By: Jane Hadley

Jane Hadley — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:21:18 +0000

I’m a 76yr. retired teacher. I did a search for CIS and saw you had written about them. When I got on your website “Commodore 64″ caught my eye. I was taking a programming class (Basic, & a little Cobol & Pascal). The day before the class ended, a local computer shop opened and ran an ad for the Commodore-$149.95. I went straight to the shop and bought one after class next day and spent the rest of the day working with it. I returned the next day and bought the drive – same price and began hunting for a printer. I had to travel 40 mi. to get a Star Micronics printer and paid over $400 for it. The first program I wrote was one to manage my students grades. We formed a users group. It was there,I learned of a little spring that would prevent the knocking in the drive, and I installed one. I also learned of a magazine “Transactor”, printed in Canada. I had just sent a check to renew for 3 yrs., when an English Co. took over. That was the last I heard of my money or the magazine. I still have the copies that I had received up ’til then – along with many other computer magazines. Those computer magazines had a habit of going out of buisness and leaving me holding the bag.
The school began using Apple IIe computers, and I got an Apple clone made by Franklin, who makes spellcheckers, etc.
It was far superior to the Apple, but Apple sued and out them out of the computer buisness. That is another interesting story in computer history.
I’ll be looking into the book to see if it mentions the Commodore calculator.

Comments on: Commodore 64

By: Jane Hadley