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Commodore_Free_Issue_27_2009_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64
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shaun
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2023-02-26
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Commodore Computer club
2nd Meeting
------------------------
Shaun:
For me, the weekend started on
Thursday, as I had invited our new
chairman Peter Badrick to venture down
from the North East to the West
Midlands a day early in case there was
any club business to mull over. It
also gave me an excuse to have an
extra evening "playing with those old
pieces of junk", as my partner Lisa
might say. I was due in work in the
morning, & had arranged to finish
early, however I had been in
discomfort with my back for the eighth
day, & finally gave in & went to see
the doctor.
Pete had said that he expected to
arrive at 2pm, & would you believe it,
he arrived on time. "What are the
chances", I thought, "of a bus driver
arriving so punctually?", though I did
not pose such a question to him. I
offered Pete a brew (for those not
from the North, a 'brew' refers to a
hot beverage, usually tea or coffee),
& in usual fashion, he asked for a
black coffee with milk. After being
distracted by my C= 2001 PET, we soon
checked if my Commodore - which I will
shamefully say hadn't been switched on
since before Christmas - was still in
some sort of working order. Happily,
it worked, & I loaded a few pieces of
software such as Metal Dust, Block
Frenzy (a new release on cartridge
which I got from the RGCD shop), &
Wheels, amongst others.
Pete had brought with him his 1541
Ultimate+, an excellent upgrade for
the C64 & 128, which also works with
any other Commodore with a serial bus,
& at some point my Plus/4 & VC-20
appeared. I demonstrated Eslapion's
cartridge which has some 127 games on
it (or is it 128? I can't remember
exactly). Fortunately, all of my kit
seemed to be in working order, &
although I was as usual, not very
organised, at least I knew where it
all was. I get out a couple of PET
machines, one was working but soon
started to fail, which wasn't a nice
experience, so unfortunately there was
little chance of a PET having a
presence during the Saturday. As no
one else could make it on the Friday,
there is little to say about it other
than the pub which had many ASBO-
owning folk from the near-by 'problem'
estate. After paying 1 (!!!!) for a
game of pool, & being surrounded by
the locals, we decided to head into
Birmingham City Centre, to Scruffy
Murphys.
Finally, the big day arrived. To my
relief, Nigel Parker had made the
journey to attend, which made things a
whole lot easier, & Chris Snowden, of
www.commodore16.com, also arrived at
Lisa's door. Our newest member,
Patrick Bakker, was travelling from
Holland for the event, & was bringing
with him a Commodore 116. After buying
tea, coffee, biscuits & juice, we
started to load up the convoy of
stuff. Luckily, Chris had his SatNav
ready & we headed out. Chris then went
to pick up Patrick from the city
centre.
Despite the small turn out, the day
went quite well. Mike Dailly arrived,
bringing with him "yet more junk" (I'm
sure his wife is relieved), & we also
got to see Xeo3 on the C64 & Plus/4.
Various games were played on the
Plus/4, & a few trades were made,
mostly from the stuff that Mike had
brought with him. Chris was busy
fixing several Plus/4 machines,
including two of mine, one of which
was working that I'm sure didn't. With
exception to the Plus/4s piled around
Chris, there were surprisingly very
few technical problems. A lot of the
day was mostly talk & drinking tea &
coffee. All too soon, the day had
ended, & Chris, Patrick, Pete & I went
to Lisa's place to enjoy some
alcoholic beverages. Being a light-
weight nowadays, I only had a few, &
talk covered everything from the
problems with VISTA & joys of 8-bit
computing. The next meet is being
planned for June, & will be held in
the North East of England, hosted by
Pete, & I have something of a "holy
grail" in Commodore terms for those
attendees to see, so keep an eye on
www.CommodoreComputerClub.co.uk for
more news about this. Hopefully, I'll
see you then.
..end..