Commodore 64's and the thug life? (Via Hollywood)

[Omega-TI]

By today's standards if you wanted to keep something hidden from hackers, like illegal activity, the Commodore 64 seems like the logical thing to use... right?  ?

 

[carlsson]

That is not a Commodore 64.

 

That is a VIC-20.

[+OLD CS1]

57 minutes ago, carlsson said:

That is not a Commodore 64.

 

That is a VIC-20.

Or, and hear me out on this, it could be a C64 after a month-long RetroBrite treatment...

[youxia]

"Thug" life? I see some sort of a hipster(ette).

[carlsson]

Generally, Retr0brite doesn't change the colour of the label. At least not darken it.

[HuckleCat]

16 minutes ago, youxia said:

"Thug" life? I see some sort of a hipster(ette).

 

It's a scene from John Wick.

 

[+OLD CS1]

5 hours ago, carlsson said:

Generally, Retr0brite doesn't change the colour of the label. At least not darken it.

Or, and hear me out on this...

[carlsson]

Or, and here me out on this... it could be a C64 motherboard installed into a VIC-20 case to get less attention. I've never tried it myself but size wise it probably fits, since only the cartridge port, RF output and the connectors on the side are different and the later tend to be a plate that sits on the motherboard except for the later C64C models.

[R.Cade]

59 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Or, and here me out on this... it could be a C64 motherboard installed into a VIC-20 case to get less attention. I've never tried it myself but size wise it probably fits, since only the cartridge port, RF output and the connectors on the side are different and the later tend to be a plate that sits on the motherboard except for the later C64C models.

It actually fits fine and all the ports line up. The only "issue" is there is no divider between the cart port and RF box, but that's not a big deal at all.

 

[desiv]

Unless the LED is blown, isn't it powered off while he is typing?

(Or am I missing it in the light?)

In which case, it might not have a board, or could be a PI or something..

Edited November 16, 2020 by desiv

[bluejay]

Or, it could be a prototype VIC-20 to C64 upgrade kit that Commodore planned once upon a time. Since it's a prototype things like the power LED doesn't work and there's no color.

Edited November 16, 2020 by bluejay

[leech]

7 hours ago, HuckleCat said:

 

It's a scene from John Wick.

 

Wasn't there also a scene in John Wick with an Atari ST?

[Omega-TI]

10 hours ago, carlsson said:

That is not a Commodore 64.

 

That is a VIC-20.

Ooops!  My Bad.

[Omega-TI]

2 hours ago, leech said:

Wasn't there also a scene in John Wick with an Atari ST?

Dunno, I'll have to look, but they use everything in that movie from manual switchboards to typewriters to pneumatic tubes, and even classic computers...

 

[+OLD CS1]

3 hours ago, leech said:

Wasn't there also a scene in John Wick with an Atari ST?

Not cool enough.

[leech]

1 hour ago, OLD CS1 said:

Not cool enough.

To be fair, the ST was the child of the same team that made the C64.

[+OLD CS1]

On 11/15/2020 at 8:21 PM, Omega-TI said:

By today's standards if you wanted to keep something hidden from hackers, like illegal activity, the Commodore 64 seems like the logical thing to use... right?  ?

A long while ago I was consulted to do some forensic work on a floppy disk which held case evidence but could not be read.  This was back before the days of things like the KryoFlux or the Catweasel.  Investigators had tried to read the disk in a PC but were unsuccessful.  The behavior they reported sounded familiar so I read it instead on an Amiga  booted into a data recovery environment and lo!

 

I also remember reading that some time in the recent past (this millennium,) there was a case over in Europe, Germany IIRC, in which the evidence was on 1541-formatted floppies.

[carlsson]

1 hour ago, OLD CS1 said:

I also remember reading that some time in the recent past (this millennium,) there was a case over in Europe, Germany IIRC, in which the evidence was on 1541-formatted floppies.

That might've been Wolfgang Přiklopil who held Natascha Kampusch hostage for eight years. I briefly remember how investigators told the press that his old C64 setup meant evidence was very hard to obtain. Mind you, it happened in 2006 and by then various X-series cables were already common in the community, in order to backup his old stash of 1541 floppy disks. But I suppose vintage computer experts were not fully compatible with police investigators.

[R.Cade]

9 hours ago, leech said:

To be fair, the ST was the child of the same team that made the C64.

That's really not true. The heart of the C64 was made by Charles Winterble, Al Charpentier, and Robert Yannes. They all actually left Commodore for other companies before the C64 was released.  Shiraz Shivji did go to Atari with Tramiel, but it's not clear what role (if any) he had with the C64. Certainly none of the major chip designs.

