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

Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

dfarq.homeip.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 186 posts

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#61

Post by the_af »

Towaway69 wrote: post #25
xvxvx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience was the same. Loved my Spectrum 128 but friends had the Commodore and its graphics were superior. Very expensive though. The magic in the air in those days will never be replicated.

> The magic in the air in those days will never be replicated. You say it “magic”, it wasn’t “better” or “different” or “worse”, it was a kind of magic that happens when tech is new and folks experiment. I’m sure many will look back in 40 years and say the same about AI - we’re living through the magical age of AI. Just as we did when we got our C64’s back in the day ;) EDIT: Perhaps I should clarify what I meant. Th…

I get what you mean but I think it's fundamentally different.

The folks back then had more control over the (limited) capabilities of the hardware, and in order not to just blindly type code from a magazine (which we all did) you had to develop a good understanding.

The folks with AI today have much better capabilities with (for most, anyway) much lesser understanding of what's going on.

Both are magic, but one is tinkering with spells, the other is figuring out how to ask a (slightly drunk) wizard to cast spells for you.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#64

Post by reaperducer »

Findecanor wrote: post #6

I have seen the date "September 1" be disputed on forums. Is there a credible source other than the book that the article refers to?

Is there a credible source other than the book that the article refers to?

Plenty of computer magazines from that era on archive.org. Try Byte or Compute!.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#65

Post by gioandthemachin »

Recently moved into our new house, which was left abandoned for many years before we bought it. Much to my surprise, among all the rubbish, I found a working Commodore 64 in there. Mostly working anyway. With a Commando tape still in its case. I couldn't believe my luck!

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#67

Post by the_af »

le-mark wrote: post #44

I may be alone in this but I really grew to despise the C64. It represented frustration and failure to me. The basic was so limited, it did not provide access to the otherwise excellent video and sound hardware. Information pre internet was hard to come by, and I never discovered the assembler pathway. I wanted to do cool stuff with it but a kid in rural US had zero access to resources. My biggest success was piecing…

I despised the limitations of the included BASIC but loved my C64. I also had a pirated Pascal and learned a bit with it (not much). It wasn't a good platform for programming, but it still made me fall in love with computers.

Getting my first PC XT clone with GW BASIC felt liberating, suddenly I could write graphical games with ease! But to this day I still love my C64, wherever it is now.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#68

Post by musha68k »

le-mark wrote: post #44

I may be alone in this but I really grew to despise the C64. It represented frustration and failure to me. The basic was so limited, it did not provide access to the otherwise excellent video and sound hardware. Information pre internet was hard to come by, and I never discovered the assembler pathway. I wanted to do cool stuff with it but a kid in rural US had zero access to resources. My biggest success was piecing…

I agree completely, it was a tragedy that Commodore shipped with that one.

Even though I still have lots of original home / computer hardware including multiple versions of the C64 (working or still to be fixed..) I just ordered the Cyberpunk 2077 ornate "Commodore 77" so as to be able to play with it and potentially port over and adapt BBC basic adjacent basic like MMbasic (or make my own focused attempt at it).

It's a semi open FPGA platform and latest one here is still not MiSTer grade on many fronts but should give enough freedom at least to have my own bespoke ROM replacement come up on init.

The goal would exactly be that of eventually getting rid of the builtin basic for recreational biking of the mind with our young padawan...

I also own a MiSTer and the community's well done BBC core already largely gets us to where I want us to be but the platform chiefly lacks the SID as well as the nature of a dedicated device.

Booting into "C64 BBC basic" is a must; I hope to book some time for this project next year at the very latest.

https://commodore.net/store/commodore64/?shape=Breadbin&colo...

https://mmbasic.com/overview.html

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#69

Post by silvestrov »

wateralien wrote: post #31

I had a ZX Spectrum and learned Basic and played a ton of pirated games on that. My school had Commodore 64s - but I didn't use them much. They didn't really know how to teach for them and there was no hacking around allowed.

Commodore 64 in 1982 cost US$595 ($2,059 today).

ZX Spectrum in 1982 cost $200 ($692 today) for 16 KB model and had a 48K model for 40% more.

It was the difference between affordable and unaffordable for many people.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#70

Post by LeBit »

mkovach wrote: post #30

Ahh, the Commodore 64. I never had one. I had a TI-99/4A with a Forth cartridge, while my friends had VIC-20s and C64s. Such an odd and wonderful time to be into computers. I managed to put together a decent Space Invaders clone in Forth that beat their Commodore BASIC version. I considered this an important victory and still have bragging rights when I see one of them. Eventually my parents realized that, despite th…

I loved playing Rampage and Thexder on the Tandy of my friend!
Post reply on HN