xdaniel

Thread revival time, got some finds from mom's attic to report! Sadly, it's not the upgraded Amiga 500 I had mentioned in this thread before, but it's the next best thing: it's a lot of our essential Commodore 64 hardware! Commodore 64 power supply Commodore 1541-II disk drive w/ power supply Commodore 1541 disk drive (missing the nameplate, I also seem to recall this one being broken?) Datamark tape drive for C64 3x serial cable (for the disk drives) Action Replay v5.0 Professional cartridge International Soccer cartridge (not essential, but hey, it was in the same box ) ...add to that the C64 system itself, which I already had here at my place, a Final Cartridge III utility cartridge, which was in mom's basement, and the Competition Pro joysticks from that flea market a year or so ago, and it's a pretty nice set of gear! That said, tho, all of the stuff is in kinda rough shape - it's mostly just dirt and discoloration from age, thus requiring some TLC at best or Retr0bright or similar treatment at worst, but there's also dents and other minor to more noticeable damage. Some parts of our old setup are still MIA, too, such as the 1351 mouse and the composite AV cable... not even counting things that are rather useless nowadays, like the old MPS-803 printer, which probably doesn't even exist anymore. There's also another 1541 drive still at mom's place, but these things alone are pretty heavy, let alone carrying two of them plus all the other stuff, so that's something for another visit. So, does all this stuff even work? Why, yes, at least the C64 and 1541-II do! Both of them fired up right away, I remembered how to hook up the drive to the system - serial devices are daisy-chained together, with everything but the system having two serial ports for that purpose -, even the rather bent floppy disk that was still left in the drive could be read (partially)! I also checked the Final Cartridge III and Action Replay cartridges, which also booted up first try, tho I can't use the former as it has a mouse-based GUI. Maybe that cartridge could also be used with a joystick, but I'm not sure where I put those Competition Pro. Not sure what exactly I'll do with all of this, tho... I mean, I'm not going to trash or sell it, this thing was part of my childhood after all. I'm just wondering if I should ex. invest into getting a replacement case for the C64 system - the somewhat mangled case I have right now is one I found in the trash some 20 years ago, from a later model C64-C, because I thought the design looked better than the original "bread box" case. There's also several disk drive emulators that might be worth looking into, as SD memory cards and the like are certainly more practical these days than trying to find new and/or at least working 5 1/4" disks... Also a quick note about two more things I found while cleaning up the attic, but which I haven't yet brought here for lack of transportation. I remembered having had these at one point or another, a long time ago, but didn't expect these to still be around: an IBM PS/2 Model 55 SX and an IBM VGA CRT monitor! From what I can gather on the internet, this system is a 386SX machine based on IBM's microchannel architecture (like most PS/2s were), with between 1 and 8 MB of RAM on-board (4 MB was standard, apparently?), an ESDI hard disk (around 40 to 60 MB?), and a 3 1/2" 1.44 MB FDD. I really need to get these over here as well, so that I can check whether the system and/or monitor still work, or if they're something for the trash. I'm not particularly attached to either, so at least the CRT's fate really depends on the condition. Anyway, I'll see about getting some photos of the Commodore gear up soon, once I cleaned up the system and drives some more

True or not, it's the potshots, drama and things like that, that give the modding/hacking side of the OoT fandom its shitty reputation.