11 ms·

Can the 64 and 128 survive? (1988) [pdf]

94 points by indigodaddy 4y ago

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
i'm reading the commodore trilogy of books by brian bagnall right now, so this is interesting to read also. looking back now, it seems there was way too many options. it would have been confusing as a consumer to choose.
- timbit42 4y ago
  Trilogy? I have four Brian Bagnall books so far... People decided which hardware to buy based on what software they want to run and their budget. If they wanted business software before the IBM PC came out, they chose CP/M, Tandy's TRS-80, or perhaps the Apple II with VisiCalc, or sometimes with Microsoft's Z-80 card to run CP/M. If they wanted education for their children, they'd often buy what their children's school had, if they could afford it. In the US this was usually an Apple II, Atari 800 or Commodore 64. In Canada it was usually the Commodore 64. In the UK it was the BBC Micro. In France, it was the Thomson. In North America, if they wanted the best games, they bought an Apple II, until the Atari 800 came out, and only until the Commodore 64 came out. In the UK it was the BBC Micro if you had money and wanted more than just games, and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum if you didn't have money or wanted more games. The Commodore 64 was also a popular option there, once it was released. If people couldn't afford those options, they bought a Commodore VIC-20 or 64, or the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in the UK. Another lower cost option was the Tandy Color Computers.
8bitsrule 4y ago
Comparing the millions of man-years that have been poured into 16-bit CPUs and architecturers, gotta suspect that the ROI by sticking with 8-bits would have been a better choice. More generally, I'd suggest that ten-thousand ants could convey a ton of leaves with much better overal energy-efficiency than using a single pickup truck. ('Relative greenness') Might even be a law of nature!
- tenebrisalietum 4y ago
  Essentially that's what GPUs are.
  - 8bitsrule 4y ago
    Thanks for the tip. Haven't delved into GPU arch. much, guess I never found a good, clear overview.
- treeman79 4y ago
  If you like biological computers you may enjoy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)
  - 8bitsrule 4y ago
    Thanks, sounds great, will need to find that.
kochbeck 4y ago
Oh wow, that made me feel old. I actually read that article just before making the switch from the Radio Shack TRS-80 ecosystem to Commodore. See the Tussey ad for a 64C with an FSD-2 floppy? I bought that package from them with a repackaged c.Itoh thermal printer. It actually had the mail-in redemption offer the Commodore guy referred to in the article. It felt like I had that C64 forever. I learned CBM BASIC, 6502 assembler, and even K
- indigodaddy 4y ago
  Awesome! It was such a rare time. Nothing like it will ever occur again I don’t think.. There were SO many Commodore ads and articles in that magazine. I’m guessing this was a version of Compute! just geared toward Commodore correct?
  - Someone 4y ago
    It’s called “Compute!’s Gazette For Commodore Personal Computer Users”, so: yes.
    - indigodaddy 4y ago
      I did see that but just wasn’t sure as I remember Compute! being more general purpose and I guess never realized they had offshoots oriented to specific platforms
      - egypturnash 4y ago
        If I recall correctly, the C64 was the only machine they did this for.
        timbit42 4y ago
        No, COMPUTE!'s Gazette was not C64 specific. It covered all the Commodore 8-bit home systems: VIC-20, C64, Commodore 16/Plus/4, C128. It started with the VIC-20 and C64 as that is all there was, and in the end it only covered C64/128. The C64 was certainly the only model the Gazette covered during its entire lifetime.
chris_wot 4y ago
'Sometimes I listen to software developers, and I get a little bit angry. I want to ask them "Why are you trying to kill this product? Is there not enough installed base to support your efforts?" Oh boy Rich... posterity has given you an answer! Edit: There is a review later on, however, that was fun. A game called Trap! could be sped up by poking memory. And then I got to the file listings... some of the programs you literally entered in machine code! How did people ever find the time?!
- mwcremer 4y ago
  Probably because there was no web to surf...
- mkozlows 4y ago
  There was no internet to waste time on, and many of us didn't have cable TV.
  - indigodaddy 4y ago
    Exactly so as a 10-12 yr old it was kind of either read physical encyclopedias, do random prank calls from white pages, or hack around on your Atari 400/C64/NES/Amiga.. (well I guess or go skateboarding)
    - spkm 4y ago
      I miss my childhood :(
    - TacticalCoder 4y ago
      Basically all this, including the pranks too. I fondly remember the huge encyclopedia my great-grandmother (!) offered us. And the BMX 2000 too: geez, I loved that thing (but was still jealous of that one guy in the neighbourhood on a golden Raleigh Burner).
- ygjb 4y ago
