Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982 • Hacker News Board

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#121

Post by tenken » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 3:47 PM UTC

We had one when i was growing up.

I only did a very little Basic on it, my mom used GEos (writer)? to write up her masters degree thesis. In fact, I think it and a bunch of floppies are still up in our Attic ... i really doubt it still works if I were to plug it in someplace :D I don't think we had the first generation c64. I enjoyed alot of the video games, I would go to our local Target store and buy games on floppies, especially when they were on sale for like $4.99....

Edit: sorry I said Target, I think I ment Gemco (which is now the building the Target is in) :D

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#122

Post by codazoda » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

freediver wrote: post #103

I owe my entire identity to this little machine. First laid my eyes on it in 1983, then unexpectedly got it from my uncle in 1984. It immediately opened my eyes to this new world of computer technology and sucked me right in. Between games and writing first code in Basic, something magical was happening. Over the years it defined how I think, and ultimately who I am. Thank you C64 and thanks to everyone who worked on…

My identity is tied to it's competitor, the TRS-80 CoCo, released in 1980. I didn't own it until a few years later. My friends had the Commodore 64 and I was jealous.

Your art reminded me that some of my earliest code produced animated flying rockets:

          *
         * *
        *   *
        *   *
        * U *
        * S *
        * A *
        *   *
        *   *
        * * *
       ** * **
      *********
          *
         ***
         ***
          *
          *

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#123

Post by rzzzt » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

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…

The User's Guide had a single bitmap mode example, but POKEs needed for hardware sprites and sound were adequately covered. Joystick polling in BASIC is a fool's errand however.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#124

Post by jimt1234 » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 4:05 PM UTC

freediver wrote: post #103

I owe my entire identity to this little machine. First laid my eyes on it in 1983, then unexpectedly got it from my uncle in 1984. It immediately opened my eyes to this new world of computer technology and sucked me right in. Between games and writing first code in Basic, something magical was happening. Over the years it defined how I think, and ultimately who I am. Thank you C64 and thanks to everyone who worked on…

Yes, thank you C64 and all the brilliant people that made it happen.

I also want to thank my mother for giving me a C64 for Christmas in 1983. My single mother worked 2 jobs most of my childhood (corporate gig by day, waitress in the evening); our family always struggled with money. I have no idea how she paid for the C64, plus the 1541 disk drive and 300-baud modem. I also didn't know the C64 would be so pivotal in my life - I was just some nerdy kid who loved to tinker with stuff, but Mom knew. So, thanks Mom; I owe you everything. Oh, and sorry for tying up the phone line all the time.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#125

Post by martinpw » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #14

Marcuss2 wrote: post #9

When it released, it cost $595 (back then, not in today's money), considering the price dropped to just $229 the following year, that was not a good buy when it came out.

Not unusual in that era though, home computers were evolving ridiculously fast. There was only 5 years between the C64 and the Amiga 500 which launched for $699 (adjusted for inflation, using https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ $595 comes out to $700), it was a wild time to be into computers, I didn't start til 1987 (I was 7) and the pace of progress was crazy to grow up through.

It was an incredible time to live through as a young kid. There was a Cambrian explosion of computer designs - new systems coming out every month, each outdoing the previous ones. I remember rushing to the store each month to buy and devour the latest computer magazines. Felt like a time of endless possibilities. Only downside was I couldn't afford any of it except for a ZX81 (which was great in its own way).

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#126

Post by itsboring » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

codazoda wrote: post #122

freediver wrote: post #103

I owe my entire identity to this little machine. First laid my eyes on it in 1983, then unexpectedly got it from my uncle in 1984. It immediately opened my eyes to this new world of computer technology and sucked me right in. Between games and writing first code in Basic, something magical was happening. Over the years it defined how I think, and ultimately who I am. Thank you C64 and thanks to everyone who worked on…

My identity is tied to it's competitor, the TRS-80 CoCo, released in 1980. I didn't own it until a few years later. My friends had the Commodore 64 and I was jealous. Your art reminded me that some of my earliest code produced animated flying rockets: * * * * * * * * U * * S * * A * * * * * * * * ** * ** ********* * *** *** * *

I grew up with a CoCo 2 that I got for Christmas when I was 5. I remember the BASIC book it came with that had programs you could type in. Also, Demon Attack!

