Commodore PC64: Looks Like a Commodore, Works Like a PC

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

Original Article Link

Umm…  no ethernet?  😮

[jrandeck]

Pretty cool, but I think the keyboard layout will be  a problem for most users (Where’s the key?)  Of course, the press release doesn’t mention the OS, but connecting a mouse to a C64 would just feel wrong.

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

I wonder if that’s just a stock photo and they’ll actually have something for the key issues.  The C= (ha… haven’t written that in decades!) key might work fine for getting additional keys from the ones without the graphics.  Come to think of it, are they going to have the graphics on the keys display?  A keyboard mapper is damn near a necessity, particularly with the quote (“) symbol being where the @ sign is expected to be, among other changes.

If you want to see how tough it may be for a typist to use the Commodore layout again, watch [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daBGen-Fb3w]this hilarious video[/url].

[Mike Garcen]

you guys are showing your age…i used the C64 a ton but i don’t remember any of those special keys 😛 guess i was too busy using the joystick 🙂

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

You couldn’t use that joystick until you typed in LOAD “*”,8,1, though!  They didn’t have “autorun” back then!  Damn young whippersnappers!  😉  If you did any programming on the C64, you knew all about the C= key for changing between upper and lowercase and displaying all those easy to access graphics without having to know how to create sprites.

[Mike Garcen]

oh, i don’t even remember that! i think my cousin had written down the instructions to get to the game…clearly my memory is faulty!! 😛 but i remember the games!!!

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

To be fair, the fastload and super snapshot cartridges did allow for shortcuts to be used, so if you had one of those, you may have pressed a two key combo in order for it to type out LOAD “*”,8,1 for your lazy arse.  😉  I had super snapshot personally and remember typing $ to see the directory of disks, rather than LOAD “$”,8.  I wouldn’t have remembered that stuff had I not watched that video I linked to.  BTW, if you didn’t watch it through to the end, you missed the funniest parts, as the guy gets ticked off at himself and the Commodore keyboard layout!

[Mike Garcen]

i saw the video….skirge….wow……maybe this is why you don’t like MOdern Family 😛

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

[quote=”shadymg”]
i saw the video….skirge….wow……maybe this is why you don’t like MOdern Family 😛
[/quote]

Man, that’s just wrong.  😉  If you spent as many years using the C64 and C128 as I did, you’d understand.

[jrandeck]

[quote=”shadymg”]
you guys are showing your age…i used the C64 a ton but i don’t remember any of those special keys 😛 guess i was too busy using the joystick 🙂
[/quote]

I guess it would really show my age if I told you that I wrote most of my papers in college on a C64 then 🙂   

Of course I also played Gunship when I should have been studying for finals 😉

[jrandeck]

[quote=”Skirge01″]
To be fair, the fastload and super snapshot cartridges did allow for shortcuts to be used, so if you had one of those, you may have pressed a two key combo in order for it to type out LOAD “*”,8,1 for your lazy arse.  😉  I had super snapshot personally and remember typing $ to see the directory of disks, rather than LOAD “$”,8.  I wouldn’t have remembered that stuff had I not watched that video I linked to.  BTW, if you didn’t watch it through to the end, you missed the funniest parts, as the guy gets ticked off at himself and the Commodore keyboard layout!
[/quote]

OK, I went and watched the video.  It starts kind of slow but the end is funny.  He’s cheating and using an emulator, though, which is probably why he as so much trouble with the keyboard.

Ah, the poke command.  I used to have the memory map memorized.

I had a quick load cartridge back in the day also.  I soldered a reset switch into it so I wouldn’t fry the computer shorting pins on the back with a paper clip any more (yes, I used to do that.  It worked great the first 20 times, but that last one…)

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