7 ms·

Perhaps the most interesting part is the last question: Gazette: Despite this, the machines sometimes get rapped as being old-fashioned, obsolete. McIntyre: T

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.
  - Lio 4y ago
    I have a similar route. For me I had a tiny Carry-I PC 8088 that I still regret selling to this day. I have great nostalgia for its twin 3.5” floppy drives, Microsoft mouse (Windows 2) and orange monochrome display. Man I wish I’d bought an Amiga at the time though. With hindsight PCs were so crap back then, even if the limitations were fun.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    I hope that you have a museum in your will, and that they are aware of that.
brudgers 4y ago
In terms of compute requirements, 640x480 is quadruple 320x200. Double would be 448x280.
raverbashing 4y ago
Yeah, it's totally myopic The C64 wasn't even a good 8-bit machine for a start And even if it was, it is so removed from today's computers to be useless. Really I'd say a 386 is not obsolete from that point of view (of the discussion). Or even the Amiga as others mentioned. But the C64 is.
- egypturnash 4y ago
  I am curious which 8-bit machines you thought were good, if the c64 wasn’t.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    MSX 2 and 2+ for example
    - boffinAudio 4y ago
      Amstrad CPC6128 and Enterprise 128 were arguably much better machines than the C64, architecture-wise. The idea that the C64 was the 'best 8-bit machine of the market' is very US-centric - there were certainly far better 8-bit machines on sale at the time, its just that their market wasn't the USA. (Disclaimer: Oric-1/Atmos user here. A much better machine than the C654 - it taught me to program.)
      - vintermann 4y ago
        I don't think anyone argues that specific c64 hardware designs, like how the video chip steals CPU time, were all that brilliant. The 6510 chip has some strengths and weaknesses compared to the Z80-based micros. Most micros beat the c64 on filled polygon 3d graphics for instance. But the c64 had the best sound by far of the 8 bit micros, even those very late models that you mention.
      - timbit42 4y ago
        The MSX, MSX 2, Amstrad CPC and Enterprise all had better hardware and ROM software but they came out later than the C64 (fall 1982), which by then already had lots of games and dominated the market sales-wise. As today, we buy computers and choose operating systems based on the software we want to run. Which would you buy? The system with the most software and the most software currently being made, or a system with somewhat better hardware but little software available? When the C64 came out, it had the best graphics and sound, but not the best ROM software. I wouldn't even say it had an operating system. It was really just a small, simple KERNAL with some system calls. It didn't have a very good BASIC either, and couldn't auto boot. It was essentially a video game console with a keyboard and a slow floppy drive so parents would think it was a computer. It didn't even have a proper backward compatible upgrade path. The C128 and C65 aren't backward compatible with it, they have a C64 mode. I had a VIC-20 and then a C64 in the 80's but looking back now, I'd rather have had an Atari 800/XL/XE. The graphics and sound were almost as good but it had a real OS, custom DOSes, and lots of interesting programming languages available for it. But I, as many others in software and IT today who got started with Commodore computers, couldn't afford the Atari or Apple systems so I am grateful Jack Tramiel made computers for the masses, not the classes.
jcranmer 4y ago
There are markets where I think he'd be broadly correct--the TI-83 (well, TI-84 now, I guess) is the one that comes to mind. Its target market gives it a certain cap of feature development (you don't want it too be powerful a computer, lest teachers feel uncomfortable letting students use it on tests), and this means that updating models is largely about minor hardware stuff (e.g., switching out a bank of AAA batteries for a rechargeable battery). However, given the context of the interview in general ("you're losing market share, sales are slowing, you're losing customers, etc., what are you going to do about it?"), arguing basically "nothing's wrong" bespeaks a certain arrogance that would, even without the benefit of hindsight, give me tremendous pause.
ilaksh 4y ago
His job was to sell 8 but computers so that may have influenced his viewpoint or what he wanted to say on the record.
II2II 4y ago
The article is right if you look at computers as standalone devices. The problem is, they aren't standalone devices for most people. Even prior to the popularity of the Internet, people exchanged documents. With the rise of the Internet, people started consuming more and from more sources. Interoperability became more important, and other people started defining standards that were well beyond the capabilities of 8-bit micros. The C64, among others, were doomed. (For what it's worth, I was encountering people who used 8-bit micros well into the late 90's. They were happy with what they had, but they were also very much using their computers in isolation.)
