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> In high school in 1980 we had Commodore PETs. They had no tangible OS, just a BASIC interpreter in ROM. Five years later the Commodore 128 appeared. It had t

> In high school in 1980 we had Commodore PETs. They had no tangible OS, just a BASIC interpreter in ROM. Five years later the Commodore 128 appeared. It had the best of both worlds: could run all C64 games and CP/M. These were magic times.

mongol 4y ago
I always booted mine while pressing the Commodore key. Waste of money.
- Cockbrand 4y ago
  With its separate number pad, it looked really grown-up and professional compared to the 64, though. The 128D even more so, with its desktop box, built-in floppy drive and separate keyboard.
  - mongol 4y ago
    Yes I had that one. It was the worst decision of my life. Had I waited 6 months or so, the Amiga 500 would have launched. I got stuck on dead hardware and got hooked off from computers for several years.
    - ansible 4y ago
      If it is any consolation, I got started on the Radio Shack Color Computer ecosystem, with the original version the the CoCo3. Back then, there was quite a bit of debate by the mid 1980's about the longevity of 8/16-bit processors like the 6809 and the 6502 / 6510 series. Addressing a maximum of 64KiB of memory back when 4KiB was expensive seemed fine. And due to cost, picking an 8-bit processor for a design in 1980 seemed sensible. But the ability to support up to 1MiB of RAM (eventually) on the 8086 series help insure the platform's longevity, in spite of the horrible segmented memory programming model. Companies like Motorola weren't terribly interested in backwards compatibility, preferring instead to design completely new instruction sets (like the 68K family) for their 32-bit platforms.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
      If it is any consolation, I had to use ZX81 as my parents couldn't even afford ZX Spectrum.
      - macdice 4y ago
        Me too. But I think it led to more learning and less gaming! I did finally get a Speccy... recently!
      - eashman 4y ago
        Same here. Trying to type anything on that thing (especially copying the code out of magazines) was just horrible. Edit: just remembered something that made it even worse than just the awful keys - all reserved words for BASIC were tokenized in some way where you had to use a control-key sequence to tell it PRINT, for instance, instead of being able to type P,R,I,N,T <enter>.
  - rasz 4y ago
    >128D even more so, with its desktop box, built-in floppy drive and separate keyboard and Atari ST price point, or 80% Amiga 500
salmo 4y ago
I inherited one of these from a friend in 2000. The ‘l’ key switch was broken. It (like most) were only booted into C64 mode and used for Batman and stuff. ‘L’ was broken because of ‘load’? I think that was the command. It’s been too long. I passed it on, but wish I didn’t. At this point, I probably could have replaced the switch.
rasz 4y ago
128 was a scam. It was a way for Commodore to get rid of unused sunk cost R&D (MOS 8563). Buyers were promised C64, but twice the number so must be 2x better, received C64 with another almost separate computer glued to its ass. Second graphic chip requiring expensive monitor, second CPU. As a bonus manufacturing C128D was more expensive than Amiga 500!

mongol 4y ago

I always booted mine while pressing the Commodore key. Waste of money.

Cockbrand 4y ago
With its separate number pad, it looked really grown-up and professional compared to the 64, though. The 128D even more so, with its desktop box, built-in floppy drive and separate keyboard.
- mongol 4y ago
  Yes I had that one. It was the worst decision of my life. Had I waited 6 months or so, the Amiga 500 would have launched. I got stuck on dead hardware and got hooked off from computers for several years.
  - ansible 4y ago
    If it is any consolation, I got started on the Radio Shack Color Computer ecosystem, with the original version the the CoCo3. Back then, there was quite a bit of debate by the mid 1980's about the longevity of 8/16-bit processors like the 6809 and the 6502 / 6510 series. Addressing a maximum of 64KiB of memory back when 4KiB was expensive seemed fine. And due to cost, picking an 8-bit processor for a design in 1980 seemed sensible. But the ability to support up to 1MiB of RAM (eventually) on the 8086 series help insure the platform's longevity, in spite of the horrible segmented memory programming model. Companies like Motorola weren't terribly interested in backwards compatibility, preferring instead to design completely new instruction sets (like the 68K family) for their 32-bit platforms.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
    If it is any consolation, I had to use ZX81 as my parents couldn't even afford ZX Spectrum.
    - macdice 4y ago
      Me too. But I think it led to more learning and less gaming! I did finally get a Speccy... recently!
    - eashman 4y ago
      Same here. Trying to type anything on that thing (especially copying the code out of magazines) was just horrible. Edit: just remembered something that made it even worse than just the awful keys - all reserved words for BASIC were tokenized in some way where you had to use a control-key sequence to tell it PRINT, for instance, instead of being able to type P,R,I,N,T <enter>.
- rasz 4y ago
  >128D even more so, with its desktop box, built-in floppy drive and separate keyboard and Atari ST price point, or 80% Amiga 500

salmo 4y ago

I inherited one of these from a friend in 2000. The ‘l’ key switch was broken. It (like most) were only booted into C64 mode and used for Batman and stuff. ‘L’ was broken because of ‘load’? I think that was the command. It’s been too long. I passed it on, but wish I didn’t. At this point, I probably could have replaced the switch.

rasz 4y ago

128 was a scam. It was a way for Commodore to get rid of unused sunk cost R&D (MOS 8563). Buyers were promised C64, but twice the number so must be 2x better, received C64 with another almost separate computer glued to its ass. Second graphic chip requiring expensive monitor, second CPU. As a bonus manufacturing C128D was more expensive than Amiga 500!