I was wondering if someone wanted to tinker with a real 6502 with video out and full keyboard what would be some inexpensive choices? Seems like the VIC20 or Atari 400 might be the cheapest.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

I guess it will depend on what things go for on eBay or whether someone will give you one they have. I have some used Apple II's and C64's and C128's and a lot of books and accessories and discs I would like to give to people who will value them. It would be easier to give them to the E-waste and the book in the paper recyling, but I don't want to do that with these important pieces of computer history. I'm in Southern California.

_________________
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

Unless you get lucky with a clearance, I'd suspect a C64 will go for a lower price than VIC20 because it's a less rare machine.
It will depend also on which country you're in. (An Acorn Atom might be comparably cheap in the UK.)
Cheers
Ed

I forgot about the C128. Interesting computer. Get a 6502 and a Z80 for the price of one. It also has the sound synth and sprites the VIC20 does not have.

I have been tinkering with C64VICE and the Merlin Assembler. Feels good to work with the 6502 again. However, the PC keyboard is driving me crazy plus I get distracted by the internet & all the other stuff on my PC. Dedicated real 6502 hardware would be better for me to re-introduce myself to the 'ol processor after a few years away from it.

I still have my original Merlin assembler disc/manual package and a HESMON cartridge that I bought way back in the day. Probably should go with the C64. Seems like a good balance of affordability, availability and performance.

Never cared for the Apple ][ myself. No serious control ports for gaming, the memory map for graphics is odd and the sound is fairly poor. Well built, well designed computer and a real wonder but as a gamer I never gravitated to it.
(Mr. Wozniak's Virtual 16 bit CPU Sweet 16 is pretty cool though.)

Mr. Briel's Replica 1 is another possibility but it is far more than I can afford right now.

Thanks for your suggestions.

C64s seem pretty cheap on EBay, Atari 800XLs seem a bit more (I don't know you budget save that it's likely "no budget" ).

I wouldn't go with a Atari 400 or a VIC, frankly. The keyboard on the 400 would put me off, and there's simply not enough characters on the VIC 20. The Atari XL is nicer than the 800 simply due to size.

Personally, I would go with an emulator, and work with the discipline of trying to ignore the internet.

The simple truth it you'll likely be using it anyway to look up memory maps and other references, I can see the keyboard being a bit of a pain for a C64 (with all the special characters), but I think you may be rather spoiled by modern hardware and learn just how SLOW these relic machines are. It's all been incrementalism over the years, to where we're pretty jaded these days.

It can be fun to pound on the old machines, but doing anything serious, I dunno. With their crummy keyboards, no rollover, terrible ergonomics, and slow (really slow, did I mention slow?) performance. Anything more than "10 PRINT "Hello world" : GOTO 10", boy that's challenging compared to a real editor with responsive mass storage, multiple windows, cut and paste, etc. etc.

I recall C development on the Atari 800. Whoo boy, that was miserable. In contrast using Action!, which was blazing, and very usable, but partly because it never hit the disk. But those are "fond memories" clouded by time. My assembler assembles my Forth in about 2s. I can't imagine how long that would take on a real machine with real floppies and no MHz.

I've got 3 beebs at my desk(*) and I think it does help to have the real thing nearby. You might not type too much at the keyboard: you might be using ROMs or downloading somehow. It's true enough that you'll want a modern machine nearby, for research or indeed for coding, if you have your tools on there.

Cheers
Ed
(*) at least one of them in working order

Here's a copy of kc5tja's post about demos of the incredible performance enhancement the C64 and 128 got from the 65816 SuperCPU:

_________________
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

Hello,

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.

I ended up getting a Commodore 64 and a SD card drive. That gets me rolling.

I have an Amstrad PC64, it was first kind of lap top made for home user market, had a battery compartment that took around 8 size D cells, and also ran on an adaptor, you had to load a floppy disc to boot up from! and an LCD screen that opened up and a full size keyboard, incidently, it also had a telephone modem, this was around 1989! I was a fan of Amstard Hi-Fi products, my first ever Stereo Amplifier was an Amstard Integra 400, and then a an Amstard integra 2000, as well as Amstrad Speakers, i also bought an executive amplifier, and had a Garrard record player. (Amstrad was founded by Sir Alan Sugar, who had a factory assembling these sound systems form Dalston in Hackney) I went there in person one day to get hold of a power amp module under warranty! but I blew it up! and told him that my amp packed up for some unknown reason!

He is still alive and I hope he don't come after me now! if he does I will fire him! You are fired Sir Sugar!

Later on he moved to a place called Brentwood, in Essex, where he continued on other electronic products like computers, video recorders, DVD, CD players etc, and telephones, one day I had a brilliant and viable idea, and I wanted to pass that idea to him so that he could launch that product under Amstard brand and give me a cut from it, but when I phoned his office, i was told by his secretary that he does not speak to any of the members of the public, since then I have lost his respect. You have to earn and keep your respect, you don't get that respect by having a title of a SIR!

I think the Vic 20 might be more expensive on ebay because I have seen prices of $99 and I assume it is more rare than the Commodore 64 which is why I've seen $99 as the price but I have seen them as low as $35 and even lower for non working units.