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  They were cheap toys. That's all. They were usefully educational if you wanted to understand the internals, but 95% of the time they were for entertainment. Modern computing uses the same hardware principles, expanded and speeded up by many orders of magnitude. But a hugely bigger set of affordances. Mass storage just works without floppy swapping or cassette saving, data and applications are distributed, there's pocket as well as desktop access, and cameras, sound, and video are a given. And that's just the hardware. It's like comparing a high speed rail network to a skateboard.
  - II2II 4y ago
    Yet high speed rail networks are practically useless for transportation within one's community (or even within most cities). In those cases, modes of transportation such as walking, skateboarding, cycling, driving are more effective. Using a C64 or C128 today would be kinda silly, but that wasn't the case in the late 1980's through mid-1990's. They were fine for many smaller tasks, and a great deal better than the alternatives if you could not afford a "real computer". Even as a glorified typewriter, a C64 was orders of magnitude better than an actual typewriter. Even as a calculator, a C64 was order of magnitude better than an actual calculator. Of course cost is the deciding factor here because computers aren't the same as transportation networks. Aside from cost high end computer is going to be better than a high end one in every case. It has physics working for it, rather than against it. Yet cost of replacement is still a factor.
eek2121 4y ago
I mean, he was wrong in many ways. However, old computing does have a place, as has been mentioned before here on HN, Ben Eater has done an awesome job at getting folks involved with hardware and low-level software design: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/beneater https://www.youtube.com/c/beneater Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/beneater/ https://www.reddit.com/r/beneater/ Note that I don't know the guy (though I really wish I did, would love to have a couple beers with him.) I stumbled across his stuff just this year and loved it thanks to my background along with my family background. In the absence of elementary silicon design classes, we find YouTubers stepping up. I am rather critical of such folks, as most tend to be super pushy wish sponsorships, ads, and what not, however, his videos (thus far) do not do that. Note that I did (eventually) buy a couple of his kits.
acchow 4y ago
> There is no such thing as hardware obsolescence I guess if you assume that computation requires no energy…
NL807 4y ago
> If the need continues to exist until the year 2000, then that machine is still satisfactory. Funnily enough Melbourne Metro used C64 systems well into the 2000s for displaying timetables.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
achairapart 4y ago
Many people here seems to miss what 95% of users did with the C64 (and other 8-bit machines): Videogames. The trick was to sell at parents the idea that they were buying a powerful but still cheap machine for their kids so they could learn how to use computers[0]. But once in their bedrooms, 95% of kids spent all of their time just playing games and ignoring what "RAM, bytes, bits" or even Basic was. Once more sophisticated consoles (Nintendo, Sega) and 16/32bit PC games hit the market, the C64 lost all of its appeal. [0]: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffb85fe09-b113-4cf7-b163-e6d0a079873b_900x1200.jpeg https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...
- vidarh 4y ago
  That was the starting point, sure, but by the late 80's and into the 90's (production didn't cease until Commodore's bankruptcy in '94) it was still in the game because it was a cheap toy. I don't have time to go looking for prices in '94 when production ceased, but even as prices for other machines were dropping rapidly, C64 prices remained lower. An issue of RUN from '92 has ads for the C64 at $140-$150. At that point the 1541 disk drive was the most expensive part, at <$165, but you could get the 3.5" 1581 for $109.95 For comparison, an Amiga 600 cost $399 from the same retailer, the same magazine has PC's starting at $500+. Far more capable at that point, sure, but you'd end up paying more than that if you wanted decent graphics and sound, and you needed a monitor whereas the C64 could connect to your TV, and suddenly the C64 was sufficiently cheaper at that point to be seen as a toy.
  - achairapart 4y ago
    By late 80s the only "enthusiast" C64 users were mostly (and sadly) those who could not afford a better computer. And from what I can remember, even as a kid, that was not so uncommon. After all, "a computer on every desk and in every home" was still just a company vision statement.
    - vidarh 4y ago
dotancohen 4y ago
> There is no such thing as hardware obsolescence. That's a bit naive. Older hardware devices, such as Android 4 devices, cannot be upgraded to TLS 1.3. Hardware also becomes obsolete when wear items are no longer available - and that could include 3.5" floppies, or compatible batteries, or even RAM modules in some applications. Not to mention wifi devices that support only 802.11a, or G1 cellular phones, or even analogue television in the United States. Often devices are still needed, but the ecosystem surrounding their usage has changed. That is what often brings around obsolescence in this industry.
- olabyne 4y ago
  > Older hardware devices, such as Android 4 devices, cannot be upgraded to TLS 1.3 That is software obsolescence, not hardware.