 

[+OLD CS1]

6 hours ago, carlsson said:

That might've been Wolfgang Přiklopil who held Natascha Kampusch hostage for eight years. I briefly remember how investigators told the press that his old C64 setup meant evidence was very hard to obtain. Mind you, it happened in 2006 and by then various X-series cables were already common in the community, in order to backup his old stash of 1541 floppy disks. But I suppose vintage computer experts were not fully compatible with police investigators.

Not only X-cables, but I was using an Amiga 1020 floppy drive to extract 1541 disks to D64, which were usable in contemporary emulators.

 

I believe that is the case.  I remember several forums were lit up with people lambasting the police for not only making such a public statement, but also for apparently believing this was true and potentially giving the opportunity for this guy to go unpunished.  Of course, it might have been to try to attract someone who could properly help them, maybe draw out anyone who might have helped him out at some point, or some other police tactic.  Knowing that he killed himself, I wonder if the police ever did get information from the disks.

[carlsson]

I think police have contacts with various experts, perhaps official museums etc which in their turn might be in touch with user groups and other knowledgeable people who could help them. If the content was sensitive, I'm sure a policeman could be trained on how to operate Star Commander or OpenCBM (ok, that one is a bit fiddly from time to time) with a 1541 connected to the PC.

 

Exactly what he used the C64 for, I'm not sure - diary perhaps - but a good deal of the time he seems to have been playing Kaiser, at some point described as the German equivalent to M.U.L.E. which I strongly object after seriously trying to play this game once. I rather found it to be a glorified version of Lemonade Stand with a bit of random strategy elements.

[leech]

8 hours ago, R.Cade said:

That's really not true. The heart of the C64 was made by Charles Winterble, Al Charpentier, and Robert Yannes. They all actually left Commodore for other companies before the C64 was released.  Shiraz Shivji did go to Atari with Tramiel, but it's not clear what role (if any) he had with the C64. Certainly none of the major chip designs.

 

And today I learned something.   I always had thought a good portion of the c64 team had gone over to Atari with Jack, and worked on the ST.  I mean the rumor mill even said the reason the ST was so quick to being ready is some of the work was already done, and that basicall at hear the ST was a more Commodore approach and the Amiga was more Atari (as for sure Jay Miner worked at Atari).

[carlsson]

Somewhere here on AA I read something about the ST originating from the 1450/1650/1850 or whatever design the Warner-owned Atari were working on. Not identically the same of course, but a good deal of it. I've also read the story about how Atari more or less tried to blueprint the Lorraine design when then lended the money in return of getting access to the hardware, but that has also been disputed in that the ST isn't really that much similar to the Amiga except for the choice of CPU and the general design of a 16-bit computer. To be honest, the 520ST and 1040ST were out before the Amiga 500 so if anything, Commodore copied Atari. OTOH I'm familiar with the Amstrad PC20 (?) and its black brother the Sinclair PC200 plus other machines that look almost the same so perhaps that all-in-one design was commonly used by most companies back then.

[leech]

38 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Somewhere here on AA I read something about the ST originating from the 1450/1650/1850 or whatever design the Warner-owned Atari were working on. Not identically the same of course, but a good deal of it. I've also read the story about how Atari more or less tried to blueprint the Lorraine design when then lended the money in return of getting access to the hardware, but that has also been disputed in that the ST isn't really that much similar to the Amiga except for the choice of CPU and the general design of a 16-bit computer. To be honest, the 520ST and 1040ST were out before the Amiga 500 so if anything, Commodore copied Atari. OTOH I'm familiar with the Amstrad PC20 (?) and its black brother the Sinclair PC200 plus other machines that look almost the same so perhaps that all-in-one design was commonly used by most companies back then.

Lorraine was being worked on since 82/83, the ST was supposedly thrown together in 5 months.  The Atari 1850XLD was targeted for the Lorraine chipset, according to some documents found.  That was all pre-Tramiel, who also split Atari as he didn't want the Arcade division.  It seems to me he basically was pissed that he got kicked out of Commodore, which he built from the ground up, and bought the Atari Computer division out of Anger just to compete with whatever Commodore worked on.  I mean to be fair, he succeeded in lasting longer than Commodore with Atari (though I think Sam Tramiel took over before Atari merged with JTS).  Warner Communications sold off the computer division for dirt cheap too, and was willing to sell the arcade division for cheap as well, but he didn't want it as he wasn't interested in video games.... buy a company mostly known for games, and not want to do games.....

Yeah, still convinced he did it out of anger...

[carlsson]

Kicked or voluntarily left, it depends on who's writing the history. At least Leonard is adamant that Jack left the board meeting and the company in anger of how the board of directors mismanaged it, though the explanation to the press was that they got rid of him.