A-Z Challenge 03: Commodore 64

It’s quite amazing how technology has developed in our lifetime. In particular, I think about computers. In the office, we have Linux clusters of thousands of computers performing parallel computers. The smart phones in our pockets have more memory and compute power than the Cray super-computer I used for number crunching when I started my professional career in the early 1990s.

Does anyone remember Commodore 64? It was my first computer. I bought it in 1982, when I was in highschool. I worked an entire summer to earn up the $500 I needed to buy it.

Commodore 64 was a gray box with the electronics inside and the keyboard on top. The memory was 64 kiloByte, and the storage was a cassette recorder. I used the TV as display, connecting the computer with co-ax cable. We had only one TV in our family, so I had to wait till my father had seen the late news 11pm before I could use the computer. I guess that’s when I became a night owl (which I still am).

The early software was published in computer magazines, as code listings, and you had to type it in yourself (just imagine typing in the source code for Windows 7).

Commodore 64 wasn’t much of a computer, but it was good enough to learn the fundamentals of computer programming. I could do my math homework, and make some very simple computer games. I always thought playing computer games was boring. When I had made a game, I quickly got tired of it, and made a new one.  

(The picture is from Wikipedia. Unfortunately, I sold my Commodore 64 when I got my first IBM PC. For those who want to play and pretend, there are Commodore 64 emulators on the Internet.)