Commodore Ramblings - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

19 Feb 1998

...
 > They did, ever hear the term "the lumbering
hippo", that was a  nickname
...
 > many gave the 1541 disk drive... I
didn't think it was that slow
...
 Well, I always knew the 1541 drive sucked egregiously,
speed wise.  I
mean, it was as bad as a cassette player...what was the point?  Until  fast
...
 loaders came along.  They made the 1541 as fast as any
Apple drive with  a
...
 fast DOS.  Then it was passable.

But what was very cool about the 1541, I later learned, was that it had
its own processor, and that you could upload a program into two drives,
hook them to each other and have them copy disks automatically...very
cool.  Then when my friend gave me the program that played Daisy on the
1541 (by this time I had my own C64) I was dazzled.  I wrote a similar
program for the Apple Disk ][ but the farts and grunts it made were  hardly
...
 comparable to the violin-like sqeaks that emanated from
the 1541.  Very
cool.  I can't stay up late with an Apple //c, because it makes that awful
noise when trying to read a nonexistent disk!
...
 > 
> >PS. So the Commodore did suck after all ;) It did, but I like it sooo much
more than the Apple II, which is just
plain boring
...
 > performance for a very low price. (albiet slower
than necessary).   Also
...
 > the 64 had other merits such as its graphics
ability and incredible
> sound...  Every one rips the Commodores, but you have to remwmber who
> was posting profits and who was going bankrupt in the 80s...  the
> nineties are a different matter I'm afraid..  :( Exactly
...
 After I got over the computer-cock-war syndrome I did
come to realize  what
...
 a cool machine the C64 was.  I actually started to
program on it and
started experimenting with the sound.  It could make the wildest  sounds. 
...
 I wanted to port the Apple ROM Monitor to the C64 so
that I'd have a
decent Monitor with which to assemble machine code, but alas my C64  died
...
 on the carpet in front of my TV (thus beginning the C64
curse I've  fallen
...
 victim to), I guess from static electricity.  They just
didn't make  C64's
...
 to last I'm afraid.  Thus my C64 programming soire
was cut short. I killed my C64 by trying to add a reset switch and attaching the
wire
to the wrong power terminal. BTW, what IS the command to get into
Apple's monitor from DOS? I always forget...
...

Ok, now that is just plain lame.  Who the hell designs a printer and
forgets about the tractor feed bands? Don't forget some certain operating
systems that are self incompatible
;-P
...

Sam                                        Alternate e-mail:  dastar(a)siconic.com
...

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...

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