commodore 64 Archives

It’s the end of SSDs as we know it, and I feel fine

Dave Farquhar Hardware July 6, 2013August 6, 20131980s, commodore, commodore 64

Flash memory’s days may be numbered. The end of the line for traditional flash memory has been predicted for a long time, and gloated about by Luddites who are dead-set against buying SSDs for whatever reason. But I’m not worried about it. All I want is solid-state storage; I don’t care about the underlying technology. The technology behind the RAM my computer uses has changed several times since the early 1980s, and I’m not broken up about it–the SSD in the last computer I built is faster than the RAM in my Commodore 64 was. Speed is good. More speed is better.

So I’m glad to hear about a potential breakthrough in RRAM. Read more

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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The Rise of Commodore

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing December 4, 2012November 23, 20161980s, Canada, commodore, commodore 64, jack tramiel, vic 20

I found an account of Commodore’s rise to prominence on a vintage computing forum. It’s interesting reading. Then again, I’m partial to anything about the rise of Commodore.

Dave Farquhar

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How abandonware gets abandoned

Dave Farquhar Copyright, Retro Computing, Software November 1, 2012January 19, 20261980s, 1990s, Ars Technica, commodore, commodore 64, public domain, Star Wars

From time to time on classic computing and/or videogaming forums, the question of how to track down the current copyright holder to a particular given title comes up. Sometimes someone knows the answer. Frequently they don’t.

This week, when George Lucas announced he’d sold Lucasfilm to Disney, illustrated precisely how this kind of thing happens.

Dave Farquhar

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What to do about a router dropping connections

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 27, 2012November 19, 2018Arctic Silver, asus, classmate, commodore, commodore 64, radio shack, tinkerer

A former classmate and coworker contacted me with a question.

My router is about 5 years old. I have a cable modem and a router. The cable modem is fine. The router keeps connecting and disconnecting from the internet…used to happen occasionally, now happens all the time. I reset it and it works for a while, then disconnects. Is it time for a new router or do you think something else is going on?

I see two options. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Happy 30th birthday, C-64

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing August 2, 20121980s, 1990s, commodore, commodore 64, New Year, pc world, RF

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Commodore 64’s release, PC World–a magazine published by the same company that once published RUN, a magazine dedicated to the C-64 and other Commodore 8-bit computers–had someone try to use a 64 for a week.

Not surprisingly, they found the 30-year-old computer not up to 2012’s demands.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Games would be just what Linux needed

Dave Farquhar Linux July 27, 2012Ad Lib, amiga, apple, apple ii, atari, commodore, commodore 64, IBM, macintosh, Steve Wozniak, VGA, vista, windows 8

Valve is intending to develop for Linux, as an insurance policy against Windows 8. I think that will lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. If more games are available for Linux, demand for Linux will increase, along with market share.

There’s historical precedence for this. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Do you think if software cost less, people would pirate less?

Dave Farquhar Software May 23, 2012January 3, 20251980s, commodore, commodore 64, excel, Microsoft Office

The BSA says 57% of people use pirated software. A big part of the problem is that software is just too expensive. You can buy a decent computer for $300, and the copy of Windows that comes with it accounts for 1/3 of the cost.

Microsoft Office Home and Business, which includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook, retails for another $280. Office Professional, which includes Publisher and Access, retails for $500.

So even if you opt for the cut-down Home and Business version, you’ve already spent more on software than you spent on the hardware it runs on. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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The origins of Prince of Persia unearthed

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 23, 2012August 20, 20181980s, 6502, apple, apple ii, atari, commodore, commodore 64, USB flash drive, video game

Prince of Persia isn’t just a recent movie. It’s based on a video game series, the first of which was first released all the way back in 1989 for the venerable Apple II series of 8-bit computers. That original game, extremely simple by today’s standards, is a classic today.

The author, Jordan Mechner, had given up on looking for the 6502 assembly language source code behind the game until his dad found a box of disks buried in a closet. Among them were several hand-labeled disks claiming to contain the long-lost code. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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RIP, Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 9, 2012January 28, 20261980s, apple, atari, atari st, Chuck Peddle, commodore, commodore 64, dell, IBM, jack tramiel, Linus Torvalds, motorola, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Texas Instruments, TI

Commodore founder Jack Tramiel, the orchestrator of the first line of affordable personal computers, died this weekend at the age of 83.

I don’t know exactly what to think about it, and I’m probably not alone, though it didn’t take long for tributes to pour in. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Happy 30th birthday, Commodore 64

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing January 6, 2012July 15, 20171980s, 1990s, apple, CES, commodore, commodore 64, Dave Haynie, emachine, IBM

The C-64 sort of turns 30 this week. It was introduced 30 years ago this week, though it wasn’t until August or so that you could actually buy one. It took that long for memory prices to come down to reach the target price, and if memory serves, the machine they displayed at CES in January wasn’t quite production-ready anyway.

I remember the machine well. It was my first computer. It seems like just yesterday the thing turned 25. And not all that long ago that I still used one on a regular basis.

Dave Farquhar

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