[syntex]

I bought my C64 very late - around 1991/1992. It was in Poland where I bought a used one from my friend. Back then, Eastern Europe was a decade behind the Western side of Europe. Two years later, I purchased a used disk drive. So, for two years, I could only run cartridges like Boulder Dash (I managed to synchronize the tape drive properly only once and played "Winter Games"). But from that boredom, I started programming in BASIC, always dreaming about creating the perfect text based game ;p

[TMWNN]

>(I managed to synchronize the tape drive properly only once and played "Winter Games")

Odd; the Commodore Datasette is about as reliable as a microcomputer tape storage system can be, far more so than the tin cans-on-a-string designs of Sinclair and TRS-80. Did you attempt to use a regular cassette recorder with a third-party adapter?

[syntex]

I think there were alignment programs for the Datasette. It played a constant tone or signal that would show whether the head was properly aligned. I think it was on on cartridge that I didn't have. And actually as a young kid I didn't know about this alignment thing. Learned years later after switching to Amiga 500.

[kybernetyk]

Hmm, same here. I had a Datassette 1530 C2N but never managed to load anything really. I think once or twice it worked.

My parents even sent it in for repair but it came back as "it's not broken".

[heironimus]

Similar to me, but years earlier in the US. The best thing that happened to me at that time was not being able to afford a floppy drive. My friends who had one just played games. I had to learn to program instead.

[mrandish]

> The best thing that happened to me at that time was not being able to afford a floppy drive.

Well, you were lucky in more ways than one, since the Commodore 1541 floppy drive is legendary for being both more expensive and slower than other 8-bit floppy hardware. So much so there was quite a market in software and hardware hacks to improve performance (the reasons why it was so bad have been written about extensively (including by its designers) and are a fun read).

> My friends who had one just played games.

Initially I didn't even have a tape cassette recorder and just had to type my programs in again. At least that made only having 4K of memory in my 8-bit micro not a problem :-). I guess it's a good thing you didn't know there were commercial games available on cassette tape or the world might have one less programmer!

[mixmastamyk]

Luxury! I had a Vic-20, cassette drive, and a black and white TV. Also learned to program.