Greed, Zealotry, and the Commodore 64 645
jira writes "On the occasion of the Commodore 64's rebirth as an Atom-equipped nettop, the Guardian's Jon Blyth remembers what the original Commodore 64 taught him. Among other things: 'But look at it, all brown, ugly and lovely. It taught me so much. The Commodore 64 taught me about zealotry. After upgrading from the inferior ZX Spectrum, I would try to convince the Sinclair loyalists to follow me. I would invite them to my house, and let them see that with just eight colors and a monophonic sound chip, their lives lacked true depth. My evangelism quickly faded into impatience. So, I can now see why American Baptists get so miffy about atheists — it's horrible dealing with people who don't realize how much better you are.'"
monophonic sound chip? (Score:5, Informative)
there is no ZX spectrum with a "monophonic sound chip"
the original 16 and 48k machines have no sound chip, the sound is software driven by toggling an I/O bit.
the 128k machines use the AY which is 3 channel
so there! :p
Re:Polyphonic sound toggle (Score:3)
People have got 8 channels out of the Spectrum's beeper. The 3.5MHz Z80 is fast enough to do pulse density modulation for this many channels (essentially the beeper circuit contains a low pass filter, which acts as a DAC, just like SA-CD works except it's not as refined).
Some of the Speccy beeper music demos are pretty astonishing.
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I never could understand why Spectrum was so popular.
It was damn cheap, that's why!
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Price. I was in the market at the time, and the C64 was several times more expensive. In France, the competition was the Oric 1 or Atmos.
The Spectrum also had a nice CPU (Z80, much more fun to do assembly in than the 6502) and a good software library, as well as tremendous peripheral suppport. And it was the logical step up from the cheap as dirt ZX81 (Timex in your parts).
It's not so much about why would people get anSpectrum instead of a C64... it's more about a Spectrum versus nothing.
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Yes.
Goes both ways... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, I can now see why American Baptists get so miffy about atheists -- it's horrible dealing with people who don't realize how much better you are.
That's funny... that's the same reason I, an atheist, get so miffy about Christians, especially Baptists, especially young-earth Creationists.
Hopefully this is a whoosh and there's some sarcasm I'm missing or something...
Re:Goes both ways... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I actually don't claim superiority. I'm only playing devil's advocate here -- I consider my opinion to be superior, because it's actually based on evidence and reason, but that doesn't say all that much about my character, and I don't necessarily know that there is not a theistic position based on evidence and reason, I just haven't found one yet.
But the clue is in the subject: "Goes both ways."
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If you think Richard Dawkins is a dick, I hope you never meet Christopher Hitchens. Committed believers typically do come off as dicks. It seems to go hand-in-hand with being passionate about something.
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The only difference is that people like Richard Dawkins are actually very talented and educated people,
It may suprise you that it is possible to be intelligent AND believe in the supernatural. As Stephen Gould famously put it,
"Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs—and equally compatible with atheism."
Quotes are always great, here's one I like from no less than the esteemed US Governor "Jessy "the body" Ventura: "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business." And another great one from George Bernard Shaw: "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality."
I would extend his argument to just about any belief-- just because it may be wrong (be it scientific, religious, or political), doesnt mean you have to be a moron to believe it.
If I believe I can fly by taping feathers to my arms does that make me a moron? Or is EVERY level of irrationality or stupidity perfectly acceptable in order to attempt to throw some form of legitimacy on or promote someone's totally illogical and UNVERIFIABLE view and opinion?
believe that the bible (created by MEN centuries AFTER the supposed birth of Christ)
Youre going to have a rather tough time explaining the Septuagint [wikipedia.org] or the Dead Sea Scrolls [wikipedia.org].
No, not really, they are right up there with my other favourite (literal) fictional books, the Illiad, the Golden Fleece, and of course "Christine by Stephen King. Btw, do some research on how the church refused dissemination over the decades on the contents of the dead sea scrolls as initial discoveries indicated it contradicted the modern churchs teachings and standing. It's quite interesting.
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Pretty convincing,don't you agree?
The difference is, "Science" isn't just something somebody said once. It's something which can actually be backed up. You don't need a degree to contribute, if your work is sound -- and by the same token, nothing in science is considered valid simply because of the credibility of the people who said so. Its authority rests on its repeatability and accessibility -- if you don't think something science says is right, you can certainly find flaws in the existing theory.
