Enjoy this sloppy collection of photos of vintage computer software, books, and hardware, recently gifted to me by Ray Carlsen.

Back in 2019, I answered an open call from vintage computer repair guru Ray Carlsen to pick up a large quantity of Commodore hardware and software that he was shepherding and could shepherd no longer. Most of the collection was the lending library of the University of Washington Commodore User’s Group. Many of the floppy disks were in mixed condition, and I’m currently holding the collection in the hopes that someday I’ll be able to clean and scan the disks for rare or original data files.

Ray has been through a lot recently, and he has had to pause his vintage computer repair services and sell off his collection. Seattle Commodore community maven Michael Myers helped parlay many fine pieces into a good return for Ray, and in that sale I acquired Ray’s personal Commodore 128DCR. I already had a 128DCR, but this was Ray’s own machine, outfitted with mods and hand-typed labels. Plus I was glad to have a spare: the 128D—the “cost reduced” 128DCR specifically—is one of the gems of Commodore’s 8-bit era.

I was happy to hear that Ray recently re-opened his services for repairing Commodore computers and monitors. My 128DCR (not his) had a failing power supply, and I decided to take him up on doing a replacement, in the hopes that I can keep this thing running for another ten years. I mentioned to Ray that his own 128DCR ended up in my hands, and if he wanted it back, he could have it at any time. Ray was excited that his well-loved machine had not drifted too far, and he offered to replace my power supply and throw in some other goodies in exchange.

It turned out Ray still had more vintage books, software, and peripherals in need of a new shepherd. I drove my Mazda down to his farmhouse, dropped off my C128, and loaded the car with sixteen boxes. Below are some quick photos of the contents. I have not done a complete inspection of the disks, but from a quick visual check they look to be in better shape than the previous hoard. Some of the software boxes shown don’t have disks in them, but many do.

Ray had a stack of appliance service manuals that he no longer wanted. I agreed to haul them, though I’m unlikely to keep them. I’m not sure how to pass on their value, if any.

Floppy disk condition

One of the challenges of maintaining large collections of magnetic media is keeping it in good condition. Natural degradation with time and varying storage conditions can render floppy disks not just unreadable but hazardous to disk drives. I started with a long box full of well-organized floppies, and tried to assess their condition visually. These look good enough to at least try in a disk drive.

The other challenge is to decide whether the data is actually worth extracting. If these were unique data disks or rare software, it might be worth the effort. Most of the UWCUG library is software that was popular at the time, and these have all been archived digitally by hobbyists. There’s no archival value to extracting the same data from these disks.

If they’re readable, they could be fun to play with, in the sense of recreating the experience of using the original software. Making new disks by writing archived digital data to higher quality vintage media would be another option.

Boxed software, set 1

The first box of boxed software included several games and productivity titles for the Commodore 64. Many but not all of these have their disks. The FastLoad cartridge is not in this box, though I have at least one loose FastLoad from the previous haul.

This box contained a set of Commodore 128 manuals as would be included with the computer, a bit beat up. The “system diskettes” sleeve is new to me, but alas empty.

I don’t know GameWare or Mastertronic by name, but I’m very familiar with inexpensive game multipacks that were available cheaply in software stores. Known affectionately as “shovelware,” these titles were mostly cheaply produced, but there were some real gems. This “Wing Commander” is a simple terrestrial flight simulator and has no relationship with the popular space-faring Origin Systems franchise.

Loadstar collection

The wood-grain-panelled floppy disk organizer is packed with issues of the Loadstar disk magazine, both originals and backups.

Modems

One box contained a variety of modems for Commodore 8-bit computers, from various manufacturers. This set includes three complete Commodore 300 baud modem sets that appear to be new in box except for storage wear on the outermost packaging, including the software disk with the Quantum Link client on one side and terminal software on the other, along with Quantum Link documentation. Quantum Link would eventually become America Online.

300 baud was painfully slow, noticeable even through the luster of connecting to another computer system over the telephone for the first time. 1200 baud was a godsend by comparison, 2400 baud was extra fancy, and 56.6k bps was living in the future.

Printer interfaces

While a few printers were made exclusively to work with Commodore computers over the IEC port, most printers were built to work with multiple computers, requiring separate interface hardware. One box in this set was nothing but a variety of such interfaces.

