....and now it's upgrade time for the Pavilion desktop : new GPU + CPU!

[MikeWalsh]

@VP9KS :-

I DID get to try out the ZX81. A mate let me have a go on his.

Couldn't see the attraction. Not after the C64's 'proper' keyboard, large amount of RAM AND the ever-reliable Datasette. All that faffing-around with RAM packs to get a bit more memory, along with the constant tweaking of the volume control on a standard cassette recorder to get the thing to load owt in the first place.

And that membrane keyboard was the final straw. It really was "no contest"..!

Clive Sinclair was good at coming up with ideas. He wasn't so good at putting them into practice, though...and his constant struggle with finances didn't help, 'cos the man had absolutely no concept of how to handle money. So history & hindsight tell us....

(shrug...)


Mike.

 

[Rocketing-warp9]

I hope this is on topic- but They've actually brought back the C64 and made it a fully-fledged PC (For modern times). Runs Commodore OS Vision 3 with mate DE. Uncertain about the keyboard, however.

Update- it does have a mechanical keyboard!

 

[KGIII]

They've actually brought back the C64

Thread 'Remember Commodore?'

Jun 28, 2025

I watched the previous video and didn't think it'd amount to much, though I did offer to throw a few bucks their way.

Note: I have not given them any money. I just emailed them and asked if they needed any.

• KGIII
• Replies: 0
• Forum: Off Topic

I have yet to order one, but I probably will.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@KGIII :-

I cannot for the life of me find it now - it was one of these rather obscure hobbyist sites, and I got there via a fairly lengthy series of links from other sites - but I came across this blog post a couple of years ago by some guy who'd built a 'sleeper' C64.

He'd installed a top-end, 12th-series Intel Core i9. Forget 64kb of RAM; this thing had 64 GB! Twin high-capacity Nvme SSDs, an optical drive, and a Nvidia 3090-series mobile RTX chip to round it all off.

He'd spent a couple of years designing his own custom motherboard PCB, which was then built for him by one of these firms that specialize in low-volume/single item PCBs.....yet to look at it, you'd think it was just an early, original C64 from the mid-eighties.

It was only when you got round the back and discovered the plethora of modern ports & connectors that you began to realize it was no ordinary 'breadbin'. He'd even retained the original, on-off 'rocker' power switch & indicator LED on the right-hand end panel.....just to further confuse people, like!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

I have looked and looked for this site, without success. It's a real shame I couldn't link it here for y'all, 'cos you honestly wouldn't believe it unless you saw it with your own eyes. The guy had documented the entire build process, from start to finish, with loads of text description and a ton of high-res photography...

Annoyingly, I never thought to bookmark it at the time. For anyone into nostalgia - and C64s - it would be well worth a read.


Mike.

 

[Brian Alex]

"With this Pavilion, I can't go crazy with a GPU". Mr Walsh I am new around here and am trying to learn as much as possible. What is the model of Pavilion you are upgrading?

I bought a P-6 2220t ,which was the cheapest tower available from Costco when I bought it in 2015 (?) - I think it was ~$300- and went on to upgrade everything I could to the maximum allowed, pretty much. It came with a 300W PSU in the slimeline form (uATX or whatever it's called) and this has worked flawlessly. The Radeon RX 460 has a TDP of 75W and this was no problem at all and didn't require a separate power connection.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@Brian Alex :-

It's an HP Pavilion 590-p0024na 'mid-tower', circa 2019 (-ish). When I got it new - first new one I'd treated myself to for years - the PSU was only 180W.

My previous Asus GeForce GT710 - this is the one the gamers all like to take the p**s out of! - drew just 19W at the slot. Even that didn't leave me much headroom to play with, so I knew the GT 1030 would be even "tighter".....and it only drew 11W more.

I realised I was right on the limit after using an online PSU calculator. That's NOT a good place to be, regardless of model of PC....so a 400W replacement was ordered ASAP, after I discovered a firm online that did upgrades for these ridiculous slimline PSUs HP insist on using.

Essentially, it's given me 'peace of mind'.....knowing I now have headroom & to spare for any other upgrades I might want to perform.


Mike.

 

[VP9KS]

@VP9KS :-

The Dell was our very first 'modern' computer. I went thru all the usual stuff late seventies/eighties; started off with a C64 myself. The old man bought it for me and my younger bro.....but John had just discovered gurls, so what was a pile of electronic junk compared to raging teenage hormones?

It DID mean I had the C64 more or less to myself. Taught myself BASIC programming. Wrote a 'Hangman' program. It had a database of all of 20 words. Chuffed to bits with that, I was..!

Tried to talk the old man into a 1541 floppy drive, but he was having none of it. "Too expensive", he said. "What would you use it for?" Truth to tell, I hadn't thought that far ahead; I had no answer for him, so I soldiered on with the trusty Datasette.....which to be fair, WAS dead reliable & easy to use. It was just slowww....

I look back on those days with a kind of nostalgic "horror" now. Were things REALLY that primitive.....or is it a case of rose-tinted glasses? 'Cos we're spoilt with all this modern tech nowadays.....aren't we?

It was cutting-edge stuff back then.....and we were SO proud of ourselves. Happy days..!


Mike.

I had to laugh, when I saw a clip from the "John Wick" series. They were putting out the price on his head using a VIC-20.