Oh, and it really is pretty much all of s
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Those books didn't magically collect themselves into a bound and translated volume. They were chosen based on the motives of the powers-that-were at the time.
A lot of what became Christian (Catholic?) doctrine was only agreed upon at the council of Nicea and the fact that the Emperor's man was in charge of the proceedings may have had a lot to do with what got decided, what got kept and what got scrapped.
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He's probably joking, but I still wanted to reach through the intertubes and punch the guy in the balls.
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So, I can now see why American Baptists get so miffy about atheists -- it's horrible dealing with people who don't realize how much better you are.
That's funny... that's the same reason I, an atheist, get so miffy about Christians, especially Baptists, especially young-earth Creationists.
What's really funny is how everyone thinks their own personal postulates (beliefs) about the universe are so much better than everyone else's.
Let's face it, we don't REALLY know much of anything about the universe past "cogito ergo sum". Everything else is conjecture. Get over mocking people for their beliefs when you have a slew of your own.
The ironic thing will be this relevant quote [bible.cc], "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."
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Lol.. it looks like he found it in the GP's sig.
Sad is right. The article shouldn't have even mentioned religious cults or those that wish to deny them because of some cult belief of their own. It's only looking to attention to flame which you fell for.
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What "cult belief" am I supposed to have in order to deny another's?
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I think that's pretty obvious.
"it's horrible dealing with people who don't realize how much better you are." You have to have something that makes you think you are better then someone else. Especially when you centered that presumption around "Christians, especially Baptists, especially young-earth Creationists"
You figure it out, tell me, and we will both know. But if you have to ask me, then you're probably worse off then my generic portrayal of why it shouldn't have been in the article.
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Nope. Saw it in the summary. Didn't really think the article was worth reading with something that prejudicial and blatantly wrong on the front page.
So again, unless there's a whoosh coming...
Primary Programming. (Score:5, Insightful)
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True.
My daughter was 8 years old when she found a flaw in Genesis so large that you could drive a dump truck through it.. She had been given a deck of memory matching cards by some classmate of hers that had a religious theme and one of the cards was about creation and she asked the question that even my mother can't/won't answer... "if it took 6 days for God(tm) to create the Earth, how long did it take him to make the other planets and stars?" I've never been prouder.
For you believers who still don't get
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Your daughter's question *is* answered in the bible -- I don't know which version of the bible your daughter and mother are reading, but the answer is in Genesis 1 in the KJV:
13And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
So it took him 1 day to create the stars (and presumably the planets, but since they weren't visible to the naked eye from earth there seems no need to mention them, perhaps god backfilled the universe with planets while humans were going about their business eating forbidden apples and such).
As for your second question, I don't recall
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The bible clearly states if I prayed with my heart, he should have been healed
The Bible teaches no such thing. In fact I distinctly remember it teaching "In this life, you will have trouble" and "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me."
Now that you mention it I seem to recall Jesus praying "that this cup be taken from me", and yet he faced the cross. Im well aware that some people preach "name it and claim it" theology (that is, "if you pray for something you will receive it unless your faith is defective"), but theres a
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You made an interesting claim at the end of your post-- are you saying that if one cannot prove their own beliefs by invalidating all others, then their own beliefs are, themselves, invalid?
(And
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> However, you can replicate over and over a nuclear explosion with
> Science. Try to do that through prayer.
So, you think that the power to build a nuke is all that? Try building a civilization without religion. So far every attempt has ended in Horrors far worse than any nuke unleashed to date. Worse than any Crusade or Inquisition even.
Not saying I believe in religion exactly (I'd describe myself as an agnostic) but more that our Reason isn't nearly perfected enough to challenge Religion as an or
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Try building a civilization without religion. So far every attempt has ended in Horrors far worse than any nuke unleashed to date. Worse than any Crusade or Inquisition even.
would you please give me an example that was worse than the inquisition ?
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We take it at face value because the Vatican had a branch named Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition. and the christian before Luther were accepting the authority of the Vatican. But I must admit that according to the teaching of the Christ they were not Christian (as most of today christian)
Also the worst thing about the Spanish inquisition that is that is lasted from 1480 to 1830. Creating a tradition of ignorance and fear that was hard to overcome.
