Greetings!

I received my C64U Starlight Monday. I absolutely love this machine. I'm 45 and got a CoCo 2 for my fifth birthday and have been into computers my whole life. I'm living an alternate reality childhood had I gotten a Commodore instead of a CoCo. My oldest nephew is five, and he and his little brother LOVE all my retro tech. We played Nintendo for FOUR HOURS STRAIGHT last Saturday, first time I've done that since I was single-digit aged. I'm going to take the machine to them and teach them BASIC, all that good stuff.

I've made a few videos this week with Commodore at youtube.com/bollingholt

I'm hoping to attach my 1541 to it this weekend and go through some BOXES of disks I recently acquired with a TI-99/4A haul, but I think it's mainly Commodore software. Looking forward to it!!!

Bo Holt

... Torture: The Ultimate Art Form.

--- Renegade v1.40/DOS
* Origin: The Titantic BBS Telnet - ttb.rgbbs.info (1:129/305)

Bo Holt <[email protected]> writes:

Greetings!

I received my C64U Starlight Monday. I absolutely love this machine. I'm 45 and got a CoCo 2 for my fifth birthday and have been into computers my whole life. I'm living an alternate reality childhood had I gotten a Commodore instead of a CoCo. My oldest nephew is five, and he and his little brother LOVE all my retro tech. We played Nintendo for FOUR HOURS STRAIGHT last Saturday, first time I've done that since I was single-digit aged. I'm going to take the machine to them and teach them BASIC, all that good stuff.

I've made a few videos this week with Commodore at youtube.com/bollingholt

I'm hoping to attach my 1541 to it this weekend and go through some BOXES of disks I recently acquired with a TI-99/4A haul, but I think it's mainly Commodore software. Looking forward to it!!!

Bo Holt

... Torture: The Ultimate Art Form.

Good news. Tell us how you get along. I considered getting a c64 from perifractic but I can't get over the funky keyboard layout of the
commodores. I have a mini and can't really find a good for it. And I'm
not nostalgic for the games.

I hope you find a treasure in that pile of floppies.

Daniel
sysop | air & wave bbs
finger | [email protected]

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Good news. Tell us how you get along. I considered getting a c64 from perifractic but I can't get over the funky keyboard layout of the commodores. I have a mini and can't really find a good for it. And I'm
not nostalgic for the games.

I hope you find a treasure in that pile of floppies.

Daniel
sysop | air & wave bbs
finger | [email protected]

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

I cut my teeh on a CoCo 2, so it's "new nostalgia" for me LOL. I didn't attach the floppy this weekend as plans changed, but I did go to my warehouse and grab the disks. Went tech thrifing though ;)

Bo

... Gunpowder and alcohol DO mix - but it tastes awful!

--- Renegade v1.40/DOS
* Origin: The Titantic BBS Telnet - ttb.rgbbs.info (1:129/305)

Bo Holt <[email protected]> wrote:

I'm going to take the machine to them and teach
them BASIC

Oh no! Keep the kids away from BASIC as it is
one of the most horrendous programming languages
ever invented.

Better to fire up a Fedora Linux or FreeBSD VM and have
the kids learn Python or anything saner than BASIC.

Back in the 1980s BASIC was better than nothing, but
should not be used again in 2026.

br,
KK

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

[email protected] (Kalevi Kolttonen) writes:

Bo Holt <[email protected]> wrote:

I'm going to take the machine to them and teach
them BASIC

Oh no! Keep the kids away from BASIC as it is
one of the most horrendous programming languages
ever invented.

Better to fire up a Fedora Linux or FreeBSD VM and have
the kids learn Python or anything saner than BASIC.

Back in the 1980s BASIC was better than nothing, but
should not be used again in 2026.

br,
KK

What horrible advice.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Daniel <[email protected]> wrote:

What horrible advice.

Why do you say so? Python 3 is a nice and clean
language with all the features you would expect
from a good programming language. Fedora Linux
and FreeBSD are millions of times more advanced
than poor old C64. Programming in BASIC using
the horrible C64 screen editor is nothing but
a bad joke in 2026. I have to laugh thinking
about it... Hahah!

BASIC on a C64 lacks almost everything:
no proper WHILE looping, no proper
function calls, no proper data structures,
identifiers are only valid for the two
starting characters. C64 BASIC is beyond awful
and should never be used in 2026. Why would
anyone torture kids with that lame BASIC?

C64 is a great platform for learning
assembly programming though but even so
you should write the code on Linux or FreeBSD
using a proper text editor and a cross assembler,
testing your program with VICE.

br,
KK

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)