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A comment on AI is killing the cheap smartphone. Parent comment

Re:AI is killing the cheap smartphone by isr on Saturday May 23, 2026 @01:12AM (#48244910)
My first (vic20) had 3.5KB of ram. When I added a whopping 8KB memory expansion cartridge, I genuinely wondered if I could possibly get any of my BASIC programs to use it all.

And when I upgraded from tapes to the 1541 floppy drive (5.25" floppies), it was like "thats it - I have INFINITE possibilities now"

Simpler times :)

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Re:AI is killing the cheap smartphone by mrandish on Saturday May 23, 2026 @03:49AM (#48245664)
> the 1541 floppy drive

Ah, the legendary 1541. We used to joke it was the only floppy drive on any 8-bit micro that was actually slower than some dial-up modems. It wasn't actually slower, but it was really slow compared to most other 8-bit computer's drives (unless you added after-market accelerators).

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Re:AI is killing the cheap smartphone by isr on Saturday May 23, 2026 @07:59PM (#48252868)
Crazy fact: I found out recently that the 1541 had the same 6502 CPU as the Vic20, but was clocked at a HIGHER speed.

Who knew :)

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