Sure our modern mass murders were a l
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would mao or stalin work for you?
Not really. How about the Taliban?
Re:Primary Programming. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideology being the key.
Atheism is not an ideology any more than not believing in Tarot cards is one.
Stalin and Mao changed the figure of authority from an unquestionable man in the sky to one in a mansion. They made a religion of themselves and their politics.
The dogmatic faith of their ideologies was the danger, not the fact that they didn't believe in gods.
That is what make any religious or political ideology dangerous, dogma and the belief in it.
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Religion provides more than one societal function, and the diminishment of religious influence in the U.S. does not seem, to me, to be an improvement.
The United States was founded in an attempt to remove religion from government. The founding father were hardly religious, so much so that any modern politician spouting similar views publicity wouldn't be elected.
Re:Goes both ways... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a medicinal chemist working on a program to cure Alzheimer's disease, and I thank God for my abilities.
Tell me, what part of your abilities came from God? Did he go through the years of school for you? Perhaps he inspired you with the knowledge of how chemical reactions work?
Thanking God for your abilities is just pushing it back a step. Instead of me disrespecting a doctor by giving God the credit instead, that's you disrespecting every human teacher you ever had. If you're thanking God for the aptitude alone, thank your parents -- nature or nurture, the part you're crediting God with likely came from them.
If you're thanking God for every single event that deterministically led to you being where you are now, basically for setting the universe in motion, even if that were true, that seems absurdly far removed from what you're actually doing with medicine -- how do you know you're even doing what the creator of the universe would want?
I think you presume too much of the Doctor when you deny the existence of miracles.
What is it I'm supposed to be presuming that isn't possible?
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nature or nurture, the part you're crediting God with likely came from them.
The two need not be mutually exclusive.
Re:Goes both ways... (Score:5, Insightful)
So what if he wants to thank God for his abilities? What is it to you? Are you offended by this? If God is as useless as you claim to be, then of what harm is his belief? Presumably, he is a competent scientist and would produce the same output regardless whether you agree to his beliefs or not. We who believe in God (I'm a muslim microbiologist) thank God for allowing us the opportunity to become what we are, to achieve what we have set out in life. In Islam, a core belief is the belief of predestination (qada' and qadar) meaning what has happened, is happening and will happen is already written. As humans we are given the gift of "free will", but this free will is limited by events out of our control. A child may inherit genes that confer him the abilities of a mathematical genius for example, but if he was born say in the Gaza Strip, then such potential will probably never be reached. As such, when good things happens to us, we thank God, when bad things happens, we ask for his protection and we say "insyallah" (God Willing) when we plan for the future.
Re:Goes both ways... (Score:5, Insightful)
In Islam, a core belief is the belief of predestination (qada' and qadar) meaning what has happened, is happening and will happen is already written. As humans we are given the gift of "free will" [......]
You're a scientist and you can't see that those two things are mutually exclusive?
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Do you believe in free will? After reading this? [wired.com] How do you explain the contradiction?
I don't agree with Islam on virtually anything, predestination included, but the fact is that we all hold mutually contradictory beliefs. You wouldn't survive otherwise. To slam someone for such a belief is therefore a little hypocritical. This is not to say you should accept such errors. Nor would I claim that you cannot address one fault in isolation. Just don't pretend you're innocent of the very thing you blame them of
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I'm a medicinal chemist working on a program to cure Alzheimer's disease, and I thank God for my abilities. I think you presume too much of the Doctor when you deny the existence of miracles.
The human body will fight for its survival just as much as its owner, sometimes beating what looks like impossible odds. Just like some people have extreme allergies, others have extreme resistances. I'll agree that despite modern medicine sometimes the doctor is not the one to thank, but it's a fairly good stretch from there to interference from a supernatural being.
I win! (Score:3)
The proper position to take is igtheism. Basically being an igtheist means saying we can't talk about the existence or non-existence of God without defining better what God is. Right now, Physics is not complete. This means that until we have a full understanding of Physics (if ever, see Godel's incompleteness theorem) then the existence of God must remain undecided. God may very well be hiding behind the last theorem. Beware!
