Friday, January 6, 2012

64 Turns 30

The venerable Commodore 64 turns 30 this week, having been first introduced to the world at the 1982 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

The C64 had a profound impact on two industries.  Not only did its low price ($525 at retail, compared to $1200 plus for the base Apple II model) further Apple's work at popularizing the computer for home use, the C64 became an incredibly prolific video game platform, on which many future game programmers cut their teeth.

It was a quirky system, especially the enormous 5140 floppy drive accessory, which was nearly the size of the computer itself, about 4 times the weight, and often seemed like it was going to shake itself off your desk while accessing information off 5 1/4" disks.  Despite this, the Commodore 64 became one of the most popular single computer lines ever, selling over 22 million units.

Although the 64K of internal memory in the C64 seems infinitesimally small, this powerhouse helped change the face of computing.

No comments:

Post a Comment