  8-11 year old me made the time because after the sticker shock of two video games, my parents learned about and got me a subscription to Compute! I also spent the summer gathering up bottles and doing odd tasks so that I could afford to get a disk drive because my siblings kept stealing my tapes to record songs off the radio.
lttlrck 4y ago
I loved the ads in those old magazines... they promised so much.
illys 4y ago
I love the closing quote: "If [this machine] satisfies the need, it is never obsolete. (...) If the need continues to exist until the year 2000, then this machine is still satisfactory. There is no such thing as hardware obsolescence. That is a phrase that was coined by the naysayers in this industry. That's baloney." It is so far from reality for the general public, but so true for my 1980's machines that are still very funny, to play with and program!
- charcircuit 4y ago
  As a counterpoint. I don't find using my old phones and tablets fun. They are all worse than I remember and extremely laggy. Imagine trying to play Apex on a computer from 1980. There's no way you are going to have fun playing that.
- _the_inflator 4y ago
  If you see stuff like this in 2022 you could agree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkwBy4aqvKc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkwBy4aqvKc This is the result of using Cross Plattform development to the extreme: https://www.c64demo.com/big-parallax-logo-mover/ https://www.c64demo.com/big-parallax-logo-mover/
harrylepotter 4y ago
The pages of code beginning on page 82 bring back some memories. There was a certain childhood thrill that came from changing some of those values despite not really knowing what was going on.
Beltalowda 4y ago
Perhaps the most interesting part is the last question: Gazette: Despite this, the machines sometimes get rapped as being old-fashioned, obsolete. McIntyre: Today, if we positioned the 64 in the marketplace – forget RAM, bytes, bits – if we went out and functionally described the Commodore 64, it would be heralded as a fantastic advancement in personal micro-computing. The problem is that if you start to talk to people who have been in the business since its inception, they start to get jaded: "it's only eight-bit." Who cares? You are buying this machine for a specific reason. If it satisfies that need, it is never obsolete. Only your requirements become obsolete. If you no longer require it, then you obviously no longer need hardware to satisfy the need. The need ceases to exist – not the hardware. If the need continues to exist until the year 2000, then that machine is still satisfactory. There is no such thing as hardware obsolescence. That is a phrase that was coined by the naysayers in this industry. That's baloney. --- In a way, he's not entirely wrong, but I think it's also quite myopic. Sure, a C64 can be "satisfactory" even today for many tasks in the sense "it'll work", but that's not the same as "good". The C64 is 320×200; even just a doubling of that to 640×400 (never mind fancy things like 800×600 or 1024×768) can be a huge productivity boost in many scenarios simply because you can display more text, never mind all the "RAM, bytes, bits" that do actually matter since you can do more faster.
- jahnu 4y ago
  I find it hard to believe for a C64 (my first computer) but oddly not for the Amiga 500+ (my third) With that machine my nostalgia is absolutely maxed out :)
  - 300bps 4y ago
    Right there with you. My computers in order were: 1. Commodore 64 2. Commodore 128 3. 10 MHz 8088 After the 128 I considered a) Buying a Lt Kerrnal 20 MB hard drive b) Buying an Amiga c) Going IBM Compatible Thank God I went with the 8088 but I probably own 15 Commodore 64s now. I taught myself component level repair on them so I buy them broken for cheap and repair them. I have a full set of 64 and 128 with matching CRT monitors and Ultimate II+ and more.
indymike 4y ago
Page 38 had the answer: a well appointed clone with 512K, floppy and hard drive was $449 on page 38. On page 109, you can get a 286 for $799.
- timbit42 4y ago
  Those sound cheap today but were very expensive in those 35 year old 1980's dollars. Businesses and the more well-to-do could afford them but the majority couldn't. This is the reason Jack Tramiel's Commodore 64 and Atari ST were targeted at, "the masses, not the classes".
- vidarh 4y ago
  I see no mention of a harddrive for the $449 system? And also, it's not really $449: "Must be purchased with MS DOS & G.W. BASIC Software for an additional $79.95". And that is excluding the monitor, which you can't avoid, whereas the C64 can be used with a TV. And a monochrome TTL monitor card (heavy phosphor to reduce flicker, at the cost of lag), so no colour. And of course no proper sound. To me, had I been forced to buy a computer based on page 38 alone, then unless I had specific software needs (e.g. Word Perfect or similar), I'd have opted for the Complete Commodore 64C System for $395.95, even though I'd have preferred to buy one without the monitor and used a colour TV instead (but the price in question is competitive w/packages without a monitor, so I'm guessing they were clearing out old stock given it's a tiny monochrome monitor). Had PC's stayed like that, the C64 would have kept doing just fine in the low end of the home market. Of course PC's didn't stay like that for very long at all.
