Commodore C64 Survives Over 25 Years Balancing Drive Shafts In Auto Repair Shop (hothardware.com) 290
MojoKid writes: One common gripe in the twenty-first century is that nothing is built to last anymore. Even complex, expensive computers seem to have a relatively short shelf-life nowadays. However, one computer in a small auto repair shop in Gdansk, Poland has survived for the last twenty-five years against all odds. The computer in question here is a Commodore C64 that has been balancing driveshafts non-stop for a quarter of a century. The C64C looks like it would fit right in with a scene from Fallout 4 and has even survived a nasty flood. This Commodore 64 contains a few homemade aspects, however. The old computer uses a sinusoidal waveform generator and piezo vibration sensor in order to measure changes in pressure, acceleration, temperature, strain or force by converting them to an electrical charge. The C64C interprets these signals to help balance the driveshafts in vehicles. The Commodore 64 (also known as the C64, C-64, C= 64) was released in January 1982 and still holds the title for being the best-selling computer of all time.
dust (Score:3)
Re:dust (Score:4, Interesting)
Disks? It probably uses cassettes!
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The 1541-II was (is) surprisingly rugged. It didn't have the overheat and head alignment issues that plagued the original 1541.
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Pity, much more amusing to imagine a miniature Axel Foley glued to the head shouting encouragement.
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The 1541-II was (is) surprisingly rugged. It didn't have the overheat and head alignment issues that plagued the original 1541.
The disks themselves spin inside a cleaning cloth (the inside of a floppy sleeve). There's no fan to suck dirt in, so...plausible.
I'm more surprised that the monitor still works.
Re:dust (Score:5, Funny)
I still have the pinch I used to make these floppies double sided cutting the notch on the side. When I explained my daughters what this was for, they looked at me like if I just explained them how I squashed rocks to make fire...
Re:dust (Score:5, Funny)
Hell, i've recently explained the concept of "dial up" to a millennial. Got the exact same reaction in response.
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I think most millennials would have had dial-up if they had internet in their household when they were growing up. We really need a different term for the folks born post 1990. I figure by the strict definition that I'm a millennial but I started with 28.8 and later 36.6k and playing the 3 Stooges Game on a Commodore Amiga and reader rabbit off 5.25" floppy disks on a 486 system.
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I got the same reaction from him during a cutscene that showed Tanner using a rotary phone. I had to explain what he was doing as my son had never seen one before.
After that I'm certain he believes we made fire with sticks and wrote on clay tablets in school.
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I actually used punched cards. Taking a Fortran class at a local Jr College in HS. Late 70s.
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Next, try to explain the concept that work (for most people anyway) doesn't involve derping on your phone all day to a millennial. It is so strange seeing them in meetings, useless, eyes glazed, texting and snapchatting the day away.
The ones who worked with me considered Facebook to be a critical job skill. The smartphone addiction is so bad that they go through withdrwal worthy of a heroin addict if they can't have their phone for a minute.
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I used razor blades. But yeah, I could probably eyeball it without flipping another one over for reference...
No need for that when a paper punch works just as well. All you had to do was place a second floppy face down over the one you wanted to notch and use its notch as the guide for making your punch.
I remember some derpy kid here in my little home town trying to claim that notching your single sided disks to make them double sided was illegal and that the overpriced disk notchers were also illegal. I wonder if he was related to the sales rep at Western Auto who tried to convince my dad that the viertical tur
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You're right, though. I have no idea how that floppy drive is still operational after 30+ years.
Re:dust (Score:5, Informative)
That likely wasn't soot from exhaust, it was brake dust. Automotive exhaust unless it's diesel has a very low soot footprint, you're talking 20 PPM or less in counts even back in the 90's. I was an apprentice in the 90's when the switch over from non-metallic aka full asbestos to semi-metallic happened. And you'd find that shit everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. The vic20 we used for alignments was full of it, it would get into tool cabinets, into air lines if they'd been hug for a while, it would even clog your compressor air-intake. Exhaust was almost always vented outside(or with the doors opens) since you have a CO hazard in enclosed spaces.
Until the real dangers of asbestos were known, simply knocking the brakes loose was the standard practice even into the late 90's. Meaning when you broke them loose you were kicking asbestos and other particulate into the air, and of course breathing it in. Then we started spraying down the drums and rotors to mitigate the dust problem. I go for chest x-rays every 3-4 years to check for mesothelioma and for good reasons.
