What happend to Cafe Vic ??
Hi, it's me here, Brent.
I just found this site and am enjoying it.
Well...I've had to put that project on hold due to a number of things that came up in life. My wife and I had a kid about two years ago, and it's important to spend time with one's child and not lock oneself away in the computer room too much....also there were some other priorities and projects I needed (and need) to devote time to (such as music-making and instrument making) that are more likely to generate a return and income rather than the VIC-20 project. Plus, despite there being a group of people involved, most of the initial dreary sorting of the massive amount of files was something I had to do alone.
Lastly, there was some legal rumbling and veiled threats from some sort of body that was going around telling everyone to remove all ROMS, etc. So it looked like it might also be a legal hassle.
I hope to get back into it one day when I get a decent laptop, and can do the dreary sorting and grunt-work while while spending time in the same room as my family, rather than being cloistered away for hours upstairs in a dark computer room.
In the end, it just came down to the fact that there was really not going to be much payoff from the hours and hours it was taking me (i.e. there was going to be personal satisfaction of course, but not much else) and it was taking a bit of a toll on my family time, etc.
I do still enjoy the VIC-20 and in fact recently re-organized a room in my house where the VIC sits in a place of honour with an original 1540 drive, Commodore monitor, ORIGINAL COMMODORE Canada COMPUTER DESK designed with a special 1541 sized bay in it (I've never seen those anywhere else), etc. Looks great and I occassionally flip it on to play a game of Sword of Fargoal or whatever (even the 2 year old enjoys playing Home Babysitter).
I'm a little sad I don't have more time to spend on it, but I have to prioritize at this this point.
As I said, there are massive amount of files on my hard-drive (about 2 gigs worth - but in VIC-20 terms that's a LOT), screengrabs, scans, binaries, documents, etc. I was about 80% through sorting them when I ran out of steam about a year ago. I hope to get it completely sorted one day when I am stuck at home on a rainy day ( or week ). When I do, I hope to pass the sorted files onto someone else or some other group who can then deal with the "raw" data ( i.e. make a nice presentation of it ).
I do have Ward Shrake's files, too. I guess he sort of felt a little like I do now when he decided to pack things in and hand things over to the next torch-bearer.
All the best!
Brent
I just found this site and am enjoying it.
Well...I've had to put that project on hold due to a number of things that came up in life. My wife and I had a kid about two years ago, and it's important to spend time with one's child and not lock oneself away in the computer room too much....also there were some other priorities and projects I needed (and need) to devote time to (such as music-making and instrument making) that are more likely to generate a return and income rather than the VIC-20 project. Plus, despite there being a group of people involved, most of the initial dreary sorting of the massive amount of files was something I had to do alone.
Lastly, there was some legal rumbling and veiled threats from some sort of body that was going around telling everyone to remove all ROMS, etc. So it looked like it might also be a legal hassle.
I hope to get back into it one day when I get a decent laptop, and can do the dreary sorting and grunt-work while while spending time in the same room as my family, rather than being cloistered away for hours upstairs in a dark computer room.
In the end, it just came down to the fact that there was really not going to be much payoff from the hours and hours it was taking me (i.e. there was going to be personal satisfaction of course, but not much else) and it was taking a bit of a toll on my family time, etc.
I do still enjoy the VIC-20 and in fact recently re-organized a room in my house where the VIC sits in a place of honour with an original 1540 drive, Commodore monitor, ORIGINAL COMMODORE Canada COMPUTER DESK designed with a special 1541 sized bay in it (I've never seen those anywhere else), etc. Looks great and I occassionally flip it on to play a game of Sword of Fargoal or whatever (even the 2 year old enjoys playing Home Babysitter).
I'm a little sad I don't have more time to spend on it, but I have to prioritize at this this point.
