I LOVE the Commodore 64, raised in England my first foray into computing was the humble ZX81 from which I learned basic programming, and then moved onto the mighty Spectrum. In 1986 I bought a Commodore 64 with 1570 disk drive (yes I know.......) and didn't look back. I learned 6502 machine code (am still learning more!), played games, watched demos and had what can only be described as the greatest time of my life. Even though i bought an Amiga in 1990 and got into business programming om the IBM AS400 the commodore 64 sits in a place that can never be erased, a time when I would stay up until 5am tinkering around with a raster bar bounce effect with multiplex sprites doing weird things in front of it. Squeezing every byte out of that machine was incredibly hard, and incredibly satisfying when you see the results on screen.
I had a friend who was entering grad school at Colorado in the computer science department when the C64 came out. He bought one for himself because he told me it was the only inexpensive computer with which you could actually do anything serious.
What really killed them was that the Amiga was unable to run C64 software. There was no incentive to stay with Commodore. There was also many other issues with productivity products which was lacking along with print drivers for the Amiga. So people went to Apple or IBM.
Another point against Commodore was that their computers couldn't really network as well as or even with IBM and Apple. Sure it was hard to get something from a Macintosh to a Windows computer, but it WAS possible. Compare that to a C64 being unable to communicate with anything other than another C64. The fact that two computers from the same company couldn't talk to each other was one more nail against the Chicken Lipped company.
My home in the 80's and 90's [North America] just had IBM PC clones. Had parent who worked in IT. Didn't get to touch a C64 until about 5 years ago. Have 4 now, 1 not working. 1 is PAL version. Love the little machine.
6:30 the SID is absolutely my favorite sound chip even as of today. I'm using 12 of them in live streams for music these days as I'm writing this comment (2023).
My dad bought a Commodore VIC-20 when I was a kid long before the C64 came out. I was in love with it using it to program and be amazed that it would do what I asked it to do. The C64 was my next with the floppy drive. Felt as if I was in a world of great technology. Programmed budget applications and games with sound. Oddly enough at 64 years of age (retired Industrial PLC Programmer) I now have in my home hobby shop one desktop running Windows, three micro computers running Windows, one of which runs my home built CNC wood router along with an Arduino board running GRBL software, two Raspberry Pi's and more micro-processors boards like the Arduino and ESP-8266 than I can count. To think my obsession all started from a simple VIC-20. My motto.... Never Quit Learning! 😃
I was 22 years old when I got mine. I had a store in original mall. The lady at electronics boutique told me to buy it, so I did. I could knock out a payroll in 12 minutes or less using a 5 1/4 floppy desk.😂 The lady up at Nextel wanted me to pay $3000 for IBM 5055 I think and 2000 for the software that was not guaranteed to run I bought the one at electronics boutique, and it lasted me over a decade Best money I ever spent
Good video. 👍 The C64 wasn’t the first computer I ever used (that was a DEC PDP-11), but it was the first one I ever owned. And none since have had as much fondness as I had for my C64. I particularly like your analysis of Commodore’s last days. I was on a GEnie Amiga roundtable and several Commodore-related BBSs at that time and we had many discussions about it. The one I remember the most was about the sale of office equipment at Commodore’s headquarters. We all a laugh/cry when the last bit of equipment, a floor polisher of all things, finally sold off.