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I repaired a PC that was primarily used in an automotive repair facility. That's not dust. It's soot from the exhaust. Unsurprisingly, the CD-ROM drive in the machine that I was repairing was nonfunctional because the lens was dirty.
You're right, though. I have no idea how that floppy drive is still operational after 30+ years.
I used to work for an oil company. It takes less than a year for a computer to go from shiny new to looking like this. Even less time in a garage. The biggest problem isn't brake dust or exhaust but the combination of those plus oil and grease from mechanics. The grease and oil gets on the case and then everything else just sticks and builds up layers.
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Because it is a very low density magnetic storage. I wouldn't expect it to be as sensible to dust as modern drives - specially when everything is optical these days.
Re:dust (Score:5, Informative)
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Looks like the disk in that drive hasn't been removed in 25 years as well. If that's the case it wouldn't really surprise me why it still works.
The only thing, in my experience, that would reliably kill 5 1/4 floppies were magnets, even small ones. You could bend them and, as long as they wouldn't crease they would still work fine.
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Power (Score:2)
well it only have to be used once per boot and who sais that this machine has ever been turned off?
How probable do you think it is that they haven't had a power outage in 25 years?
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I noticed that as well but I figured it was just for the photo-shoot. The handle isn't clean enough for it to be raised/lowered very often and they have to be loading the BASIC from somewhere.
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Also, European Nationalism gave rise to the bloodiest conflict the world has ever seen, so tone it down.
Thanks for mixing Poland into the European (?) nationalism. Let's put it straight: it was German nationalism which started the war (NSDAP = NATZIONALSozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei). Ever heard about Fall Weiss? Not really a Polish code name, is it.
So basically you're agreeing with him...
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With a fixed program like driveshaft balancing: you could have programmed it to a PROM chip, and put it on a board to load through the C64's ROM cartridge slot
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The interface to the balancing system would be mounted in the expansion (cartridge) port (direct bus access) or the user port (Serial at TTL level as well as parallel of some kind).
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Perhaps it not used (and may not work).
It's possible it's running from cartridge (remember those!!) and the 1541 is just sitting collecting dust.
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Hmm, actually looking at the picture there's no way a cartridge could be there (drive is in the way).
But you can also see that the 1541 drive door is not closed (it's the twist down type).. Is someone pulling some shenanigans on this one?
Re: dust (Score:5, Funny)
You've never heard of isopropol alcohol?
No, and neither have you. Isopropyl alcohol on the other hand...
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Ahh, the good ole' days... (Score:5, Informative)
...when things were built to last. I tried my C64 about two months ago, which had been collecting dust on a bin for over 20 years and it worked just like the day my parents got it for me. Including the datasette and 1541 disk drive.
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The 1541 disk drives were quite unreliable, even when they were new. If yours is still working you are very lucky.
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Agreed. Mine was a brown box 1541, but i have to say the later generations (like the 1541-II) were much more reliable.
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The first thing I usually saw fail was the power supply (or at very least it would need some after-market cooling, like a tiny fan).
But yeah, the core processor stuff was crazy durable. I guess that makes sense when you imagine what it looks like compared to a modern processor - with oceans of empty space between every gargantuan wire and transistor.
Commodore engineers (Score:2, Interesting)
The management of Commodore was pretty incompetent in the later years, but they always had top notch engineers. The C64 and the Amiga have lived far beyond many of the other computers from their eras, which is a testament to the engineers. The MOS 6581 (MOS was owned by Commodore) is still in high demand today because of its unique sound quality. As I understand it, the MOS 6581 was an unfinished product and was being designed to have far greater capability than what it ended up with. There's no substitute
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That's what spelled death for Commodore, their engineers were too good. They built stuff that didn't break and hence you only sold once.
Re:Commodore engineers (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Commodore engineers (Score:4, Informative)
Not just Irving Gould. Ali Mehdi was just as greedy personally, and penny-pinching in running the company. When engineers proposed the A3000 with a 68030, he personally called them up to ask whether the 68030 was truly necessary, if there weren't cheaper components that could be used
Re:Commodore engineers (Score:4, Informative)
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I like how you put the asterisk in "hell", but then proceeded to judge the ever-loving shit out of some people, including knowing their inner motivation. You're terrible at this.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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The A500 was more or less an A1000 in a keyboard case and was still being sold as one of TWO Amiga models five years later.
Twice the RAM, twice the RAM expansion, kickstarter in ROM... At least it had meaningful differences.
