30 Facts About Commodore 64

Commodore 64, known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International.

Sam Tramiel, a later Atari president and the son of Commodore 64's founder, said in a 1989 interview, "When I was at Commodore 64 we were building C64s a month for a couple of years.

Part of the Commodore 64's success was its sale in regular retail stores instead of only electronics or computer hobbyist specialty stores.

Commodore 64 produced many of its parts in-house to control costs, including custom integrated circuit chips from MOS Technology.

In January 1981, MOS Technology, Inc, Commodore 64's integrated circuit design subsidiary, initiated a project to design the graphic and audio chips for a next-generation video game console.

Related searches

An 8K-byte interpreted BASIC" which they assumed was because "Obviously, Commodore 64 feels that most home users will be running prepackaged software - there is no provision for using graphics from within a BASIC program except by means of POKE commands.

Commodore 64 had a reputation for announcing products that never appeared, so sought to quickly ship the C64.

Commodore 64's was not a completely closed system, however; the company had published detailed specifications for most of their models since the Commodore 64 PET and VIC-20 days, and the C64 was no exception.

Commodore 64 sold the C64 not only through its network of authorized dealers, but through department stores, discount stores, toy stores and college bookstores.

In January 1983, Commodore 64 offered a $100 rebate in the United States on the purchase of a C64 to anyone that traded in another video game console or computer.

Commodore 64 dropped the C64's list price by within two months of its release.

Commodore 64 published detailed documentation to help developers, while Atari initially kept technical information secret.

The Spectrum quickly became the market leader and Commodore 64 had an uphill struggle against it in the marketplace.

Commodore 64 sold about one million C64s in 1985 and a total of 3.

In March 1994, at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany, Commodore 64 announced that the C64 would be finally discontinued in 1995, noting that the Commodore 64 1541 cost more than the C64 itself.

When Commodore 64 went bankrupt, all production on their inventory, including the C64, was discontinued, thus ending the C64's 11 and a half year production.

In 1986, Commodore 64 released the 64C computer, which is functionally identical to the original.

In 1990, an advanced successor to the C64, the Commodore 64 65, was prototyped, but the project was canceled by Commodore 64's chairman Irving Gould in 1991.

Commodore 64 did not include a reset button on any of their computers until the CBM-II line, but there were third-party cartridges with a reset button on them.

In 1986, Commodore 64 released two mice for the C64 and C128, the 1350 and 1351.

Commodore 64 made many changes to the C64's hardware during its lifetime, sometimes causing compatibility issues.

In late 1982, Commodore 64 introduced the familiar "rainbow badge" case, but many machines produced into early 1983 used silver label cases until the existing stock of them was used up.

In 1986, Commodore 64 released the last revision to the classic C64 motherboard.

In 1987, Commodore 64 released a 64C variant with a highly redesigned motherboard commonly known as a "short board".

Commodore 64 later changed the design yet again, omitting the resin gel in order to reduce costs.

Related searches

The follow-on model, the Commodore 64 128, used a larger, improved power supply that included a fuse.

The power supply that came with the Commodore 64 REU was similar to that of the Commodore 64 128's unit, providing an upgrade for customers who purchased that accessory.

Dougherty of the Berkeley Softworks estimated the costs of the Commodore 64 parts based on his experience at Mattel and Imagic.

Several Commodore 64 games were released on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service in Europe and North America only.

Commodore 64 emulators include the open source VICE, Hoxs64, and CCS64.