What would my old Commodore Vic-20, 64 and 128 be worth in todays market? What will they be worth in say 20 years?
About 49 cents.
I was fixing up an old computer for a friend, that, several years ago, cost over $1000, and cost me $400 to buy it used. I was replacing the 500 mg drive (burnt out) with a 1 gbyt and bought Win95 software to load into it and now the person doesn’t want it. So, I checked to see how much I could sell it for and discovered that I’d be lucky to get even close to the basic cost of the drive and software that I bought.
Better, newer used computers are advertised in the local paper for $100 and the same on E-bay!
No Way! :eek: I paid three times that for one a year ago at the Salvation Army. I’ve been ripped off! :o
I dont know, people collect weird things. If your system is working in 20 years you might find some computer antique shopper guy out there interested. I know people who spend pretty bucks on collecting atari/NES equipment (even though you can get much on ROMS)
Wait until they’re antiques (100 years old) or historic collectibles (50 years old).
I stopped by MicroCenter a couple of months ago and they had a table full of “pre-owned” (I think they were Compaq) P-166s with 16 Mb RAM and 1 Gb HDDs for $25. I doubt I could get much for my TI-99/4A.
In raw dollars, virtually nothing.
In dollars you don’t have to spend on a contemporary computer because some old dinosaur in your closet can do that function for you, ummm, well, the price of the computer you didn’t have to buy plus the priceless expression on the face of your associates when you show them what you’re running and for what.
I know two different people who set up Macintosh SE’s (8 MHz processors, 4 MB RAM, early System 7) as web servers.
I knew a business owner whose business databases were run on an original Macintosh (yeah, 128 kilobytes of RAM and booted System 3 from a floppy and used a 5 MB serial port HD) for years before he upgraded…to a Quadra with 4 MB RAM in 1997.
I knew a restaurant owner still using a kludge called Multi-user DOS to network a handful of AT-era PCs to handle reservations and orders per table, using some ancient antediluvian software he loaded for 5.25" disks.
There are rumors of a major NY-area hospital which still has a floor with two rows of cubicles occupied by…punch card operators!!! Yes, the data equivalent of the coal-burning water heater, some mid-1960s system for which Y2K concerns were largely irrelevant and the cost of migrating decades of legacy data insurmountable given present budget. I’m still trying to track this one down, this is too good not to have the documentation on!
Actually, there is already a pretty good market for some of these old computers. Nostalgia value, ease of programming, whatever. Old technology is not useless. Radio Shack used to make a little portable machine called the Tandy 100. It was an extremely efficient form factor for its primary use (word processing), and has never really been replicated. As a result, there is a thriving aftermarket in them. They are probably 20 years old.
True collectible computers like an original Apple I or an Altair 8080 are already fetching premium prices.
Here are some sample auctions to show you what prices can be like:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2030832715
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2030119769
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2031086379
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2031100648
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2031043148
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2030183203
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2030860418
“Form factor” - man, I haven’t heard that for a bit now.
The interesting thing about the specific computers mentioned in the OP is that the good simulators for them are cycle-accurate. That means you can be sure software written for the real machine will run on software exactly the same way, down to the individual chips’ clock cycles (the Z80 CPU and the VIC-20 graphics chip, to be exact).
The Z80 is one of the most-hacked chips around. You can find a Z80 simulator on the web written in Java. Type in Z80 assembly (learned through one of the myriad of free online text files) and you can watch the simulated chip step through both assembly (converting human-readable code to hexadecimal code) and execution. Here it is. Watch out for popups.
Another example of intense Z80 hacking is the existence of complete undocumented opcode listings. Undocumented opcodes are instructions that the chipmaker never officially mentioned in the manuals, and for good reason: Chipmaking is an advanced art, but not a perfect one. Chip real estate can be imperfect, leading to damaged circuits. If those circuits implement an opcode the manual documents, the chipmaker will be deluged with mail from unhappy coders when their programs are plagued by random, hard-to-fix bugs due to that damaged logic. Happily, such defects usually appear on the edges of chips, so opcodes implemented by logic on or near the edge would remain undocumented because their functionality could not be guaranteed. Programs written using such opcodes couldn’t be guaranteed to work on a different chip, or even on the same chip from one run to the next. In a production environment, using undocumented opcodes is Considered Harmful. In a hacking environment, using undocumented opcodes is a way of making your code all the more interesting. 
Most of the better Z80 emulators support all of the undocumented opcodes.
How do you find out about undocumented opcodes? By obsessive hacking at the hex level: Sending in electrical signals that, officially, have no corresponding opcode to see what, if anything, they do. That implies a rather dedicated and long-running hacker fanbase. The fruits of obsession.
