'''The Wonder Computer of the 1980s'''

A 1 MHz home computer using a 6502 CPU manufactured between 1981-1985. 
Had a whopping 3.5k of available RAM

For many people, this was their first home computer.
Bought for less than $500 US.

''Was for me!'' -- MikeSmith, ScottChastain, ChrisGarrod, RobMandeville

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We bought one as a gift. I thought the gift should include some software so I wrote an original, a heart rate monitoring program. The on-screen instructions told you to press the H key each time your heart beat. With each keystroke, it flashed a little red heart and reported your corresponding moving weighted average heart rate. I recommend this little ditty as the HelloWorld for interactive computers. -- WardCunningham

	* http://c2.com/wiki/heart.html -- in JavaScript

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Today I was bored, and decided to download a Vic-20 emulator and go looking for demos, to see how they compare with those for the CommodoreSixtyFour. Well, I was in luck, for ''just today'' (June 16, 2002) someone uploaded a disk image full of demos to Funet. Some were programmed this year, and some were programmed this month. Most only run on European Vic's, but VICE'll emulate one of those. -- NickBensema

Download VICE here: http://viceteam.bei.t-online.de/

Find the demos here: http://www.funet.fi/pub/cbm/vic20/demos/

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The magazine Compute! Gazette contained basic and machine language code at the end of each issue which you could type in for free (price of magazine) games and utilities. They used a control code system to help you check for typos, which were especially problematic in the machine code programs; but, you had to get the control code utility typed in correctly before you could use them.

See http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/faq.html

I think there are still a few old issues hanging around my attic or parents' attic :-) -- DougHynes

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CategoryHardware