Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Josquius]

Weird thing I learned recently. American Commodore 64's ran off floppy disks.

[Norgy]

So did ours, if you had the money. They were extremely expensive. You could, however, cut your budget on floppy disks by using them on both sides with a bit of rather available equipment, such as one of those things used to make holes for easy filing of paper. I have absolutely no idea what they are called in English, but I was rather skilled at using them.

[Josquius]

Yeah, I always knew floppy drives were available (though I had a Spectrum rather than a Commodore, same story), but in the US they were the standard default.

Computers are really one of those areas where the modern trend for everything to standardise and optimise is quite sad. Yeah yeah, so many advantages to everything being compatible. But still, it was cool to have a myriad of types.

[Norgy]

I dunno, the exclusives for Xbox and Playstation are pretty much the Amiga vs the Atari ST being played out again.

[Duque de Bragança]

I dunno, the exclusives for Xbox and Playstation are pretty much the Amiga vs the Atari ST being played out again.

Pretty tame compared to the Megadrive/Genesis vs Super Nintendo wars back then.  Now C64 vs Spectrum that was another thing. 

[Grey Fox]

Weird thing I learned recently. American Commodore 64's ran off floppy disks.

How did the UK Commodore 64's ran?

[Duque de Bragança]

Weird thing I learned recently. American Commodore 64's ran off floppy disks.

How did the UK Commodore 64's ran?

Cassettes ("audio" tapes). I still remember those from my Amstrad CPC.

Type:

Run"

to run your software.

[Grey Fox]

Interesting, never knew that.

I still got my dad's C64. Monitor still works.

[Josquius]

Interesting, never knew that.

I still got my dad's C64. Monitor still works.

Yeah, we didn't have those either (usually. Undoubtedly they did exist and some people had one). It just hooked straight up to the TV.

[Gups]

Weird thing I learned recently. American Commodore 64's ran off floppy disks.

How did the UK Commodore 64's ran?

Cassettes ("audio" tapes). I still remember those from my Amstrad CPC.

Type:

Run"

to run your software.

You could get floppy disc drives for the C64 for extra cost. I can't remember if the cassette player had to be brought separately or was bundled.

My dad ran a home computer shop and a games company back in the 80s (only big game was Kick Off and its sequels) and I worked at the shop on Saturdays. Always remember being amazed by the concept of having a whole 64k to mess around with, having got used to the Vic 20s 3.5K.

[The Minsky Moment]

Cassettes ("audio" tapes). I still remember those from my Amstrad CPC.

Type:

Run"

to run your software.

Same for the old Trash 80s from Radio Shack.

[Josquius]

Weird thing I learned recently. American Commodore 64's ran off floppy disks.

How did the UK Commodore 64's ran?

Cassettes ("audio" tapes). I still remember those from my Amstrad CPC.

Type:

Run"

to run your software.

You could get floppy disc drives for the C64 for extra cost. I can't remember if the cassette player had to be brought separately or was bundled.

My dad ran a home computer shop and a games company back in the 80s (only big game was Kick Off and its sequels) and I worked at the shop on Saturdays. Always remember being amazed by the concept of having a whole 64k to mess around with, having got used to the Vic 20s 3.5K.

Wait wait wait.
Your dad made Kick Off?
I used to live super kick off on the MD.

[Duque de Bragança]

You could get floppy disc drives for the C64 for extra cost. I can't remember if the cassette player had to be brought separately or was bundled.

My dad ran a home computer shop and a games company back in the 80s (only big game was Kick Off and its sequels) and I worked at the shop on Saturdays. Always remember being amazed by the concept of having a whole 64k to mess around with, having got used to the Vic 20s 3.5K.

Same here with Amstrad CPC 6128: 128 KB, 3-inch floppy disk drive! Not 3.5 inch floppy disks, mind you.
There was also a floppy disk drive for the 464, the tape deck model. Tape drive was more reliable that the disk drive, in the long run.

[Grey Fox]

Interesting, never knew that.

I still got my dad's C64. Monitor still works.

Yeah, we didn't have those either (usually. Undoubtedly they did exist and some people had one). It just hooked straight up to the TV.

You were missing out. It's one the best CRT ever made. Still looks amazing after all these years. I used it for my SNES & PSX in the 90s.

[viper37]

Weird thing I learned recently. American Commodore 64's ran off floppy disks.

How did the UK Commodore 64's ran?

It was all in Basic.  You wrote your software to perform task, or loaded a disk that had the software.

I had a Vic-20 as a kid.