The Commodore 64 got me through grammar school!

[zektor]

A few weeks ago I started thinking about the Commodore 64 again. I was a big "scener" in the mid eighties up to the early nineties. I ran a WHQ for a local demo group (Entity or "NTT") and had a pretty decent setup including a 20MB Lt. Kernal HD and a slew of 1541 and 1581 drives.

I ran a modified Ivory BBS at that time. I didn't like DMBBS (especially after I found a critical backdoor) and some of the others were just too vast/complex for me to deal with. Ivory was the goods, and I even modded it in the very end days to allow menu selections with a joystick!

I cut a lot of classes in those days. I needed to get home to see what was new in the BBS world :) It was like the internet of the era, but better. It was a "hidden" thing in a way. An underground that only a select bunch of people who knew what they were doing were a part of. The Internet killed all of that....but that is another story.

Anyway, back to school. My grammar school actually had a computer room with thirty or so C64 systems and monitors, as well as linked printers. Our math teacher doubled as the computer teacher. I vividly remember "Load "*" ,8,1" written on the blackboard.

The math classroom was right next to that computer room. My best friend Louis and I were in the class together at that time, and we were both C64 junkies. Actually, he had the C128...which was in C64 mode 100% of the time anyway! I remember all of the classmates would pile in and sit down for math class, and then the teacher would announce for Louis and I to leave the class and go next door.

Why? Well we were sent to that computer classroom to copy "warez" for him! While every other kid sat there crunching numbers on some test, we were copying disks. He would shoot in every now and then and play a quick round of whatever game we had just copied. Then he'd go back and monitor the rest of the students.

Now, don't think I was a dimwit when it came to math. I was above and beyond the math standards of the time, and that teacher knew it...which was probably why he didn't mind pulling me out of the class for "other" things. Same goes for my friend.

It is funny thinking about all of this right now. I still remember this punk by the name of Alex in my class. At the end of the year I graduated with an A+, and he told the teacher out loud "HOW? He is never here!".

Not extremely proud of that, but it was a funny memory nonetheless that I figured I'd share with the board.

Bring on YOUR C64 memories!

[Blanka789]

Haha great story! Wish I had teachers like that in high school!

[bunnybum]

Haha, what an excellent story! I do have a couple of C64 related memories from school as well. One of them being from physics class.

If for some reason we screwed up whatever experiment we had going in class, the person responsible for the screw-up had to perfectly rush through a level of Trailblazer on one of the C64s lined up in the class room before he/she was allowed to return to the experiment.

Needless to say I constantly screwed up on purpose, and luckily the physics classes were always the last classes of the day so more often than not I ended up competing with our teacher in Trailblazer after school ended.

Oh man, just thinking about the C64 brings back a ton of fond childhood memories :love:

[AB Positive]

awwww, I came along too late for any similar shenanigans. I feel like I missed out. Although I do remember getting detention for playing Wolfenstein 3D on the computer lab 386 DOS machines back in junior high... :)

[Singapura]

That brings back memories. I was quite involved in the C64 scene as well (does "ABC" ring a bell for anyone?). I wrote most of my high school math homework on a Vic 20 and later on the C64.

[Cobra Commander]

The above stroy could have been mine except for one tiny thing. My dad would never buy me a modem. He didn't want anything like messing with the phone line. I was right there too.
I guess a proper geek would have found a way, but at 9 it was really hard to get my hands on that kind of equipment. I think he may have been concerned about "having weirdos in the house" via electronics.
God I wanted on those BBS's at the time. Sigh....at least I had my warez.

[zektor]

awwww, I came along too late for any similar shenanigans. I feel like I missed out. Although I do remember getting detention for playing Wolfenstein 3D on the computer lab 386 DOS machines back in junior high... :)

It was a strange time when I think about it now. Like some alternate universe where Commodore reigned supreme instead of the IBM PC and compatible :) Seriously, everyone had a C64 at that time in my town, just as everyone has a PC today.


The above stroy could have been mine except for one tiny thing. My dad would never buy me a modem. He didn't want anything like messing with the phone line.

Oh, believe e when I say my folks did NOT want me to use a phone line either. But due to my constant badgering, I ended up with two lines in MY ROOM! One dedicated for the BBS, and another for phone calls, BBS logins, DDial chats and the occasional Q-Link login :)

[Lerxstnj]

Yeah, I too was all over the C64 BBS scene. I remember making a huge list of all the phone numbers, especially local NJ numbers and tried not to run up my parent's phone bill. Anyone remember the Drew University one? That was a big one. The smaller underground ones were cool. I never ran one myself, but it was cool being the first of my circles to be "online". I taught myself Basic programming and even made a few apps and lame games. Ahh, the good old days where you were online with only text and ASCII graphics. The young ones here would never understand.