I still lament the day I sold my C64. Back then it was my only option... I needed the money for an Amiga 500. Years later I bought back a 64... but it just isn't the same. Wish I still had THAT computer :(
I still have all my C-64 stuff, which includes 3 c64 machines, of which one of them was my first ever 64, bought in 1983. Also includes peripherals (7 impact printers, 7 floppy drives, 2 cassette drives, cartridges, joysticks/paddles, adapters, etc), as well as stacks of floppy disks & related paper (manuals, magazines, books, old printouts). Some of these do need servicing though. Also have a c64 cpu accelerator bought in 1990 that boosts the speed to 4 times faster than stock. There were a few of us that enjoyed a speed-boosted 64 way back then in the late 80s & early 1990s. I used a speed-boosted c64 to write/printout essays (& gaming, heh) during my late 1980s college, as GEOS64 was my main operating system. The SID chip was something I was attracted to & used a lot, as I was also getting into synthesizers by the early 1980s because the SID was a basic subtractive synthesizer on a chip. Anyway, I have also kept our Coleco Telstar & Atari VCS game consoles from the late 1970s, as well as several typewriters & print calculators of the 70s, several CRT TVs & monitors, & many PC stuff. Commodore & the IBM/Intel PC was where I was most proficient at. I never got into Apple, Tandy Radio Shack (TRS), Atari or Amiga, although I have had some experience with them, most especially the TRS Model 3&4 in highschool (it was the school main computers) & the Apple Mac (now called the classic Mac) during college in the late 1980s. But it was my experience with a Commodore PET in highschool 1983 that introduced me to Commodore & eventually decided to get a c64. I also almost got a free C-128 around 15 years ago but I turned it down. Radio Shack was my favorite store growing up though, since 1980, as I did also get into electronics, & it was sad when they liquidated across the nation one last time in 2017, although they are still in business today, just not as glorious as they once were. I did get to buy tons of stuff during their liquidation, 40 to 90% off, stuff I would have never bought at regular Shack prices. Also had some good programming experience with a Hewlett-Packard 85 computer during college. I know (or knew) several computer languages (Basic, ForTran, Pascal, ASM, etc), including some formatting languages for medical databases/management software. Also watched Computer Chronicles religiously back then, as short clips of it shown in the video above. Nice reference to Lemon64 as well. The one thing I knew & was aware of way back then as a teen was ... do not throw away, sell or give away stuff, that you might regret doing that later on. That is why I still have all this stuff & they are the originals bought, not replacements. I am hoping to do a C-64 project some day to show on my youtube channel, but I have yet to start, it will be a long while probably, heh. 03/28/24
I also could never throw a away a working computer. My original C64 died in the late 80, I bought a new one in the early 90s, and another used one a few years ago. So I have two C64 setups now, one hooked to a color TFT TV, one to a monochrome CRT monitor. Finally a compurter I can take seriously because it outputs all green on black and can read data from magnetic tape. ;-)
I was not expecting such an insightful commentary on the concept of people's unique experiences driving their actions and beliefs on a Commodore 64 video. Well done!
Well edited and watchable, informed and not snooty. This makes a change from so many. Agreed with the view, there was no _best_, every PC of the late 1970s and early 1980s had strengths and weaknesses. The problem was some had more weaknesses than others. Part of that democratization of computing was cassette tapes, something not mentioned in the video. Imagine if floppy disks had been the only option in 1979, very few people would have gotten into computing. The home video game market would still have happened, but not home computing.
Your point on tapes isn't lost on me. I have a lot of thoughts about tape as a medium for computing, but I had cut the page-or-so I had in this when I wrote it forever ago because it deserves examination in its own right. Thanks for watching!
And SO many crackers and demo crews. Stavros Fasoulas (coder of Sanxion and Delta) was Finnish, plus there were other coders and musicians from that fabled land. Jukka Tapanimaki the coder of Netherworld, Jori Olkonnen the musician to name but two.
@Ninja~KungFu~TV You mean the nightless night? During Summer, the Sun does not set for 80 days in Northern Finland. And even in Southern Finland, it is not dark at nights. On the otherhand, during Winter the Sun does not rise at all for 52 days. Pitch black.
I learnt Basic on my C64, then CC+ programming, that got me on a training course, that taught me all the technical computer information, like Servers and Networking. From this, I had a 35-year career earning up to 6 figure wages, all because of my C64!!