As I said, there are massive amount of files on my hard-drive (about 2 gigs worth - but in VIC-20 terms that's a LOT), screengrabs, scans, binaries, documents, etc. I was about 80% through sorting them when I ran out of steam about a year ago. I hope to get it completely sorted one day when I am stuck at home on a rainy day ( or week ). When I do, I hope to pass the sorted files onto someone else or some other group who can then deal with the "raw" data ( i.e. make a nice presentation of it ).
I do have Ward Shrake's files, too. I guess he sort of felt a little like I do now when he decided to pack things in and hand things over to the next torch-bearer.
All the best!
Brent
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Centallica
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Schema
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Hey Brent, welcome.
Wow, a lot of Ontario representation here: myself and 6502dude in Toronto, Centallica in Barrie, vic user in Ottawa, and now yourself. Are you still in Cornwall? We'll all have to meet up some weekend.
I've got a little one myself now so I have virtually no time either, but I hope Cafe VIC can keep going. It would be especially great to see some sort of collaboration/merger/something with the GameBase 20 project.
Wow, a lot of Ontario representation here: myself and 6502dude in Toronto, Centallica in Barrie, vic user in Ottawa, and now yourself. Are you still in Cornwall? We'll all have to meet up some weekend.
I've got a little one myself now so I have virtually no time either, but I hope Cafe VIC can keep going. It would be especially great to see some sort of collaboration/merger/something with the GameBase 20 project.
Last time I checked, I was in Ontario too. Though meeting up for a weekend is probably not practicalSchema wrote:Wow, a lot of Ontario representation here: myself and 6502dude in Toronto, Centallica in Barrie, vic user in Ottawa, and now yourself. Are you still in Cornwall? We'll all have to meet up some weekend.
You new dads are so wimpy - I've got 5 little ones, but I know where my priorities are!I've got a little one myself now so I have virtually no time either, but I hope Cafe VIC can keep going.
Ontario is Canada's second largest province: 415,000 square miles (1,080,000 square km). That is larger than France and Spain combined.
Ontario has about 12.6 million people, about 39% of everyone in Canada. Of those, 5.3 million live in Greater Toronto. So maybe it isn't surprising to find at least six Commodore enthusiasts out of 12 million..
126,500 live in the metropolitan area of Thunder Bay. That is only 5000 less than Västerås.
Ontario has about 12.6 million people, about 39% of everyone in Canada. Of those, 5.3 million live in Greater Toronto. So maybe it isn't surprising to find at least six Commodore enthusiasts out of 12 million..
126,500 live in the metropolitan area of Thunder Bay. That is only 5000 less than Västerås.
Anders Carlsson
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So that explains the puzzled/strange look on people's faces when I say I'm into the Vic-20 and PET (the population per collector ratio per million, really makes me look even stranger with my interestscarlsson wrote:Ontario has about 12.6 million people, about 39% of everyone in Canada. Of those, 5.3 million live in Greater Toronto. So maybe it isn't surprising to find at least six Commodore enthusiasts out of 12 million.. :-
).Brian
A meetup would be great at some point....although I'm not sure how practical. I'd prefer a day trip (there and home again in the same day).
I hope to post my tradelist to the trade area of the board soon as well.
As for the Commodore Desk. Since Commodore had all these factories to manufacture filing cabinets, etc. I guess they made this special desk for their home computers. I think they were actually made for the C-64, but fit the VIC-20 perfectly too. They came with a little metal stand for the 1902 monitor and a special 'bay' under the tabletop that fit a 1541 sized drive. There is also a silver sticker on the drawer with the chickenhead logo, although on mine it has faded so that you can barely see the colours anymore.
I remember my Dad brought it home as a total suprise for me one day. Apparently Beaver Lumber in the Bramalea City Centre (Brampton, Ont. - where I grew up) was blowing them out one day on clearance. I think he got it for $29.99 or something.
