What's Your Dream Retro Computer?

Remembering the games of yesteryear.

What's Your Dream Retro Computer?

Postby DarkWitchClaire » Sun Apr 5, '20, 8:23 pm

It could be one you had, the one you really wanted but could never get, or something cool you've heard about about later on and want to try.

For me it would be the Sharp X68000. In case you don't know, it was a Japan exclusive "personal workstation" that had the power of an arcade machine at the time. As such it had a lot of great arcade ports (Gradius, Fantasy Zone, Strider) as well as a good selection of original games. Even it's design is unique with a cool-looking double tower case. As you can guess getting one in good condition isn't cheap or easy...

So how about you?
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Re: What's Your Dream Retro Computer?

Postby MrKite » Mon Apr 6, '20, 10:16 am

I have been curious to see what it is like to operate a Commodore 64 being that it used cassette tapes and I never owned a computer that used tapes and wanted to see what it is like.
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Re: What's Your Dream Retro Computer?

Postby myau56 » Mon Apr 6, '20, 1:09 pm

Of course for me it's the ATARI 1040 STE ! :)
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Re: What's Your Dream Retro Computer?

Postby MrKite » Sun Jul 5, '20, 4:55 pm

But I think an Atari ST or a Sharp X68000 would be better for me though.
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Re: What's Your Dream Retro Computer?

Postby Silver_Surfer1 » Fri Aug 7, '20, 4:40 am

I think I would like the Sharp X68000 also. It sounds terrific.
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Re: What's Your Dream Retro Computer?

Postby myau56 » Mon Jun 13, '22, 11:53 am

Silver_Surfer1 wrote:I think I would like the Sharp X68000 also. It sounds terrific.
Terrific that is for sure ! :)
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Re: What's Your Dream Retro Computer?

Postby Tweeg » Sun Sep 11, '22, 11:11 pm

MrKite wrote:I have been curious to see what it is like to operate a Commodore 64 being that it used cassette tapes and I never owned a computer that used tapes and wanted to see what it is like.

Just to make a note concerning the Cassette Drive compatability of the C64. Commodore had already successfully captured a stake in the home computer market with their Vic 20 computer in the years leading up to the introduction of the C64. They had legitimate concerns though over introducing a updated, and more expensive computer, and so came up with the really common sense idea to incentivize getting Vic 20 owners to upgrade by making the C64 compatible with the Vic 20's Data Cassette Interface.

So to aid with the understanding of why this was a big deal for anyone who didn't live in and experience this era as I did, when you bought a home "micro computer" back then you got just the "motherboard", not to be confused with the modern-era motherboard component. Back then the mainbody of a home micro computer, which for all major brands was the motherboard as we know one today, with integrated RAM, GPU, audio chip, all in a housing that also contained the keyboard, as well as all major interface ports, and a external power supply brick. That was what you got when you bought a new micro computer. Diskette Drives, modems, and all other peripherals were each sold separately.

Now Commodore was not alone, nor the first computer maker, to have the bright idea to make a new computer more appealing to existing owners by making their new models compatible with older peripheral hardware. Atari and Tandy both had also already made these same decisions, and it definitely worked in aiding their efforts to keep consumers brand loyal for their computer purchases.

Now where Commodore came out on top of their primary competitors at was by having the best 8-bit computer on the market, and this was primarily a factor we can attribute to the C64 having more RAM than the competition. The "64" literally referencing that the C64 had 64KB of RAM. Now mind, not all 64KB are user definable, which was something unknown to virtually everyone outside of the industry for well over decade, but this was irrelevant when comparing the C64 with its' same period competition, none of which had over 48KB of RAM, and likewise not all of that declared RAM was user viable for them either.

Now I will flat out say that Commodore's major failing was identical to Atari's major failing, and it ultimately caused both companies to fail into oblivion. Both companies prioritized supporting their older platforms over moving on to fully supporting the intended replacement platforms.

Commodore didn't always suffer from this problem, as they transitioned from the Vic 20 to the C64 quite smoothly, but everything beyond the C64 was dropped like a hot potato or mis-marketted as being for a different market segment.

Atari had the bad habbit of releasing a successor platform that was in everyway superior, and then discontinuing it in favor of keeping the original platform(s) going, utterly failing to commit themselves to their own future.

With Commodore, the C64 should have been completely discontinued, as had the VIC-20 been, upon the release of the successor, and fully backwards compatible, C128 (yes, it had 128KB of RAM). But, instead the C128 was discontinued in 1989 having to compete against its' own predecessor like some barbaric gladitorial competition of siblings. Meanwhile the C64 continued to be churned out on the production lines right up until the bitter end of Commodore in 1994.

Perhaps even more problematic was that when the C128 launched in 1985 alongside the Amiga 1000. The truly futuristic Amiga 1000 was initially mis-marketted as being a alternate platform for "professionals", and it was quite expensive, but.... In 1987 Commodore launched the the Amiga 500 and it was actually a bargain at its' introductory price of $699.99 as it came with a 3 1/2" diskette drive built-in, a mouse, and a little piece of software called "Workbench", which is the Amiga's extremely user friendly GUI OS, something no Commodore home computer had previously had. Compare that pricing to buying a C128, 5 1/4" Diskette Drive, and software that could let you do just some of what Workbench featured out of the box, and the Amiga 500 was already the best deal and the superior hardware; sporting a Motorola 68000 16-bit CPU at 7Mhz and 512KB RAM (upgradeable to a full 1MB), not to mention ready for all the latest in upcoming perphipheral technologies such as MIDI interfaces, CD-ROM, and high resolution color monitors and even printers.

But this is what killed Commodore, the C64. Had they discontinued the C64 at the time of launching the C128 or shortly thereafter as would have made sense to do, Commodore might have carried on surviving into this present century. Had they also seen fit to encourage fans of their VIC-20, C64, C128 platforms to move over to the Amiga, they would have faired so much better and we might today be living in a era with three major commerical OS platforms instead of just two. Heck, I;d go so fgar as to argue that introducing the C128 was a mistake and that holding off to introduce the Amiga 500 would have been the best bet for the company to usher in the future of computing.

So all that to say my dream retro PC would have to be Commodore's final computer model, the Amiga 4000, which was introduced in 1992. This computer was the most powerful multi-media PC available on the consumer market in it's time. It sported a Motorola 68040 32-bit CPU at 25Mhz, 2MB Ram (upgradeble to 512MB), 24-bit color graphics, ATA (aka IDE) HDD interface, PCM audio, and if used with a highres VGA interface monitor, up to 1024x768 output resolution, which was just unheard of in the IBM-compatibles world. Amiga 4000 was used as the video editing computer for the first season of SeaQuest DSV, and there was a professional video editing hardware+software package compatibile with both the Amiga 3000 & 4000 called "Video Toaster" which you could use to digitize and edit your own videos... five whole years before Windows 95 was ever a thing.
Last edited by Tweeg on Sun Sep 11, '22, 11:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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