Commodore 64 at 30: Computing for the Masses

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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If you can remember when the Commodore 64 came out, you should be feeling a bit old right now. The C-64 is celebrating its 30th birthday this week and is still ranks among the highest selling personal computers of all time. Happy Birthday, Commodore! :cool:
 
Gods, the thing I remember most about the C64 was the CLANK CLANK, Grrrr, XCXCXCXCXCXCXCCX, Clank Clattter, Buzz whir, for 5 minutes every time it tried to access even the tiniest file from the Floppy.

Well, maybe not 5, but when you were waiting on an area or game to load it sure felt like 5 minutes.
Apples 5 1/4 floppy was many times faster and quieter. We had both a Apple ][+ and a C64 set up and it was quite obvious in their differences.
 
Happy Birthday!

Those hours waiting for those damn cassette tapes to load my game will be forever remembered :D
 
I still have mine and the tape drive. I even have a Commodore 64 mouse still in the box! :)

It wasn't my first computer, but it was the most memorable. Went from playing games to making games. Wasn't too bad for a kid, either. I was thinking of taking that old game, storyline, etc. and making it into a newer game. :)
 
Temple of Apshai, Bruce Lee, Ultima III, Montezuma's revenge, Silent service, Bard's Tale, Archon... the list of amazing games numbered in the hundreds. It really was a magic time. Sound and graphics have gotten better, but very few suck me in like they did back in the day.

EA was even around back then, lol.
 
CyclopsSlayer said:
Gods, the thing I remember most about the C64 was the CLANK CLANK, Grrrr, XCXCXCXCXCXCXCCX, Clank Clattter, Buzz whir, for 5 minutes every time it tried to access even the tiniest file from the Floppy.

Well, maybe not 5, but when you were waiting on an area or game to load it sure felt like 5 minutes.
Apples 5 1/4 floppy was many times faster and quieter. We had both a Apple ][+ and a C64 set up and it was quite obvious in their differences.
Click to expand...


Well, C64 floppy was ridiculously slow because of design error (not sure if its software or hardware), something that can be overcome by loading turboloader program/hack first. Tripled the loading speeds. Too bad they did nothing to speed up loading within the game as the existence of the turbohack got wiped from the memory.



Tick Tick Tick Huff Wheeze Screech Tick Tick Tick

Good times. :cool:
 
If only loading speeds on the cassette drive were faster. Zaxxon was a 20 minute load. Well worth it, though. :D
 
Epyx Fastload cartridge helped alot.

As for the reason the 1541 was so slow.

Fast loaders came about because of a discrepancy between the actual speed at which floppy drives could transfer data and the speed that was provided by the operating system's default routines. This discrepancy was most pronounced on the Commodore VIC-20 and 64. While the earlier Commodore PET series had used an industry-standard IEEE-488 parallel bus, this was replaced with a custom serial bus on the VIC-20. The serial bus was intended to be nearly as fast as its predecessor, due to the use of the 6522 VIA as a hardware shift register on both the drive and computer. However, hardware bugs were discovered in the 6522 that prevented this function from working consistently. As a result, the KERNAL ROM routines were hastily rewritten to transfer a single bit at a time, using a slow software handshaking protocol.[1]
Although the C64 replaced the 6522 VIA with two 6526 CIA chips, which did not suffer from this bug, the companion 1541 disk drive still had a 6522 VIA. Commodore chose not to redesign the 1541 hardware, also in order to retain backward compatibility with VIC-20 peripherals; this however came at the expense of speed. Because of the transfer protocol, the Commodore 1540 and 1541 disk drives soon gained a reputation for extreme slowness. Only at the introduction of the Commodore 128 computer and the Commodore 1571 disk drive was the original plan put into action and a hardware shift register was used, reducing the need for special fast loaders.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_loader
 
Sinistar said:
Epyx Fastload cartridge helped alot.

As for the reason the 1541 was so slow.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_loader
Click to expand...

I had me one of them; it helped a lot. Even modified the cartridge and installed a switch so that it could be disabled for the programs that had compatibility issues with it.

Sold my first program to Computes Gazette back in the 80's.

Load "*",8,1
Load"$",8
List
Poke 5628820,1

Ah yes, I'm getting old...
 
Skipped the C64 and had a C128.

Some fond gaming memories:
Super Huey
Infiltrator
Impossible Mission
Marble Madness
Paradroid
Super Cycle
Autoduel
Karateka
Jungle Hunt
Mr. Robot
Airwolf
H.E.R.O.
Heart of Africa
Ultima series
The Last Ninja series
Shinobi
...way more I'm sure I could list.
 