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.
- Lio 4y ago
  I have a similar route. For me I had a tiny Carry-I PC 8088 that I still regret selling to this day. I have great nostalgia for its twin 3.5” floppy drives, Microsoft mouse (Windows 2) and orange monochrome display. Man I wish I’d bought an Amiga at the time though. With hindsight PCs were so crap back then, even if the limitations were fun.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  I hope that you have a museum in your will, and that they are aware of that.

brudgers 4y ago

In terms of compute requirements, 640x480 is quadruple 320x200. Double would be 448x280.

raverbashing 4y ago

Yeah, it's totally myopic The C64 wasn't even a good 8-bit machine for a start And even if it was, it is so removed from today's computers to be useless. Really I'd say a 386 is not obsolete from that point of view (of the discussion). Or even the Amiga as others mentioned. But the C64 is.

egypturnash 4y ago
I am curious which 8-bit machines you thought were good, if the c64 wasn’t.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  MSX 2 and 2+ for example
  - boffinAudio 4y ago
    Amstrad CPC6128 and Enterprise 128 were arguably much better machines than the C64, architecture-wise. The idea that the C64 was the 'best 8-bit machine of the market' is very US-centric - there were certainly far better 8-bit machines on sale at the time, its just that their market wasn't the USA. (Disclaimer: Oric-1/Atmos user here. A much better machine than the C654 - it taught me to program.)
    - vintermann 4y ago
      I don't think anyone argues that specific c64 hardware designs, like how the video chip steals CPU time, were all that brilliant. The 6510 chip has some strengths and weaknesses compared to the Z80-based micros. Most micros beat the c64 on filled polygon 3d graphics for instance. But the c64 had the best sound by far of the 8 bit micros, even those very late models that you mention.
    - timbit42 4y ago
      The MSX, MSX 2, Amstrad CPC and Enterprise all had better hardware and ROM software but they came out later than the C64 (fall 1982), which by then already had lots of games and dominated the market sales-wise. As today, we buy computers and choose operating systems based on the software we want to run. Which would you buy? The system with the most software and the most software currently being made, or a system with somewhat better hardware but little software available? When the C64 came out, it had the best graphics and sound, but not the best ROM software. I wouldn't even say it had an operating system. It was really just a small, simple KERNAL with some system calls. It didn't have a very good BASIC either, and couldn't auto boot. It was essentially a video game console with a keyboard and a slow floppy drive so parents would think it was a computer. It didn't even have a proper backward compatible upgrade path. The C128 and C65 aren't backward compatible with it, they have a C64 mode. I had a VIC-20 and then a C64 in the 80's but looking back now, I'd rather have had an Atari 800/XL/XE. The graphics and sound were almost as good but it had a real OS, custom DOSes, and lots of interesting programming languages available for it. But I, as many others in software and IT today who got started with Commodore computers, couldn't afford the Atari or Apple systems so I am grateful Jack Tramiel made computers for the masses, not the classes.

jcranmer 4y ago

There are markets where I think he'd be broadly correct--the TI-83 (well, TI-84 now, I guess) is the one that comes to mind. Its target market gives it a certain cap of feature development (you don't want it too be powerful a computer, lest teachers feel uncomfortable letting students use it on tests), and this means that updating models is largely about minor hardware stuff (e.g., switching out a bank of AAA batteries for a rechargeable battery). However, given the context of the interview in general ("you're losing market share, sales are slowing, you're losing customers, etc., what are you going to do about it?"), arguing basically "nothing's wrong" bespeaks a certain arrogance that would, even without the benefit of hindsight, give me tremendous pause.

ilaksh 4y ago

His job was to sell 8 but computers so that may have influenced his viewpoint or what he wanted to say on the record.

II2II 4y ago

The article is right if you look at computers as standalone devices. The problem is, they aren't standalone devices for most people. Even prior to the popularity of the Internet, people exchanged documents. With the rise of the Internet, people started consuming more and from more sources. Interoperability became more important, and other people started defining standards that were well beyond the capabilities of 8-bit micros. The C64, among others, were doomed. (For what it's worth, I was encountering people who used 8-bit micros well into the late 90's. They were happy with what they had, but they were also very much using their computers in isolation.)