sys_64738 4y ago
1988 was definitely the pinnacle of the C64 in Britain as the games developers there had stretched the HW to the absolute limits then. I don’t think USA C64 owners had as rich an experience with those machines as we did in Britain. From 1989 onwards was the rise of the Amiga but the C64 still kept Commodore afloat until 1993.
- timbit42 4y ago
  Don't worry. We had all the European software available through the piracy channels here in North America. Very little of it didn't work.
zsz 4y ago
Reminds me of the topic introduced at the end of the following video: "Will the world ever threaten our [Denmark's] dominance in indoor handball?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZfM1lkLuMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZfM1lkLuMI
vardump 4y ago
Yeah, they're still both surviving today. A ton of software is still being written for both machines, especially for Commodore 64. For recent C64 SW, see: https://csdb.dk/latestreleases.php https://csdb.dk/latestreleases.php
- 300bps 4y ago
  Petscii Robots!! https://www.the8bitguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Petscii-Robots-Logo.png https://www.the8bitguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Petsci...
ilaksh 4y ago
Fascinating. I wonder what the equivalent headline would be today. Which hardware or software technologies are currently blasting away, but if you look at the cutting edge, are actually obsolescent? I'm going to get buried for this but, even though I have been a JavaScript programmer for many years, in the software side I think it's JavaScript, and even further a few years after that, web browsers. I see web assembly as a compelling target for many types of applications on the backend, or blockchain etc. I think that _could_ also eventually translate into momentum for standards for i/o devices for web assembly.
- 8bitsrule 4y ago
  After years of trying many languages, I started using JS many years ago, and it's so fast and familiar (w/ a big routines library built) and versatile (with HTML & CSS) that I won't be leaving it behind for personal projects.
  - ilaksh 4y ago
    I also feel that JavaScript or something similar is also the most practical language for many projects. Especially as you mentioned with the huge library (npm etc.). Having said that, web assembly has the potential for an even bigger library of modules to be built up, since modules written in one programming language could potentially interoperate with those written in another language.
kenjackson 4y ago
The article mentions fast loaders like V-Max. What did they do to increase disk IO so much?
- Lio 4y ago
  > The C-64's designers blamed the 1541's slow speed on the marketing department's insistence that the computer be compatible with the 1540, which was slow because of a flaw in the 6522 VIA interface controller. I believe they were able to work around the original flaws in the disk drives introduced for backwards compatibility with the Vic-20. > Without hardware modifications, some "fast loader" utilities (which bypassed routines in the 1541's onboard ROM) managed to achieve speeds of up to 4 KB/s.
  - vintermann 4y ago
    These days, fast loaders achieve speeds up to 19.6 kb/s (Krill's Transwarp, although it does require a custom file format), or ~50 times the usual speed.
- teki_one 4y ago
  Using the clock line for data too. The disk drive was a computer too with a CPU, it run on very similar speed to the C64, so you can rely them being in sync. In detail: https://www.pagetable.com/?p=568 https://www.pagetable.com/?p=568
bsuvc 4y ago
By 1998, Commodore was ancient history. So the answer was already no.
- timbit42 4y ago
  The article is 1988, not 1998.
sakoht 4y ago
The gorgeous thing about these was that, the thing that sold a game was clever playability. Even the games that tried to create an immersive world had to span 4-6 floppy disks, and mostly had to lean on imagination, and your ability to see a fantastic world in colored pixels. I learned to code on a vic-20, then a C128, though the C64 had basically all of the fun software. When the Amiga came out, you had to pay $500 to get a C compiler to build software on it, but it was a dream. When Commodore finally tanked, I looked at the 80286 and Win 3.11, and nearly gave up on computing. Then: Linux. But for all of them, the beauty came because you could "touch the bottom" of the virtual world they offered.
az_reth 4y ago
This was published 10 years before I was born. I found myself spending most of my time on the ads instead of the content.
bullen 4y ago