One I had as a kid was the Super Graphics, which included DIP switches for configuring character modes, and a reset button. Both Super Graphics and Super Graphics Jr. were in one of the boxes.

Books, set 1

The first set of books I unboxed included some real gems that I didn’t already own. I seem to refer to Inside Commodore DOS on a regular basis from a downloaded PDF, so I’m excited to finally have one in print. Abacus Software’s Anatomy of the 1541 will be similarly useful. I never owned The Black Book of C-128, and this is the first of several copies in this collection.

This is the second C128 System Guide encountered so far, and of course no set of Commodore books would be complete without yet another copy of the User’s Guide and Programmer’s Reference, both in good condition except for some cover wear. The older C64 User’s Manual is official, and fun to see.

All About the Commodore 64, Volume One by Craig Chamberlain is one of the best introductions to Commodore 64 BASIC ever published. I already have one but it’s always fun to find in the wild.

Just today, my father told me a story. His father had a small electronics hobby, and when he died in 1974, a family friend re-homed his electronics workshop supplies to Lee Felsenstein. Felsenstein would go on to design the Osborne 1 with Adam Osborne, which would release seven years later. Perhaps my father’s father’s hobby supplies played a small role in vintage computing history. A great Father’s Day story to learn the day after acquiring an Osborne 1 User’s Reference Guide.

Tucked in with the books is a stack of software catalogs from Commodore, and from Softdisk Publishing.

Binders, set 1

One of my favorite kinds of things to find is binders of printouts. I’m certainly guilty myself of printing whatever information I could download over slow modem connections, paper and ink being cheap or free, and digital storage being scarce, unreliable, and difficult to browse. It can be difficult to extract the value out of things like these, but they also tend to contain documents that have otherwise completely disappeared from the world. It’d be a huge project, but it might actually be worth scanning and OCR’ing this stuff. Some of my own binders have useful documents that I have not been able to find online.

I spot-checked a few of these with Google, and while I could find similar docs in some cases, I could not find the originals.

Many of these binders make dutiful use of binder tabs, with titles either handwritten or typed. My own binders also have such a feature.

Handwritten notes

My absolute favorite thing to find in this hobby is evidence of use: handwritten notes, highlighting and underlining, holes cut into pages, price tags and receipts, and data disks. The binders contain many instances of hand-annotated machine code disassembly listings, and other such program listings.

UWCUG newsletters and documentation

When I last picked up a bunch of stuff from Ray in 2019, I found but foolishly decided not to take thick stacks of University of Washington Commodore User Group original documentation, including newsletters and the lending library checkout history. Luckily, the newsletters binder survived, and it is now in my possession.

Loadstar Letter

The disk magazine Loadstar published a companion print newsletter, called Loadstar Letter. One binder was dedicated exclusively to issues of this newsletter.

Photocopied books

Another popular crime of which I was most certainly guilty: photocopying entire computer books and putting them in binders. There must have been a time when photocopying at the library was cheap because I did a lot of it, instead of just buying the books. At some point, my mother’s pharmaceutical sales job entitled her to a photocopier at home and I would just pirate library books to no end. I suspect the photocopies in these binders were more altruistically intended as backups for club use.

Loose pages

One box contained stacks of loose pages, not currently in binders. I’ll have to figure out something to do with these. Some are originals, some are printouts.

I’m always delighted to find direct evidence of Ray’s participation in the UWCUG, such as this nametag.

Kaypro, CP/M, and software

My father owned a Kaypro 4 for his work as an English professor, and I loved playing with it as a kid. When I got into collecting old computers, I told myself I would draw the line at the Kaypro: as nostalgic as it is for me, they’re large metal boxes and difficult to store. I bet they’re built pretty well, though, but I don’t actually know. Anyway, if I ever change my mind, I’m now prepared with a rather complete set of books and software. Just having these makes me want one.

I love this Kaypro reference manual for dealerships.

More Kaypro books got mixed in with other Commodore and TRS-80 books.

This bright red CP/M Assembly Language Programming book is a huge find for me. I’ve always wanted to know more about CP/M, and this book contains information I’ve never seen before. I’m far from an expert but this is great.

Commodore software, set 2

Next box, back to Commodore software. Some boxed software, and more original software with disks and manuals in plastic bags. I appreciate how most of this came from a club lending library, so instead of being pristine collector’s items, they’re processed intended for heavy use: backups, photocopies, retail boxes replaced with alternate storage.

