Back in the mid-80s, next to my Commodore 64 computer sat a VIC-1525 printer. It was white like the VIC-20, not beige like most Commodore peripherals, but it was compatible and I used the heck out of it. Over the years I must’ve printed out thousands of computer documents and miles of Print Shop banners. That VIC-1525 was noisy for a dot matrix printer, but it was a workhorse and it never failed me.<\/p>\n

About three years ago I purchased a large lot of Commodore computer equipment, and I was excited to find a new VIC-1525 printer still in the box included in the bundle. That night while unpacking everything, I placed the still-in-the-box printer on a shelf in my garage. It sat there from that day until yesterday. <\/p>\n

I’ve been trying for three years to find a good home for that printer. Even people who still own Commodore computers aren’t, for the most part, still printing on them. I even contacted a retro 8-bit musician who makes music with old printers. Even he wasn’t interested. <\/p>\n

Yesterday (Saturday) I attended the Oklahoma Video Game Expo (OVGE) in Tulsa, OK. While packing up a few last minute items out of the garage, I noticed the printer sitting in the exact same spot it has been sitting for the past three years and decided on a whim to take it along. I thought if anyone would be interested in that printer, I would run into them there.<\/p>\n

I had limited table space and with all the other things I brought, I didn’t originally have room for the printer. Throughout the morning I sold several items, which freed up some space on my table. After lunch, I pulled the boxed printer out from under my table and placed a price next to it that read, “PRINTER — FREE”.<\/p>\n

No one took it. Not even for free.<\/p>\n

Jeff noted the irony of the unit’s value when he pointed out that the box still had the original price tag from Target on the side — $249.99 — and even jokingly suggested that we should take it back and try to get a refund.<\/p>\n

I vowed that even if no one bought the printer, it would not come back to Yukon with me. True to my word, the printer found a new home. (A word of advice: be careful about asking someone trying to offload a printer about helping you pack after a video game show. You never know what you’ll find in the back of your truck when you get home …)<\/p>\n

I wish there were a computer museum close to me that was interested in some of the things I own. I hate throwing away something that I think people a hundred years from now might be interested in seeing, but I’ve run out of time, space and energy to save them all.<\/p>\n

EDIT: Co-Attendee Brandon posted this picture<\/a> of the back side of my display. You can see the VIC-1525 printer in the white box sitting behind me. Goodbye, new-old friend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the mid-80s, next to my Commodore 64 computer sat a VIC-1525 printer. It was white like the VIC-20, not beige like most Commodore peripherals, but it was compatible and I used the heck out of it. Over the years I must’ve printed out thousands of computer documents and miles of Print Shop banners. That VIC-1525 was noisy for a dot matrix printer, but it was a workhorse and it never failed me. About three years ago I purchased a large lot of Commodore computer equipment, and I was excited to find a new VIC-1525 printer still in the… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commodore","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}