Got mine for Christmas in 1982. Loved One on One, F15 Strike Eagle, Mail Order Monsters, Summer Games, Raid on Bungling Bay and so on. That was also back when EA's logo was EOA for some reason. LOL.
 
Oh yeah! Larry Bird and Dr. J One on One, Mail Order Monsters, Summer/Winter Games! Played those till the sun came up the next day!
 
Was a few years before my time, but +1 for respect for the old school.
 
Oh and I loved how you could drop the disk drive 3 feet onto a tile floor, crack a ceramic tile, and the thing still works :D
 
MaZa said:
Well, C64 floppy was ridiculously slow because of design error (not sure if its software or hardware), something that can be overcome by loading turboloader program/hack first. Tripled the loading speeds. Too bad they did nothing to speed up loading within the game as the existence of the turbohack got wiped from the memory.



Tick Tick Tick Huff Wheeze Screech Tick Tick Tick

Good times. :cool:
Click to expand...

It was a software issue all the way. Used to rip the copy protection off of games in order to get them to load quicker....some games went from over 20 minutes to load to seconds....wow, what a difference that made. :)

And I don't know why people are talking like it's gone....it's been relaunched for over a year now. :)
 
I miss space taxi. I use to play that for hours...and that fish game where you would eat other fish and crap.
 
MaZa said:
Well, C64 floppy was ridiculously slow because of design error (not sure if its software or hardware), something that can be overcome by loading turboloader program/hack first. Tripled the loading speeds. Too bad they did nothing to speed up loading within the game as the existence of the turbohack got wiped from the memory.



Tick Tick Tick Huff Wheeze Screech Tick Tick Tick

Good times. :cool:
Click to expand...

Seems to me I had a cartridge for that. I'll have to go dig out my c64 now.
 
This 40 year-old went through a Commodore 64, a Commodore 64C (with Quantumlink, which would later become AOL), a Commodore 128 (some games did make use of that extra memory, with more colors and better music), and a Commodore Amiga 1000. You could thus say that I was a big fan of Commodore, and remain fond of the platform.

Since I was a broke adolescent in the 80s, most of my C64 games were illegal duplicates or pirated copies (remember Hack 'Em Back 'Em, or Maverick, anyone?); I distinguish between the two because illegal duplicates were just plain copies (the term back then for this process was "software mugging,") whereas pirated copies had extra code programmed into them by the people who hacked them in the form of often elaborate and flashy intros (with full music and intense visuals) in which they took credit for the hack, talked trash about the competition, and boasted of their skills. Many games also had special messages that would display in the event that the game was determined to be illegally copied, and these were often so humorous that I would deliberately copy a game for a friend without using the most updated software hacker/duplicator so that I could see or hear about his reaction upon getting that surprise (I may have been broke, but 5.25" floppies were still plentily available). Since there were no hard drives around at the time, there was no concern for viruses, trojans, and the like, and in fact I don't think I ever heard of those computer-specific terms for malicious software until the early 90s.

There is a site called C64 Forever ( http://www.c64forever.com/ )that legally sells what in my opinion is the best Commodore 64 emulator around, and it's made by the same guy, an Italian named Cloanto, that also sells the only (as far as I know) legal and authorized Amiga emulator. Between these emulators and the recent resurrection of the Commodore brand (whose computers I understand come with the Commodore BASIC operating system either installed with a dual-boot option or emulated from within Windows) are there plenty of opportunities for people to see for themselves how millions of people played computer games in the 80s.
 
toddw said:
Temple of Apshai, Bruce Lee, Ultima III, Montezuma's revenge, Silent service, Bard's Tale, Archon... the list of amazing games numbered in the hundreds. It really was a magic time. Sound and graphics have gotten better, but very few suck me in like they did back in the day.

EA was even around back then, lol.
Click to expand...

EA back then was just a bohemian garage outfit instead of this smug and arrogrant corporate monstrosity that so many people today identify it as exclusively. Their games came in notable square-shaped and thin containers (not quite boxes) with cover art that resembled music album covers, and many of them I think are still entertaining today, from Archon 1 & 2 (those copies of 3 that we all had were just from some amateur project calling itself "Free Fuck Associates," lol) and Mail Order Monsters to Adventure Construction Set and Racing Destruction Set.

images


images
 
I was a former employee of CBM. It was a sad day when they went bankrupt. I still have an attic full of A2000s w/ Toaster and Commdore PCs (yes, they had Intel desktops towards the end).

Don't have the heart to part ways with stuff.
 
Epyx fast load cart was a joke, the Warp Speed was the shiznit.

I ran a C64 bbs for a couple years. Lots of lost time and $$ when I should have been doing something more important.... chasing girls.

Commodore... what a textbook case of management incompetence. They had some of the best products on the market (C64 series, Amiga) and just continued to shoot themselves in the feet over and over.

