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Comment by freediver | Hacker News Reader

I owe my entire identity to this little machine. First laid my eyes on it in 1983, then unexpectedly got it from my uncle in 1984. It immediately opened my eyes to this new world of computer technology and sucked me right in.

Between games and writing first code in Basic, something magical was happening. Over the years it defined how I think, and ultimately who I am. Thank you C64 and thanks to everyone who worked on it

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Yes, thank you C64 and all the brilliant people that made it happen.

I also want to thank my mother for giving me a C64 for Christmas in 1983. My single mother worked 2 jobs most of my childhood (corporate gig by day, waitress in the evening); our family always struggled with money. I have no idea how she paid for the C64, plus the 1541 disk drive and 300-baud modem. I also didn't know the C64 would be so pivotal in my life - I was just some nerdy kid who loved to tinker with stuff, but Mom knew. So, thanks Mom; I owe you everything. Oh, and sorry for tying up the phone line all the time.

I have a similar story. Single mom, early/mid 1980s C64.

I recently found the framed receipt for this purchase. My mom still had it and framed it when she found it years ago, as it became clear that purchase led to my prosperity (until recently) as a software engineer. I found it in a box out in my garage, where it now sits next to my C64 (the original case, but not original motherboard).

The whole purchase - C64 + 1541 and a few other things, adjusted for inflation, would be around $1200, which is a lot for a single mother with 2 kids. It makes me appreciate her wisdom in seeing the importance of that purchase.

>Oh, and sorry for tying up the phone line all the time.

Also sorry for the $300 phone bill ($900 today), the month after I got my first 300 baud modem. Phone calls were way more expensive back then, calling across local counties cost more than numbers closer to me. And out of state charges were ridiculous. And file transfers were sloooow. I got into trading warez right away, so it got expensive. And then I became a phone phreak, but that's a separate story.

I never ran up a phone bill, but I did get the cops sent to my house.

I was into war dialing with my C64. Every night I would input the parameters, start the war dialer, go to sleep, then wake up the next morning hoping I got something. Well, one night, about an hour-or-so after I started the war dialer, there was a loud knock on the front door. I looked out the window and saw a cop car. I knew what was going on immediately. I somehow fucked up inputing the dialing prefix to the war dialer, setting it to’ 911’. Then I let the dialer do its thing; it called 911 around 1000 times. The cops were NOT happy. They were basically yelling at my mom. I tried to explain what was going on, but people didn’t know about computers or modems back then. The cops thought I was calling 911 and hanging up, over and over, like a prank.

One thing I remember is my Mom really wasn’t all that mad at me. She wasn’t happy, for sure, but I got the sense that she recognized that there was a lot worse trouble I could be getting myself into. I’m 100% certain that she would’ve been more upset if I ran up a $300 phone bill.

That's a pretty hilarious story of war dialing. I used to wardial every night too.

I had the FBI show up my house this one time... one of my warez/phreak acquaintances had started a world-wide conference call of phreaks originating from a PBX located somehow inside a very very top secret military facility. I just told them I didn't know anything about it, I didn't call anyone, I just picked up a phone and it was this chaotic party-line call, I just hung up after a while. I don't actually know who added me to that call, but I have my suspicions. My mom was really not happy about that.

My identity is tied to it's competitor, the TRS-80 CoCo, released in 1980. I didn't own it until a few years later. My friends had the Commodore 64 and I was jealous.

Your art reminded me that some of my earliest code produced animated flying rockets:

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I grew up with a CoCo 2 that I got for Christmas when I was 5. I remember the BASIC book it came with that had programs you could type in. Also, Demon Attack!

The Trash 80 was the first computer I could afford. A great little machine and Z80 assembly has a certain simple elegance.

I never tried ASM on it. Interestingly, the TRS-80 CoCo did not have a Z80, it had a 6809E @ 0.895 / 1.79 MHz. Mine had been upgraded to 64KB of RAM.

I worked all summer and was able to buy a TRS 80. I could not afford the cassette storage so I'd just type my programs in line by line to run them each time. They were pretty simple.

A snake like line drawer that crashed when it hit the screen edge, stuff like that. I was 12 or 13 and didn't have any mentors but I did know some BASIC from a school program. Really loved that machine.

The original reference and user guides were so welcoming that they literally shaped my future.

The reason I was breaking the curve in my Data Structures class was because I was thirsty for that knowledge from working in Basic on my C64. My parents paid the original $595 price and definitely the best decision they ever made for me.

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