Happy 30th Birthday Commodore 64

[Lord_Santa]

tthe Commdoore 64 has now been around for 30 years
as far as I know it is still the single-most sold computer in the history (today's Personal Computers are rarely prefabricated in the same way that the C64 was)

the scene (both demo and games) is very much alive and there are peripherals released for the C64 even in 2012
these days it is possible to hook a C64 up to the internet, use SD-cards, etc. at decent prices

although the 5.25" disks since long disappeared from the official market, there are still places where you can buy brand new disks for your old 1541

there have been made several expansion-carts for the C64, in order to squeeze as much as possible from it and there's even the C64 laptop, which was sold at an auction for charity

personally the Commodore 64 was my first encounter with a computer, back in 1983-1984, as my brother purchased one for himself, but us "younger kids" were allowed some play-time as well

the first game I played, as far as I can recall would be "Get off my garden!" and I think I used keyboard only, since we didn't have a joystick

personally I had the Commodore 64 as main computer (i.e. I could not afford my own Amiga 500, until years later) until 1996
I got my first diskdrive (and actually saw a diskdrive for the first time) in 1992 - until then all my games had been on tape, only

I biked to a small town, far away from my own small town, in pouring rain, only to bring back home that diskdrive and it's 74 disks - amongst them was a game which would forever mark me as a gamer, namely "Knights of Legend"

I have made a lot of ASCII art on the C64, as well as animations
I started to learn BASIC back in '85, but never made it far enough to create something impressive

as I moved from Denmark to Sweden about 13 years ago, I had to leave behind my Commodore 64 collection, which I had been investing a lot of money in, since I got my first C64

during the 90's, when everyone was going Amiga, I would buy all the old Commodore 64 stuff they had laying around and amassed quite the collection

unfortunately I had to leave it behind and about 2-3 years ago it was all lost due to water-damages

nonetheless I have since invested in a Commodore 128 and a tape-drive
I've about 13 turbo-tapes (with games) and a EPYX Fastloader (for when I can afford a diskdrive) and all I need are decent joysticks (using TAC-2 isn't as comfortable as I remember it)

the Commodore 64 was my main companion throughout my youth, as I kept to myself during most of my life (still do), and thus I found the C64 to be a perfect solution to battle solitude, as well as teach me English long before everyone else at my school(s)

the Commodore 64's graphics may not impress anyone by today's standards, but the amount of imagination most of us had, growing up with 8-bit was more than enough to fill in the blanks and I could get immersed in the games available as much as any of today's games

the Commodore 64 changed the world, in that it was a personal computer at affordable prices and at the same time providing both games and useful programs

happy birthday Commodore 64! may you outlast us all

[Collz69]

My first commodore was the Commodore 16 (not many people had these, I thinks its because they were a bit poo)
anyway,
My friend had a C64 that his uncle had given him (god knows why) but it had loads of stuff with it, extra cassette players, tons of games, a disk drive with a load of games on floppy disks.
He was given it when I was 11/12 so it must have been around 1990, a good while after a lot of people had moved on to Game Boys & NES etc.
I remember playing the Cauldron games, we loved those & there were some disks of the "adult" variety lol
a lot of the disks had no names on & we would just load them up to see what was there, we loaded one & were greeted with what appeared to be an animation of a woman crouching down & something was "emerging from her!"
(my mates mum was hoovering on the landing & ive never seen him move so fast to switch the C64 off)

I didnt own a C64 until around 1993, I actually swapped my BMX for it, I remember playing The football manager games at the time (I cant remember what they were called) there were 2 of them & they were quite good.
I cant remember what happened to it, I guess my mum threw it out!!!

It was only a year or so later that I moved onto the Amiga & the rest is history.

Happy Birthday C64 & thanks for the memories!

[mr_wistles]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19055707

[Katsu]

Magical http://t.co/LmgDSLLK memories viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2591&p=37104#p37094 of this era
MASSIVE Respect to Mayhem for his amazing performance in regards to the BBC article

[BuckoA51]

The C64 was my main desktop until I was lucky enough to be able to upgrade to an Amiga 1200 (which remained my main desktop until the turn of the millennium, despite Commodore going bust in 1994!) I too saved hard for a disk drive. I'd later trade the C64 for a C128 and then later a C128D. Annoyingly I wish I'd stuck with the c64 since the 128D is so big and bulky!

I recently got it out to test it with the XRGB Mini and it looked awesome, LED Storm is still such a treat on the C64 way better than the Amiga version. I'm having a few games on the emulator tonight since I don't know where my original disks are in the loft

Is the guy in the BBC video Mayhem then? He should have took a disk drive with him!

[TombRaiderKuchen]

Happy Birthday Commodore 64 (about 15 minutes late but whatever)

Also if that is Mayhem in the video: Just so you know, I laughed at your blue screen of death joke. Seemed a bit lost on those kids.

[BuckoA51]

Played some Super Pipeline and rounded off the evening with a game of Zamzara, very playable classic that's not been remade to my knowledge. Yes I admit many C64 games haven't aged well but some still play just great. Here's to another 30 years

[Mayhem]

Yeah, it's me in the video. And yes, the blue screen joke was for the people at home

[Cauterize]

Yeah, it's me in the video. And yes, the blue screen joke was for the people at home

Awesome video buddy, loved it and I was really pleased to see the kids appreciating what the C64 had to offer. Kinda scary though, I'm only 26 years old yet there is a generation below me who have no idea what a cassette tape is. I'm getting old!

[mr_wistles]

Yeah, it's me in the video. And yes, the blue screen joke was for the people at home

That was you? Superb video, well done.

I thought the BS quip was great. How did you get involved with the BBC?

[Mayhem]

They were looking for someone to do the filming at the primary school, and through a couple of friends, they got in contact with me because I lived only a few miles from it. And had a stack of C64 equipment to bring along.

[Lord_Santa]

here's one hell of a tribute video:

http://youtu.be/08qsP8GgaBQ