The History of the Commodore 64 in Twelve Objects
Inspired by the BBC's A History of the World in 100 Objects, I am writing a history of the C64 in twelve objects, posted weekly from November 1st, 2024.
Object #1: The Commodore 64 itself
The Commodore 64 is known affectionately as the breadbox for its shape. Launched in 1982, following the Commodore company’s successful VIC-20 computer (1980). At 12,5 million units sold, the C64 was by far the best-selling home computer of the era, and it was also the platform with the most video games from 1985 to 1993 – 5,500 games are known.
But there is a mystery: there are both computer and video game histories that never mention the machine. My new book tries to find out why. I have tried to write the best book I could about the C64, but this was also my own first computer, and revisiting it has been thrilling and full of surprises.
The C64’s longevity went beyond any expectation – home computers were known to have a short life span, and already in 1983 Sierra game developer Ken Williams was spreading the rumor that production was about to cease, yet the machine was produced until 1994.
Strangely, none of its three central chips were originally designed for a computer. The 6510 (6502) CPU was originally planned for control systems, the SID sound chip was designed for synthesizers, and the VIC-II graphics chip was originally planned for video game devices. This became the C64, combining state-of-the art graphics and sound with strange flaws, such as a limited BASIC programming language and slow tape and disk drive.
Though Commodore never updated the machine functionally, users and developers fixed its flaws and kept finding new ways to use it. In the book, I call this the five lives of the machine. The European box shows the first life – a serious computer for work, studying, and the home, and for programming in BASIC.
Object #2, 10 PRINT “HELLO”: GOTO 10
Turning on the Commodore 64 launches us into a comforting interface in dark and light blue colors. It is a machine where interface, programming, and housekeeping take place using the same BASIC programming language. We can type immediate commands such as:
?10+20
30
READY
BASIC (Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Code), originally developed by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz at Dartmouth College in the early 1960s, was designed to make computing universally accessible, at first for Dartmouth students. BASIC became a central platform for games in the 1960s and 1970s, and David Ahl's book BASIC Computer Games (1973) compiled and distributed the games made in computer labs on paper, the only viable form of mass-market program distribution of the time. One central early aspect of Commodore 64 culture was to type in pages and pages of programs from manuals, magazines, and books.
I think a core joy of programming is that we can make the computer do sustained work for us. The Commodore 64 User’s Guide coming with the machine encourages us to make a program printing “COMMODORE 64”, but the text was almost always the user’s name.
10 PRINT “HELLO!”:GOTO 10
Feel free to make your own 10 PRINT program in this emulator.
The next step was often to change the colors on the fly, and creatively making your mark on store or computer lab machines was an ongoing sport - a competition of ingenuity, speed, and presence:
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); :POKE 646,RND(1)*16:GOTO 10
Writing programs like this, the one-liner, became an entire genre of programming onto itself. The User’s Guide also suggests this maze-making program, which randomly prints left- and right-leaning lines which form a maze on the computer screen:
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The book 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 is dedicated to this program and discusses the history of one-liners. A more recent variation of the one-liner maze is here.
Later computers became easier to use, with icons, mouse, and windows, but the connection to programming was also lost, and today, sadly, computers no longer encourage us to fill the screen using small programs.
PS. Is 10 PRINT "HELLO!" an object? I think so!
Coming November 15th, Object #3: "We Promise You Won't Use the Commodore 64 More than 24 Hours a Day" - Commodore 64 ads