And the A2000, the other model, wasn't more powerful than the A1000 (or A500), it was just more expandable.
Now that's true. The A500 really is just an A2000 with a video connector and more slots.
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While it took a while to come up with a better base chipset to replace OCS/ECS, the engineers were still belting out some fantastic designs, most of which were squished by upper management.
The above was a really good case study in business ecosystem dynamics.
When the Amiga 1000 came out, it was alien technology -- probably 10 years ahead of its time. The Amiga OCS chipset's graphics and sound hardware of its contemporary competitors look like historical artifacts, and it's OS was an actual pre-emptive multitasking operating system, not just a glorified disk loader.
However, any company in the world could design, build, and sell a new PC sound card or a new PC graphics card, any many of them d
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That's what spelled death for Commodore, their engineers were too good. They built stuff that didn't break and hence you only sold once.
What spelled death for Commodore was Jack Tramiel.
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6581 is semi analogue, it wouldn't be at all the same built on a different process.
Surely the most widespread (Score:2)
Remember the TV ad song? (Score:2)
Anybody remembers the TV ad song? I just came through my mind, it went like:
"I adore my sixty-four, my Commodore sixty-four"
Heck, I just googled for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Can you please not talk about the computer of my (Score:5, Funny)
youth like it's a museum piece? Please?
The last C64 I saw... (Score:4, Interesting)
It was a really inspiring vision to see on the same desk a C64 surrounded by some in-folio [wikipedia.org] books. Too bad that the store was shut down recently, don't know what happened to the C64.
My God, clean it sometimes! (Score:2)
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It would be a bad idea to clean it now -- at this point the dirt is its primary structural element.
Best selling computer? (Score:5, Interesting)
I highly doubt C64 is the best-selling computer of all time. Wikipedia estimates 10M-17M C64s were sold. It of course depends on what is a computer: for example, many smartphones have CPU(s), memory, storage, and even display. According to this page, in 2011 Apple sold 72M iPhones: https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com] . Also, 10M Raspberry Pi computers were sold till 2016: https://www.raspberrypi.org/bl... [raspberrypi.org]. I guess Arduinos have similar numbers, but they are hard to track because of clones.
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There are 80 millions of PlayStation 3 in the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Best selling computer? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, but not the same exact model, that's what the 64 managed. It was the same machine sold for a decade.
THIS. It is the biggest selling single model of computer ever made. There were several hardware revisions for cost reduction and simplification (from ~40 chips down to 16 as they integrated a lot of components over time), but it was essentially exactly the same computer manufactured and sold from 1982 to 1992.
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THIS. It is the biggest selling single model of computer ever made. There were several hardware revisions for cost reduction and simplification (from ~40 chips down to 16 as they integrated a lot of components over time),
So, what you're saying is that if you pretend they didn't make three or four totally different revisions of hardware meeting the same spec, it's a single model?
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You might as well argue that every time they changed suppliers for a 2N3904 that makes it a "different" model as well.
They actually changed not just the suppliers of the chips, but actually what chips were used, and therefore changed the schematic. I would actually suggest that there's really only two C64s, the C64 and the later-serial-numbered C64S. Still, that's two models.
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I guess that amongst 72M iPhones sold in 2011 you can find at least 17M identical ones. Apple sells only few models at a given time, and the variability is not that high (the SoC sourced from two different foundries is probably the biggest difference).
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Another 'oldie' but goodie (Score:2, Interesting)
Our local school has an Amiga running the HVAC in 9 schools
http://woodtv.com/2015/06/11/1980s-computer-controls-grps-heat-and-ac/
Programming language (Score:5, Funny)
The worst part is you couldn't program C++ on the C65.
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The worst part is you couldn't program C++ on the C65.
No, but you could program in Forth [wikipedia.org] :-)
So many customers got the shaft (Score:2)
Brings back memories (Score:2)
I love how the three most battered/worn keys are "R" "U" and "N"
headline (Score:2)
"Commodore C64 Survives Over 25 Years Balancing Drive Shafts In Auto Repair Shop"
I completely misunderstood this headline and thought it was literally balancing drive shafts, as in they were missing a cinder block that day, stuck a C64 under them instead, and they'd been sitting like that in the back for 25 years.
Still impressive I guess :)
Amstrad! (Score:2)
What I would like to see... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is the quality of the balancing compared to the modern equivalent device shops use. Is it still accurate after 25 years? Was it ever accurate or as accurate as a modern device can calculate?
