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Post by jonrobertson on May 7, 2020 0:43:10 GMT
I'm a 47 (almost 48) year old software developer that grew up using Commodore computers. When I was 9 years old and in the fourth grade, my school acquired two Commodore PET computers and put them in the library for students to use. I was fascinated the moment I saw one. I started learning BASIC on those PETs in the school library. And I knew that I wanted a computer at home as soon as I could get one. So I started saving what little money I could from allowances and doing chores. That summer, I mowed lawns around the neighborhood to earn some money. We lived in a large trailer park, which provided me with lots of customers! Before the summer was over, our local K-Mart put the Commodore VIC-20 on sale for $80. Luckily for me, I had saved up that much and was able to buy one. A couple of weeks later, my mother bought me the C2N datasette. I still have both of them. The next Christmas, my father bought a Commodore 64, and I was hooked. The next purchase was a 1541 disk drive, followed by the 1660 300 baud modem. And I still have all three of those. As our friends bought home computers, I'd go over and play. Some bought a 64 and I'd help them learn how to use it. And some bought others, such as a TRaSh-80 Model III, TI99/4A, and later a CoCo 3 (TRS-80 Color Computer). But I still preferred the 64. When I was 14, my mother bought me a C128. In junior high, I used IBM PC XTs. In high school, I learned RPG III on an IBM System 32 and Pascal on an IBM PS/2 (using Turbo Pascal 4). But the C64 remained my favorite computer up until my first year of college and it still holds a special place in my heart. I was active in our local Commodore User's Group. At some point I became the newsletter publisher, using NewsRoom for the C64. And later I became president of that club for a year, before moving away to college. After I moved, I joined another Commodore User's Group and soon took over being the SysOp of their BBS. One of the cool things about their BBS is that they had a CMD 40 MB hard drive for it. A few years later, I decided to box up my Commodore computers as I wasn't using them any more. They stayed in storage until a couple of months ago, when I got the itch to unpack them and see what still worked. In the past 25 years, I've picked up a few more here in there. I have 6 C64s, numerous 1541s, a 1571, and a 1581. Unfortunately, most are not in working order. Four of them power up but just give a black screen. I've started the process of gathering the tools and information needed so I can get as many of those working as possible. As a result, I've spent a lot of time on eBay. And that is how I came across the Tauon PC-1. It looked like an interesting machine, so I decided to get one. Mine arrived last night. But more on that in another post...
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2020 0:56:37 GMT
Hello Jon, thanks for sharing!
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Post by heydiho on May 8, 2020 14:26:25 GMT
Great story Jon. I also found this little gem of a device on ebay, because like you, I enjoy trawling through listings to find retro computing gear. This one just popped up, and I was intrigued. It was hard to find any information on it though - a couple of youtube videos, and that's about it. What sold me on it was the promise of some programming apps on the obviously older Android version that is running on it. Thus far, I'm still waiting on the promised Basic, which is in prealpha. I hope the team keeps working on the main firmware, as they appear to be, and "opens it up" a little more for programming and hacking. We need more people on this forum!
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Post by jonrobertson on May 8, 2020 20:00:33 GMT
This one just popped up, and I was intrigued. It was hard to find any information on it though - a couple of youtube videos, and that's about it. Yes, there isn't much info about it online. The PC-1 is a fairly new device. Reading through the News postings on the website is an enjoyable read. I like the idea of people having ideas for projects like this and being able to bring them to production. Hopefully, as more people become owners, more information will become available. We can help by writing about it ourselves. Although I would like to see the main website have more content as well. I've downloaded Mobile Basic and Pascal N-IDE and played with them a bit. My next step would be to find some documentation for those online. I've been a Pascal / Delphi programmer for 31 years now, started with Turbo Pascal 4 when I was 17. So I'm particularly interested in Pascal N-IDE. From what I read, Tauon Basic is actually going to be JavaScript. I'd definitely like to try that as well, as I have very little experience with JavaScript and the Tauon could be a fun platform to learn on. I do as well. I'm experimenting with the PC-1 as I have time and leaving feedback that I hope will lead to firmware improvements. I was actually surprised at how open it already is. You can learn a bit from the News posts that I mentioned earlier. And the forum boards and sub-boards hint that they are open to hacking, programming, and even running an OS other than TauonOS / Android. Of course. Although the forum was created less than 48 hours ago. I'm glad to see new members joining already!
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Post by jonrobertson on May 18, 2020 2:03:50 GMT
My free time for the past couple of weeks has been spent on setting up my first real web server on a Raspberry Pi 4. So, my apologies for being "away" for a bit. My site is now up and running. I posted a page about the PC-1 and will start blogging about it soon. The site is very bare at the moment and my current priority is to add more project pages before I start blogging. My PC-1 PageI struggled a bit with the server/site on various problems. The primary problem that I'm still seeing is that I frequently see ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT errors. Either the entire page fails to load or various components fail to load (as seen in Chrome's console window). The site currently only has 2 Project pages and one blog entry. But if you go to the site, please let me know how well it works for you. I'm mostly looking for performance feedback right now. How quickly or slowly does it take for a page to open, do the pages appear to have everything, and whether you see any ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT errors. Any other feedback is also welcome! I'm not good with visual design and I don't have much web development experience. Any and all feedback would be helpful. Thanks
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Post by goosey on Jun 18, 2020 5:18:53 GMT
This is my first post from my new Tauon PC-!!!!!