Now, the argument for "Go
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Forgive me if I misunderstood you, but according to your meta-physical argument for God, I can't help but wonder did we not create god through collective consciousness? If God were to exist in the manner in which you theorize then God seems more a product of us rather than the other way around...
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God told me he thinks you're a putz. He said He made Alzheimers for a reason and who are you to think you can "fix" what He hath made?
Presumptuous, arrogant wanker. (His Words)
Re:Goes both ways... (Score:4, Interesting)
If you believe that your abilities are the work of God then whom do you believe is responsible for Alzheimer's?
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A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lion in a Kiev, Ukraine, zoo after he crept into the animal’s enclosure, a zoo official said Monday.
“The man shouted, ‘God will save me, if he exists,’ lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions,” the official said.
“A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.”
Re:Goes both ways... (Score:5, Funny)
Upon interview, God was reportedly commented:
"What? The guy was a fucking moron!"
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Actually, troll-boy, I'm pretty sure all those groups/people you listed would want me dead. But you're too busy riding the itchy trigger to realize what I said.
Here's a hint: The point was that someone risked his life, and died, expecting his sky daddy to save him. That person was a fool.
Attributing the quote to god was this little thing called "humor." Stop being one of "those" atheists and learn to appreciate the concept. You'll enjoy life a lot more.
Re:Goes both ways... (Score:5, Informative)
“A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.”
...and thanked God for her lunch?
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Re:Goes both ways... (Score:4, Insightful)
i know this ain't going anywhere.. but, in good fun, here goes:
"The Dragon In My Garage [godlessgeeks.com]" - Carl Sagan.
Or this:
"Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them."
— Steve Eley
You are correct in that just because you can't observe something at your command doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But the burden of proof falls on the one claiming something exists to demonstrate the existence. In the case of lightning, it's been demonstrated. In the case of $YOU_FAV_DAITY, not so much. If the burden of proof fell on disproving the existence, I got one mean dragon in my garage.
bbhhh my friend.
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I didnt say that the memory was correct. I said any conclusions based on the delusions would be correct for that delusion.
No Faith.
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DAMN! 5 A.M. here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Lionesses can HAS prey!
Re:Has Pray (Score:3)
LolCats can has pray in yur congregation?
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So, the moral of the story is that God is one of those annoying creeps who takes credit for the good deeds of others?
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Re:Goes both ways... (Score:4, Insightful)
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So what you're saying is that everyone who is capable of doing something is obligated to do so?
In the case of God, yes, he is. Or else he's not omnibenevolent. If on one hand I'm told he's a creature of infinite love, and on the other hand he doesn't bother lifting a finger to save his loved ones from pain and misery, I have to call nonsense.
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Now God says you're really starting to piss him off for throwing his name around. He says He's got a little something waiting for you next time you get behind the wheel of a car.
Re:Goes both ways... (Score:4, Insightful)
What I find fascinating is how God never sent boat's and helicopters until after we invented them. I can only assume he saves us with our own inventions because we're a much more moral people than we used to be.
Pug
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Or maybe God didn't give you mod points because you would have modded down his post? Perhaps God didn't give me mod points to mod you down, because he's embarrassed to be involved in this rather pathetic argument?
Seriously, what's wrong with his post? He expressed a belief in a God. He didn't attack anyone, or scream at us that we're all going to burn in hell unless we follow the teachings of the Bible/Torah/Quarn/whatever. He simply
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That's the polite version. The other is that believing in omnipotent invisible friends who listen and talk to them make them all clinically insane. Either or, I don't mind. Which do you assign to the irrational fabrication of invisible friends who have some personal interest in them? How about people who rely on omnipotent and omniscient creatures to threaten them with eternal torture if they don't ac
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There's a difference between not believing blue+yellow=green and thinking that green only exists because the god of green personally makes all greens. One is ignorance, and the other is insanity.
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What's funny is that you still use the word "militant" to describe someone who's asserting exactly, and no more than, what the opposition is. You didn't call OP a "militant Christian", did you?
Get some perspective. [atheistcartoons.com]
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"Militant fundamentalist" is redundant. It's the duty of a fundamentalist to spread the word and defend the faith.
