I liked the TI-99/4a, I remember some of the cartridges, and the games. I remember doing "pair programming" as my friend would enter the code, and the Compute! magazine checksum would match. I loathed DATA statements all the numbers that did not make sense. :)

Oh yes QB64. I recently did some rewrites of some QBASIC for a colleague, his son is interested in programming, but I suggested going "retro" and play some of the QB64 games like Gorillas, and Sort Demo. I found some old IBM BASICA games, and one that played music. Much more fun than Python, or Java or C#. It seems BASIC of the 80s spawned a slew of business language clones, one that I think of is Xojo, the old "Real BASIC" (as opposed to Integer BASIC I supposed.). And the ubiquitous VB that made programming "so easy". :) Until time for maintenance or adding new features.

JoshK.

I spent the $300 or $400 to buy a disk drive, and it was twitchy at best. I remember some computer games that required you to "swap" the 5.25" floppy disks, if you didn't get it just right, you'd get a read error. But the datasette on the Commodore 64 was well it worked or it didn't. :)

JoshK.

I had the same problem, I switched on my Commodore 64 and the screen was...well I could tell something had happened but not what. I read later that Commodore 64's had a high failure rate. I sent it to a computer store, a high school friend handled it...but when I fell out with this friend, well the computer was gone. :( Then I moved up to Atari 800 XL :)

JoshK.

Quite. Some "ball and chain" to keep you at Meta. But all the AI/ML hyperbole reminds of the 80s, the AI hype. Useful technology, but too much vapor-ware as in false promises.

JoshK.

The Commodore64 was awesome yet, when it failed, it failed big time. I remember playing video games on a friend's TI/94a. In high school we got some donation, I think was ex-Army stuff, and it was T/94a. I spent more time coding than doing the electronics stuff. I remember a friend and I tried to get a disk drive working.

Once a friend got "Flight Simulator" for the Commodore64, and it never loaded. We got a new copy, and still wouldn't load. Then I was reading something and the command was like LOAD "file",8,1. The comma one and it worked.

Yes computers, computing in the 80s was great :) The kids in this age have no idea. I often wonder if a "universal' BASIC was available what would it have been like. Friends and I spent time rewriting BASIC to move across computers from my Commodore 64 to TRS-80, and TI/94a...and vice-versa. :)

JoshK.

I had a friend in high school who had a TRS-80, and he was alot better coder. We'd often figure out how to rewrite the BASIC programs from Compute! magazine to work on his computer. Another awesome computer, that had a notorious nickname, the "Trash-80" but yet, Tandy put out alot of BASIC programs, and other stuff. I remember doing an text adventure, it was easier to write in BASIC on the TRS-80 than at the time, my VIC-20. :) Also my friend had a Compuserve account in the 80's that was a close to Internet, even at 2400-baud. My friend and I ran up both parents phone bill trying to solve one of those games. :)

JoshK.

Indeed, I learned assembly for the 6502, but at first in college my direction was hardware, but half-way through my EE curriculum I realized I liked software... :) I remember doing some assembly using POKE and PEEK, like to turn on the datasette (remember those, the data tape cassettes? :-)) to load, and play an AC/DC song for a computer game I did. Yes Commodore 64 was ahead of its time in many features, and how many software developers got into coding. :)

JoshK.

$100 Million in what though? Cayman islands account, double-platinum card, Libra crypto-currency, stock, bonds? In the 1980s the "big thing" was robotics especially in the auto industry. How things change but remain the same. :)

JoshK.

The Commodore 64 was ahead of its time in having capabilities in the 1980s like the SID chip for complex sound than other home computers.

Many coders/software engineers/programmers cut their teeth on the Commodore64. When I bought an external mechanical keyboard, it reminded me of the Commodore 64.

For nostalgia value this new one at $299.00 is interesting, although better late than never. :) I'm waiting for a retro TRS-80 or Coleco Adam myself.

JoshK.