[zektor]

Well, there was also Commodore ANSI...nice color graphics while online :) Yup, it was a great time. I am in NJ too, so there's a good chance you logged on to my board in those days.

[jb143]

I don't have any good stories like these but the Commodore 64 was my first computer. I didn't have a modem or even a disk drive. I only had one game (Attack of the Mutant Camels), an Atari Joystick, and a sloooow tape drive. It is what got me into programming. I devoured any book I could find on the subject. The first game I made was a simple text adventure with very basic graphics where you go on a quest a kill a dragon or something like that. I wish I still had oll those programs I wrote. I eventually moved onto the PC but I still have many fond memories of programming that thing. Because of all that, the Commodore 64 is partly resposible for me going into engineering in college. I still have mine and my wife rolls her eyes anytime I get it out.:p

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Dude,

I was totally rockin' "The Jungle" on the 64=C model Commodore with my "lightning fast" 1400 Baud Modem.

While I didn't spend as much time with the BBS threads as I do these days, I loved the live chat rooms and door games like Food Fight (or was it called Lunch Money?).

I think my "handle" back then was Captain Avocado (I have no idea what it meant).

That ring a bell with anybody from that era?? Around 1989/1990 I think.

[Kid Ice]

"Beat Street" of Black Market Hackers here. If I wasn't re-christened as "Kid Ice" during my college foosball days, I'd still be rockin' that beat from across the street right now.

[icbrkr]

Another heavy C64 scener. I still have most of my equipment, and I ran HQs for (let's see if I can remember some of em) ... Device, DWI, Epic, Section8, Sunrise and I know a few others over the years. Of course, the website I still run, particles.org, is a continuation of Particles! BBS. The name is a joke on the BBS scene... back in the day everything was named 'Surf Board' or 'Circuit Board' or whatever, so a friend joked 'Particle Board!' and the name stuck for the last 17 years ;).

The board was up until early this year, and will be back when I have some time to fix'er up a bit.

[RARusk]

I received my C-64 as a high school graduation (Theodore Roosevelt (San Antonio, TX) - Class of 1985) present.

I still have it along with a lot of software and just recently hacked a PlayStation 2 A/V plug (into where the Cassette Port was) so I can use more commonly found, and superior, PlayStation 2 cables for my C-64.

My fondest memory is when I entered the "Red Storm Rising" Ultimate Challenge Contest (sponsored by Commodore Magazine and MicroProse Software) in 1989. What made things more interesting is that I was living in (West) Germany at the time.

After all was said and done I eventually finished eighth in that contest. I got some cool stuff which included keeping the pair of special Battle Disks (which contained 16 custom made missions) used for the contest. To my knowledge, only ten pairs of those disks left MicroProse - and I have one of them.

Recently, with the help of the user group I am affiliated with (xcssa.org), I managed to copy the Battle Disks onto my Mac. I then created a PDF document that explained the contest and had many document scans and pictures to go with it. Then this PDF would be packaged with a folder that contained the Battle Disk data (in .d64 format) and uploaded to the net to share it with other RSR fans.

But, that is stalled for the moment. I planned to upload it at AtariAge but the maximum size for attachments is 2MB. The Red Storm Rising package is nearly four times that size (because of the PDF file - even zipped). So I need to find another way to get it out there.

My user group and I have talked about using the site to host it and link to it but the subject dropped off before Xmas. We are due to meet again in a couple of weeks and I intend to bring it up and try to get it out there. If anybody else has other options I am open to them.

[zektor]

Dude,

I was totally rockin' "The Jungle" on the 64=C model Commodore with my "lightning fast" 1400 Baud Modem.

While I didn't spend as much time with the BBS threads as I do these days, I loved the live chat rooms and door games like Food Fight (or was it called Lunch Money?).

I think my "handle" back then was Captain Avocado (I have no idea what it meant).

That ring a bell with anybody from that era?? Around 1989/1990 I think.

Haha! The Jungle!

I went by the name "Dice" in those days. I remember attending many Frega parties, and I actually gave Mark a 2400 baud modem for lifetime DDial access :)

[geneshifter]

I received my C-64 as a high school graduation (Theodore Roosevelt (San Antonio, TX) - Class of 1985) present.