I am actually a little shocked that EA has not trolled the old C64 game catalog and remade them. Mail order monsters was pretty cool. Archon, etc.
 
Mine is still in my attic. The wife asks me to sell it every time we hold a yard sale.
 
toddw said:
Temple of Apshai, Bruce Lee, Ultima III, Montezuma's revenge, Silent service, Bard's Tale, Archon... the list of amazing games numbered in the hundreds. It really was a magic time. Sound and graphics have gotten better, but very few suck me in like they did back in the day.

EA was even around back then, lol.
Click to expand...

EA was awesome back then, how the times have changed. When you saw that EA splash screen on a game you knew you were in for a good time. Such great titles, so much fun was had. It really was a magical time. I played most of those games on the Atari 800 but the experience was the same.
 
Happy Birthday Commodore 64!

I remember fun times playing Karateka, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and Gettysburg.
 
My first home computer was a used C-64 and a 1541 Disk Drive purchased from a local pawn shop. Back when pawn shops had tons and tons of old M1 Garand Rifles from WW2 for $99 each. To put that in prospective. Those Rifles are now at least $800 but mostly sale in the $1,500 - $1,800 range. This was about 1987.

Games that I remember and loved were Wasteland, Death Lord, Aces of Aces, Defender of the Crown, Elite, Little Computer People and many many many more.

I think I paid around $500 for the C-64 and 1541 used. Very unsure. I do know I sold the setup in the late 80's for around $450 and moved to the Amiga 500 shortly after that.

Absolutely loved the C-64. A lot of great games that for the time was very cutting edge. I even had a few carts like Kickman and other common games released in cart form. Never had the tape drive. I did come close to buying an 8 or 10 meg hard drive but it was ..... VERY VERY expensive at around $800 used. Also never had a monitor. I and many others just used a TV with an adapter. Monitors were very expensive as well. Thinking around $600 dollars.

As for the PC back then. I don't remember it ever being called the PC at all really. Maybe occasionally. Most people called them IBM's or Tandy's. Back then they were black or white or CGA. CGA was only 4 colors and zero sound other than beeps. So very un-suitable for game play. The PC has had an incredible evolution to get where it is today. Trust me on that. Don't even get me started with having to configure IRQ and DMA via jumpers lol.

Ahhh, memories :)
 
Sad that the commodore amiga is still almost unknown today. True multitasking OS, true video and audio coprocessors (well at least an on board sound system worth mentioning).

And all of this predated Microsoft's first true OS (at least multitasking, and windows 95 was the first Microsoft offering) by not a few years. Hell, i remember my first A500, and it made a mockery of the PC's of the time. Even with only a single 5.25 floppy VS a hard drive equipped 386.

Motorola processors were better technically than Intel's offerings at the time as well. Ah, history, giving kudos to the runners up due to the mediocrity of the people. I still miss the 6800 series processors, they were way ahead of their time.
 
spugnor said:
And all of this predated Microsoft's first true OS (at least multitasking, and windows 95 was the first Microsoft offering) by not a few years. Hell, i remember my first A500, and it made a mockery of the PC's of the time. Even with only a single 5.25 floppy VS a hard drive equipped 386.
Click to expand...
Tell me about it, I remember when the "VGA" cards start popping out on the PC side of thing and my first thought was "LoL n00bs, you just now getting to see what games should look like?" (yup, I was 'leet at age 15 :D)

Burticus said:
Epyx fast load cart was a joke, the Warp Speed was the shiznit.
Click to expand...
Disagree, I found that Warp Speed would only load the first thing really fast, which for some games unfortunately was a small loader program.
 
Remember notching floppy to get more room. Even had utility to align disk drive head. Those were the days. Had lots of games and utilities for it. I miss commodore 64 after I sold it.
 
spugnor said:
Sad that the commodore amiga is still almost unknown today. True multitasking OS, true video and audio coprocessors (well at least an on board sound system worth mentioning).

And all of this predated Microsoft's first true OS (at least multitasking, and windows 95 was the first Microsoft offering) by not a few years. Hell, i remember my first A500, and it made a mockery of the PC's of the time. Even with only a single 5.25 floppy VS a hard drive equipped 386.

Motorola processors were better technically than Intel's offerings at the time as well. Ah, history, giving kudos to the runners up due to the mediocrity of the people. I still miss the 6800 series processors, they were way ahead of their time.
Click to expand...


Yep, first system with a dedicated graphics processor.

My first hard drive was on the Amiga - and external 20 meg.
 
Any remember CBM's PETs. C64's were basically PETs with graphics and audio upgrades. Mostly audio upgrades. Learned a little machine language in highschool on those and my home C64.
 
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