs a shitload more, can play better games.
Before that, PCs couldn't actually do most of what a C64 did.
Yea, they could do office work, but the C64 could do that as well. I had word processors and a printer on my C64. GEOS even gave me fancy fonts and WYSIWYG long before Windows became a decent alternative.
When I moved from GeoWrite to WordPerfect on my first PC it was a shock: you actually have to type everything in text mode, with all sorts of special codes, and then generate a 'print preview' to see what it looks like?

Then I guess this is also another important factor to consider that I overlooked: time displacement.

You're talking about a different era. I'm talking about my esperience: starting with PCs in 1992, with a 286 @ 16 MHz with OAK Vga master card. Not as good as a 386, but still waaaaay better than the horrible experience you had with CGA end earlier systems!
Yes, indeed I had some chances to see CGA games and they looked really, really horrible. My 8-bit NES games were immensely better, so I guess your C64 games too.
Probably, if I started my PC experiences with the kind of stuff you started with, I'd have been alienated as well...

I still had PC Speaker (had to wait until 1994 with a 486 to get a Sound Blaster Pro), but some games were amazing: Rally, Sim City, Street Fighter 2, Lemmings, Golden Axe, and countless more I can't remember...

But hey, provided I'll be financially stable enough, I'll surely buy a new remake of the C64 and start learning it!

Hey, did you know there's also the C64X project on Kickstarter and GoFundMe, approvede (conditionally that funds are reached) by the C64 company, which looks like a C64 but contains an Intel rig with GeForce GPU, M.2 SSD and everything?

Scali wrote on 2023-09-26, 10:07:

But that is kind of a anachronistic way of interpreting events.[...]

I edited my comment above, adding the last lines

But how is it fair to compare your experience with PCs starting from 1992, when the golden era of the C64 had long past, and you missed it? The C64 was a dinosaur by 1992. The golden era of PCs was only just starting.
When I got my C64 in 1984, it was still relatively new, and it was one of the more capable gaming platforms on the market (16-bit hadn't arrived yet). So I experienced the C64 from relatively early games, evolving into some of the most advanced games made on the system.
Certain games were so technically advanced for the day that they felt somewhat like when Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM or Quake first arrived on the PC.
Some games were nearly as good as actual arcade games. And oh, the music... the SID is just magic in the right hands.

Many games also had a two-player option, as every C64 had two joystick connectors, or sometimes even up to 8 players, like the Summer/Winter Games and similar. Where you could play with a group of friends, and you would take turns, with two people playing against each other at a time. I found on PC there was much more focus on single-player games.
It was just a completely different experience from a social point-of-view.

Scali wrote on 2023-09-26, 10:22:

But how is it fair to compare your experience with PCs starting from 1992, when the golden era of the C64 had long past, and you […]
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But how is it fair to compare your experience with PCs starting from 1992, when the golden era of the C64 had long past, and you missed it? The C64 was a dinosaur by 1992. The golden era of PCs was only just starting.
When I got my C64 in 1984, it was still relatively new, and it was one of the more capable gaming platforms on the market (16-bit hadn't arrived yet). So I experienced the C64 from relatively early games, evolving into some of the most advanced games made on the system.
Certain games were so technically advanced for the day that they felt somewhat like when Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM or Quake first arrived on the PC.
Some games were nearly as good as actual arcade games. And oh, the music... the SID is just magic in the right hands.

Many games also had a two-player option, as every C64 had two joystick connectors, or sometimes even up to 8 players, like the Summer/Winter Games and similar. Where you could play with a group of friends, and you would take turns, with two people playing against each other at a time. I found on PC there was much more focus on single-player games.
It was just a completely different experience from a social point-of-view.

I see your points. Indeed, I wasn't actually comparing C64 vs more modern PCs. I was comparing the C64 people's passion VS the PCs' people passion.

Yes, as a DIRECT comparison between PRODUCTS, the C64 has the disadvantage of being a dinosaur if compared to the larger time-window of all PCs and related pieces of hardware. But that's exactly my point! PCs' people has all that in their experience. Yet, C64 people are way more enthusiastic, passionate, committed, and productive in keeping the C64 myth alive in 202x than retro PCs people. And I was wondering why. And why we (retro PC people) don't even have a magazine, whereas C64 people somehow managed to get the whole C64 fully remade brand new (and a mini version of it, and many other variants of it).
C64 people seem to me more like: Oh wow, yes, let's do it!
Whereas retro PC people seem to me more like: "Naaahhh that's never gonna be profitable. Naaaah the costs are gonna be prohibitive..." and then they go back finding some dying old piece on eBay or local marketplaces, for as long as they last.

