The C64 had been eclipsed by the Apple IIc and the IBM PC/AT by the time I was born — by 1985 its major market advantage was that it was cheaper. My family, who always liked to stay on the leading edge, never owned one. But as I grew up and read more about the home computers that had come before me, I decided to learn everything I could about them. In my teens I bought and repaired C64s from eBay, which really annoyed my parents. I bought huge lots of cheap untested hardware and discarded or fixed the pieces that didn’t work, and over time I amassed a very complete and functioning C64 setup: computers, disk drives, a printer, and a large collection of original software.

The reason I like the C64 so much, in addition to it being a hell of a lot of fun to play with, is that I believe it represents the maximal level of computer complexity that most people are actually capable of dealing with. A home computer today comes with a very basic instruction manual if it comes with one at all, and PCs are viewed by the uninitiated with a combination of fear and distrust. By contrast, the C64 came with a friendly user’s guide that contained a simple programming reference for the BASIC language and a description of the components in the computer. The expectation was that every user would want to be able to understand, and even program, the computer. The programmer’s guide, sold separately, went even farther. It contained a complete BASIC command reference in the first half, a complete assembly language reference for the 6510 CPU in the second half, and to top it all of there was a fold-out schematic of the entire computer bound into the back of the book. I can honestly say that I can tell you what every IC in the C64 is for, and I can diagnose most hardware problems with no more complex tools than a $5 multimeter. Can I do this with my “real” PC? Heck, no. It’s an appliance. When it breaks, I replace the part that has failed and go on my way. And I’m a power user. Computers are what I do for a living — they occupy a greater portion of my waking hours than anything else apart from cats with amusing captions. But even for me, my home PC is just an appliance, just a magic box to be repaired or thrown out when it fails. To me, the C64 represents the most advanced computer that was still a computer and not magic. That’s why I’m so fond of it.

A couple of years ago I retrieved what was left of my C64 collection from my parents’ garage — I had lost or thrown away a lot of valuable items and I am still kicking myself over it. C64 equipment is increasingly scarce and today costs several times what it did when I first got into this hobby. When Kara and I moved to Missouri and had enough space to accommodate an irresponsible collection of decrepit computer parts, I decided that I wanted to own a functioning C64 again. Unfortunately, as the C64 hardware that exists continues to age, buying untested hardware off eBay is getting less and less practical. I decided that I wanted to do it right.

I started by picking up a C64 and a Commodore 1702 monitor from, of all places, Etsy. They were being sold as “super cool 80s decor” by someone who didn’t know what they were or how to test them, and they were way underpriced. I’ve always wanted to own a real Commodore monitor but they are fairly rare and expensive. Fortunately, being a CRT, the chances of a random used monitor functioning are pretty good, so I went ahead and bought the computer and monitor. The monitor had had its power cord cut off — why I have no idea — but I was able to splice a new one in and it works beautifully (the Commodore 1702 is one of the highest quality NTSC CRT displays ever made). The computer, as I expected, had multiple hardware problems and was not really worth fixing, but I removed the case and cleaned it up with a perchlorate solution. I had a great monitor and an empty C64 case in great shape.

I found a fully socketed C64 motherboard on eBay — some industrious person with better soldering skills than I had removed every chip from a C64 mainboard and replaced it with an appropriately sized socket. I decided to buy the mainboard and populate it with chips myself. The motherboard revision I chose to buy dates to 1983 and includes a mix of custom Commodore chips and quite a few commodity TTL chips (the later motherboard revisions consolidated many of the TTL chips into a smaller number of custom ICs). I managed to find new old stock of all the custom Commodore chips except for the SID from one of the last remaining suppliers of C64 repair parts, and I picked up the TTL chips from eBay. I have a couple of functioning SIDs in my collection but I picked up a fully-tested one from eBay for a good price. I was able to find new stock for many of the TTL chips that are amazingly still in production, and I sought out new old stock for all the rest. I also picked up a never-used replacement C64 keyboard on eBay from a shop that had been an authorized repair facility for Commodore many years ago.

After putting it all together, I have a functioning C64 that should hopefully stay that way for a long time. The ICs and key switches are, for all intents and purposes, new. The pieces that aren’t new are the resistors, capacitors and fuses on the motherboard — all of which are replaceable and unlikely to fail anytime soon — and the power supply, which I’m looking to build a replacement for soon. I have a small stock of original CBM chips in my existing collection, and since the motherboard is socketed I should be able to replace anything that fails.

Once I had the C64 assembled and working, I placed an order for the incredibly awesome 1541 Ultimate-II, which arrived a few days ago. This is a piece of hobbyist hardware based on an FPGA that is simply amazing. It plugs into the C64′s cartridge slot and provides a low-level emulation of two Commodore 1541 disk drives, fed directly into the C64′s serial port. This allows you to load disk images on a microSD card and use them as though they were physical disks. Since physical disks are increasingly becoming the biggest problem with keeping C64s alive, this is a great innovation. The cartridge also emulates a number of fast load cartridges and a RAM expander, and has a built-in SID player, all of which are great bonuses.