Yes, I'm in Cornwall now. My VIC-20 collection is pretty big, but I've decided that the only VIC-20 stuff I will pick up now is stuff I can trade for or get at garage sales 'serendipitously' for cheap. No more Ebay for me....you can empty your wallet pretty fast there. I don't go out actively hunting anymore. When I first started collecting in 1995, you could walk into any Value Village and find five VIC-20s nobody wanted for $2.99 each. Now you might find one once in a blue moon, and it's priced at something outrageous like $12.99 to $14.99, and the power supply is over in the accessories section for another $8.
I'd still really like one of those 1020 "motherboard" type things in the white metal case. I don't know if those were ever sold in North America. I'd pay for one of those! The ones that make your VIC-20 look like a PET.
I'll try and upload a picture of the whole VIC-20 setup on the desk this weekend.
As for there being so many VIC-20 users in Ontario, I'm not surprised. Commodore machines were well supported and marketed here. This was probably due to the CBM factory/warehouse being on Pharmacy Ave. in Toronto. Also, it seemed that Commodore computers as a whole were MUCH more popular in Canada than the States. When I talk to people from the States, they remember having Apple II labs in their schools, while we always had reams of PET computers in elementary school, and then by high school we had a C-64 lab. I guess that's why a lot of interesting Commodore stuff turns up here. We seem to be on par with Europe for the popularity of Amigas, C-64s, VICs, etc.
(PS: I am also a big Amiga user - still use my A2000 as my MIDI controller / CD burner / sound file editor / graphic editing / desktop publishing system - it's the centre of my little home music recording 'studio'.)
I hope to post my tradelist to the trade area of the board soon as well.
As for the Commodore Desk. Since Commodore had all these factories to manufacture filing cabinets, etc. I guess they made this special desk for their home computers. I think they were actually made for the C-64, but fit the VIC-20 perfectly too. They came with a little metal stand for the 1902 monitor and a special 'bay' under the tabletop that fit a 1541 sized drive. There is also a silver sticker on the drawer with the chickenhead logo, although on mine it has faded so that you can barely see the colours anymore.
I remember my Dad brought it home as a total suprise for me one day. Apparently Beaver Lumber in the Bramalea City Centre (Brampton, Ont. - where I grew up) was blowing them out one day on clearance. I think he got it for $29.99 or something.
Yes, I'm in Cornwall now. My VIC-20 collection is pretty big, but I've decided that the only VIC-20 stuff I will pick up now is stuff I can trade for or get at garage sales 'serendipitously' for cheap. No more Ebay for me....you can empty your wallet pretty fast there. I don't go out actively hunting anymore. When I first started collecting in 1995, you could walk into any Value Village and find five VIC-20s nobody wanted for $2.99 each. Now you might find one once in a blue moon, and it's priced at something outrageous like $12.99 to $14.99, and the power supply is over in the accessories section for another $8.
I'd still really like one of those 1020 "motherboard" type things in the white metal case. I don't know if those were ever sold in North America. I'd pay for one of those! The ones that make your VIC-20 look like a PET.
I'll try and upload a picture of the whole VIC-20 setup on the desk this weekend.
As for there being so many VIC-20 users in Ontario, I'm not surprised. Commodore machines were well supported and marketed here. This was probably due to the CBM factory/warehouse being on Pharmacy Ave. in Toronto. Also, it seemed that Commodore computers as a whole were MUCH more popular in Canada than the States. When I talk to people from the States, they remember having Apple II labs in their schools, while we always had reams of PET computers in elementary school, and then by high school we had a C-64 lab. I guess that's why a lot of interesting Commodore stuff turns up here. We seem to be on par with Europe for the popularity of Amigas, C-64s, VICs, etc.
(PS: I am also a big Amiga user - still use my A2000 as my MIDI controller / CD burner / sound file editor / graphic editing / desktop publishing system - it's the centre of my little home music recording 'studio'.)
Comments/responses to a bunch of you:
Is there a good PET forum? I've found one for most of my other favourite machines, but not for the PET.
