Back in 1982, when the Commodore 64 was first released, it was a huge breakthrough in home computing. It has earned the distinction of being the best selling single model computer of all time. Many others came afterward, from the Apple II and the Atari 800, to today’s modern computers, but the Commodore 64 still lives on in the hearts of many kids and adults who lived in the 1980s. And there is a new surge of interest in the Commodore 64, now that the machine has hit its 25th anniversary.
Today, Commodore 64s are still be used by select people and groups. They create music for bands and help users with everything from term papers to creating programs. And if you are among the many who don’t have a Commodore 64, you can play one of its many games or experience one of its many programs that are currently emulated online. for example, at GameTap, you can play a number of Commodore 64 games after downloading the emulator.
And at c64.com, there is an entire universe of Commodore 64 related material, from lots of games to interviews and more.
I have to confess that I have my own Commodore 64, missing a few keys and tucked away in our attic. I haven’t even plugged it in for decades, but there is something about it that beckons me every so often, and I promise myself that I will dust it off, once the kids are in school or I retire. There are hours and hours worth of programming done on that machine and stored on floppy discs that sounded like machine guns when they were being read. Back then, you couldn’t easily download games. You had to either buy them in the store (very expensive and hard to find), or you had to spend those hours and hours typing in code from a magazine, hoping that whatever mistakes you made didn’t effect your program too much. I learned this the hard way, when my little man walking across the screen was missing his head.
Do you have any Commodore 64 memories?
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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