The C64 market is ALIVE. Products are viable and rebuilt from scratch. The retro PC market is basically DEAD, like a zombie still moving only on the cycle and re-cycle of old parts and computers that keep being sold/purchased, but how long can they still last? How many times mobos and cards can be viably re-capped? Aside from some modern remakes of ISA sound cards and maybe very very very few little parts, the retro PC market is dead and zombying around on semi-dead future corpses of pieces of equipment.

aries-mu wrote on 2023-09-26, 10:29:

Yet, C64 people are way more enthusiastic, passionate, committed, and productive in keeping the C64 myth alive in 202x than retro PCs people.

What are you basing all these statements on? Was there a poll I missed?

The C64 is far less complicated than a PC, and it is what it is. But what would a modern reproduction of a vintage PC look like? What configuration from the countless that existed?

Wait, what is this thread about again??

I googled "retro car" and it gave me 5m results.
I googled "Chevrolet Corvette" and it gave me 75m results.
Wow, that must mean that people love the Chevrolet Corvette more than retro cars!

Mandrew wrote on 2023-09-26, 10:55:

I googled "retro car" and it gave me 5m results.
I googled "Chevrolet Corvette" and it gave me 75m results.
Wow, that must mean that people love the Chevrolet Corvette more than retro cars!

🤣!
Point taken!

badmojo wrote on 2023-09-26, 10:54:

What are you basing all these statements on? Was there a poll I missed? […]
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aries-mu wrote on 2023-09-26, 10:29:

Yet, C64 people are way more enthusiastic, passionate, committed, and productive in keeping the C64 myth alive in 202x than retro PCs people.

What are you basing all these statements on? Was there a poll I missed?

The C64 is far less complicated than a PC, and it is what it is. But what would a modern reproduction of a vintage PC look like? What configuration from the countless that existed?

Wait, what is this thread about again??

I don't know exactly. It's a general feeling. I'm trying to identify it better myself.

I'd just like to see more 'action' around retro PCs as I see around C64 all the time. That's all.

The how is beyond me.

I can just throw some examples.

For example, C64 has at least one current magazine.
Retro PCs do not. There's a retro GAMING magazine, but that's specific for games. No magazine on retrocomputing.

As per what kind of retro PC to remake from scratch, it's all about starting.

I don't know. Somebody managed to remake C64s from scratch. Well, among retro PCs people, somebody could start by remaking a good, retro, versatile motherboard. That should be a good starting point. After all, motherboards connect everything in a PC. Maybe 3 models:

• A mobo remake for 286 and older CPUs
• A mobo remake for 386/486s systems, with 32 bit bus
• A mobo remake for P1 systems... maybe with a socket adapter and voltage regulator so that it can handle both P60/66 and later P1s.

And then a couple of old cases remake: Tower and minitower, with replaceable back panel that can accomodate both AT and ATX mobos.

This would be a fantastic starting point already, and you'd virtually catch most of the Retro PC needs already.

Did I already say a magazine? And a magazine. Where's our Retro PC magazine?

When I started getting into the IBM PCjr a few years ago, I found a similar thing:
Even though the PCjr is a system that has been on the market for less than a year(!), and it had flopped terribly (partly because it was a very bad PC... slow, incompatible and limited), there's an amazing amount of information available on the system today, and I can buy all sorts of hardware for it, a lot of it newly built and designed, including relatively complex stuff like modern SD-card based cartridge emulators and IDE harddisk controllers.
I guess the PCjr has that X-factor that regular PCs do not have.

And yea, ironically enough I discussed developing a cartridge emulator for PCjr with someone a few years ago, when they weren't available yet. And the response was kinda like: "Naaahhh that's never gonna be profitable. Naaaah the costs are gonna be prohibitive...", and arguing that only 3 people in the world would be interested...
I wanted to build it anyway, just because you could. I didn't get it off the ground at the time, as I didn't have the required skills for the hardware, I could only provide the software.
But luckily multiple people who did have the skills have built such devices since. Just because they could. Not because it has to be profitable or because you need more than 3 people using it.

