Commodore 64 still loved after all these years

by Marco Chiappetta — Friday, December 07, 2007, 04:30 PM EDT

How many of you reading this got started in computing because of the good old Commodore 64? Considering our demographic, I'd bet a whole lot of you spent many a sleepless night parked in front of that unassuming brown and grey contraption grinding your way through Impossible Mission or experimenting with some BASIC programming. Well, can you believe that awesome little machine is about to celebrate its 25th birthday? To commemorate the milestone, CNN has a story posted with plenty of great information, including videos, pictures, and current collections. Here's a snip from the piece...

"Often overshadowed by the Apple II and Atari 800, the Commodore 64 rose to great heights in the 1980s. From 1982-1993, 17 million C64s were sold. The Guinness Book of World Records lists the Commodore 64 as the best-selling single computer model.

The computer featured 64 kilobytes of memory (a lot for 1982), a huge index of games, a sophisticated sound chip, and a relatively parent-friendly price -- $595.

On Monday, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, will celebrate the C64's 25th anniversary. Computer pioneers will reflect on the C64's achievements and contribution to the industry. Jack Tramiel, the founder and CEO of Commodore, will attend, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and William C. Lowe, father of the IBM PC."

Jack Tramiel, Woz, and a boatload of C64 fans crammed into the Computer History Museum. Is there a better way to spend a day? As a tried and true geek through and through, I say no. Too bad I'm on the other side of country.

Tags: mod, Commodore, Commodore 64, MMO, love, EA, AR, COM

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com