Does anyone have any info on the usefulness of this equipment? I seem to remember that ham radio operators were using one of them (I think the VIC 20?) to program their radio transmissions or some such. I have several of these systems and no one I know wants them - not even the teenagers. I thought they might make good learning tools, but I have not been able to find anyone interested in this old equipment. Any constructive suggestions?
It was the C-64. I bought one used many winters ago, that had a plug-in you could hook up to a radio. There still are some Commodore 64 clubs out there, and I’m sure some of the members will take yours off your hands. But the equipment isn’t worth anything much. I threw mine away. The Vic-20 was my first-ever computer. Can’t imagine anyone doing anything with it now, though.
Try selling them on E-Bay. There are tons of people who collect classic computers.
I’m surprised that they aren’t used more in machining.
If your only concern si AZ-EL I would think they would work fine.
I have the same problem with my tandy 1000. I was hoping my college aged son would come home with some great idea. Guess not
When I was down at Cape Hatteras I went into a surf shop that was using an old Timex-Sinclair (arguably the worst of the old school computers) to track surf conditions (wind direction and speed) with a doohickey up on the roof. As the C64 and VIC-20 were much more powerful computers (and had raised keyboards unlike the T-S) you could porbably come up with similar applications.
Other suggestions? It had many games that were and still are fun to play (Archon, Jumpman, Lode Runner, Miner 2049er), word processor, use it to run Broderbund’s Print Shop to make crappy banners, learn how to program in BASIC, start a BBS…
Also consider it a Fisher-Price “My First Computer” for the kids. Let em see what life was like before active desktops and icon-based OSes.
Well, there are programs and methods to port C=64 games and utilities back and forth from PCs so perhaps you can find some decently useful things to do with it. Do a search under “commodore emulators” for details on what you’d need. As for selling it, I doubt it’d be worth the effort. Yes, there’s people who collect the machines, but not many people willing to pay over $20-$30 for one. For the price, you may as well keep it for the novelty value.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
Ahhh, I’ll never forget the days with my trusty C-64 (yes, that 64 stands for 64k, as in total RAM!) and speedy 1200 baud modem (boy it sure put those 300 baud modems to shame!)
And that wasn’t even my first computer. My very first REAL computer was the Texas Instruments TI99/4a, which sported an impressive 16k of RAM, a nifty voice-synthesizer, and a portable tape-player for a drive (which had me memorizing the “sound” of some of my favorite programs)
The TI 99-4A was my first computer, too. TI was the first company to have a 16 bit computer (being the 99-4A). Too bad they didn’t let anyone have their programming code…they’d be the Microsoft of today.
Of course, I was only a young’un, and played Alpiner and Parsec all day and night. I’ve yet to find them as an emulator type program, too. Oh, the humanity.
Jeremy…
Nobody ever calls me after they’ve done something smart.
The thing I loved the most about my TI-99/4A was the really simplified, take-you-by-the-hand manual for TI Basic that came with it. TI Basic was a little different than MS DOS Basic, but the transition was easy, and I douubt I ever would have gotten very far with just DOS Basic and the manual that came with it.
I bought a real powerhouse, a Timex Sinclair. I would spend two hours inputting a program & then would just so very tiny gentle push the side of it & the memory would delete. arg