Retro Scan of the Week: Commodore 64 Expansion Accessories
August 21st, 2006 by Benj Edwards
Deep down in the murky depths of an ancient and musty box of Commodore paraphernalia that I’d never before sorted through, I recently discovered a somewhat stained and mildly discolored promotional C64 pamphlet. Who knows how many years it spent rotting in someone’s extra-dank basement before it eventually came into my possession. This particular scan is one set of pages from that very pamphlet, detailing various expansion options for a Commodore 64 computer system.
The 1701 monitor and it’s successor, the 1702, were (and still are) real workhorse displays. I can’t even begin to fathom how many hours of usage my 1702 has seen over the years (not just from the last ten-plus years of my usage, but from someone else for ten years before that!), but it has held up incredibly well. The picture is bright, steady, and easily adjustable, making it the favorite and most frequently utilized composite video monitor in my collection. With a flat top and steady bottom, it’s highly stackable too, which is a great bonus.
I particularly like the description of the stylish “1600 Modem,” a 300 bps screamer that apparently came with a “free password and one-hour subscription to the CompuServe system.” Wow, did they say one whole hour? You mean I can stay online for sixty (count ’em, 6-0) minutes!? Well wax me with a grasshopper and call me St. Jocephus.
Actually, now that I think about it, this pamphlet is from when CompuServe cost around $30/hour (in 1982-83 dollars) for connection time, so I guess it was actually a good deal.
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August 22nd, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Yeas, C= monitors were really great piece of hardware. I’m still using the 1084S for my… 8-bit Atari. 🙂
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:56 am
Did someone say Atari? Yeah, I worked on a few of these in Tech School. I also played a fun version of tetris we pirated from another class on these.
August 23rd, 2006 at 3:55 am
I’m definitely doing something wrong… My Amiga has an Atari monitor…
Freat find Redwolf!
August 24th, 2006 at 10:57 am
Hehe, that’s an ironic twist of hardware, gnome.
August 24th, 2006 at 11:40 am
Quite so 🙂
September 5th, 2006 at 1:53 am
The Commodore Monitors were rather high quality .
They are still very usefull as DVD / Satellite TV monitor use.
Keep your eyes open for them .
RCA jack inputs .
December 29th, 2009 at 2:04 am
I have a little known peice of hardware made for the C64 – a data aquisition unit with realtime clock, 16 channel analog to digital, 2 channel digtial to analog, 8 bits of I/O, PROM burner and a few other functions –
It booted from ROM and was open BASIC program that you could modify. [I did…] all the source code was given so you could change the boot PROM.
It was called the “Micro Troll” by Slide Mountain Systems and sold for only $120. Probably less than 100 units were sold.
So there was a technical instrument side to the C64 as well as lighter games and such when this was added on.
February 3rd, 2011 at 1:46 am
Interesting that the monitor had a flat top so you could stack them. That went out the window quickly; I don’t think I’ve ever seen another one like that.
February 7th, 2011 at 3:17 am
I got a pair of those genuine Commodore joysticks with my C64 as a kid, and they were the worst joysticks ever. The shaft of the stick had a triangular cross-section, and required inordinate force to register any movement. The stick had very little travel and yet no clear stopping point since the resistance to movement just increased the harder you pressed them, and the button directly above the stick was flush with the case, making it extra-hard to press. I also had a different pair of Commodore paddles than is shown here, dark gray and more rectangular.