29 ms·

Creating the Commodore 64: The Engineers' Story

96 points by amichail 2y ago

crb 2y ago
(1985) Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30895210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30895210 If you're interested in the history of Commodore, I thoroughly recommend the Commodore International Historical Society at https://commodore.international/ https://commodore.international/. Dave has pulled together many of the people who were there at the time. For example, here's an Amiga panel from the recent VCF East: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_AYDkuMg-U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_AYDkuMg-U
- pjmlp 2y ago
  And the part 2 of the Amiga Panel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvTOFYykBTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvTOFYykBTQ There is an older one from VCF, which were a couple of sessions, where I was proven wrong, some of the engineers actually wanted the Amiga to be UNIX like first, the way it turned out to be was a sequence of decisions that eventually made it the way it was in the end. Thankfully, as it had plenty of cool ideas, many of which never got out of the Amiga into other platforms. Looking forward to watch these.
- leoc 1y ago
  There are also Brian Bagnall's Commodore history books, of course.
jandrese 1y ago
> Running a 5-micrometer-technology chip at an 8-MHz clock rate caused it to dissipate a great deal of power—nearly 1.5 watts. So quaint in our era of 500w graphics cards.
sohkamyung 1y ago
I'm currently reading "Too Much Fun: The Five Lives of the Commodore 64 Computer" by Jesper Juul [1]. An interesting look at the history and influence of the C64 in games, the Demoscene and as a retro computer. He also has a companion website [2]. [1] https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/5883/Too-Much-FunThe-Five-Lives-of-the-Commodore-64 https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/5883/Too-Much-FunThe-... [2] https://jesperjuul.net/c64/ https://jesperjuul.net/c64/
hggh 1y ago
The original article: https://archive.org/details/commodore64_mar1985 https://archive.org/details/commodore64_mar1985
rasz 1y ago
There was Ensoniq speaker panel at VCF East 2025 (last month). Should be uploaded to https://www.youtube.com/@vcfederation/videos https://www.youtube.com/@vcfederation/videos at some point.

96 points by amichail 2y ago

crb 2y ago

(1985) Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30895210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30895210 If you're interested in the history of Commodore, I thoroughly recommend the Commodore International Historical Society at https://commodore.international/ https://commodore.international/. Dave has pulled together many of the people who were there at the time. For example, here's an Amiga panel from the recent VCF East: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_AYDkuMg-U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_AYDkuMg-U

pjmlp 2y ago
And the part 2 of the Amiga Panel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvTOFYykBTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvTOFYykBTQ There is an older one from VCF, which were a couple of sessions, where I was proven wrong, some of the engineers actually wanted the Amiga to be UNIX like first, the way it turned out to be was a sequence of decisions that eventually made it the way it was in the end. Thankfully, as it had plenty of cool ideas, many of which never got out of the Amiga into other platforms. Looking forward to watch these.
leoc 1y ago
There are also Brian Bagnall's Commodore history books, of course.

jandrese 1y ago

> Running a 5-micrometer-technology chip at an 8-MHz clock rate caused it to dissipate a great deal of power—nearly 1.5 watts. So quaint in our era of 500w graphics cards.

sohkamyung 1y ago

I'm currently reading "Too Much Fun: The Five Lives of the Commodore 64 Computer" by Jesper Juul [1]. An interesting look at the history and influence of the C64 in games, the Demoscene and as a retro computer. He also has a companion website [2]. [1] https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/5883/Too-Much-FunThe-Five-Lives-of-the-Commodore-64 https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/5883/Too-Much-FunThe-... [2] https://jesperjuul.net/c64/ https://jesperjuul.net/c64/

hggh 1y ago

The original article: https://archive.org/details/commodore64_mar1985 https://archive.org/details/commodore64_mar1985

rasz 1y ago

There was Ensoniq speaker panel at VCF East 2025 (last month). Should be uploaded to https://www.youtube.com/@vcfederation/videos https://www.youtube.com/@vcfederation/videos at some point.