Only one?

[Paul]

Imagine that you have decided to "Downsize" your residence for some reason.  Perhaps your work has taken you to a new city, or maybe you want more freedom to do some traveling abroad.  Whatever the case, imagine this downsizing means that, besides your modern personal computer, you can only have one retro computer set up.  In this scenario, money is no object; you can get whatever retro computer you desire, and equip it as you would like.  However, you can have only one retro computer in your entire collection.  Imagine that there is no storage facility; or if there is one, it's being put to some other use which means you can have one and only one retro computer system in your life.  Any and all others have to go.

Which one would it be, and why?

[Ruud]

Which one would it be, and why?

Commodore 64.

Why? Most documentation available for, most software available for, most hardware available for, most fun to hack seen from hardware and software point of view.

[RobertB]

     SX-64, because everything is built into one case (or how about Dale Luck's SX-500). 

                   Truly,
                   Robert Bernardo
                   Fresno Commodore User Group
                   http://videocam.net.au/fcug
                   Notacon 6 / Blockparty 3 on April 16-19
                   http://www.notacon.org , http://www.demoparty.us

[Arkhan]

an MSX Turbo-R since it has 512k RAM expandable to 8mb or more, and can run some DOS stuff!

[Badders]

Got to be my C64, my first and favorite machine. I've had hundreds of great hours with that machine.

Pete.

[RobertB]

I've had hundreds of great hours with that machine.

Same here.  Hundreds of hours on the Commodore.

                   Back from Notacon/Blockparty,
                   Robert Bernardo
                   Fresno Commodore User Group
                   http://videocam.net.au/fcug
                   CommVEx v5 info - http://www.commodore.ca/forum and click on ComVEX

[Rorshach]

I have too many I like to choose a single one. Commodore 64, Commodore 16, Atari 600XL/800XL, 130XE all ones I've spent thousands of hours on. I think those of us here who have said hundreds of hours are likely into the thousands of hours too. Hey I just realized I almost forgot the 25th anniversary of my first computer I ever owned. Back in April 1984 I got a Commodore 64. Previous to that I had rented a 600XL for a week and used a few different 8bit computers in school but the 64 was the first I myself owned. That for me a very good reason to put it on a favourites list. Not only is it a good computer it also freed me from the tyranny of others. No longer was I limited to when and what I was allowed to do on the computers at school or the demo units in any store. But thats another story for another message.

[Paul]

Not only is it a good computer it also freed me from the tyranny of others. No longer was I limited to when and what I was allowed to do on the computers at school or the demo units in any store. But thats another story for another message.

I feel you there; back in the day, I never got the time I wanted on the Commodore PETs, and the teacher always seized every opportunity to remind me of how expensive the PETs were and how I would never be able to afford to replace a single one of them.  Some kids with rich parents had just bought the brand new Commodore 64 system, which was at the time still a system that cost a large sum of money when equipped with the disk drive and monitor.

For me, the computer that truly liberated was the Vic 20. 

[Rorshach]

I was lucky enough to get a 64 in April of 1984 but not fully loaded. I had to do paper route and later other "high school student" McJobs to pay for mine. Though I did manage to get together the $400 I needed for a 64 & datasette which I used with a B&W TV for quite a while. Disk drive and printer came much later as did a 300 baud modem. I never did get a dedicated monitor, though a few years in I did get a 15 inch TV with composite video input which did the job. That TV lasted me until 2002 when I got a 19 inch TV which was otherwise much the same and it was still in use until a lightning strike damaged the audio output stage.