Yes, and fwiw, it's about 1500 km to drive to Toronto, and that's mostly not on nice divided highways. Too much to drive in one day. Chicago is only a bit more than 1000 kms away, so I head there each year for the Commodore Expo - just a relatively easy day's drive from Ontario through Minnesota, Wisconsin and finally Illinois.carlsson wrote:Ontario is Canada's second largest province: 415,000 square miles (1,080,000 square km). That is larger than France and Spain combined.
We huddle there for warmth, surely.vic user wrote:yeah, most of us canucks are situated very close to the american border, which i find ironic as we tend to bitch about them so much!
Centallica wrote:So that explains the puzzled/strange look on people's faces when I say I'm into the Vic-20 and PET (the population per collector ratio per million, really makes me look even stranger with my interests
Is there a good PET forum? I've found one for most of my other favourite machines, but not for the PET.Although not as cool as your C= desk, I do have this metal enclosure for the breadbox C64 or VIC-20 that allows a monitor to sit on top. I've been meaning to take pics of it.ral-clan wrote:As for the Commodore Desk. Since Commodore had all these factories to manufacture filing cabinets, etc. I guess they made this special desk for their home computers. I think they were actually made for the C-64, but fit the VIC-20 perfectly too. They came with a little metal stand for the 1902 monitor and a special 'bay' under the tabletop that fit a 1541 sized drive. There is also a silver sticker on the drawer with the chickenhead logo, although on mine it has faded so that you can barely see the colours anymore.
I've experienced this too. Sad.Now you might find one once in a blue moon, and it's priced at something outrageous like $12.99 to $14.99, and the power supply is over in the accessories section for another $8.
I think TPUG and particularly Jim Butterfield also played a role. Jim Butterfield was nearly a household name for a while, when he was on TV every week on TVO. Canadian Tire even hired him to do a booklet - I gotta find my copy of that.As for there being so many VIC-20 users in Ontario, I'm not surprised. Commodore machines were well supported and marketed here. This was probably due to the CBM factory/warehouse being on Pharmacy Ave. in Toronto. Also, it seemed that Commodore computers as a whole were MUCH more popular in Canada than the States. When I talk to people from the States, they remember having Apple II labs in their schools, while we always had reams of PET computers in elementary school, and then by high school we had a C-64 lab. I guess that's why a lot of interesting Commodore stuff turns up here. We seem to be on par with Europe for the popularity of Amigas, C-64s, VICs, etc.
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Centallica
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I haven't found one dedicated to the PET but think there's one that has a PET section in my favorites at home.MacbthPSW wrote:Is there a good PET forum?
Would be neat to upload a copy to the forum for the rest to see, as the Canadian Tire Compilation tape was great and wonder how this would be in comparisom?MacbthPSW wrote: Canadian Tire even hired him to do a booklet - I gotta find my copy of that.
Brian
This is probably the law of supply and demand at work. The remaining VIC's that will end up at a Value Villiage are fewer and fewer -- most people have already cleaned out their closets. And now that most of us here are thirty somethings and have suddenly realized you want to go back to your VIC, the demand is increasing (and it seems there are alot more "retro" collectors as well, that really have no special feelings for VIC's but will grab them to add them to a collection).Now you might find one once in a blue moon, and it's priced at something outrageous like $12.99 to $14.99, and the power supply is over in the accessories section for another $8.
I have been tempted to get a night job there working in the "sorting/pricing" department. I would presume you would get first dibs on the goodies!
I was lucky to grab one complete in box for $9.99 about 2 years ago, it was a CR model, in mint shape and was not yellowed at all. Never seen another since.
At a nearby flea market there is one fellow with a couple VIC cartridges in boxes. Not in the in greatest shape, but he still wants $10.00 each "because they are worth a lot in boxes". Well so far they have been sitting there for a year. (for anyone interested its "The Count" and "Pirates Cove Adventure").
I can quite honestly say he was an Idol of mine in the early-mid 80's.I think TPUG and particularly Jim Butterfield also played a role. Jim Butterfield was nearly a household name for a while, when he was on TV every week on TVO. Canadian Tire even hired him to do a booklet - I gotta find my copy of that.