Instead of focusing on the obvious progress story lets try to see what the C64 still has going for it and some unmentioned drawbacks: - It was a somewhat open system that you could build something for without asking for permission! - You could copy all software. - The longevity of the hardware surpasses most devices built after for a fraction of the cost. - It was repairable. - Most sold compatible architecture with ability to be productive ever in the history of mankind, probably forever. - 15W is pretty low power considered the lithography at the time (micrometers). - Keyboard built in that still works 40 years later! - S-video built-in before it was even called that, not even the amiga had that! - The SID is unparalleled still in some regards. - The VIC was incredible, sharing the 2MHz RAM with 1Mhz CPU interleaved and hardware sprites! The only flaws I can find are: - The IEC bug that slowed IO from the VIC until the 128. - One button joysticks?! the device has POTx and POTy why not use those?!?! - No built in assembly monitor in the default setting. To me human progess has ONLY been the C64 -> Raspberry 4 arc: from micrometer to nanometer. And the raspberry uses linux and has all compilers built in, and still very few kids use it for it's initial intended purpose: to build software! With electricty prices rising I think the Raspberry 4 will have a resurgence so I always develop my software to work on that device too. But most important; with computers as with protocols there is no competition, you need to follow the standard and in the 80s that standard was the C64. I think ARM+linux will be that final standard unless risc-v can pull the open hardware trick off! Seen that kids, that weren't even born when the C64 died, buy one and try to develop for it is a pretty good sign that the C64 will survive!
- timbit42 4y ago
  The video chip was called the VIC-II. The VIC was in the VIC-20. They are similar in operation but not compatible. Digital joysticks were best for most games. It's too bad no one brought out a game pad as they are better for some games. A second fire button could have been added. There were analog joysticks available but typically for special software such as flight simulators. It is too bad Commodore didn't put out an analog stick to encourage their use in driving and flight games. The joystick industry would have ran with it and would have brought out lots of them. The VIC-20 didn't have a built-in assembler either. Jack wasn't a computer user so he didn't see them as being important and was more focused on keeping the prices low, especially for the home models. Commodore did release ML monitors and even the Super Expanders on cartridge for the VIC-20 and C64. The IBM PC only won because it was built from off-the-shelf parts, meaning the hardware was effectively open source. Once the BIOS was cloned, there was no way anyone else could keep up. The only survivor is Apple and they almost didn't make it. If the CP/M machines had time to become mainstream on 16-bit processors before the IBM PC was cloned, it might have won and Digital Research might have become what Microsoft has.
askvictor 4y ago
It's worth thinking that the just-in-time supply chain so prevalent now is probably what allows the fast pace of change. In the 80s, you made a product, and needed to lock in supply contracts, warehousing, sales etc. There was so much inertia in those, you ended up wanting to keep your working product going without changing it.
PaulHoule 4y ago
That article came out just around the time 286 clones became affordable which was the beginning of the end of the 8-bit age. A 285 machine was still a little over $1000 but that’s inclusive of the monitor and a hard drive. The performance though was ‘on another level’ compared to 8-bitters and people like John Carmack and Mike Abrash were just about to figure out how to make games like Commander Keen.
- JoyrexJ9 4y ago
  The Amiga (and the Atari ST to a lesser extent) really marked the end of the 8-bit era. Maybe once the 386 came along then PC stepped into the picture
  - timbit42 4y ago
    They were the beginning of the end but 8-bit systems were still available until the early 90's and purchased by those who couldn't afford the 16-bit systems.
    - PaulHoule 4y ago
      Low end PC's were getting pretty affordable by then. This 1988 ad has an 8088 machine which was about $650 inclusive of a disk drive and a monochrome monitor. https://archive.org/details/byte-1988-07_202104/page/n379/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/byte-1988-07_202104/page/n379/mo... The entry-level price of a C128 was much less but if you add a disk drive and a monitor so you can use the 80 column mode you're not saving that much money. The 286 machine is a lot more computer at $1100, the 386 is twice that. I had a hard time finding any 8088 machines advertised in Byte in 1990. To be fair Byte was aimed at the high end of the market, yet, Byte had plenty of coverage of the early 8-bitters, but I think the C-64 didn't get covered in Byte proportional to its popularity because it was late enough to the party that the IBM PC was getting mindshare. Byte had an odd mismatch between what was getting advertised (you'd have thought Cromeco was really something, other vendors of S-100 bus machines that supported CP/M were big) and was getting written about (low-end 8-bitters got a lot more press than CP/M ever did)
- 4y ago
brudgers 4y ago
Article begins on the 14th page of the pdf.

