Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982 • Hacker News Board

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#141

Post by kstrauser » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 6:39 PM UTC

joquarky wrote: post #140

kstrauser wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are you, and why are you writing my biography? Your journey was nearly identical to mine. I truly, sincerely feel like we went through a golden age, where amazing things were starting to become possible but you hard to work hard enough to get them that you couldn't help but learn something new along the way.

I was going to post something similar. I think the Amiga's CLI helped me ease into unix/Linux which is how I got my first programming job.

Same here. It clearly wasn't Unix, but it was a whole lot closer to Unix than MS-DOS was. All the basic concepts were there, and when I eventually migrated into a Linux environment it all felt familiar.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#142

Post by isUserAMonkey » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 7:05 PM UTC

Fond memories too and like other folks put me on my software dev career path and being a life long gamer.

My friend had the breadbox one and i had the slimmer profile model. We spent countless weekends coming back from computer store with boxes of blank floppy disks and using a box cutter to put a notch to make them double sided.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#143

Post by unnah » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 7:19 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.

What's crazy is that the much more advanced Amiga custom chips were manufactured at the same 5 micron feature size as the C64 chips. That's why the Amiga needed two custom chips for video (Agnus and Denise) instead of the one in C64 (VIC-II).

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#144

Post by dlange » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 7:22 PM UTC

martinpw wrote: post #125

noir_lord wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

And as a teen- going from making a MASH game using graphics characters on a trash-80 to color characters on a vic and getting my own PC for the first time, C64, and discovering sprites..

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#145

Post by guytv » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 7:37 PM UTC

gxd wrote: post #38

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.

The Speccy is mostly unknown in the US but in some ways it's more important than the mighty C64. It was way less capable but much more affordable. In many poor countries, as well in large portions of Europe, the Speccy dominated because people could actually afford one. It was the VW Beetle of computers. Can you tell which one I had as a kid? :)

Not only this.

I had a ZX Spectrum, and at some point my dad got me a C128.

I was taken aback by how poor its BASIC was in C64 mode, but on the other hand, adding sprites that moved freely across the screen without being bound to the 32x24 character grid felt like magic to me.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#146

Post by UncleSlacky » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 7:50 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #138

gxd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Speccy is mostly unknown in the US but in some ways it's more important than the mighty C64. It was way less capable but much more affordable. In many poor countries, as well in large portions of Europe, the Speccy dominated because people could actually afford one. It was the VW Beetle of computers. Can you tell which one I had as a kid? :)

Fewer Spectrum's of all models combined appears to have been sold than the C64 alone, so it dominated very few places.

They had high market shares in countries with much smaller populations than the US, so in terms of number of countries (particularly in Europe and South America), it dominated in far more of them than the C64 did.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#147

Post by ionwake » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 7:59 PM UTC

selcuka wrote: post #59

ionwake wrote: post #29

fantastic machine. ... however (say what you will but chuckie egg wasnt on the commodore)

> chuckie egg wasnt on the commodore It was originally written for the ZX Spectrum, but there was a C64 port too.

i have wronged you c64 im sorry

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#148

Post by rzzzt » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 8:01 PM UTC

RiverCrochet wrote: post #136

rzzzt wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I recall joystick PEEKs being fine as long as you used port 2. Port 1 was muxed with the keyboard port and would type characters (2's and left arrows from what I remember).

Indeed, and space bar is thought to be held when you press fire.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#149

Post by davepeck » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 8:02 PM UTC

wateralien wrote: post #32

Greetings, fellow old people.

Some of my fave C64 memories as a kid: listening to cassette tapes with stuff stored on them, punching in COMPUTE! listings with MLX, discovering 6510 and learning the Merlin assembler, long runs in Moon Patrol, making sprites with Gary Kitchen’s GameMaker, trying to understand how GEOS could possibly work, wearing out the spiral binding of the Programmer’s Reference Guide.

Re: Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982

#150

Post by leptons » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 8:07 PM UTC

jimt1234 wrote: post #124

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…

I have a similar story. Single mom, early/mid 1980s C64.

I recently found the framed receipt for this purchase. My mom still had it and framed it when she found it years ago, as it became clear that purchase led to my prosperity (until recently) as a software engineer. I found it in a box out in my garage, where it now sits next to my C64 (the original case, but not original motherboard).

The whole purchase - C64 + 1541 and a few other things, adjusted for inflation, would be around $1200, which is a lot for a single mother with 2 kids. It makes me appreciate her wisdom in seeing the importance of that purchase.

>Oh, and sorry for tying up the phone line all the time.

Also sorry for the $300 phone bill ($900 today), the month after I got my first 300 baud modem. Phone calls were way more expensive back then, calling across local counties cost more than numbers closer to me. And out of state charges were ridiculous. And file transfers were sloooow. I got into trading warez right away, so it got expensive. And then I became a phone phreak, but that's a separate story.