40 YEARS OF THE commodore 64
Let’s get something straight from the start – you could not fit a loaf inside a Commodore 64. Whoever came up with the nickname ‘beige bread bin’ must have frequented a yeast-free bakery but then the Spectrum’s keyboard was not actually made of zombie-flesh either. It’s a sign of how both these beloved micros, released in the same year, generated finger-pointing ridicule along with deep and enduring affection, a sure indication of cultural significance.
The C64 was not Commodore’s first microcomputer, having launched the PET 2001 in 1977, nor was it the first to make a serious impression on the mass market, with the VIC-20 selling over a million units during its short commercial lifespan. Yet the C64 would be its most lasting legacy (sorry, Amiga fans), holding the Guinness World Record for best-selling single model computer, shifting an estimated 12,500,000 machines. It left behind a wealth of memorable games as well as kick-starting the careers of many programmers on both sides of the Atlantic – and even a few in Japan.
Work on Commodore’s successor to the VIC-20 began in 1981, led by the skilled team at MOS Technology, a chip design and manufacturing company acquired by Commodore in 1976. Jack Tramiel, who had founded the company back in 1953, set a tight deadline of January 1982 for the new micro to be ready for its first public viewing at the Consumer Electronics Show that year. During development, the codename of the machine the world would come to know and love as the C64 was the VIC-40, a nod to its superiority over its plucky predecessor, which is rather apt as we now take a tour through 40 years of the beige ciabatta tin. No, we don’t think it will catch on either.
1982
With appetites suitably whetted after its appearance at trade shows at the start of the year, the Commodore 64 went on sale to an eager public in August 1982. The general consensus seems to have been this was a lot of computer power for the very reasonable price of $595 (£399 when it arrived in the UK), with reports that envious Atari executives grumbled at how such a low retail price could have been achieved. The secret was vertical integration: by controlling numerous stages of hardware production, including those all-important custom chips, Commodore was not at the mercy of greedy or unreliable suppliers and could keep component costs low while still maintaining a healthy profit margin. This allowed a dramatic price cut of $200 before the year was out, putting it well below its US competitors, the Apple II and Atari 800, and considerably closer to Sinclair’s ZX Spectrum, its main rival in Britain.
Commodore’s aggressive pricing strategy proved it meant business and of course the machine was marketed as a powerful tool for small enterprises, offering accounting packages for the aspiring entrepreneur. However, the company’s experience with the VIC-20 meant it knew games helped sell computers and its cartridge releases of such arcade staples as, and (its clone of Namco’s ), were some of the better titles available in the lead up to the machine’s first Christmas. Third-party publishers like Sirius and Infocom were early supporters, the latter’s releases pushing sales of the 1541 disk drive, which was slow, unreliable, and cost almost as much as the computer itself but facilitated some excellent text adventures. And 1982 would also see the first C64 games from Llamasoft’s Jeff Minter, whose career would progress hand in hoof with the machine in the following years.
