crunchlife: Happy Birthday C64!

Happy Birthday C64!

Ryan Baxter — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:08:00 -0800

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64. Like many 30-somethings, I have fond memories of the C64. It was my first computer and provided years of wonder and learning.

All I wanted for Christmas in 1986 was a Commodore 64. While opening presents Christmas Day, I saved the biggest box for last. I knew that Mom and Dad would see fit to buy me this fantastic machine. I shredded the wrapping paper with haste. I was so excited that I barely noticed my father walking off to the kitchen to brew another pot of coffee. I tore at the last bits of tape and paper with a heart-sinking feeling in my chest. I’d saved the biggest and best gift for last, but my C64 was not inside. In it’s place was a terrestrial globe of the earth. I was stunned.

My mother rushed off to the kitchen to help my father. The passing minutes seemed like hours. My mother yelled out from the kitchen. The Monkey Bread had finished baking and my younger brother and I were to report to the dining hall. What a rotten Christmas. Not only did I not get that beige beauty, but we weren’t going to eat breakfast surrounded by Christmas toys.

My brother and I ran upstairs and into the dining room to find our parents standing next to our first family computer – a Commodore 64C. Typed lovingly at the Commodore BASIC V2.0 command prompt was the message,

MERRY CHRISTMAS RYAN AND ERIC.

LOVE, MOM AND DAD.

The Commodore 64C fascinated me for years. I spent many days playing games with friends and cutting my first BASIC programs. In the 80s you could find C64s on display in many department stores. If one were so inclined they could have written infinite loops on these display computers with a few simple lines of Commodore BASIC.

10 PRINT “RYAN WAS HERE!!!”
20 GOTO 10

Or maybe something not as nice. My parents didn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of my programming career. Times have changed, but I still have a place in my heart for the C64.

"Happy Birthday C64!" by Ryan Baxter

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:17:25 -0700

Gamer - I've never heard of that one. I played a lot of Beach-Head I and II, Summer, Winter, and California Games, Kung Fu Master, Impossible Mission, Gauntlet, Paperboy, Treasure Island, LCP, One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird, and more that I've forgotten. I wish I still had that computer.

"Happy Birthday C64!" by Gamer

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:20:06 -0700

Commodore 64 is such an amazing machine...did you ever play Trolls and Tribulations by any chance? I played skateordie a lot...I think that's what it was called but my dad loved Trolls and Tribulations and we can't find it anywhere.

"Happy Birthday C64!" by Ryan Baxter

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 05:43:25 -0800

James - I remember hours turning into days just trying to get my C64 to print using an old Okidata Daisy Wheel printer. It never did work. Back then everything that I could possibly think about saving fit onto a 5.24" floppy. Though if one were so inclined they could borrow their mother's sewing scissors and cut a single notch into the disk therefore making it have twice the storage capacity. Ah, good times. I had moved on to PCs by the time BBSs began to appear. I do wish I still had my Commodore though.

"Happy Birthday C64!" by James Alexander

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:55:09 -0800

I too spent my high school years with both Commodore and Atari computers. I now have a commdore 64 setup once again as my original wore out years ago. Many a day I'd come home from high school and be using my 64 before even attempting homework. Like many students the 64 made doing homework more bearable. Easy/script was much better than handwriting those essays and projects. Then there was the modem and the bbs world, meeting people I'd have never met otherwise and finding some cool programs to download at 300-450 baud. But now i have even more commodore stuff than I did back then, and its just as much fun.

"Happy Birthday C64!" by retsoced

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:02:42 -0800

That reminds me of this image I found, the entire first level of Super Mario brothers.
3200 x 1200 image