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Hobbyist from Finland

VintageVic

Experienced Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2019
Messages
340
Location
Finland
Hi guys,

I'm new to this forum. Already posted help request and got comments (thank you for quick replies!) too.

A bit of myself, I'm working as an IT engineer in Finland. My interest with computers
begun 1985, when I received my first computer, the mighty VIC-20. I was 9 at the time. My Vic
had only one game, the Omega race. Luckily it was that, despite challenging, it was super fun,
and I consider it the best game for the Vic ! At least until Robert Hurst's Omega Fury - also
extremely good and hooking game for VIC.

Back then, just one game was not enough, so I started to learn how to program with basic.
It took me quite some time to understand how to use variables and what do they mean, but
I figured it out from VIC manual examples, I believe. Then, just when the game programming
got into speed I hit a snag ! Out of memory error! I had no expansion memory and 3,5kb ram
was quickly used up.

Thus, demands for a 'better' computer went up. Moved on to Amstrad cpc 464, which did
probably effected in my later career plans. cpc was followed by Amstrad pc 2286 in about -91.
I skipped Commodore 64 when it was "hot".

Later on, I've come back to the C64. Started to learn how to fix broken 1541 drives and
eventually did fix up my first unit (many thanks to Ray Carlsen's work on-line). By now, I've
brought back alive more than 10 drives and more than 10 dead c64s. I found an interest
to develope soldering skills. Based on on-line instructions made SD2IEC emulator for Commodore
and later on created by hand one swinsid too. Most recently had a project to make EEPROM
replacement for 1541 rom chip. Programming the EEPROM was a bit challenging at first,
since I had no experience with arduino - yet it was very satisfying. I succeeded in programming
the EEPROM, which is not yet tested as I'm waiting for sockets to build needed adapter.

All in all, I'm interested in old computing stuff in general.
Fixing things and learning how things work is near to my heart.
Also, it seems that the older I get, the more I seem to miss the 'good old times',
when these today's vintage computers were modern.
 
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