It’s time to show some love for Atari since my VCS post is almost 4 years old. I took some pictures of my Atari 400, a North American NTSC model produced at the very beginning of 1983. Continue reading
Atari 400 (1979)
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Tag Archives: ebay
Sanyo PHC-25 (1982)
In the eighties many companies tried to compete in the growing home computer market with one or more products. Some companies made history, other had a niche following, some others didn’t succeed or were successful in a few countries only. Continue reading
Commodore 64 (1982)
About a year ago I bought this Commodore 64 from eBay US. I got it cheap because the seller didn’t advertise the fact that it was a “silver label”, and there were 4 pictures of the (not so good-looking) box before seeing an actual photograph of the computer. So I was the only person who bid on the item! It’s a bit yellowed on the right side and a most of the hooks are missing on the back, but otherwise it is in good working condition. Continue reading
Koala Technologies KoalaPad TouchTablet
In the mid Eighties I had a Commodore 128 and I sometimes used KoalaPainter – the program that accompained the KoalaPad – with a joystick. Now, 30 years later, I can finally paint with the graphic tablet.
Commodore VICMODEM (1982)
It’s quite impossible to collect all the peripherals that were produced for the Commodore computers, but a few of them are worth searching for because they mark a milestone in the history of home computing. The VICMODEM is one of those peripherals: it’s been the first modem to cost under 100$ and the first to sold over a million units, contributing to the diffusion of online services and BBSes outside laboratories, universities, big Companies and military agencies. Continue reading
Commodore Amiga 1000 (1985)
Today, July 23rd 2014, the Amiga turns 29: it was presented in 1985. That year my parents bought a Commodore 128, while my first Amiga, model 500, arrived in 1988. As always I won’t discuss the technical details of this revolutionary computer, but I will pay my tribute with a set of photographs. Continue reading
Commodore 116 (1984)
I bought this Commodore 116 on eBay a few weeks ago from a German seller. The keyboard didn’t work, and I had to repair it. Not a simple task, as these keyboards weren’t built to be opened; I’ll probably write a separate article to document my restoration. Continue reading
Commodore 4040 dual drive floppy disk (1980)
This is one of the floppy drive models marketed by Commodore for its business line of computers. Before turning it on I made a thorough cleaning, but when I tested it, it didn’t work properly. For example, the command to list the content of a floppy disk showed the wrong characters and after a few attempts nothing was displayed at all. I started to try all the socketed ICs on other drives to search for the fault, but they were all working; then I re-connected the drive to a PET and it functioned perfectly. Probably a few IC pins were oxidized. Continue reading
Commodore VIC 20 (1981)
Sometimes computers come unexpectedly from friends, relatives or unknown people that contact me on the site: a surprise and a discovery. Other times I actively dig the web – sites, classifieds, forums, auctions – to look for a particular piece I’d like to have. This VIC 20 belongs to the second category: I was searching for the very first model of this computer – also known as the “PET style keyboard” VIC 20 – and the most difficult task wasn’t finding it, but finding it at the right price.