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t.mike paull
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2022-08-26
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u
ME AND MY COMMODORE
by Mike Paull
Dates are approximate because i'm
not sure exactly which year I got my
64...
1982/83 I was introduced to computers
by a neighbourhood friend's brother.
He had a Z80 based kit computer he
built. I had a games console that had
a BASIC cartridge and started typing
in programs for it. Got sick of it's
limits pretty soon. Went to High
School and found out about the
"Commodore 64", saw one at K-Mart and
started nagging parents.
1983/84 On my birthday I received a
Commodore 64 and Data Cassette.
Started with games (doesn't everyone)
and then buying magazines, which
started the typing in of games and
other programs and sparked an interest
in programming. My friend's brother
and I had become good friends and he
started helping me with questions on
computers and electronics. One day he
showed me how he could connect to his
University computer. I was intrigued.
When I got the Programmers
Reference Guide (for Xmas, I think) I
told him about it. He said with the
info in it we should be able to
connect his home made(!!) modem to the
C64. I found a terminal program (VIP
XL) and we started making some wiring
mods to his modem. shortly afterwards
we were connecting to his university
account and the few local BBSs. He
made the mistake of lending me the
modem and leaving me with those
numbers, I was hooked. Shame it took
about three and a half minutes to load
VIP XL from tape!
1985 Went to a huge PC show that used
to happen every year, all the (then)
major computer companies attended. Saw
a company selling Commodore compatable
disk drives and they were much cheaper
than the 1541, so with a little
nagging...... We walked away from the
show with a SKAI-64 (Cardco CSD-1)
disk drive and a box of 10 floppy
disks.
1986 By this time I was heavily into
the modem side of things. I was
getting to know quite a few local
C64'ers and was a regular on a number
of BBSs. Eventually a group of us got
together and formed our own little
hacking group. I wrote a "wargames"
style dialer and also started
modifying C-Net 64 for a local BBS,
for which I later became Co-SYSOP. My
local hack of C-Net became popular and
a few BBSs were running it, I was
proud! <<<<MAD MAX>>>> was my alias
and people knew it :)
Pretty much the rest is a blur..
With the hacking also came pirating.
We were importing "warez" from the US
and using computer networks (most of
which don't exist anymore) to get free
calls to the US so we could download
stuff. I was writing BBS stuff,
managing a local BBS, hacking,
pirating, mailing and accumulating
some great hardware.
I had an SFD1001, two disk drives
(1541 and Skai-64) and 2400 baud modem
when most of my schoolmates had a 300
baud modem and 1541. We were maxing
our Commodores to the most and
spending an aweful lot of time in
front of the keyboard. My C64 ended up
with a specially modified kernal that
had regular, enhanced, graphics and
monitor modes selectable by two toggle
switches. I was also hooked on demos,
collecting hundreds of them and
listening to them through a stereo I
had my c64 connected to.
This craziness continued on until
the early 90s when I grew tired of the
C64 and bought a PC and I started
winding down my C64 activities to the
point where I no longer used it and
gave it to my dad so he could learn
computers. I continued hacking and
logging into local BBSs and writing my
own apps in QuickBasic, while my dad
become computer savvy. After a while I
gave up the BBSs and lost touch with
all my old c64 friends except one or
two :(
Late 90s/early 2000 - Strangely enough
my Dad kept the 64 when he outgrew it.
It just went into the spare room.
I was on the net now and seeing
how there was a resurgence in C64
activity including these new
"emulators". C64S was the first I
played with. That kind of reignited my
interest in the 64 and so I made an
X1541 cable, found a program called
TRANS64 and turned all my old disks
into .D64 images (no disks were ever
thrown away or written over, good onya
dad! )
And now thanks to my dad I still
have my original C64. Thanks to Ebay,
I have also been able to get back some
of the hardware I lost like the
SFD-1001 and a whole lot more!
MP