Hardest to Find Classic Computers (SX64)

From: CLeyson_at_aol.com <(CLeyson_at_aol.com)>
Date: Wed Dec 19 16:43:26 2001

Cameron Kaiser wrote:

> Awwww, c'mon. Wizball brings a smile to everyone's face.

One of the best games of all time. I never really got into the C64, I was too
busy
building disk drive controller boards for the Atari or trying to get fig
forth to run.
Sad but true :-(

The C64 was a really neat machine but had a few hardware reliability problems.
The PAL and the graphics chip were prone to early failure. At one time I used
to fix two or three machines a week for a friend who owned a TV repair shop.
He bought scrap machines from high street dealers and I would end up having
to fix them.

However, some of the games for these machines were works of genius. I really
admire the people who had to write the software, mostly in assembler, and too
impossible deadlines.

The same could be said for the "speccy". Not exactly reliable but for three
chips, Z80, current injection logic ASIC, sound and some DRAM - WOW !
The cassette interface could be a problem but when faced with the prospect
of having to rebuild DC100 tapes, ( including drilling holes in the tape ),
and
replacing the drive wheel in an HP tape drive - I'd go for the "speccy".

Best Regards
Chris Leyson
Received on Wed Dec 19 2001 - 16:43:26 GMT