WEIGHTY
PROBLEM
At 25.6lbs SX
weighs the same
as :-
1: 11 bags of sugar
2: A Fat labrador
3: A badger in early
spring
4: Quads
5: 8 Human brains
6: 60 copies of CF
(With cover tapes)
7: Three women's
shot puts.
8: Five house bricks
9: 7.5 C64's
10: The combined
weight of pasta that
the CF crew ate on
thier last team meal
(Half of it was
accounted for by
Dave).
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Sique Sique Sputnik, The Borgias, TVAM, Betamax, BMX's,
The Black death, The sinclair C5,
The Sincliar Calculator, The Sinclair Z88, Anything by Clive Sinclair,
Actually. All of them came
out of the 80's amidst a blare of publicity, and then... er, well,
nobody seems to know. They Just
seemed to mysteriously vanish like crew members in a really cheap episode
of Star Trek.
Something else that had the same fate was the SX64. The what?,
The SX64 which was (and
don't laugh) the portable C64.
Yep, Back in 1984 commodore released the SX64 onto an unsuspecting world.
And 99.99
reccuring percent of the world still doesn't suspect a thing.
Its fair to say that the machine was
not a hit. It was aimed at the business market, and marketed
like an early version of a laptop
PC. But stick this not-so-little baby on your lap and you'd cut
of the circulation to your toes -
At 25.5lbs it wasn't light. And the business market showed it
about as much interest in it as the
English cricket selectors do in winning matches - Zilch.
But the machine does have a few loyal fan, believe it or not, there
are people out there who
still regularly use their SX64s. Even stranger, there are still
people out there who want to buy
SX64's (I know i'd like to have one - Akuma). Don't take my word
for it, listen to this :
"I advertised for one for quite a few months in micromart." Admits
unashamed SX-user Andy.
"And other people got in contact with me to find out if I had any success.
And if I found more
than one they wanted me to let them know so that they could try and
get hold of other ones."
Andy, a long-time 64 fan who's name has appeared on the letters and
game tips pages of many
a 64 magazine over the past few years, has had 2 SX's. He decided
he needed a new one
because his original SX had keys missing and a cracked casing.
His new one is in almost
pristine condition. He bought it for £80. He sold
his tatty old one for £160. Good profit margin.
"They generally sell for about £150 to £160. The guy
who I bought the new one off didn't know
what he had. He picked it up at an auction. When they originally
came out they cost £900."
So how many people does he reckon that still own SX64's today?.
"Not many, But I do know a guy in america who's got two DX64's."
Ah, the DX. That was the american version which had 2 disk drives.
(The UK gets short changed
again! - Akuma). Our european version had one plus a hole marked
'Storage'. Very useful, as long
as you don't store disks in there; the magnetic fields generated by
the SX64's drive tends to wipe
them clean or corrupt them at the very least. Nice piece of design.
Andy isn't some kind of vinatge collector though. He bought his
SX for a very good, and practical
reason. He's got a massive collection of C64 games which he wanted
to be able to play at work,
and, chunky as the SX might be, it is a damn site more portable than
carrying a C64 plus monitor
to and form work.
"I'm a network messaging operator here in basingstoke and I do get a
lot of shift work," Andy
explains, "and the SX is really handy for taking in with me."
Er, and his Boss won't mind him admitting that he spends time at work
playing games? Andy just
smiles wryly. "I don't think he read Commodore Format."
Ah, Well I suppose there are some strange people who don't. Just
don't take the ish in to show
your mates, Andy, Just in case. Anyway, back to business.
Don't you think that the screen is a tad
small at 5 inches?.
"It's very clear, actually. Most games look fine on it. But creatures
is not so good because of all the
complex graphics."
Yep, i'd vouch for that. The picture was incredably sharp and
colorful, and the games I say
displayed on it were completely playable, even though the writing was
a bit illedgable. What about
the sound?
"The chip's the same as the one in the C64C. It actually sounds
a bit dull. I thought it was the
speakers, but I played the sound through my Hi-Fi on a filter setting
and it still sounds dull."
Another drawback with the machine is that there is no port for a datasette
so you can't play tape games
on it. Which means Andy has to have all his favorite - Such as
IK+ and the Great Giana Sisters - on
disk. But then, Andy's the kind of C64 enthusiast that would
rather that his games were on disk
anyway, so that doesn't bother him. Nope, he's really chuffed
with his SX; Its reliable and suits his
purposes.
And I must admit I was quite impressed too. Despite being cumbersome
and heavy, it certainly has
charm, and it looks a lot less dated and ugly than some of it's temporaries.
But one last question:
Why is it called an SX?
"I don't know." Thanks.
DAVE
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THE TECHIE BIT
RAM : 64k
ROM : 16k
Display :
24 Lines of 40 chars
on a 5-inch screen.
(The same as a c64)
Keyboard :
62 Keys in a casing
that turns into a lid
when you pack the SX
away.
Graphics :
8 Sprites plus on-key
character graphics.
Programmable and
Multi-color graphics.
300x200 pixel
resolution in hi-res
mode ( Again same as
a normal 64).
Sound :
Three channels, four
waveforms (hey this is
a mini 64).
Ports :
Parallel user port,
serial interface, two
joystick ports, cart
port and monitor and
sound port.
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