The C64 was not my system of choice either. My system of choice was the Vectrex System made by GCE. It was a complete self contained system. It had a 9x5 vertical B&W vectorscan monitor with a built in asteroids clone called Minestorm. It came out with a total of 50 vector graphic games before the video game crash in 1984. Each game came with a cartridge, manual and a colored cover overlay. The overlay was needed to give the illusion of color and reduce the flickering, due to the fact this was a refreshing vector graphics monitor. This system showed great promise. It came out with a light pen so you can draw images on the screen, and a 3D imager goggles so you could play special 3D games. I got both of these. It was going to come out with a computer keyboard attachment with the ability to program in BASIC. Also an improved vectrex with a full colored monitor was in the works. Unfortunately this did not happen and they stopped making everything in 1983. There are vectrex computer keyboard prototypes out there but like the tektronix 4051, I will probably never see it in my lifetime. If it ever shows up on ebay, it would be worth thousands of dollars, something I do not have. But there is still hope for this system, there are a lot of assembly language programmers that are still making games for this system, and hardware system specialists that are makeing special attachments for the vectrex. It's just a matter of time someone out there with hardware and software talents may make a keyboard attachment. I hope that happens soon. The possibilies of this system is unlimited. Even though you could make a Battlestar Galactica vectorscan game, Or an 64K interactive roll playing game with assemblers and with a seperate PC, It would be alot easier to program in basic and a keyboard would be less hardware then the special conversion hardware for a PC.
If anyone is reading this and does not know what the Vectrex System is, Here is a very good link:
http://www.classicgaming.com/vectrex/
As for PCs muffit I agree with you a 100 Percent. In the early days of the PC, they were cool and reasonably affordable. Then When IBM and Apple came out with very expensive PCs with closed architecture it changed everthing for a brief while. When PC clones came out, it forced these very expensive PCs and Apple to compete with them. If it were not for the IBM Clones, PCs would probably be over $5000 today! But the down side is PC Clones are making proprietary base systems and open architecure is getting scarce again. I like the nonproprietary base systems because you can gradually upgrade and you save a lot of money. But with proprietary systems you have a limited ability to upgrade and ultimatly have to by a whole new system every 5 years. Also They are a Real Pain to open and Install things.