Gotta love ring binder manuals!

This box has two complete copies of the Commodore 128 Jane office suite, which I’ve never heard of before. Jane was written by Arktronics in 1984, and the Commodore version was published by Commodore directly. Also notable: Spritemaster 64, “for ages 8 to adult.”

8-inch floppy disks

While I’m pretty sure I’ve seen an 8-inch floppy disk sometime in my life, I think this is the first time I’ve had any in my personal collection. A box had two thick stacks of them, with arcane labels. Naturally I do not have an 8-inch floppy drive, so I’m just going to hold them and feel like a hobbit.

I’m not sure what Terak is but there is a folder of documents about it also.

More book finds

Multiple VIC-20 programming books. Two copies of VIC-20 Programmers Reference Guide are sealed in plastic, one with coil binding and after-market tabs (!) and another with loose pages with the binding spliced off. The bound and tabbed version is a real find, unique and well preserved. 32 VIC-20 Computer Programs and Get Acquainted with your VIC-20 are in good shape. Two copies of Personal Computing on the VIC-20 are in poor condition, I’m going to say water damage even though it doesn’t look like water, exactly. 😬

I don’t know who sealed these books in plastic, but I’m grateful because they’re in excellent shape.

This Illustrated Computer Dictionary is intensely nostalgic for me. I don’t know if I owned this specific book but I definitely had other books by this publisher, and/or in this spiral-bound format and title font. Great condition, only a little bent.

The rest of the VIC-20 box, with some other Commodore programming books for good measure, titles mostly visible by the spines.

A true gem from my childhood and I suspect well loved by anyone who encountered it, here’s The Master Memory Map for the C64 by Paul Pavelko and Tim Kelly. I might already have one of these but dang it’s good to see it again.

TRS-80 books and audio tapes (not just data tapes)

Two TRS-80 reference manuals in ring binders also included sets of companion cassette tapes. I think some of these tapes contained software to be loaded from a cassette player connected to the computer, as you would expect. But at least some of these tapes are not data tapes but actual narrator-driven training material in audio form, to be listened to by a human. (I could be mis-reading the labels and they’re all audio tapes.)

Tektronics 650-Series Color Monitor

An impressive technical manual for an obscure professional monitor, the Tektronix 650. This is probably gold to someone, but for me it might end up with the stack of VCR service manuals.

One more box of software

I don’t recognize National Lampoon’s Chess Maniac 5 Billion and 1, a “rude” parody of the Chessmaster games, for PC. It comes on twelve 3-1/2" floppy disks. Here’s a video featuring some of the humor, including the “bawdy” chess set, creepy voiceover, and modest full-motion video. (The player in this video chose the name “Dan” and it’s freaking me out.)

It wouldn’t be a vintage software collection without a bit of pornography, and I found a commercial title on a single PC 3-1/2" floppy disk hidden in the Chess Maniac box. I’m not posting a photo.

The Super Sunday box actually has the original game disk, and came with a couple of unintended bonus games also in the box.

The PaperClip word processor used a copy protection dongle, a device that you connect to the C64 joystick port that exists solely to prevent illicit copying. The program doesn’t run without the dongle connected, so you can’t make copies for your friends.

Electronic Servicing and Technology magazine

Closing out this collection is a giant stack of Electronic Servicing & Technology magazines, a long run of a subscription for the University of Washington Instructional Medical Services department. At first glance, this magazine seems targeted at appliance design and repair professionals, and I’m not sure how much I’ll get out of it as a newb digital electronics hobbyist. They’re in great shape and it’s a tall stack.

The box below the pile is more A/V equipment service manuals, but I decided to take a closer look, and I found a few interesting things.

This box had a whole piece of hardware in it that I didn’t notice: a Zenith Space Command TV remote control console. Sadly, this is not the more famous earlier Space Command that used a mechanical remote that communicated with ultrasonic sound. This is a newer model that appears to have used a more conventional battery-powered infrared remote. Also sadly, I do not see the remote that goes with this anywhere in the box. The world has moved on from analog TV signals anyway, so this is dead junk. (I see similar units on eBay, but no.)

Many thanks to Ray for letting me take on these items! If you have a Commodore 8-bit that needs a bit of love, consider enlisting Ray’s services.