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#127

Post by reaperducer » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

gxd wrote: post #119

reaperducer wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

deep, hard to obtain hardware knowledge It came with a very detailed book. And Commodore sold another even-more-detailed-yet-still-cheap book that was so complete that it even included a big fold-out schematic diagram of the motherboard. Would I have preferred to be able to do DRAW CIRCLE 0, 1, 23 instead of a long series of POKEs? Sure, because I was a kid and wanted to do things the easy way. But those POKEs taught…

I've wondered about whether modern computers should come with the comprehensive manuals of the era. The Raspberry Pi 400 attempted to do it. But the problem isn't as much that companies don't want to ship these big manuals, but it's that 1) Nobody would read them because of the Internet and, most importantly, 2) you can't create comprehensive documentation of a modern computer in a reasonably sized book . The biggest…

If they don't want to print and ship a manual, offer a PDF online for curious people to download. Problem solved.

Or, do what my car from 2014 did: The manual came on a USB stick.

The problem isn't distribution, it's laziness and greed. Documentation takes time and money. It's seen as a cost by people who don't understand the benefits.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#128

Post by spankibalt » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 4:40 PM UTC

ulfw wrote: post #106

I had a C16 as my first computer followed by a C128. But for the latter the majority of time was spent in C64 mode. So I basically had a C64 in a nicer casing. Lovely times

> [...] a C128. But for the latter the majority of time was spent in C64 mode.

Did you make use of CP/M applications? I often wonder how well that worked back in the day; one of my best friends had a Commodore 128, but used it exclusively as a 64 as well for his pal across the street owned a Brotkasten (breadbin).

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#129

Post by jjkaczor » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 4:59 PM UTC

Ah - endless hours visiting my friend as a 10-year old and playing "Speed Racer".

(Let me tell you, we were NOT going for the "heavenly points"...)

Years later, my first actual home PC was a "hand-me-down" VIC-20 with a giant box of unlabeled tapes which someone had painstakingly hand-typed from the back of magazines... (BYTE !)... my favorite game of all of those was AMOK.

Went missing during a move, then nothing until a 386... (my computing needs until then had to be met in school labs - Tandy's PETs and ICONs)

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#130

Post by spankibalt » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #99

kwanbix wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly for me. My dad bought a fully expanded TI-99/4A from a friend who was selling it to buy a C64. On the TI, I learned LOGO and then BASIC, and played Parsec, BurgerTime, and others. Cartridges were super expensive in my home country. A few years later, we traveled to New York and bought an IBM PC XT with a 20 MB (yes, MB!) hard drive, 640 KB of RAM, a floppy drive, and a CGA monitor. At the time, IBM had alre…

My first PC was an XT Clone I suspect around the same time, One of these https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/15452/Olivetti-PC1-P... I adored that thing (coming from a ZX Speccy it felt like a proper computer), I've considered buying/tracking down a non functional one and putting a high performance ITX build into it a few times over the years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe77esw9-nU (PC1 booting into a game)…

> [...] I've considered buying/tracking down a non functional one and putting a high performance ITX build into it a few times over the years.

I'd buy a classic keyboard case x86 (with PCMCIA card slot, Enhanced Personal Computer Keyboard layout plus integrated trackball), preferably made to last, made out of metal. Sadly, no one makes decent cases for something like a Vortex86. It's either weird mini towers to appeal to the nostalgia of the Old Breed, or cheap 3D-printed contraptions in the vein of stompboxes (for MiSTer implementations). Sad.