The Commodore 64 - My First Computer
So I happened upon a few YouTube commercials for the Commodore 64, my first computer. Here’s one of them:
I was 11 or 12 when we first got my Commodore. My mom had saved for months to purchase it and then still ended up putting it on a payment plan from a local department store. I seem to remember that with everything included, it cost just over $1,200. We had a monitor, keyboard and a large floppy drive (I mean large AND floppy). I enjoyed playing with Print Shop and making all sorts of banners or greeting cards on our dot-matrix printer. I got my first chance at creating computer art using a Koala drawing pad which amazed me (huge upgrade from my etch-a-sketch), and used different programs to make pixel-based graphics (a skill which I still use when I’m doing icon design). I remember typing in code that I found in a magazine to make a little monster jump across the screen. (I spent over 4 hours doing this as a kid - even now that baffles me.)
Computers have come a long way, and yet they still improve all the time. The Commodore 64 was an amazing machine… they could do so much with so little. 64K? If only they would match that proportion of functionality to computer size today - just think how much more amazing computers would be?
Just a little tid-bit of nostalgia for you. I know the company filed bankruptcy in 1994, but whatever happened to the Commodore 64?