94 points by indigodaddy 4y ago

i'm reading the commodore trilogy of books by brian bagnall right now, so this is interesting to read also. looking back now, it seems there was way too many options. it would have been confusing as a consumer to choose.

timbit42 4y ago
Trilogy? I have four Brian Bagnall books so far... People decided which hardware to buy based on what software they want to run and their budget. If they wanted business software before the IBM PC came out, they chose CP/M, Tandy's TRS-80, or perhaps the Apple II with VisiCalc, or sometimes with Microsoft's Z-80 card to run CP/M. If they wanted education for their children, they'd often buy what their children's school had, if they could afford it. In the US this was usually an Apple II, Atari 800 or Commodore 64. In Canada it was usually the Commodore 64. In the UK it was the BBC Micro. In France, it was the Thomson. In North America, if they wanted the best games, they bought an Apple II, until the Atari 800 came out, and only until the Commodore 64 came out. In the UK it was the BBC Micro if you had money and wanted more than just games, and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum if you didn't have money or wanted more games. The Commodore 64 was also a popular option there, once it was released. If people couldn't afford those options, they bought a Commodore VIC-20 or 64, or the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in the UK. Another lower cost option was the Tandy Color Computers.

8bitsrule 4y ago

Comparing the millions of man-years that have been poured into 16-bit CPUs and architecturers, gotta suspect that the ROI by sticking with 8-bits would have been a better choice. More generally, I'd suggest that ten-thousand ants could convey a ton of leaves with much better overal energy-efficiency than using a single pickup truck. ('Relative greenness') Might even be a law of nature!

tenebrisalietum 4y ago
Essentially that's what GPUs are.
- 8bitsrule 4y ago
  Thanks for the tip. Haven't delved into GPU arch. much, guess I never found a good, clear overview.
treeman79 4y ago
If you like biological computers you may enjoy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)
- 8bitsrule 4y ago
  Thanks, sounds great, will need to find that.

kochbeck 4y ago

Oh wow, that made me feel old. I actually read that article just before making the switch from the Radio Shack TRS-80 ecosystem to Commodore. See the Tussey ad for a 64C with an FSD-2 floppy? I bought that package from them with a repackaged c.Itoh thermal printer. It actually had the mail-in redemption offer the Commodore guy referred to in the article. It felt like I had that C64 forever. I learned CBM BASIC, 6502 assembler, and even K

indigodaddy 4y ago
Awesome! It was such a rare time. Nothing like it will ever occur again I don’t think.. There were SO many Commodore ads and articles in that magazine. I’m guessing this was a version of Compute! just geared toward Commodore correct?
- Someone 4y ago
  It’s called “Compute!’s Gazette For Commodore Personal Computer Users”, so: yes.
  - indigodaddy 4y ago
    I did see that but just wasn’t sure as I remember Compute! being more general purpose and I guess never realized they had offshoots oriented to specific platforms
    - egypturnash 4y ago
      If I recall correctly, the C64 was the only machine they did this for.
      - timbit42 4y ago
        No, COMPUTE!'s Gazette was not C64 specific. It covered all the Commodore 8-bit home systems: VIC-20, C64, Commodore 16/Plus/4, C128. It started with the VIC-20 and C64 as that is all there was, and in the end it only covered C64/128. The C64 was certainly the only model the Gazette covered during its entire lifetime.

chris_wot 4y ago

'Sometimes I listen to software developers, and I get a little bit angry. I want to ask them "Why are you trying to kill this product? Is there not enough installed base to support your efforts?" Oh boy Rich... posterity has given you an answer! Edit: There is a review later on, however, that was fun. A game called Trap! could be sped up by poking memory. And then I got to the file listings... some of the programs you literally entered in machine code! How did people ever find the time?!

mwcremer 4y ago
Probably because there was no web to surf...
mkozlows 4y ago
There was no internet to waste time on, and many of us didn't have cable TV.
- indigodaddy 4y ago
  Exactly so as a 10-12 yr old it was kind of either read physical encyclopedias, do random prank calls from white pages, or hack around on your Atari 400/C64/NES/Amiga.. (well I guess or go skateboarding)
  - spkm 4y ago
    I miss my childhood :(
  - TacticalCoder 4y ago
    Basically all this, including the pranks too. I fondly remember the huge encyclopedia my great-grandmother (!) offered us. And the BMX 2000 too: geez, I loved that thing (but was still jealous of that one guy in the neighbourhood on a golden Raleigh Burner).
ygjb 4y ago
8-11 year old me made the time because after the sticker shock of two video games, my parents learned about and got me a subscription to Compute! I also spent the summer gathering up bottles and doing odd tasks so that I could afford to get a disk drive because my siblings kept stealing my tapes to record songs off the radio.

