Commodore 64 was quite popular in Europe too, but I believe more successful was the Sinclair Spectrum (and some copycats behind the iron curtain).
In my case, too, it was the Speccy and later the Sinclair QL, when it got really affordable; I owe my life to the QL :)
I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64
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Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64
#12[flagged]
Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64
#13I could probably write a blog post with the opposite title, sth. like "My life got ruined by the Commodore C64". Equally hyperbolic, the narrative would go something like this: I was the exact same child/teen as the guy from the other blog, but the problem from 2026 me is that I got lured into IT through games and BASIC, and now I so wish I had chosen a different career. Alas, it's all I know how to do, and at this point in my life, changing careers is not a viable option.
So, thanks C64!
I still love you, though...
Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64
#14I could probably write a blog post with the opposite title, sth. like "My life got ruined by the Commodore C64". Equally hyperbolic, the narrative would go something like this: I was the exact same child/teen as the guy from the other blog, but the problem from 2026 me is that I got lured into IT through games and BASIC, and now I so wish I had chosen a different career. Alas, it's all I know how to do, and at this p…
Sounds like the normal mid-life crisis. :-P Would probably hit you with every other job too.
Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64
#15My first machine was an Oric 1, I was 8 years old, it was 1982 - Never looked back ^_^
Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64
#16Commodore 64 was quite popular in Europe too, but I believe more successful was the Sinclair Spectrum (and some copycats behind the iron curtain). In my case, too, it was the Speccy and later the Sinclair QL, when it got really affordable; I owe my life to the QL :)
Speccy for me too, and most of the local people I knew.
Aged 11, going through the ring-bound orange manual just after Christmas, because the cassette-player we had was broken. When a replacement was obtained in the new-year I started playing games with my sisters, but I'd already been "forced" to play with BASIC and I never really stopped..
Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64
#17I could probably write a blog post with the opposite title, sth. like "My life got ruined by the Commodore C64". Equally hyperbolic, the narrative would go something like this: I was the exact same child/teen as the guy from the other blog, but the problem from 2026 me is that I got lured into IT through games and BASIC, and now I so wish I had chosen a different career. Alas, it's all I know how to do, and at this p…
Sounds like the normal mid-life crisis. :-P Would probably hit you with every other job too.
I don't know. IT is a bit different in that regard. As a doctor, even if the system is shit, you still help people directly. As an engineer, you build something tangible that can make people's lives easier. And so on. In IT, though, the impact often feels much more indirect. Most of the time you're optimizing processes or helping businesses become more efficient, rather than improving people's lives in a direct way. You're often several steps removed from the people who ultimately benefit from your work. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it just doesn't feel very meaningful to me.
Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64
#18Commodore 64 was quite popular in Europe too, but I believe more successful was the Sinclair Spectrum (and some copycats behind the iron curtain). In my case, too, it was the Speccy and later the Sinclair QL, when it got really affordable; I owe my life to the QL :)
And in eastern Europe, due to economical reasons, its popularity extended well into the 90s. There's a whole group of people that grew up with the Commodore that are a decade younger than their western peers.
Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64
#19I'm curious about something. A lot of older programmers, like Terry Davis who was fairly well known in Korea back in the day, seem to really love the Commodore 64. Is there a reason for that? I'm not from that generation myself. If I had to pick, my nostalgia lies with Windows 95 to 98. So I wonder, what kind of memories does the Commodore hold for the generation of programmers older than me?
For me, it was mainly the excellent game library plus a group of friends in the neighborhood who had them so we could swap games and copy them. I did very little programming on it, but did wind up as a reviewer for some small game publisher for while (no idea how I managed this) and, later on, my dad’s business partner gave us a 128 with a modem and I did the BBS thing for a while which was really fascinating at 12 or so.
Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like the normal mid-life crisis. :-P Would probably hit you with every other job too.
I don't know. IT is a bit different in that regard. As a doctor, even if the system is shit, you still help people directly. As an engineer, you build something tangible that can make people's lives easier. And so on. In IT, though, the impact often feels much more indirect. Most of the time you're optimizing processes or helping businesses become more efficient, rather than improving people's lives in a direct way.…
Find an IT-related problem facing the whole world right now and fix it.
For example phone enshittification. Make your own phone that isn't shit.