Here I am, once again, at the keyboard of my C128, typing another blog entry. I really do enjoy using the C128 in this way. The keyboard is comfortable for me to work on. It should be, as I've typed an awful lot on this thing over the years. And, although it is a bit of a chore to get my documents from Archetype over to my netbook and onto the webpage, I feel that it's worth it. It gives me another reason to use the C128 for more than just gaming, or just to look at on shelf as part of a collection.

I look at the so-called retro collector market, from time to time, and it discourages me. Not to say that I'm discouraged by all of the content that programmers (new comers and old-timers alike) are still producing. What discourages me is to see how others, who are probably not all that interested in our good old Commodores, are trying to cash in on our beloved hobby. Does it really make sense to see an asking price of a Commodore 64 or 128 of $250 or $300? Especially when the person selling says something like, “as is”, or “cannot test”, etc.?

And when someone buys a Commodore like that, what are they really going to do with it; restore it, strip it for parts, or just put it on a shelf for their “collection”? What if they are just getting into the hobby, but are discouraged because they unknowingly bought a non-functional C64? Or they discover that retro computing isn't their thing? What happens to that C64 now?

I just wish that, if someone is interested in getting into the retro computer hobby, they go the route of the FPGAs, reproductions, and emulators. Leave the vintage stuff to we who actually use and maintain these classic home computers.

Back in the day, the VIC20, C64, and C128 were “made for the masses, not the classes”. But today, it just seems to me like those who are driving this collector's market are doing it more for the prestige of having a Commodore because of their growing rarity, rather than to actually use it as it was intended. Or, it could just be a classic case of “monkey see, monkey do”, with so many YouTubers out there showing off their retro tech, others want to do the same. Is it possible that an untested C64 really is worth two hundred bucks?

Or, maybe I'm just getting old and cranky. Who knows, perhaps with the way this economy is going, people will have less to splurge on these “collectibles” and prices will finally come back down to something more realistic.

Composed with Archetype on my C128

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