My Writings. My Thoughts.

Professional C64 trainings

// May 18th, 2012 // No Comments » // Friday Commodore

Back in the 80s, the Commodore 64 was the first contact many of us had with a computer. Whilst most of us started hacking away at Basic and machine code without any real training (apart from the Basic handbook and perhaps a few books we picked up when we bought the C64) and basically “played [...]

3 Decades apart, the gameplay survives

// May 11th, 2012 // 1 Comment » // Friday Commodore

Earlier this week, I took this picture of my two daughters. Whilst one was playing on her Nintendo 3DS, the other one had sneaked into my office and taken one of the classic Nintendo Game & Watch games, Mario Bros and then snuggled herself next to her sister on the couch. Seeing this, it got [...]

Traces of history

// April 27th, 2012 // 3 Comments » // Friday Commodore

When I’m at a garage sale or thrift store, next to looking for remnants of the 8-bit era, I tend to browse through the many books that are for sale there for a few cents. It’s not just for the books, but it’s also for the little references that people have left in the books [...]

Happy 35th birthday, Commodore PET!

// April 20th, 2012 // No Comments » // Friday Commodore

It’s sometimes hard to imagine that computers, tablets, smartphones etc. saw the first day of light only 35 years ago this week when the industry was “launched” at the West Coast Computer Faire (WCCF). The WCCF, was the idea of Jim Warren, a computer hobbyist who had been toying with the idea to setup a [...]

A small tribute to a great man

// April 13th, 2012 // No Comments » // Commodore Legends

It’s been a sad week, with the news of the passing of Jack Tramiel, one of the greatest computer pioneers. The tributes to Jack have been huge and newspapers and sites have been reporting on the news all week long. I didn’t want to do another write-up of the amazing life of one of my [...]

Jack Tramiel 1928 – 2012

// April 9th, 2012 // 5 Comments » // Commodore Legends

“Computers for the masses, not the classes” Words cannot describe the feeling I had when I read the report on Forbes that Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore and one of the most important people in computer history died last Sunday, aged 83. My thoughts are now with his family who are going through this tough [...]

Hooking an iPod to a C64

// April 6th, 2012 // 3 Comments » // Friday Commodore

There are certain things that are somewhat hidden in your trusty C64, that sometimes only after many years surface and lead to great new things to do with your breadbox. One of these is the strange “EXT IN” pin on the Commodore’s 6581 SID chip. If you remember from my article on “30 years of [...]

The best April fool!

// April 1st, 2012 // No Comments » // General blogness

The April fool’s joke that Google played on everyone today is perhaps one of the best, geekiest and most original I’ve seen in a long while. Basically, in a video (see the video on the right of this artice) that was put online yesterday, Google talks about putting Google maps on one of the classic retro consoles, [...]

Genlock on the C64

// March 30th, 2012 // No Comments » // Friday Commodore

When you look-up the word “Genlock” on Google, chances are you’ll find hundreds of websites that talk about this technique and how it worked on systems like the Amiga. If you’re wondering what this whole “Genlock” business is about, here’s a little background. On Wikipedia, the definition for Genlock is “GENerator LOCK) is a common [...]

An unexpected link

// March 16th, 2012 // No Comments » // Friday Commodore

Most readers will know that I’m a “bit” of a collector when it comes to all things Commodore. It was not the first computer I owned though. No, the first “real” computer I owned, well it was actually a games console, was the Philips Videopac. As a kid I’d play for hours and hours on [...]

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