The Commordore 64 at 25

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Posted in MP3 | music | technology on December 10, 2007

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Commodore 64

CNN's website has a misty-eyed feature celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64, perhaps the key home computer gaming platform of the early eighties....

I'm certain a lot of the lasting appeal is down to the brilliant SID sound chip, which produced - through the talent of musicians such as Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway - the best audio of any platform at the time. Those memorable C64 soundtracks coincided with - and complimented - the rise of computerised music in popular culture, which saw the arrival (or at least mainstream success) of synth pop bands like Ultravox, Human League and Depeche Mode as well as electro pioneers like Africa Bambaataa, Man Parrish and Egyptian Lover. Unlike the Spectrum, which existed in its own nerdy ghetto, C64 felt like it connected with something larger in the 'contemporary zeitgeist' - many years before PlayStation came along and claimed to legitimise gaming. Music, like smell, is a powerful nostalgic trigger and perhaps it's the one element of the eighties home computer experience that hasn't been degraded by time. That's why people are still playing Commodore music now, mashing it up for club nights or turning it into orchestral symphonies. [Keith Stuart]

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Tags: Commodore 64, Martin Galway, Rob Hubbard, synth pop, Ultravox, video games

Posted on December 10, 2007 8:10 AM

Comments (7)

"perhaps the key home computer gaming platform of the early eighties...."

I had a C=64 and I remember being jealous of those who had an Apple ][+ or an Atari 800 because of the games available for those machines.

Posted by Anonymous | December 10, 2007 10:50 AM

Are you serious? C64 had all the games! I at the time had a more "serious" computing platform, a x86 clone (8088 processor running at 4.77MHz), and while it did help me learn computers better, I was jealous of everyone else.

Posted by Anonymous | December 10, 2007 11:01 AM

I remember having to write: Load "*",8,1 to start every game.

But seriously, I agree with the prior posts. I was jealous of the people who had regular platform computers that could play the games King's Quest, Space Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry.

Posted by Anonymous | December 10, 2007 11:15 AM

You just needed access to one of the Bronx hacker crews...

My Dad was a guidance counselor in the south bronx in the 80's... He came home with a list of over 3000 C64 games (who remembers fast hack'em?), all I had to provide were the blank floppies.

I was king in middle school!

Posted by mechanic | December 10, 2007 12:47 PM

When I came to live in NYC in 85 I had a portable C=64. I was homeless and had to drag it around. Weighed a f+++ing ton!

Posted by joly | December 10, 2007 1:37 PM

I definitely had hundreds of copied games for the C64...more than I knew what to do with.

Posted by Mike | December 10, 2007 2:19 PM

Load "*",8,1
classic
I think I learned the word "examine" at an early age from playing Zork.

Posted by Anonymous | December 10, 2007 4:32 PM