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

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!