I had a VIC 20, TI99/4a, and a Atari 800 before getting a Commodore 64. The real appeal for the Commodore 64 for me, was it had a real synthesizer, the SID chip. I can play music on the Commodore 64, and jam with in on my Yamaha PSS, and accoustic Guitar. All those other previous computer can generate 3-4 voices with square eave. No filter, and no ADSR. Also they didn't play real notes, so weren't in tune with real scales. The Commodore 64 did all of that.
I used to have an original breadbin and loved it as a teenager. I can't remember what happened to it. I either sold it or its still in my fathers loft. Anyway I reached the age of 50 about 4 years ago and realised i really missed the the old box so i bought a Commodore 64C and a SD2IDE with fastloader. That old feeling still comes over me when i plug it it. You can keep your NES, my nostalgia is for the C64. Hey BTW i loved your video on the IBM PS/2, great informative vid.
Nice video about one of my favorite computers of all time. But you must be one of the only people in the world prefering Nintendos very limited sound chip to the SID - yes there was crap tunes on the SID as well... but ... The Last Ninja, Last Ninja 2, One man and his droid, International Karate, ... I mean there was nothing even NEAR those soundscapes on the NES ;)...
Hey, I said it was a hot take. ;) The SID may be a superior chip in several technical ways, but that doesn't mean the 2A03 wasn't capable of "soundscapes." Silver Surfer can hang with any top-flight SID soundtrack. My opinion of sound chips is that you get out of them what you put into them. I appreciate both chips' aural qualities and if I was a programmer I'd probably prefer developing for the SID, but the SID isn't always superior from an aesthetic or melodic standpoint. I bet you'd take the NES Bionic Commando soundtrack over the C64 version. And I'm being fair by excluding carts with expansion audio since we didn't get them here in the states, or VRC6 Castlevania 3 would trounce them all. ;)
This is fantastic, I love the personal bent. I had a very similar route, got the C64 only in 1992 (former Soviet bloc country) and it sustained me all the way to 1998 when I got my first Cyrix 200 MMX PC :) Immediately subbed!
It might interest you to know that there is a recent “Commodore” episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme called Toast. They do a deep dive into failed businesses and products, and they get hold of people with some involvement at the time.
Without Jay Miner's 8bit computer creation (1979) the C64 might never existed as we know it(that would make a great "computer of significant history " episode). I do agree with your aesthetic preference. I prefer the revised case plus it tends to enclose far more reliable rev boards from those found in bread bins. I think it's meaningless to compare consoles and computers based on game performance alone. Micros were a completely different beast that inspired many owners to create while most console users didn't have the chance to experience the same stimuli. On the other hand many computer owners with ...rich parents(loads of games) did probably miss that aspect of micros all together. Most computer users (on a budget) , at some point they were bored of their limited gaming library, so they got curious on what else they could do with their machines. I remember gaming ending up as a side dish after discovering programming, drawing, animating and composing music,. Micros had the ability to satisfy a larger number of interests than just gaming. A gamer and a user had(have) different "needs" so ts like comparing apple to oranges.
Great video. Commodore had an appalling reputation for the way it treated those who went into business with it or sold its machines. It's hard to understand how even bad leadership would make that kind of mistake.
Nice video essay, as I sit in a digital basement, as it were, full of multiple Commodores (C64s, C128, PET, VIC, Amiga), Apple systems from 1980-20xx, TRS-80s, DOS and Windows machines and more.... but I have to ask... at ~14:10. what is the project that needs rebuilding a Jazzmaster, an old corporate Dell (yes, I know, funny I consider the Dell old, considering...), apparently a mid-to-late-2000s Mac, and I guess some external device, maybe a drive enclosure? Aaaah, stock footage lol.
I'm guessing that's not a 100% official Jazzmaster body there. ;) I think the kid on the left is actually working on a guitar pedal or some kind of effects box. Check the knobs and the 1/8th input/output jacks...
Very good content, Thank You. Regarding the console vs. computer topic, I think that retro enthusiasts these days, share a love for both types of machines equally :)
A large amount do, yes. Things have gotten progressively better over the years. But it's still something I encounter often enough to comment on. Also, youtube and other things show people things they didn't know about (like me with British computers) and our appreciation starts to change.