lttlrck 4y ago

I loved the ads in those old magazines... they promised so much.

illys 4y ago

I love the closing quote: "If [this machine] satisfies the need, it is never obsolete. (...) If the need continues to exist until the year 2000, then this machine is still satisfactory. There is no such thing as hardware obsolescence. That is a phrase that was coined by the naysayers in this industry. That's baloney." It is so far from reality for the general public, but so true for my 1980's machines that are still very funny, to play with and program!

charcircuit 4y ago
As a counterpoint. I don't find using my old phones and tablets fun. They are all worse than I remember and extremely laggy. Imagine trying to play Apex on a computer from 1980. There's no way you are going to have fun playing that.
_the_inflator 4y ago
If you see stuff like this in 2022 you could agree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkwBy4aqvKc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkwBy4aqvKc This is the result of using Cross Plattform development to the extreme: https://www.c64demo.com/big-parallax-logo-mover/ https://www.c64demo.com/big-parallax-logo-mover/

harrylepotter 4y ago

The pages of code beginning on page 82 bring back some memories. There was a certain childhood thrill that came from changing some of those values despite not really knowing what was going on.

Beltalowda 4y ago

Perhaps the most interesting part is the last question: Gazette: Despite this, the machines sometimes get rapped as being old-fashioned, obsolete. McIntyre: Today, if we positioned the 64 in the marketplace – forget RAM, bytes, bits – if we went out and functionally described the Commodore 64, it would be heralded as a fantastic advancement in personal micro-computing. The problem is that if you start to talk to people who have been in the business since its inception, they start to get jaded: "it's only eight-bit." Who cares? You are buying this machine for a specific reason. If it satisfies that need, it is never obsolete. Only your requirements become obsolete. If you no longer require it, then you obviously no longer need hardware to satisfy the need. The need ceases to exist – not the hardware. If the need continues to exist until the year 2000, then that machine is still satisfactory. There is no such thing as hardware obsolescence. That is a phrase that was coined by the naysayers in this industry. That's baloney. --- In a way, he's not entirely wrong, but I think it's also quite myopic. Sure, a C64 can be "satisfactory" even today for many tasks in the sense "it'll work", but that's not the same as "good". The C64 is 320×200; even just a doubling of that to 640×400 (never mind fancy things like 800×600 or 1024×768) can be a huge productivity boost in many scenarios simply because you can display more text, never mind all the "RAM, bytes, bits" that do actually matter since you can do more faster.

jahnu 4y ago
I find it hard to believe for a C64 (my first computer) but oddly not for the Amiga 500+ (my third) With that machine my nostalgia is absolutely maxed out :)
- 300bps 4y ago
  Right there with you. My computers in order were: 1. Commodore 64 2. Commodore 128 3. 10 MHz 8088 After the 128 I considered a) Buying a Lt Kerrnal 20 MB hard drive b) Buying an Amiga c) Going IBM Compatible Thank God I went with the 8088 but I probably own 15 Commodore 64s now. I taught myself component level repair on them so I buy them broken for cheap and repair them. I have a full set of 64 and 128 with matching CRT monitors and Ultimate II+ and more.

indymike 4y ago

Page 38 had the answer: a well appointed clone with 512K, floppy and hard drive was $449 on page 38. On page 109, you can get a 286 for $799.

timbit42 4y ago
Those sound cheap today but were very expensive in those 35 year old 1980's dollars. Businesses and the more well-to-do could afford them but the majority couldn't. This is the reason Jack Tramiel's Commodore 64 and Atari ST were targeted at, "the masses, not the classes".
vidarh 4y ago
I see no mention of a harddrive for the $449 system? And also, it's not really $449: "Must be purchased with MS DOS & G.W. BASIC Software for an additional $79.95". And that is excluding the monitor, which you can't avoid, whereas the C64 can be used with a TV. And a monochrome TTL monitor card (heavy phosphor to reduce flicker, at the cost of lag), so no colour. And of course no proper sound. To me, had I been forced to buy a computer based on page 38 alone, then unless I had specific software needs (e.g. Word Perfect or similar), I'd have opted for the Complete Commodore 64C System for $395.95, even though I'd have preferred to buy one without the monitor and used a colour TV instead (but the price in question is competitive w/packages without a monitor, so I'm guessing they were clearing out old stock given it's a tiny monochrome monitor). Had PC's stayed like that, the C64 would have kept doing just fine in the low end of the home market. Of course PC's didn't stay like that for very long at all.