I'm another older guy, and I've been involved with computers since I was a kid. I was a CS major, and I'm a huge UNIX nerd, but I'm also into other operating systems like CP/M, RISC OS, and recently, Plan 9.
I've done programming in many languages, including multiple BASICs, C, Pascal, Java, Go, Perl, Python, etc. Programming for native Android seemed like a major pain the one time I tried, so I'm probably not going to do any "app" development for Tauon, but it might modivate me.
I haven't been this excited for a computer since I found a CoCo3 under the christmas tree in 1987!!!!
I was curious about the Tauon because I"ve never seen Android on the desktop before. So here it is!!!
First thing I did: Update the firmaware. Second thing: Make "First Post!!!!" :-)
So far I like what I see.
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Post by tauonuser98971 on Jun 19, 2020 3:10:15 GMT
Hello! My name is Scott and I just got my Tauon PC-1 today. I bought it Friday and it showed up from China today. Awesome. I have only had a couple of hours with it but I have a ton of ideas already. Next step is to get a monitor for it and get an internal SSD in there to beef up the storage. I have been living on Apple iOS for a long time now.
My favorite thing about the Tauon is it is already rooted...I can do lots of stuff. I'll hit the thrift stores this weekend to find a monitor.
As for my background, my first computer was a Commodore VIC 20 until moving onto a 8088 clone system. My primary languages are Perl and C/C++. My High School was on the tail end of CP/M, moving to DOS and Apple IIs. I have coded in COBOL, C/C++, Perl, and Lua for money. I would love to go to a Lua conference but those are in Brazil.
I hope that the team puts out an ISO of the Tauon OS so I can work with it in QEMU. Ask me anything if you want. Glad to be a member of the team!
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Post by activeconsult on Jun 29, 2020 10:53:18 GMT
Hi everyone, loving the Tauon PC and wondering what else we can do with it needless to say it's spec is now the following and running very well indeed. 256GB SSD Bluetooth 4 port internal USB extender RS232 debugging port SD Drive activity Debian Linux
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Post by Admin on Jul 1, 2020 1:31:48 GMT
Welcome aboard! What you did with your TauonPC exceeded all expectations! Active cooling would be highly recommended. I'll post some pictures soon in this regard.
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Post by goosey on Jul 1, 2020 4:23:11 GMT
Much better way to route the sdcard cable!
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Post by Admin on Jul 1, 2020 4:50:19 GMT
This was how I thought to use it in the beginning: tauonelectronics.com/news.php?post=12However, in this case, the cable is passing very close to the CPU (and its heat). The cable should withstand these temperatures, but I decided not to risk. With active cooling, this definitely would be the way to go.
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Post by goosey on Jul 3, 2020 4:26:03 GMT
There is that. Yes. Parts have arrived but I haven't had any time for hardware hacking. Maybe next week... :-(
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Post by mc10guru on Dec 4, 2020 0:11:16 GMT
Ahoy all, I watched the listing for the Tauon PC1 on eBay for a bit then jumped in with the holiday special price. I haven't received it yet but am excited at the prospect.
I first used a computer in 1973 at Akron U. in Ohio thru a special summer program for advanced students. I think it was a DEC pdp-8. It was a fun time. Then I assembled my own Sinclair ZX-81 in 1981. I used the heck out of it even learned Z80 assembly on it. I ended up with a custom ZX-81 with MemTech 64K and a Suntronic keyboard.
In 1983 I saw the TRS-80 MC-10 Microcolor computer on sale for $100. I grabbed it. A month later the 16K rampack went on sale for $30 and I grabbed it. Then a huge portion of my young life began. This poor younger bro of the CoCo was never well supported but I hacked the heck out of it. When I was done I had disassembled the ROM, studied the MC6803 CPU and wrote a disassembler and even a BASIC assembler that wrote a poke load program in BASIC. I learned how to do hires on it (Radio Shack said you could't) and added (courtesy of Green Mt. Micro) 4K extra graphic RAM for extra pages. So my 24K souped-up MC-10 was connected to composite video (not a tv) did high res and ran in a (secret) turbo mode about 18% faster. I also wrote a drawing program that could print pics on an Oki printer, a budget program and even a spreadsheet program I called MicroCalc. Hence I am the MC10guru.
Eventually I got a TI99/4a loaded system that I used thru college at Kent State U. I wrote a text-to-speech program for TI-Writer that read back my notes and studied that way for 4 years. Then boring times as a CPA punctuated only by my adoption of IBM OS/2 in 1991. I used the various versions thru EComstation until 2007 when I could no longer do all my work with it. I went to boring Windows and some fun Linux and relegated Computers to boring tools until I retired.
This year my nephew bought me a complete Raspberry Pi 4B+ system and I started to explore. Then I was searching for an interesting old computer anything case to hold my RPi sys and I found the Tauon PC1. I ordered one 6 days ago and can't wait to receive it. I feel like a kid at Xmas time. In 2020 this has to be the closest thing to my fun in the 70s & 80s. If nothing else I will at least keep my mind sharp and have some FUN!
Sincerely, dbrain
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