My family uad a breadbin for the majority of our C64 ownership, although we did acquire two (!) 64Cs later in life. I'd love to see a video like this about the CoCo, honestly, as my knowledge of Tandy products is mostly on the PC compatible side. Been trying to do more learning about the TRS-80...
@@userlandia I agree. Several of the retro channels have a 'Sep-Tandy' that they do sometimes, so maybe searching on that will get you a few hits. I need to spend more time with the C64. Because my dad worked at Tandy, I spent zero time with the Commodore products until I got back into retro computing in the last four years. I don't understand the depth of the love people have for the platform.
Thanks for enjoying the video. By stock footage I'm assuming you're referring to the few actual stock footage clips and not illustrative photos/documents/screengrabs/contemporary video clips (commercials)/etc. I'm aware of that critique, and I try to minimize its usage as much as possible. The footage itself isn't random-I specifically look for something appropriate to illustrate a point. Perhaps it's too subtle, or I'm not easing the transition enough. That being said, in future videos I use more gradual transitions which helps, I think. Having coverage for everything written in the script is a bit difficult, and there's only so many focus pulls/pans/tilts/zooms you can film before that gets repetitive. Especially when talking about things that aren't specifically the computer. I also try to avoid the use of encumbered materials and minimize them when I do. I'm a writer/voiceover person primarily, and this was originally written as a podcast a year before it was made into a video. I produce this in my spare time in my office room in a small apartment which has very little space to film. Its acoustics are terrible, so I have treatments I put up to minimize reflections and bad frequencies. I also care a lot about the timing of my delivery, so the narration is precisely edited before putting any video together. If I was a talking head, I could just use shots of me narrating instead, which would certainly make things easier. But it would also make my audio markedly worse, because my room treatments wouldn't work without showing up on film. The narration wouldn't be as tightly edited, because you can't do that with a talking head without being jarring in its own way. Then again, it would be written differently if I knew I was doing a talking head type thing. I realize not being on camera is me fighting against what RUclips (and probably the general audience) wants, but given my current reality I'm working the best within the bounds that I can. I'm not a video person (despite literally helping invent video lets plays back in 2007), so I'm learning this as I go. I hope this response gives some more context to the production side. Any feedback is welcome, and I will continue to try to minimize the need to go to the well of stock footage. Thanks for watching!
Oh yeah, you know, I probably should leave one of them comments on this here video to appease the machines in control. A++ Video, even better Brit Impression. My prefered shade of beige #ECEBBD
the nostalgia is gone! full video youtube !!commodore everyone has access to a commodore now they are everywhere easy to buy ! , I still have my 80 and 90 'amiga, 64,128, vic 20 consoles. i just got a hard drive 122,000 games and my old consoles will go! time to let it all go! and great video good job !
There is no comparison a Commodore 64 and an NES. The first is a fully fledged computer and the latter simply a game console. Also NES was really popular in the US and Japan only. And the SID is waayyyy better than the NES sound.
9:35 - I can't speak for any but myself but I feel that part of that sentiment is less console VS computer and more NTSC vs PAL. I've lost count of the discussions which end up devolving into "we never used tapes in the US" and "the Amiga was a failure". For me, the discovery of emulation was also the discovery of just how /good/ NTSC users had it, what with their Mario RPGs, Final Fantasy III/VIs and their Chrono Crosses and so on. So I do feel a little justified in the vitriol I feel towards NTSC users who speak like their experience was the only valid one and I have to fight to keep my hands away from the keyboard whenever I head a NTSC user complain that a new game or piece of hardware is, GASP, not NTSC compatible. Fortunately things are getting better, slowly. Unfortunately the majority still think that Nintendo resurrected gaming and that Apple invented the personal computer.