I also picked up a Xetec Super Graphix Jr. printer interface from eBay for $12. Our printer at home is a Brother HL-5370DW, a fairly inexpensive duplexing monochrome laser printer. It’s a great printer, and among its features is the ability to emulate an old Epson dot-matrix printer using the Epson FX printer language. With the Super Graphix Jr. connected between the C64 and the printer’s Centronics port, and with the printer set for Epson FX emulation, I am able to print text and graphics from the C64 directly to our modern laser printer. Combined with the 1541 Ultimate-II, this makes my C64 with GEOS an actually practical tool for writing and printing documents.

I’ve also ordered a 64NIC+ from the amazing Jim Brain, which should be arriving very soon. As the name suggests, this is a direct Ethernet interface for the C64. There is a fairly large amount of software that supports this type of network interface on the C64: terminal clients, email clients, an interface for Twitter, and even web browsers with support for graphics and CSS. On a computer with 1/80,000th the processing power of the laptop I’m using to write this post.

Okay, it might take a little longer. But you can bring a bunch of luggage – no fees! You can’t smoke in the bathrooms but they’ll stop and let you off to smoke and then let you back on. I think because the conductors smoke too. Amtrak schedules trains so you see all the cool shit during the day and ride through shit states like Ohio at night.

There’s an outlet at every seat, you can use any electronics you want at any time in the trip (so long as you have headphones for noisy things). There are more bathrooms than on a plane. Hungry? You can run down to the cafe car (or dining car on long trips) and grab a bite to eat. Hell – bring your own food and drink. You can eat and drink (non-alcoholic) beverages in your seat. If you have a private room, you can even bring your own booze and imbibe on the trip.

The seats are roomy and comfortable. Great for fat folks, like myself. And leg room…. oh, it’s better than if you were driving. 100 times better than the plane. You can lean your seat back to doze off without inconveniencing anyone.

The employees are competent and well-paid. They’re nice and helpful. Conductors are happy to assist the elderly, women with babies, whatever.

And that’s just coach travel. Those bastards in business class get big comfy leather chairs.

You know what makes me mad? That Amtrak surpasses air travel in every way except time. It costs about the same. It’s a better experience. It’s better for the environment.

Yet some asshole conservatives are going to cut Amtrak funding because they’re shortsighted FUCKS. And then we’ll all be stuck getting wanded and prodded. TSA are now purvevyors of pornography. They should be called the PoP.  I keep telling Michael, if someone is going to grab my crotch, they’re gonna buy me a goddamn DRINK first. You know you’re paying for the privilege of them seeing you naked or grabbing your naughty bits, right? How the FUCK is that not prostitution?

Let’s send a message to all those assholes. TAKE THE TRAIN. Seriously, the minute you set foot on the train, you’ll be like, what the fuck was I doing on all those planes?

And to anyone who thinks, “oh trains, those are just for nostalgia,” enjoy being ruled by the airlines. They will continue to gouge you and TSA will eventually be fucking your daughters with security wands.

NOT IN MY AMERICA.

Take the train.

I am not really an Apple gal. I never got the hang of their software. It’s all clean and empty and I’m not used to technology like that. I’m used to clicking around on a bunch of things and learning how to make happen what I want to happen.

Well, I feel like everything is hidden on Apple. And it is. They give you a few simple functions and expect you to be happy. And most people are, because it’s simple and clean and pretty and it does what they need it to do, and it does it easily.

Well, iTunes has underestimated my pickiness about my music. The first thing that pissed me off was I had plenty of storage on the device, and it was still only giving me a couple songs off an album. So I checked in iTunes, and all songs for those albums were in the library. So then,  I tried to add music by album instead of artist. I synced everything up and checked my iPod. It was empty. I think I’m just not getting something here, but I NEED my iPod for work. It gets me through the day. And messing with it every night gets to be a hassle.

So, we’re (Michael) working with some software (Rhythmbox) in Ubuntu and it should work once we sort out some way to convert my many lossless audio tracks into tracks playable by the iPod. It shows you a library of your music in one box, and then you just drag and drop – albums, songs, artists, whatever – into your device. Looks pretty handy.

Anyway, in other news, today I was remembering how I ran for Student Council President in elementary school. I remembered this in a weird flash, and it reminded me that I always have believed that I know better than most people and can do a better job than pretty much anyone. My dad coached me every night when he got home from work – he helped me craft my speech and made me practice saying it in front of him. He taught me a lot about public speaking that was repeated to me in the course I was required to take in college.

