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t.gaelyne gasson
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2022-08-26
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u
ME AND MY COMMODORE
by Gaelyne Gasson
The first Commodore I ever used
was a VIC-20 that belonged to a friend
of mine. I even went out and bought a
tape of my own so that I could use
their word processor for my journal. I
just kept the tape in my purse.
I wasn't too keen on the large
cartidges for it though, but when my
brother offered his VIC-20 for sale
(as he was 'upgrading' to the IBM PCjr
<snigger>) I jumped at it. My oldest
son and husband spent many hours
playing Frogger and having a ball with
it.
We went to a computer club meeting
and everyone was talking about either
the Amiga or the C64 and I think we
were talked into the C64 the following
Christmas. That, and I really didn't
want to buy a game machine when I
could buy a 64 and be able to use it
for both games and for more practical
things like my writing. The following
Christmas we got a deal on another,
older C64 and an additional disk drive
plus boxes of games and software. It
was all used, but all a heap of fun to
go through. We found some real gems
and with two drives I could use GEOS
much more easily.
Then I discovered bulletin boards
and traded a B&W TV for my first 1581
drive. That was excellent, and from
the Fidonet CBM echos we learned how
to add JiffyDOS to it and gave it the
toggle switches for the drive numbers.
I actually had to borrow money
(something I NEVER do) in order to get
my hands on a C128. At the time I was
writing for BBS Magazine and there was
a possible job for me in doing some
work on the 128 and so I felt I needed
it for my employment. And the other
reason I desperately wanted a 128 was
to see what that Rod Gasson fellow had
created with his offline mail reader.
At the time there wasn't a C64 program
available to do the same, and I really
wanted to see what he'd created.
Especially since I'd given him a lot
of ideas on how I thought such a
program should work.
I was in awe! And I loved the 128
dearly. It was great that it could use
both C64 and it's own mode. I even
tried CPM once or twice but it didn't
do it for me. I had to leave my C128
behind when I came to Australia, but
my oldest son still has it and every
once in awhile mentions he'd like to
sell it on eBay but hasn't got around
to it yet. I think he's as sentimental
about it as I would be.
My Australian C128D isn't in the
best of shape, but it's not going
anywhere, and still has the name
'Ismael Cordeiro' taped to the side of
it. Ismael was on the CBM Fidonet echo
and he and Rod used to have the most
pedantic of conversations. Meanwhile,
Ismael recently wrote to me that he
was packing up his Commodore gear but
was keeping his copy of TIFCU as a
reminder. I was so touched. He's
credited in the book for technical
information on UNIX and Desterm.
My favourite add-on for the
Commodore was the RAMlink. The hard
drives I had over time (two of them)
were OK but often gave us grief and
CMD was never able to find the problem
with them and that just added more
frustration to the mix. But my RAMlink
rarely caused me any hassles and
provided for a silent yet wonderfully
powerful computer experience. And so
fast too.
GG