Re:Floppy drive (Score:5, Insightful)
It is exactly what we should expect from solid state components. Demand no less!
Re:Floppy drive (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Floppy drive (Score:5, Informative)
Most electrical strain comes from power-on.
If the unit runs 24/7 (which there is little to no reason to think this system could not do), and the program read from the disk stays in memory the entire time (because the system is never turned off), then the mechanical parts in the drive wont wear down because they are only used when the program is initially loaded, and the capacitors in the PSU dont have much stress on them, because they dont get power cycled all the time.
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Even so , 8 bit machines were still built to a price - the components were hardly top of the range. I'd be amazed if its been running continuously for 25 years with no issues whatsoever. Also eastern europeans brought up in soviet times tend to be pretty good at repairing stuff for obvious reasons so I wouldn't be surprised if the are plenty of engineers around the area who could sort out the analogue electronics, even if the digital side would be too much.
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To an extent you are correct, but for power supply capacitors in particular simply keeping the power on slowly wears them out. If you look at the datasheets for the capacitors used in power supplied (typically electrolytic), they give life expectancy with a given ripple current. The more ripple, the shorter their life will be.
For a consumer product with commonly available parts from the 80s, 8000 hours (~ 1 year) at the rated ripple is typical for a quality capacitor. They will have over-specified it, but e
Re: Floppy drive (Score:2)
Anyway, electrolytic capacitors always had a limited life span since the electrolyte in them doesn't last forever. I think the problem we see today is more the result of miniaturization - the energy density of capacitors has increased significantly and designers are bu
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The original C64 black brick PSU [sleepingelephant.com] was indeed sealed solid with epoxy and it got warm as hell during normal operation.
It's design was also very simple: http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/schematics/computers/c64/c64extps.gif [zimmers.net].
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Is that the two guys from the cell repair shop down the road? They do C64s too?
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those floppies are tough as nails. stuck one between the door, still worked. my floppies were all around the place, on the ground (being walk on, chairs put on them), continued to work. just got me some old c64 drives from storage somewhere for free, put a disk in them, it still works.
Re: If it works (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't fscking touch it - which applies to code as well as tools.
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And if it breaks, throw it out?
What happened to this world?
It used to be a badge of honor to repair things. Now days everything is disposable.
Kind of like what happened to Slashdot.
You repair it when it it stops working, not while it's working. Seriously, read and comprehend the comment before going off on one.
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If it breaks, repair it. Hello? East bloc? Trust me, these guys know how to repair EVERYTHING.
I'm not kidding. I was on a bike tour around Europe. The only repair to my bike that lasted was done in Romania, with no fitting spare parts and tools from the stone age (ok, from the Soviet times, which is not that different). It was by some margin the cheapest repair, too.
I'd absolutely sure, if you happen to have a broken iPhone, they'll come with crowbars and arc welders and miraculously make it work again. WIT
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Re: If it works (Score:5, Interesting)
Communism produces a more ingenious, crafty workforce that can think outside the box, simply due to necessity because of shortages in materials and spare parts. People who could keep your plastic car running with shoestring and rubber band (provided that's available, if not, substitute) were highly sought after and could actually make a comfortable living for communist conditions.
Utter nonsense (Score:3)
As my Romanian friends who escaped Ceacescu's regime always say: the reason communism doesn't work is because all people don't want to be equal to everyone else.
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Show me how you balance the drive shafts on the phone.
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Probably by a huge margin. I already had a C64 emulator in my phone about 5 years ago.
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Sending it to the moon isn't throwing it away?
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I guarantee you that I can find a piece of paper older than 25 years quite easily. I probably have one in my attic.
I can find you a microscope and telescope even older.
Or if we're talking electronics, electronic games and games older than 25 years.
25 years is, to be honest, pathetic in terms of longevity. I have electronic toys from my childhood that haven't been particularly looked after which still work just fine.
To be honest, I'm sitting here thinking "Only 25 years?". I have a 1960's memory chip on
The historical record (Score:2)
And there goes entire periods of history with no permanent record, of technology or data.
You do realize that ALL of human history has huge gaps in the historical record right? Both for technology and for everything else. It's not as if our ancestors were busy dutifully scribbling down a carefully maintained record of everything they did. Our historical record has always had big swaths of information that nobody bothered to save for posterity. If anything with the internet we are actually recording more than we ever did in days of yore.
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You use it primarily in the winter months as a home heating source, I presume? ;)