Why the Z80? Because it was designed in 1976, it was in the earliest micros to make it big, and it’s still being used in hackable electronics. Texas Instruments officially supports assembly programming of its 80-series of calculators, all of which use the Z80 as their CPU. So if you can program your VIC-20 or Commodore 64 in assembly, you’ll have all the more reason to buy that slightly-used TI-83 and the link cable.
The original Game Boy, the most popular handheld game system in existence, used the Z80. Games written for a Z80 will still run on the latest whiz-bang Nintendo handheld. That’s staying power.
The Space Shuttle uses radiation-hardened Z80s, as do innumerable guided missiles and satellites. The Z80 is a known quantity: The bugs are known, the exact ins and outs are known, and it has been proven amazingly stable. Hardened Z80s will last for decades, and you’ll still be able to find high-quality information even then.
I guess this firmly paints me as an assembly nerd. 
Next up: Why RISC architectures are better than CISC architectures (or, Nothing Sucks Like A VAX!).
I had a Tandy lap top and I liked the way it felt and handled better than the modern multifunction thing I have now. Even if the battery pack seemed like it weighed in at 10 pounds.
Except Commodore based the Vic-20/C64/Pet lines on the MOS 6502 (also used in the Apple ][ and Atari 400/800 series)/6510 CPUs, not the Z80.
IMO a C-64 or Vic-20 will never be valuable (at least not in your lifetime) simply because of the volume produced (almost 22 million C-64s were made). Same goes for almost all personal computers produced after, say, 1977. Altairs and IMSAIs are worth money because there weren’t that many manufactured. Apple I? Sure, there were only 200 sold.
In the Akihabara electronics district in Tokyo a few years back I saw an Apple II+ on sale for over $500. I don’t know if it was in working condition or not, but apparently the nostalgia factor is fairly strong over here.
Of course, it’s entirely possible the sign was a joke.
The ebay links were all for different model computers than what the OP has. TRS-80’s tend to be pricier than Commodores because there were fewer of them. The altair is much more highly priced because of its rarity and its place in the hisotry of personal computers. Vic-20s and Commodore 64s don’t tend to be worth much (maybe 5 bucks each) but the 128’s tend to be worth a bit more because they were “better” at the time and are also much rarer now. So I’d guess probably 40 bucks or so for the 128, higher or lower depending on what model 128 it is and what you have with it. The portable version of the commodore 64 (with the tiny built in screen) is worth quite a bit because so few of them were produced.
Here’s a C64 for about 10 bucks, which I think is kinda overpriced and I notice there aren’t any bids on it:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1358491781
Here’s another one for $2.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2030463312
Here’s a c128 for $20
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2030211591
Here’s a vic-20 for $5
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2030581369
Can it be used for web-surfing ?
Then give it to your local library.
Alternately, if your library has an on-line cataloge, they could use it as a terminal.
Write the original value off your taxes.
Well, so far most of the posts are correct in the sense that they really aren’t worth much except for “collectable” value. I personally have many of the 80s computers and video game systems. Some, brand new in box never used (the ultimate for a collector).
However, be aware that in general, the rarer the system, the more the fetch. I have seen 80s Vectrex video game systems go for $400 US. Portable Commodore 64s (the SX-64) fetches a good price on auction sites.
I sometimes cruise garage sales if I can get my sorry ass out of bed on weekends and see what “junk” my neighbors have. Sometimes, you can get lucky.
By and large though, unless its something “special”, they’re not worth much.
Well, I’ll be damned! I thought for sure the C-64 was based on the Z80 (which was compatable with the Intel 8080, BTW (it had all 8080 opcodes plus 80 new ones)).
Anyway, the Z80 was used in micros. CP/M, and later its DOS clones, ran on Z80s and Intel chips, for example, and that lead the way for Intel’s dominance in the PC CPU market (now challenged by AMD and some others). For a while, getting CP/M preinstalled was an option when buying IBM-PCs, but the DOS was much cheaper. Oh, well.
The C-64 had a 6510 CPU, which is very similar to a 6502. One of the popular additions was a cartridge which had a Z80 processor in it so that you could run CP/M. The 128 had an 8510 (again, similar to the 6510 but faster) but it also had a Z80 built into it. The 128 could boot in C64 mode, an enhanced C128 mode, and Z80 mode. The 128 was also shipped with CP/M which was used in Z80 mode. Perhaps this is why you associate commodores and the Z80.
Intel didn’t really have such a dominance in the CPU world until the IBM PC took off, using their 8086 which was only designed to have a useful life of a few years (and hence has some kludgy features in it that we still have to suffer with today). In the big battle of the 8 bitters, lots of different CPUs were used. Zilog’s z80’s were popular, as were the motorola and mostek chips. The 8080 and 8085 from Intel were used in a lot of industrial computers and video games, but I don’t recall too many personal computers using them except for the earliest ones.
Like what? Segmented memory? I know something about Intel chips, but this planned obsolescence is something I’ve never heard of.