Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64

goto10retro.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 107 posts

Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64

#31

Post by kleiba2 »

Aldipower wrote: post #14
kleiba2 wrote: post #13

I 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.

There's certainly that. But a lot of the points of the sibling and nephew comments here ring true, too.

Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64

#32

Post by killerstorm »

jdw64 wrote: post #2

I'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?

It boots into BASIC which makes it really easy to learn BASIC. It feels like a programmable computer even to kids who know nothing about programming, as the only way to get anywhere is to type a command. So it's very easy to start. You can also practice typing straight away, or do colorful 'ASCII art' (actually what people call 'ANSI art' - drawing using colorful text blocks).

OTOH with Windows 95 it's not really clear how to make a program or do something creative. So I'd argue C64 or similar might be a better choices that W95 PC for kids under 15 y.o.

Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64

#35

Post by bitwize »

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #5
jdw64 wrote: post #2

I'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?

The C64 had a good game library. While the C64 does have a cartridge and tape deck port, most games were sold on floppy disks. The C64 does not auto-boot disks, so when you turn on the power switch, you are immediately met with a BASIC "Ready." prompt. You have to type in a magic incantation to start the program on the disk LOAD "*",8,1 The curious will wonder what else can be done in BASIC? Or what if you don't have…

There's another thing about the Commodore computers that is really special. The binaries for disk and tape games consisted of the machine code for the game, along with a stub BASIC program to jump into it (typically one line with a SYS command).

Meaning that the entire computer, and all its capabilities and speed, was available from within BASIC.

This was true of many home computers of the era, and even of the IBM PC if you were willing to struggle a bit, but it was emphatically not true of all of them: the TI-99/4A, for instance, had a nerfed BASIC that was not only very slow, it also prevented access to any of the system's facilities outside of the commands BASIC provided. This probably had a lot to do with its unusual memory architecture, in which only 128 words of RAM were provided to the CPU and all BASIC memory was accessed indirectly through the video chip.

But yeah, aside from cartridge-based games, every program on the C64 was a BASIC program, just one that was mostly a machine-code memory image.

Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64

#36

Post by dcminter »

tzot wrote: post #11

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 :)

Speccy guy back in the day here, but these days I love Linux, and you know Linus cut his teeth on the QL, right?

I feel like storage has improved slightly since microdrives were state of the art too...

Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64

#37

Post by tanseydavid »

I wanted an Apple II so badly and thought I was getting the short-end-of-the-stick with a C64 but I am so happy (to this day) that my first machine at home was C64.

I still have my tattered C64 Programmer's Reference Guide on my shelf (as well as Programming the 6502 by Rodnay Zaks).

Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64

#39

Post by RajT88 »

I grew up with a C64, and the story resonated with me. Not as much about getting pirates games to run, but more trying to play the latest games on our old 386 which came after the C64.

A friend of mine said, "PC gaming creates techies". Does it still? I hope so.

Re: I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64

#40

Post by tiborsaas »

I can't describe that mystery feeling when getting bunch of random cassette tapes from my cousins with a giant catalog of programs on them, some demos, some games, some wild stuff and just casually browsing them. All I had was a title if I was lucky. Then the fun stuff of calibrating the tape head :) Great memories.
Post reply on HN