Scali wrote on 2023-09-26, 11:18:

When I started getting into the IBM PCjr a few years ago, I found a similar thing: Even though the PCjr is a system that has bee […]
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When I started getting into the IBM PCjr a few years ago, I found a similar thing:
Even though the PCjr is a system that has been on the market for less than a year(!), and it had flopped terribly (partly because it was a very bad PC... slow, incompatible and limited), there's an amazing amount of information available on the system today, and I can buy all sorts of hardware for it, a lot of it newly built and designed, including relatively complex stuff like modern SD-card based cartridge emulators and IDE harddisk controllers.
I guess the PCjr has that X-factor that regular PCs do not have.

And yea, ironically enough I discussed developing a cartridge emulator for PCjr with someone a few years ago, when they weren't available yet. And the response was kinda like: "Naaahhh that's never gonna be profitable. Naaaah the costs are gonna be prohibitive...", and arguing that only 3 people in the world would be interested...
I wanted to build it anyway, just because you could. I didn't get it off the ground at the time, as I didn't have the required skills for the hardware, I could only provide the software.
But luckily multiple people who did have the skills have built such devices since. Just because they could. Not because it has to be profitable or because you need more than 3 people using it.

Wow this is FANTASTIC! Thanks for sharing this!
And see? Yes indeed, you met the exactly same mental wall that I noticed!!!
All hail to the people who had the guts to do it, and before them, the people who had the creativity to dream about it!

And, wow! I know a lot about PCs and I read tons of stuff. I never even heard of this PCjr thing, I didn't even know it existed!!! I'll look into that!

aries-mu wrote on 2023-09-26, 11:26:

And, wow! I know a lot about PCs and I read tons of stuff. I never even heard of this PCjr thing, I didn't even know it existed!!! I'll look into that!

Here's some blog I wrote on it when I got mine:
https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2018/01/12/what … akes-it-uncool/

And this on the HDD controller:
https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2023/01/14/a-gr … cjr-the-jr-ide/

And this on the cartridge stuff:
https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2023/05/29/cart … for-the-ibm-pc/

@everyone

And after all the above talking, I didn't realize I was experiencing right now, right here, in real time another perfect example of what I was trying to convey in this post.

In these same days I am being involved in another post, covering the problem of plugging a PS/2 (or USB ideally) mouse to an old PC that doesn't have a PS/2 port:
Another PS/2 Mouse ISA (ISA8) card adapter

Well, see how many problems?

I can GUARANTEE that, if this was a C64 problem, we would have found ready, in the market, brand new, easily purchasable, a COM Serial, optical, 3 buttons, wheeled mouse, with drivers for any possible OS, from DOS and ahead, and everything. I am sure of that. Conveniently purchasable online on Amazon or other stores. Be sure of that. See what I mean?

Retro PC people? We have to struggle.

Yup, for C64 there's this converter that plugs into the joystick/mouse port, and is compatible with the 1351, the official Commodore mouse:
https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/P … emulation_.html

Scali wrote on 2023-09-26, 15:01:

Yup, for C64 there's this converter that plugs into the joystick/mouse port, and is compatible with the 1351, the official Commodore mouse:
https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/P … emulation_.html

I didn't know that. But see, everyone? What did I just say above here?

Thanks for the info @Scali

aries-mu wrote on 2023-09-26, 14:49:

And after all the above talking...

... I didn't realize I was experiencing right now, right here, in real time another perfect example of what I was trying to convey in this post.

In these same days I am being involved in another post, covering the problem of plugging a PS/2 (or USB ideally) mouse to an old PC that doesn't have a PS/2 port:
Another PS/2 Mouse ISA (ISA8) card adapter

Well, see how many problems?

I can GUARANTEE that, if this was a C64 problem, we would have found ready, in the market, brand new, easily purchasable, a COM Serial, optical, 3 buttons, wheeled mouse, with drivers for any possible OS, from DOS and ahead, and everything. I am sure of that. Conveniently purchasable online on Amazon or other stores. Be sure of that. [Later addition {but I did think about this originally, I just didn't bother to write it down} or some simple, conveniently ready to use, adapter to plug modern mice to whatever port the C64 has]

See what I mean?

Retro PC people? We have to struggle.

And also guys, see immediate confirmation of my sure suspect by @Scali:

Scali wrote on 2023-09-26, 15:01:

Yup, for C64 there's this converter that plugs into the joystick/mouse port, and is compatible with the 1351, the official Commodore mouse:
https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/P … emulation_.html