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
They were cheap toys. That's all. They were usefully educational if you wanted to understand the internals, but 95% of the time they were for entertainment. Modern computing uses the same hardware principles, expanded and speeded up by many orders of magnitude. But a hugely bigger set of affordances. Mass storage just works without floppy swapping or cassette saving, data and applications are distributed, there's pocket as well as desktop access, and cameras, sound, and video are a given. And that's just the hardware. It's like comparing a high speed rail network to a skateboard.
- II2II 4y ago
  Yet high speed rail networks are practically useless for transportation within one's community (or even within most cities). In those cases, modes of transportation such as walking, skateboarding, cycling, driving are more effective. Using a C64 or C128 today would be kinda silly, but that wasn't the case in the late 1980's through mid-1990's. They were fine for many smaller tasks, and a great deal better than the alternatives if you could not afford a "real computer". Even as a glorified typewriter, a C64 was orders of magnitude better than an actual typewriter. Even as a calculator, a C64 was order of magnitude better than an actual calculator. Of course cost is the deciding factor here because computers aren't the same as transportation networks. Aside from cost high end computer is going to be better than a high end one in every case. It has physics working for it, rather than against it. Yet cost of replacement is still a factor.

eek2121 4y ago

I mean, he was wrong in many ways. However, old computing does have a place, as has been mentioned before here on HN, Ben Eater has done an awesome job at getting folks involved with hardware and low-level software design: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/beneater https://www.youtube.com/c/beneater Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/beneater/ https://www.reddit.com/r/beneater/ Note that I don't know the guy (though I really wish I did, would love to have a couple beers with him.) I stumbled across his stuff just this year and loved it thanks to my background along with my family background. In the absence of elementary silicon design classes, we find YouTubers stepping up. I am rather critical of such folks, as most tend to be super pushy wish sponsorships, ads, and what not, however, his videos (thus far) do not do that. Note that I did (eventually) buy a couple of his kits.

acchow 4y ago

> There is no such thing as hardware obsolescence I guess if you assume that computation requires no energy…

NL807 4y ago

> If the need continues to exist until the year 2000, then that machine is still satisfactory. Funnily enough Melbourne Metro used C64 systems well into the 2000s for displaying timetables.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

achairapart 4y ago

Many people here seems to miss what 95% of users did with the C64 (and other 8-bit machines): Videogames. The trick was to sell at parents the idea that they were buying a powerful but still cheap machine for their kids so they could learn how to use computers[0]. But once in their bedrooms, 95% of kids spent all of their time just playing games and ignoring what "RAM, bytes, bits" or even Basic was. Once more sophisticated consoles (Nintendo, Sega) and 16/32bit PC games hit the market, the C64 lost all of its appeal. [0]: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffb85fe09-b113-4cf7-b163-e6d0a079873b_900x1200.jpeg https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...

vidarh 4y ago
That was the starting point, sure, but by the late 80's and into the 90's (production didn't cease until Commodore's bankruptcy in '94) it was still in the game because it was a cheap toy. I don't have time to go looking for prices in '94 when production ceased, but even as prices for other machines were dropping rapidly, C64 prices remained lower. An issue of RUN from '92 has ads for the C64 at $140-$150. At that point the 1541 disk drive was the most expensive part, at <$165, but you could get the 3.5" 1581 for $109.95 For comparison, an Amiga 600 cost $399 from the same retailer, the same magazine has PC's starting at $500+. Far more capable at that point, sure, but you'd end up paying more than that if you wanted decent graphics and sound, and you needed a monitor whereas the C64 could connect to your TV, and suddenly the C64 was sufficiently cheaper at that point to be seen as a toy.
- achairapart 4y ago
  By late 80s the only "enthusiast" C64 users were mostly (and sadly) those who could not afford a better computer. And from what I can remember, even as a kid, that was not so uncommon. After all, "a computer on every desk and in every home" was still just a company vision statement.
  - vidarh 4y ago

dotancohen 4y ago

> There is no such thing as hardware obsolescence. That's a bit naive. Older hardware devices, such as Android 4 devices, cannot be upgraded to TLS 1.3. Hardware also becomes obsolete when wear items are no longer available - and that could include 3.5" floppies, or compatible batteries, or even RAM modules in some applications. Not to mention wifi devices that support only 802.11a, or G1 cellular phones, or even analogue television in the United States. Often devices are still needed, but the ecosystem surrounding their usage has changed. That is what often brings around obsolescence in this industry.

olabyne 4y ago
> Older hardware devices, such as Android 4 devices, cannot be upgraded to TLS 1.3 That is software obsolescence, not hardware.