THE COMMODORE 64/128
Yes, they're still around, and there are about 20,000 people using them. The newest Commodore system has more "stuff" hooked to the back, then the original, but it can do so much more with all that "stuff". I think the
people at Commodore let a good thing go, and it led to their demize. If they had stayed with the 128, and improved it to the state it is today, they might still be around.
What does it take ?
The setup I use consists of a 128 (flat) with Jiffy-Dos installed, and a
64K video upgrade. Of course two 1571 drives (you need two for LRR, but
that's another story :) A BJ200ex does the printing. Most programs are in a
RamLink. The RL is set up as a Ram Disk. It doesn't expand the memory of the
computer, but with the programs running from it, the load and save time is
almost instant. For an example, I used a program that used to take 3 1/2 mins
to load from disk, about 5 secs with RL and Jiffy-Dos. I store files on a
FD2000 drive (that's a 3 1/2" drive capable of formatting a HD disk to 1.6meg.
(that's not a type-o friends :) and a 512K REU. There are lots of programs that
can use the Ramlink for the program files, and the REU for programs such
as spell checkers, and with a word processor program called ZED, by
Craig Bruce
Craig also wrote a nice utility called Little Red Reader. You can use
it to copy files from a C= formatted disk, to an IBM formatted disk. He has
a program called ACE, that will be a complete operating system within itself.
It's not done yet, but I use it for UUENCODEing and BCODEing files to send
by E-Mail.
RamLink
The RamLink is the greatest creation to date IMHO by the people at Creative
Micro Designs, or CMD
Everything you see in this section, will be created on a Commodore 128.
SuperCPU
Now we in the C= community are waiting for the release of the SuperCPU. An
accellerator that will plug into the expansion slot (something else hanging off
the back:) and boost the speed to 20mhz. A 128 running at 20mhz, is comparable
to a 386 running at 33mhz. Quite a jump from the 1 or 2mhz we are running now.
Back to the beginning