sys_64738 4y ago

1988 was definitely the pinnacle of the C64 in Britain as the games developers there had stretched the HW to the absolute limits then. I don’t think USA C64 owners had as rich an experience with those machines as we did in Britain. From 1989 onwards was the rise of the Amiga but the C64 still kept Commodore afloat until 1993.

timbit42 4y ago
Don't worry. We had all the European software available through the piracy channels here in North America. Very little of it didn't work.

zsz 4y ago

Reminds me of the topic introduced at the end of the following video: "Will the world ever threaten our [Denmark's] dominance in indoor handball?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZfM1lkLuMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZfM1lkLuMI

vardump 4y ago

Yeah, they're still both surviving today. A ton of software is still being written for both machines, especially for Commodore 64. For recent C64 SW, see: https://csdb.dk/latestreleases.php https://csdb.dk/latestreleases.php

300bps 4y ago
Petscii Robots!! https://www.the8bitguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Petscii-Robots-Logo.png https://www.the8bitguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Petsci...

ilaksh 4y ago

Fascinating. I wonder what the equivalent headline would be today. Which hardware or software technologies are currently blasting away, but if you look at the cutting edge, are actually obsolescent? I'm going to get buried for this but, even though I have been a JavaScript programmer for many years, in the software side I think it's JavaScript, and even further a few years after that, web browsers. I see web assembly as a compelling target for many types of applications on the backend, or blockchain etc. I think that _could_ also eventually translate into momentum for standards for i/o devices for web assembly.

8bitsrule 4y ago
After years of trying many languages, I started using JS many years ago, and it's so fast and familiar (w/ a big routines library built) and versatile (with HTML & CSS) that I won't be leaving it behind for personal projects.
- ilaksh 4y ago
  I also feel that JavaScript or something similar is also the most practical language for many projects. Especially as you mentioned with the huge library (npm etc.). Having said that, web assembly has the potential for an even bigger library of modules to be built up, since modules written in one programming language could potentially interoperate with those written in another language.

kenjackson 4y ago

The article mentions fast loaders like V-Max. What did they do to increase disk IO so much?

Lio 4y ago
> The C-64's designers blamed the 1541's slow speed on the marketing department's insistence that the computer be compatible with the 1540, which was slow because of a flaw in the 6522 VIA interface controller. I believe they were able to work around the original flaws in the disk drives introduced for backwards compatibility with the Vic-20. > Without hardware modifications, some "fast loader" utilities (which bypassed routines in the 1541's onboard ROM) managed to achieve speeds of up to 4 KB/s.
- vintermann 4y ago
  These days, fast loaders achieve speeds up to 19.6 kb/s (Krill's Transwarp, although it does require a custom file format), or ~50 times the usual speed.
teki_one 4y ago
Using the clock line for data too. The disk drive was a computer too with a CPU, it run on very similar speed to the C64, so you can rely them being in sync. In detail: https://www.pagetable.com/?p=568 https://www.pagetable.com/?p=568

bsuvc 4y ago

By 1998, Commodore was ancient history. So the answer was already no.

timbit42 4y ago
The article is 1988, not 1998.

sakoht 4y ago

The gorgeous thing about these was that, the thing that sold a game was clever playability. Even the games that tried to create an immersive world had to span 4-6 floppy disks, and mostly had to lean on imagination, and your ability to see a fantastic world in colored pixels. I learned to code on a vic-20, then a C128, though the C64 had basically all of the fun software. When the Amiga came out, you had to pay $500 to get a C compiler to build software on it, but it was a dream. When Commodore finally tanked, I looked at the 80286 and Win 3.11, and nearly gave up on computing. Then: Linux. But for all of them, the beauty came because you could "touch the bottom" of the virtual world they offered.

az_reth 4y ago

This was published 10 years before I was born. I found myself spending most of my time on the ads instead of the content.