I still have it along with a lot of software and just recently hacked a PlayStation 2 A/V plug (into where the Cassette Port was) so I can use more commonly found, and superior, PlayStation 2 cables for my C-64.

My fondest memory is when I entered the "Red Storm Rising" Ultimate Challenge Contest (sponsored by Commodore Magazine and MicroProse Software) in 1989. What made things more interesting is that I was living in (West) Germany at the time.

After all was said and done I eventually finished eighth in that contest. I got some cool stuff which included keeping the pair of special Battle Disks (which contained 16 custom made missions) used for the contest. To my knowledge, only ten pairs of those disks left MicroProse - and I have one of them.

Recently, with the help of the user group I am affiliated with (xcssa.org), I managed to copy the Battle Disks onto my Mac. I then created a PDF document that explained the contest and had many document scans and pictures to go with it. Then this PDF would be packaged with a folder that contained the Battle Disk data (in .d64 format) and uploaded to the net to share it with other RSR fans.

But, that is stalled for the moment. I planned to upload it at AtariAge but the maximum size for attachments is 2MB. The Red Storm Rising package is nearly four times that size (because of the PDF file - even zipped). So I need to find another way to get it out there.

My user group and I have talked about using the site to host it and link to it but the subject dropped off before Xmas. We are due to meet again in a couple of weeks and I intend to bring it up and try to get it out there. If anybody else has other options I am open to them.

OMG. RSR is my favorite C64 game of all time. In fact, I was just playing it the other day on my xbox emulator with vicex. I still have my hardware (boxed) as well with tons of games. My RSR is boxed and complete and minty fresh :)

I never heard of this contest :( If I had, I would have been there and, well, smoked everyone there hehe.

Is there any chance you could send me a copy of that file and PDF writeup on the contest? My friend Bill and I will have to try those missions out! He's also a RSR fanatic.

P.S. Some of us RSR fans should homebrew a remake of that game one of these days. I have the programming knowledge and someone else could do the art and so forth.

EDIT: NM, I found a remake project after I posted this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd2Cd7YGaG4

[98PaceCar]

Isn't our very own Mayhem a part of the Gamebase 64 project? That would be the best repository I know of for new releases.

[Mayhem]

Yep and yep. Something like these battle disks would be great to add to the collection for Gamebase64. I'll sling you a PM RARusk and we can figure out how to get things over to me and included.

[Hardcore]

My uncle originally bought the C64. He was the youngest of my father's family, and still lived with my grandparents until I was nearly in my teens. He would leave it in a room, and I'd get every chance I got with it. He left the C64 usually at night. I'd spend the weekend at my grandparents, and I'd get on that puppy in the middle of the night. Now, grandparents are asleep, house is DEATHLY QUIET. Imagine, for a moment, sitting in a room, alone, when the 1544 gets to loading. To a kid of 8-10, SCARY. SID music, too, is TERRIFYING when you can't hear anything else.

But those were my most fun moments with it. I got tired of playing games at one point, and got it into my head to start programming in BASIC. I did rather well, just couldn't commit to full completion. ADHD I guess. I had a friend that let me have ALL the Gold Box games for the 64. Good times. Good times.

[DonDoubleu3]

I remember playing 1000's of games donated by friends who didn't want their 64s in the early 90s. I could play all night and never run out of games. It all kept coming back to one game... BOULDER DASH!!! I loved the construction set. I remember building an amazing level, then my GF formatted the disk! Gaah! (I married her anyway!)

Later, I started using Bank Street Writer. I used to write poetry (sorry) and short stories on there. I still remember the Commodore printer "dot matrixing" my stories one painful line, "scree", at a time.

I literally had 5 or 6 donated/bought machines: 4 1541s, a 128, a 1571, a 300 then 1200 baud modem. I was a junkie. I still use the emulators, although the charm just isn't there.

Be well, All!

DW3

[zektor]

I still use the emulators, although the charm just isn't there.


It is so funny you say this, because NOWHERE is this fact more evident than with the 8-bit computers. Emulators for the C64 (and Atari 800) work just fine, yes, but nothing can really emulate the experience of the actual computer. I am all for peripheral emulators however (like SIO2PC or C64TPC) that emulate the disk drives of these computers (so that you can serve up disks from your PC to the REAL 8-bit computer) and I think of these as just a modern progression of the classic hardware. My ideal setup(s) now are real C64's and 800's hooked up and using my PC as the file server.