Re:Goes both ways... (Score:4, Insightful)
you define yourself with the things you don't believe in.
No one word is sufficient to define me. I'm also a software developer, son, brother, gamer, geek, martial artist, and forever a student -- and these are not sufficient to define me, either.
How do you define yourself?
But when most of the world actually spends a significant amount of time talking to the ceiling, following the same bronze-age mythology that many use to justify atrocities, I am appalled, and I deliberately do take pains to say, "No, I don't do that, I'm sane."
I also don't watch Twilight, and I don't use Facebook. But I'm also not aware of anyone who's used either Twilight or Facebook to justify rape, murder, institutionalized slavery, or ritualized genital mutilation. What's more, even of the hordes who watch Twilight, most are sane enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality, at least as far as Twilight is concerned.
you're an ignorant hypocrite.... you're also an idiot.
Citation needed.
Which of the things I have said is ignorant, hypocritical, or idiotic?
why do you cower behind a chosen pseudonym which puts your sanity into question?
I don't see how it puts my sanity into question. The intention is that I am sane, even in the midst of a world which seems anarchic at times. That, and it's mostly historical; I stole it from a warez site back when that was cool.
And I happily back this position up in reality, in several local atheist/freethought groups. Other than the pseudonym, I haven't made any particular effort to hide.
If you were that determined to track me down, it'd take you only a few minutes of Googling.
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Pretty sure you're the pathetic moron. Picking one word relevant word in a conversation doesn't mean that he defines himself by that one word. So shut the fuck up before you make yourself look even more stupid.
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MichaelKristopeit is a prolific troll. He's ruined a vast number of slashdot threads with his rambling and repetitive comments. He has at least thirty different accounts. If you see him, do not respond, no matter HOW stupid he is (and he IS stupid). If you are a moderator, just mod him down and move on.
DO NOT try to engage him; he is either insane or gets his giggles from pretending to be.
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The two are the same.
...oh dear.
If you are without the belief that there is a theos, that is practically the same as the belief that there is no theos.
There is a world of difference between a positive assertion and a simple lack of belief. Let me put it this way:
Do you believe I'm wearing a black shirt?
Do you believe I'm not wearing a black shirt?
If you said "yes" to either of the above questions, that's a belief -- you're saying you believe something which, particularly in this case, you don't have sufficient evidence to know. And why couldn't you say "no" to both questions? The only thing you can't do is say "yes" to both questions and be con
The best C64 programs were 1 line long. (Score:2)
Re:The best C64 programs were 1 line long. (Score:4, Informative)
The best C64 programs were zero lines long. They tossed the Commodore ROM in the trash, thereby freeing-up all 64 k of memory, and loaded directly from the 1541 (or 71) disk drive.
"64k should be enough for anybody." With GEOS you can turn your 64k machine into a clone of the original Mac (with WYSIWYG word processing, a trashcan, and everything). My church pastor did all his newsletters on the Commodore=64. And it doesn't cost $4000. More like $400. With music and color! ;-)
Speaking of greed... (Score:5, Insightful)
In these days of emulators and cheap FPGAs, it just seems tasteless to throw a plastic skin around the winning architecture and call it a C64(even more tasteless to claim to do that, then not follow through, of course...) If you want to bring the past into the present, take advantage of the fact that modern tech should be able to reproduce old gear for considerably less, even in small quantities. If you want to hearken back to the days of the architecture wars, when numerous competing systems existed, featuring a variety of exotic design choices, perhaps one of the hobby projects in creating something exotic, for its own sake, is a more appropriate homage...
Re:Speaking of greed... (Score:4, Insightful)
> the days of the architecture wars
One man's architecture war is another man's platform diversity and healthy competition.
And every programer's porting nightmare.
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Which got people thinking about how to structure code to encapsulate the non-portable bits. I'd argue that poor portability forced software engineers to develop some excellent practices, and that since the improvement in portability, good practices have deteriorated.
First company to actually do something... (Score:3)
A laptop without a monitor? (Score:2)
Sounds like Ubuntu (Score:2)
From the summary: "But look at it, all brown, ugly and lovely..."
American Baptists? (Score:2)
Did the OP actually use American Baptists as an example of thinking you're better than everyone else (but being wrong)? Heh.
