Commodore 64 - 25th Anniversary Celebration

[Recorded Dec 10, 2007]
The Commodore 64 was an 8-bit home computer released by Commodore International in August, 1982, and during it's lifetime (between 1982 and 1994), sales totaled close to 17 million units, making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time. Approximately 10,000 commercial software titles were developed for the Commodore 64 including development tools, office applications, and games.

The C64 made an impressive debut at the 1982 Winter Consumer Electronics Show, as recalled by Production Engineer David A. Ziembicki: All we saw at our booth were Atari people with their mouths dropping open, saying, 'How can you do that for $595?'

The term personal computer was a common term in the early 80's and was used as early as 1972 to characterize Xerox PARC's Alto. During this era of microcomputer innovation, the market was dominated by the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC), the Commodore 64, the Atari 8-bit family, the Apple II, Tandy Corporation's TRS-80s, and various CP/M machines.

Although the history of the Commodore is rich, the histories of the people and the companies that developed these early personal computers are also critical to the personal productivity tools and business solutions we often take for granted in our daily lives.

This panel discussion is a celebration of the Commodore 64 computer and how it spawned a tremendous market for home, small business, distributed and networked technology.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[runestone1337]

Steve Wozniak is an absolute disgrace.

Note the way he turns the whole occasion of the Commodore 64's 25th anniversary into the history of Apple and a nude star-jumping "look at me!" event, then proceeds to piss on Jack's parade and his achievements.

Yep, the Apple revisionism continues to this day. I guess the old saying, "he who wins the war writes the history" still holds true.

[MadFranko008]

The man was pioneer in the computing industry and brought home computing to the masses with his low priced computer systems at a time when computing was mainly for the rich few who could afford an IBM or Apple machine that at twice the price had only half the memory & computing power...

R.I.P. Jack Tramiel 13/12/1928 - 08/04/2012

The Man Who Made Home Computing For The Masses A Reality...

[SivaKrishnaDotCom]

Thanks to Jack Tramiel, over 17 million C-64s sold, at the time more than all other companies combined. Now Commodore is coming back to the REAL future with a Linux machine.

[clemsonbloke]

It's kind of shocking how much of this was NOT about the Commodore 64 and about other aspects of the industry. This wasn't a very good presentation and the moderator should have kept it on topic and shut Woz up from dominating and making it an advertisment about Apple. Woz is cool but he was a bit out of line here. Jack should have got the respect he deserved and the Commodore 64 should have as well. In my estimation there was a lot wasted here. I assumed it would be much better than it was

[Roger Jowett]

25million sold says a lot about the states

[Hoober Doober]

That said, the ones that work fine last for decades. Mine is an 1984 breadbin and it works fine. The PSU hums a bit and overheats, but I'm sorting out a custom built one to replace it soon.

[Hoober Doober]

The fact is, some were very shoddy in build quality. The early breadbins for example had that "blanket" RF shielding which blocked all the air vents, causing an early death for many early C64s. Some chips ie. the VIC II and SID ran very hot. The later C64s are fine.

Then there's the PSUs, which are for the most part indeed prone to fail in spectacular ways. The black bricks are the most notorious.

If yours works fine, then that's great. But don't assume every c64 is perfect because yours is.

[Hoober Doober]

Not really. A half arsed linux box is not really worth having.

[zozo3646]

wow, my cousin just sold his commodore 64x to a friend, what a loss!!!!!!!!!!

[Bawbag Stramash]

WRONG! My 1983 produced C64 and power supply (and 1985 C128) are still going strong thank you very much.

My last PC motherboard lasted two years, the one before that three, now THAT'S shoddy production values.

From the look of your avatar pic I can tell my 64 is a decade older than you are.

DOS? Try typing LOAD"*",8,1 or is that to long winded for you? Or two keys: Shift+Runstop for tapes. Jeez......

Get your "facts" from somewhere other than internet forums trolling the (built to last) C64.

[xDaimstarX]

I think Mr.Tramiel looked a bit like Wario..

[SE09uk]

Commodore changed my life (RIP Stef)