5 ms·

16 KB of memory? The “64” in “Commodore 64”, the name of a computer introduced in 1982, stands for 64 KB of memory. (A 128 KB version followed 3 years later.)

• to3m 10y ago
  It's got 256KBytes of ROM. If that's memory-mapped, the 16KBytes of RAM is much less of a limitation. Most data and virtually all code - especially on ARM - is read-only. Python might not be the easiest way of working with this setup though...
• OJFord 10y ago
  Instead of lambasting it for a low number, perhaps you could tell us what you'd have a child do in 17KB that they couldn't do in 16KB? It's an educational device, and that education involves learning to write pieces of code for which industry users may well prefer to pull in large libraries. I'd be surprised if the target audience - 12-13 year olds - use all that; those that have a passion for it will of course end up using more expensive devices with bigger numbers. Those that don't will continue doing only compulsory exercises that could probably manage with less than 16KB.
  • mietek 10y ago
    Quoting from the fine article, which you clearly have not read: “Finally, the micro:bit’s 16 kB of RAM is quite limiting, at least when using the MicroPython runtime. While writing a moderate-size program I managed to repeatedly exhaust the SoC’s memory, resulting in difficult to debug MemoryExceptions. I can easily imagine intermediate users running up against and being confused by this limitation, and would welcome a version of the micro:bit with double the RAM.”
    • OJFord 10y ago
      > the fine article, which you clearly have not read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > " ... easily imagine intermediate users running up against ... " Something tells me the author isn't imagining the 12-13 year-old target audience when writing 'intermediate users'. There's nothing wrong with reviewing it from a different audience's perspective of course, but it doesn't do to ignore it if you're going to complain about the device's specification.
• monocasa 10y ago
  To be fair, the British government didn't give a Commodore 64 to every British child for free.
  • midgetjones 10y ago
    If only! I could have played Granny's Garden at home then.
  • amelius 10y ago
    Perhaps, if they did, Silicon Valley would be in the UK.
    • to3m 10y ago
      The UK still had a hangover from the 1970s at the time, local phones calls cost money, and Americans have always been a lot richer anyway. I suspect America had the inherent advantage here.
      • xherberta 10y ago
        > Americans have always been a lot richer Not always. I do recognize the economic sacrifice the UK made for the sake of winning WWII. It's a beautiful thing - altruism on a national scale.
  • Symbiote 10y ago
    They did put a BBC Micro in every school though.
    • monocasa 10y ago
      So that means that they distributed, what, two or three orders of magnitude more micro:bits?
      • clort 10y ago
        Yes - there are about 160 kids per year group in my school, and I think all year 7's got one (for themselves, not the school)
• jacquesm 10y ago
  In 1982, when I bought my BBC micro it was 2000 guilders + another 1650 for the disk drives and yet another 1000 or so for a solidisk RAM expansion. Back then that was about half the price of a small brand new car. I had to save like Scrooge in order to be able to afford that machine and the first year was spent mostly waiting for my cassettes to load or save because once I bought the machine I could not afford the drives. Compare that to the price of this beauty and you see what 35 years of progress can bring you.
• Sanddancer 10y ago
  The Commodore 64 was also $595 when it was introduced, which, adjusted for inflation, is about $1500. The microbit, on the other hand, is about $20. The microbit also has 256k of flash memory -- in comparison, the 170k 1541 floppy drive cost $400, or $1000 in today's dollars. One also needs to keep in mind that programs can run directly from that flash memory, so that 16k is only really a limitation if you're using python, which won't run on the c64. Furthermore, the microbit has features, like bluetooth and a pair of sensors for movement, that you could only dream of when the c64 was introduced. So yes, the c64 had more volatile ram. The microbit has more of pretty much everything else.
  • mietek 10y ago
    As zitterbewegung writes elsewhere in this thread, “there is a Bluetooth radio on the microbit but the runtime was 12k and there wasn't enough space to load micropython and Bluetooth at the same time.”
• darpa_escapee 10y ago
  16KB is plenty for most tasks handled by a low power microcontroller.