That's not a Commodore 64 (Score:5, Insightful)
Good grief. Sure, it's outdated, but the Commie 64 was more than just another computer. It was a hobby. It was a pastime. It was a learning tool. It was an EXPERIENCE. If you had the ability and knowledge, you could add new features and functionality to the machine by cutting traces and soldering wires to the leads on chips, to your extension circuitry. I added all kinds of extras to mine, including a BASIC extension, MicroMon Assembler, a cartridge "bypass" switch, etc. Can't do those kinds of things with modern PC's.
My first word processor was "Speedscript". I typed it in from COMPUTE! Magazine over several days. That program did, in six kilobytes, what WORD was doing in hundreds, back in the early 90's! I used it more than any other software on that Ol' 64!
Now, want to talk about emulators? How about this one:
http://www.mymorninglight.org.nyud.net/C64/J64.htm [nyud.net]
Now THAT is a COOL C= 64 emulator, if I do say so myself! :)
Better than Spectrum? (Score:2)
Mind your sects... (Score:3, Informative)
Be careful how you use the term "American Baptists". The American Baptist Churches of the USA are a fairly liberal and ecumenical bunch that believe in religious freedom (and humility) better than Richard Stallman believes in software freedom (and humility).
There are other baptists sects in America that are considered stricter groups and might be more likely to fit your stereotype, so beware how you capitalize "American".
Sure we believe in God, and I won't deny there are some zealots among our ranks, but as a denomination, we believe in autonomy, and the members certainly cannot be categorized the way it's being used here.
www.abc-usa.org ...if you're interested.
Great book about Commodore's history (Score:4, Insightful)
In the end, it was (as is often the case) really bad management that killed Commodore.
I hate to admit (Score:3)
Which is now wider and still a piece of crap, just a fast one. Other machines can actually be fun to program in assembler. Ever tried on an intel box?
Sigh.
Re:Yeah can't figure the appeal of the Sinclair (Score:5, Informative)
If I didn't have a Commodore, I would sooner have an 8-bit Atari or Apple instead, not a Sinclair.
I'm sure most Spectrum owners would too, considering that those machines were, AFAIR, around three times the price.
The Spectrum was the cheapest computer that could play half-decent games, and its popularity became self-supporting as it lead more game developers to make games for it.
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Well, the Apple II+ compatable - the Ace1000 (Which I had) was $1200, or thereabouts, and they were cheaper than the Apple.
As for the Atari, are you sure that wasn't the 400 that was $299? I seem to remember the 400 being theoretically attainable on my 12 year old budget, but the 800 - with (OMG!) real keys - was somewhere around double the price.
*The Ace was such an expensive purchase, at the time, that my parents made a copy of the check my grandfather sent. I learned to hand code in assembler and machin
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I learned to hand code in assembler and machine code on the 6502 with it.
Me too but I had a different 6502 machine. Very lucky it didn't use a Z80. I might never have gotten there.
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I never looked at the price of the Apple II, but I remember asking my parents to buy me an Atari 800 and it was $299 in 1983. I would be surprised if you could get a Spectrum for less money. The only computer at the time cheaper than that was a C64 at $199 (later dropped to $99).
In the UK, where the vast majority of Spectrums were sold, I remember the prices being more like 150 pounds for the 48k Spectrum vs over 300 for the Atari and Commodore; the Vic-20 was the Spectrum competitor, not the C-64.
Somewhere I have a couple of computer magazines from that era, but I can't find them right now.
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Aha, 'Computing Today', January 1983, all prices in pounds before sales tax:
48k Apple II (no disk drives, etc): 525
16k Atari 800: 449
16k Spectrum: 125
48k Spectrum: 175
4k VIC-20: 120
I can't find a Commodore-64 ad.
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Actually, looks like I was wrong: it's hard to be sure, but the Atari and Spectrum prices appear to include tax... I think it was 15% at the time?
Appeal of the Sinclair: QL, not ZX! (Score:2)
Obviously you never owned a Sinclair QL!
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Hey, the address bus was 8 bits....
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WANT!!!
Want NOW!!!
Seriously, though, this is really retro cool.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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Why is that modded funny? Elves are people, too, you know!