I lost, by the way, the election for Student Council President. I didn’t expect that I would care so much when I started, but I put so much work into it that it felt awful to lose. The guy who won – he was among the most popular guys in class. He faded to pretty much nothing a few years later. Me, I didn’t have to fade. I’ve pretty much been the same level of awesome and popular since ten. I’m pretty low on the totem pole, my friends.

I’ve been good at public speaking since. Kicked some ass in my course in college. I learned something important in college, though – I have nothing to lose in speaking. I have a job now where I make a lot of phone calls. I’m asking the people on the other end to go to some hassle for me. You have to know your audience… which is hard when all you have is an office location and phone number. It’s a totally different kind of public speaking, much more stressful. But the girls in the office say I’m really good on the phone. The trick is not to be afraid to sound like you don’t really know what you’re doing. The other trick is to sloooow down for people in the southern or midwestern US. Anywhere else, talk fast and don’t waste time.

I’m largely a talk-fast person. I have to prepare myself to slow down to talk to some people. They don’t like you so well if you talk quickly, and I need to make friends in a few short seconds to get what I need.

But I do mostly research and not so many phone calls, so I need my music or I go flipping insane. Which is where my lovely, pretty iPod becomes a life-saver.

I’m really surprised that so many people are reading this blog over Gopher. I am truly flattered to be in the company of such silly people.

In case anyone’s interested, the software that handles both the Gopher page generation and the telnet comments is open source. It’s available via Gopher and via Floodgap’s Gopher-HTTP proxy.

I haven’t updated WP2Gopher for WordPress 3.0 yet–I don’t know if an update will even be necessary–but I plan to handle that in the next few days.

We’re replacing the evil laptop with one of these, which arrived yesterday:

It’s named after the noise Kara made when she saw it. It’s only a little larger than a hardcover book, weighs about 3 pounds, and is just generally adorable. The best part is that all of the currently available models are sub-$400.

I’m not the first person to say this, but I will echo the sentiment: The Eee PC 1000 is an awesome machine. There are different models, but they all share an extremely low-power design that provides for amazing battery life. Ours looks like it will deliver just shy of 6 hours of typical desktop use on a charge, which is stunning for something so small.

The 1000 we bought is the Linux model, which contains an 8GB and a 32GB SSD (one “fast” and one “slow”) instead of a hard drive. This is my first experience with solid-state storage and it is impressive. Writing to the disk is much slower than with a hard drive, but read speeds are about the same and seeking is practically instant, so many common tasks are significantly faster than I’m used to. The SSD also means the Eee PC is shockproof and virtually silent, and is partly responsible for the amazing battery life of this model.

Aesthetically, the screen is great, the keyboard is surprisingly large and easy to use, and the machine is pleasantly non-hostile to the advanced user. The first thing I did was to replace the 1GB RAM module with a 2GB SODIMM, a $20 upgrade that makes a big difference in usability. This involved removing 2 screws from a panel and took about 30 seconds. Behind the panel I found all the “user-serviceable” parts–the RAM, the SSD, and the wifi adapter–neatly presented. Much friendlier than other laptops I have seen.

The included Linux OS may be fine for some users, but I installed Ubuntu. It’s a little tricky to install a new OS without a CD drive, but fortunately there are easy tools to transfer bootable CD images onto USB flash drives. Ubuntu works great, and the only customization I had to make was to switch to a special kernel that includes support for all of the Eee PC’s hardware. This enabled the wifi and enhanced support for the Eee’s power management features. I’ve haven’t run a generic Linux distro on a laptop in recent years, and it was a really pleasant surprise to see how perfectly things like power management were integrated with the OS. Once you install the eeepc kernel, every piece of hardware in the Eee PC just works.

I was somewhat surprised by the performance of the machine. The CPU is a 1.6GHz Intel Atom, a peculiar low-power architecture that’s supposedly equivalent to a Pentium M running at about 50% of the clock speed, but it never feels slow. I think some credit is due to Ubuntu and to Linux in general here, but it also demonstrates how little CPU power you really need for most purposes. For some tasks that involve reading lots of small files (booting up, starting some applications) the Eee PC actually feels faster than my much more powerful desktop PC, thanks to the solid-state disk.

So if you need a new laptop, I’d recommend considering an Eee PC. They’re well-built and reasonably powerful, you can buy two of them for the price of a nice laptop, and–most importantly–they’re actually small enough that you’ll want to take them places. The Windows XP version of the Eee PC 1000 (the 1000H) contains a mechanical hard drive because Windows constantly performs disk I/O for no reason, so it will be noisier and slower for some tasks, but that should only diminish the cool factor a little. If all you want is to surf the internet, chat and e-mail, then get the Linux version and use the included OS, because it’s just fine for those purposes and much faster than Windows.