Commodore 64

Well, I got my hands on some junked C64 parts - a pristine little used keyboard, and an empty case in great condition(literally nothing else, not even screws). Decided I'm going to hunt parts and build one up for the heck of it. I won't mod anything permanently or destructively, but I will likely mod it for modern convenience (ie HDMI out, modern power supply, usb storage) . Will also likely build my own joysticks out of arcade controls most likely.

So, back in the day I never had one of these, but I did spend a lot of time programming Pets and other 8-bit systems of the era. I also spent a fair bit of time playing other's people's C64s (kind of like a computer version of the Digger's Spoon) so I have some familiarity with them.

Question:

For those of you who had one back in the day, what were your favorite games ?

I remember Impossible Mission 1/2, Epyx Summer Games, Bruce Lee, Choplifter and Lode Runner. Can't remember much else by name... lot of vague memories.

Iron been reading up on them, don't fire it up using an old power supply from back in the day. It's almost 100% certain the capacitors dried up/leaked and it will absolutely cook your entire board with a fatal voltage. I'd change the capacitors on the board and ditch the power supply for a new manufactured compatible one.

Quote from redwing7

I didn't have one either but I do remember playing operation wolf, pitfall and some kind of dungeons and dragons type game.

But this one had the best cover art for a game eva,

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Well... not much of a C64... but it's a start.

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Sixteen Colors too!

So why ? Nostalgia I guess.

For me a lot of good memories getting into computers in that era. Late 70s, early 80s... Back when everything was pretty much 8bit and your computer booted off ROM into a basic interpreter. It was pretty tough not getting around learning basic and even machine language/assembler (if only when you really needed it).

In my case I went down the Trash-80 lane - no complaints, I wrote just about everything I needed and I had a heck of an adventure. It led to learning the fundamental skills that I made a career out of. I had a Model III, then a Model 4. I eyeballed the c64 but it was just too expensive to branch out in parallel. I wrote my own games on the TRS80s at first, then got by gaming wise on the original NES. I then made the jump to what I thought would be the winner: The IBM PC. C64 hung around a bit, then came the C128, then the Amiga - but I chose wisely, the PC won out. I did put my TRS-80 on the internet for a day. Was one of the last things I did with it (well connected to a BBS, which then gave me internet through the terminal etc but it counted - I posted stuff to usenet!).

The C64 is still the greatest selling computer of all time, and it turned into quite a subcuture in the days leading to the internet. Before the internet, there were phone in BBSs everywhere, and C64users with modems were the main users. There was also an astonishing black market network of floppy disk pirates and traders. People would meet on the BBS, then meet in parking lots with briefcases and trade hordes of floppy disks. The great era of dialing into a BBS, starting a flame war, and downloading "Warez" and proto-porn images was born of those times. All very exciting stuff - we had never seen anything like this, and you felt like you were part of an elite group of people who were "down with it", with the general population having no clue whatsoever about the bleeding edge technology that was available that shrank the world down.

For me, I took part in the last 2 years of the BBS days (right before the internet came to town). There were a couple of BBS's in town I logged into, and I knew the sysops of one of them, but he was a creepy fucker. I was working in the government then, and there were internal networks of sysadmins who had nice (then brand new and exotic) custom burned CDroms full of warez games - only government people had access to burners as they were so astonishingly expensive. Lot of horse trading took place, and also cross pollinating to BBSes. I logged into BBSs from few MS DOS PCs (386/486 then a Pentium 1) using Telix or Procom Plus + some old USR modems. There were still some C64 users holding out back then. I remember downloading Star Trek TGN fake nude pics LOL. Those were a big thing back then. I got into multiplayer gaming around then, with Air Warrior for DOS. Amazing era.

When the internet proper came (around 1992 or 1993), it signaled the end of the old BBS days, and the PC overtook the mighty C64 around this time as well. I didn't have a long BBS "career", but I did take part and had a blast. I did not miss out.

So emulators... yes, they are there... but it doesn't scratch the old itch of wanting that C64 that I never had. There's also the nostalgia of using the old machine, using the old keyboard, and messing around with Basic once again, and really having fun with Machine Language/Assembler. In the old days, the hardest thing to get was information. It was very very hard to get information on machine language and advanced programming on the trash-80s back in the day. There was no internet, and no media format to "pirate" books. Books were hard to find, there was no online shopping, no ebay... no amazon. You had to get lucky and find stuff in stores. Mail order ANYTHING to Canada back then could take a six months to a year and was very expensive.

Now every last book you ever wanted on something like the C64 is free to download on archive.org. Every last inch of the C64 is documented here - an astonishing rabbit hole of information:

https://archive.org/details/commodore_c64_books

Anyways, all to say I want to built one back to life, read everything I can about it, and start messing around with basic + machine language on it. Also play a few games on joysticks of my own construction muahahahah but mostly it's to mess around programming and learning the machine inside out.... Just for the hell of it, and nostalgia sake.

Quote from Sluggo

Put a pi in it and run an emulator.

That's the cheapest option for sure...