So I took it out of the box wiped it down plugged it in and after 20 years it fired up like nothing. I tried loading some disks but it is failing, google tells me I need to clean the head with some rubbing alcohol. Found a bunch of classics though already listed in here, including the original manual.
which drive is it?
Yeah after sitting for so long being inactive the drive head needs to be cleaned.
But if its a commodore drive and its the 1541, they had drive alignment problems as well and were really sensitive, and needed to be tuned as well.
Our first computer as kids was the Amstrad CPC 464
Many hours of playing Bubble Bobble on there. I also messed around with BASIC too. Why oh why didn't I keep that up?
Still have it in the attic back home I believe, though it stopped working at some stage.
__________________ "We are no longer living. We are empty of substance, and our head devours us. Our ancestors were more alive. Nothing separated them from themselves."
Anyone remember the Coleco Vision Adam, a computer, printer and monitor system, with the major design flaw that the power switch for the whole system was on the Printer. So if the Printer died you couldn't fire up your machine.
Hell ya. I managed to buy a 110 baud modem for it. But all the Compuserve numbers were long distance so I never really got to try it out.
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Man, I remember the days before the internet became a thing, where you had a modem, and you'd dial into a bulletin board directory and look up the content that you wanted and wrote down the numbers, then hung up your modem and dialed into those boards.
There were no MMO's or online games, you went on bulletin boards for pirated software or so I've heard pron.
Downloading took hours and usually halfway through you'd get a null activity disconnect and swear and start over.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Man, I remember the days before the internet became a thing, where you had a modem, and you'd dial into a bulletin board directory and look up the content that you wanted and wrote down the numbers, then hung up your modem and dialed into those boards.
There were no MMO's or online games, you went on bulletin boards for pirated software or so I've heard pron.
Downloading took hours and usually halfway through you'd get a null activity disconnect and swear and start over.
Our first modem was a 300/1200 baud modem. At 300 baud, downloading a text document would cause it to scroll on the screen character by character at about the same speed as I could read. When I was able to connect at 1200baud, it took my breath away how fast the document would scroll by. It was the information superhighway baby
Later I learned about kermit and zmodem, which I simply equated with "faster and more reliable".
There was one BBS that was invite-only, and I wanted on because it contained documents that would teach you how to crack a game. A friend of a friend at school was a member (let's call him Jon), and he gave me his account/password so I could log in. I logged in, and started downloading a couple documents. Suddenly, a chat request appeared from the sysadmin, thinking I was Jon. I didn't know what to do, so I just ignored it. But the requests kept coming, with text like "Jon, what's up", to "Why aren't you answering?", to "What's going on? You ok?". I knew I had to respond, and in my panic just typed "Jon's in the bathroom". The sysadmin immediately texted back "This is against the rules! No one but Jon is allowed on this account...". As the texts kept coming, I freaked, hung up, and never called back. I also carefully avoided Jon the rest of the school year. Jon, if you're reading this - sorry I got you in trouble. But on the plus side, I did read some cool stuff about how game companies tried to copy protected their software.
Ya I think you're right about the alignment, I tried cleaning up the head it didn't seem to do anything. I will have to give this a go and see if that gets it to work.
Not really sure what to do with this thing, I guess put it back in a box in the closet? They aren't really worth any money, just a nostalgia thing for now. The first time Knights fires up though I have a feeling it will bring back a lot of good memories.
Hrmm I don't have that alignment program though..
__________________ "In brightest day, in blackest night / No evil shall escape my sight / Let those who worship evil's might / Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!"
Last edited by GreenLantern; 05-03-2016 at 11:00 AM.
__________________ "We are no longer living. We are empty of substance, and our head devours us. Our ancestors were more alive. Nothing separated them from themselves."
Ya I think you're right about the alignment, I tried cleaning up the head it didn't seem to do anything. I will have to give this a go and see if that gets it to work.
Not really sure what to do with this thing, I guess put it back in a box in the closet? They aren't really worth any money, just a nostalgia thing for now. The first time Knights fires up though I have a feeling it will bring back a lot of good memories.
Hrmm I don't have that alignment program though..
Its too bad, because iirc it was a utility that came with the drive. I don't know how you'd get it or a 5 inch disk nowdays.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
