It’s quite impossible to collect all the peripherals that were produced for the Commodore computers, but a few of them are worth searching for because they mark a milestone in the history of home computing. The VICMODEM is one of those peripherals: it’s been the first modem to cost under 100$ and the first to sold over a million units, contributing to the diffusion of online services and BBSes outside laboratories, universities, big Companies and military agencies. Continue reading
Today, July 23rd 2014, the Amiga turns 29: it was presented in 1985. That year my parents bought a Commodore 128, while my first Amiga, model 500, arrived in 1988. As always I won’t discuss the technical details of this revolutionary computer, but I will pay my tribute with a set of photographs. Continue reading
For a short period, like many other companies, even Commodore sold a version of the classic Pong – at least here in Europe. When Atari released the VCS in 1977, all these games quickly disappeared. Continue reading
I bought this Commodore 116 on eBay a few weeks ago from a German seller. The keyboard didn’t work, and I had to repair it. Not a simple task, as these keyboards weren’t built to be opened; I’ll probably write a separate article to document my restoration. Continue reading
This computer represents the swan song of the PET line: the failure of the CBM-II and the unstoppable advance of the PC in the business sector forced Commodore to stop the production of these computers. Continue reading
This is one of the floppy drive models marketed by Commodore for its business line of computers. Before turning it on I made a thorough cleaning, but when I tested it, it didn’t work properly. For example, the command to list the content of a floppy disk showed the wrong characters and after a few attempts nothing was displayed at all. I started to try all the socketed ICs on other drives to search for the fault, but they were all working; then I re-connected the drive to a PET and it functioned perfectly. Probably a few IC pins were oxidized. Continue reading
At the end of 2013 I was having dinner with a friend who owns an MMF 9000 (MMF stands for Micro MainFrame, the computer is known as SuperPET in the States), and I asked him if he could lend it to me so I could take some pictures. But by an incredible coincidence, a couple of days later I was told (thanks Marco!) about an identical computer for sale 40 Km from where I live. I called the phone number on the classified ad and on the very last day of the year I went to take a look at the computer. It worked and had all the add-on boards (two of them, it’s the first revision) that make this computer special.
I bought it for a very reasonable price and I decided to take some pictures to document this rare computer. Continue reading
Sometimes computers come unexpectedly from friends, relatives or unknown people that contact me on the site: a surprise and a discovery. Other times I actively dig the web – sites, classifieds, forums, auctions – to look for a particular piece I’d like to have. This VIC 20 belongs to the second category: I was searching for the very first model of this computer – also known as the “PET style keyboard” VIC 20 – and the most difficult task wasn’t finding it, but finding it at the right price.