CC> I'm Bummed :-(

From: Jeff Kaneko <Jeff.Kaneko_at_ifrsys.com>
Date: Wed Oct 8 12:42:01 1997

I'm like, totally bummed, people. I've been trying to get my old
VIC-20 setup running correctly, and I finally got a couple of 1541's
for it. Purchased in 1992, it was the very first computer I ever
used that didn't belong to someone else.

I'm bummed, because the cornerstone of the whole system, the rare
Video-Pak/20 by Data-20 (RIP), gave up the ghost last nite.

For those of you who may not know, 40/80 column boards for the
Commodore VIC-20 were in favor for a short time around 1982-84. The
Video PAK made up for the VIC's 20 column display by generating a 40
or 80 column display. It also added 64k of paged memory. On top of
all this, it also had 'dumb terminal' capabilities. Pretty cool for
the time.

Now 80 column mode dosen't work at all. Damn. 40 is ok, but it kinda
defeats the purpose of having the display card: I can get 40 columns
on a C= 64. Damn. I haven't been hanging around much in Commodore
circles lately, but this is the only VideoPAK/20 I've ever seen. The
only other Data-20 product I've ever seen was a VideoPAK/64 and that
was in 1988! I don't even have a schematic for the thing.

This is one of those times when I just feel like taking everything,
flying it into the dumpster, and out of my life forever. Damn. To
add insult to injury, I could never get any of the Commodore file
transfer programs to work with my PC and 1541. Damn.

I'm sorry about the rant, guys. It's just really hard to watch an
irreplaceable piece of hardware die after working flawlessly for
almost fifteen years.


Jeff
Received on Wed Oct 08 1997 - 12:42:01 BST