bullen 4y ago

Instead of focusing on the obvious progress story lets try to see what the C64 still has going for it and some unmentioned drawbacks: - It was a somewhat open system that you could build something for without asking for permission! - You could copy all software. - The longevity of the hardware surpasses most devices built after for a fraction of the cost. - It was repairable. - Most sold compatible architecture with ability to be productive ever in the history of mankind, probably forever. - 15W is pretty low power considered the lithography at the time (micrometers). - Keyboard built in that still works 40 years later! - S-video built-in before it was even called that, not even the amiga had that! - The SID is unparalleled still in some regards. - The VIC was incredible, sharing the 2MHz RAM with 1Mhz CPU interleaved and hardware sprites! The only flaws I can find are: - The IEC bug that slowed IO from the VIC until the 128. - One button joysticks?! the device has POTx and POTy why not use those?!?! - No built in assembly monitor in the default setting. To me human progess has ONLY been the C64 -> Raspberry 4 arc: from micrometer to nanometer. And the raspberry uses linux and has all compilers built in, and still very few kids use it for it's initial intended purpose: to build software! With electricty prices rising I think the Raspberry 4 will have a resurgence so I always develop my software to work on that device too. But most important; with computers as with protocols there is no competition, you need to follow the standard and in the 80s that standard was the C64. I think ARM+linux will be that final standard unless risc-v can pull the open hardware trick off! Seen that kids, that weren't even born when the C64 died, buy one and try to develop for it is a pretty good sign that the C64 will survive!

timbit42 4y ago
The video chip was called the VIC-II. The VIC was in the VIC-20. They are similar in operation but not compatible. Digital joysticks were best for most games. It's too bad no one brought out a game pad as they are better for some games. A second fire button could have been added. There were analog joysticks available but typically for special software such as flight simulators. It is too bad Commodore didn't put out an analog stick to encourage their use in driving and flight games. The joystick industry would have ran with it and would have brought out lots of them. The VIC-20 didn't have a built-in assembler either. Jack wasn't a computer user so he didn't see them as being important and was more focused on keeping the prices low, especially for the home models. Commodore did release ML monitors and even the Super Expanders on cartridge for the VIC-20 and C64. The IBM PC only won because it was built from off-the-shelf parts, meaning the hardware was effectively open source. Once the BIOS was cloned, there was no way anyone else could keep up. The only survivor is Apple and they almost didn't make it. If the CP/M machines had time to become mainstream on 16-bit processors before the IBM PC was cloned, it might have won and Digital Research might have become what Microsoft has.

askvictor 4y ago

It's worth thinking that the just-in-time supply chain so prevalent now is probably what allows the fast pace of change. In the 80s, you made a product, and needed to lock in supply contracts, warehousing, sales etc. There was so much inertia in those, you ended up wanting to keep your working product going without changing it.

PaulHoule 4y ago

That article came out just around the time 286 clones became affordable which was the beginning of the end of the 8-bit age. A 285 machine was still a little over $1000 but that’s inclusive of the monitor and a hard drive. The performance though was ‘on another level’ compared to 8-bitters and people like John Carmack and Mike Abrash were just about to figure out how to make games like Commander Keen.

JoyrexJ9 4y ago
The Amiga (and the Atari ST to a lesser extent) really marked the end of the 8-bit era. Maybe once the 386 came along then PC stepped into the picture
- timbit42 4y ago
  They were the beginning of the end but 8-bit systems were still available until the early 90's and purchased by those who couldn't afford the 16-bit systems.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    Low end PC's were getting pretty affordable by then. This 1988 ad has an 8088 machine which was about $650 inclusive of a disk drive and a monochrome monitor. https://archive.org/details/byte-1988-07_202104/page/n379/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/byte-1988-07_202104/page/n379/mo... The entry-level price of a C128 was much less but if you add a disk drive and a monitor so you can use the 80 column mode you're not saving that much money. The 286 machine is a lot more computer at $1100, the 386 is twice that. I had a hard time finding any 8088 machines advertised in Byte in 1990. To be fair Byte was aimed at the high end of the market, yet, Byte had plenty of coverage of the early 8-bitters, but I think the C-64 didn't get covered in Byte proportional to its popularity because it was late enough to the party that the IBM PC was getting mindshare. Byte had an odd mismatch between what was getting advertised (you'd have thought Cromeco was really something, other vendors of S-100 bus machines that supported CP/M were big) and was getting written about (low-end 8-bitters got a lot more press than CP/M ever did)
4y ago

brudgers 4y ago

Article begins on the 14th page of the pdf.