You're not wrong. It would have been too in the weeds to go into the complete European/North American experience. NTSC/PAL as a divide seems to be within specific communities more than in the general regional divide, at least by my observations. But our observations are, of course, colored by our environments. There's definitely an NTSC/PAL divide in the C64 (and Amiga) community, but that's adjacent to the kind of overall divide we faced as computer users. And of course we have our share of annoying users on our side of the ocean. But I'm hopeful that we'll grow to understand each other better. We've already made a lot of progress, IMO, but of course there's always work to be done.
That particular one is based on someone I knew from Sheffield, though I don't think it's a Sheffield accent specifically. As you know, there's many "British" accents, just like we have many "Boston" accents. ;)
The EU/US split in terms of historical perspective is largely down to "crash of '83" simply not registering in Europe. The main thing being that there never was a gap in the market in UK/Europe to be filled after Atari collapsed, because the home computer scene had it covered since 1982. I think a lot of EU/UK people old enough to be around at the time often feel insulted by the whole "great crash" narrative, especially in regards to how Nintendo "saved" the market. Their lived experience being that as the NES didn't launch in the UK until 1987... basically after 16-bit computer systems were gaining in popularity. Its just a different historical perspective to that presented across the gaming media, which generally takes the US-centric view as the ground truth "history". Ironic really as the machines that the EU scene was built on were American, just more popular overseas than in their homeland!
Yes, although I think a lot of people both in America and Europe forget the general downturn in the computer market that happened from 84 into 85. It wasn't as precipitous of a crash as Atari's in 1983, but it was still a factor in the market. Acorn and Sinclair didn't make it out of 1985 and '86 as independent concerns (respectively, but the market weathered the dip. I was careful to say how the crash affected American perspectives and outcomes, but maybe I needed to include something about how Europe wasn't affected more directly. I think the mood I was trying to convey is that I hear a lot of "you guys didn't have home computers" when yes, we absolutely did, and they were quite often used for playing games! Or that systems (and ergo their games) were inferior because they weren't programmable. I'm sure it's just as irritating to my counterparts across the pond who have to hear about '83 or the snubbing of their contributions to history. I think we have more in common than we realize and we should embrace and celebrate those differences instead of trying to gatekeep.
You really shouldn't talk about eras you never really experienced. The great video game crash of 83/84 was a market shakeout that did not strongly affect computers, either professional or home. In 1983, there were probably more than a dozen incompatible video game consoles. Most people know the big 4, Atari (2600/5200), Mattel and Coleco, but most do not know all the others and there were many. On top of all those consoles, you had low priced computers, most of which were better than the consoles and whose games could be sold on tape or disk far cheaper than cartridges. This is simply an impossible market to service. The competition was fierce which drove down profits. The number of 3rd parties for software was growing exponentially. Another problem is people didn't really know if video game consoles was the new hoola hoop (fad) or the new Model T (a new industry). The video game was barely 8 years old and completely mainstream for maybe 4 years at that point. So when the sector started to experiences losses, people just assumed video games were the new hoola-hoop and started abandoning the stocks. Between the huge losses the companies were having and stock price losses, it didn't just shake out the weakest players, it shook out all of the players. The video game console died in late 83 early 84. But the computers didn't. The C64 was still around. The Atari 8bits were still around. Apple was still around. The Vic 20 was still around, though getting old. The NES came back into the market a few years later with a major weapon, encryption and the Nintendo "seal of quality" with virtually all cartridges looking the same and sold by Nintendo, even with 3rd parties. They also had an illegal strategy of locking up 3rd parties with NES only releases keeping competitors out of the market.
C64 has never been not useful. I demand you take that comment back. You may have ditched the Commodore at one point. But I never did. I only stopped for a decade because mine got stolen. Where I live they are not easy to find, so it took me from 2006 to 2018 to find another set. Since then it is hooked up and ready to go. I never forgot my roots, I had to suffer with emulators for a long time. Now I am back at the dance with the real hardware and with the so so Maxi
I LOVE the Commodore 64, raised in England my first foray into computing was the humble ZX81 from which I learned basic programming, and then moved onto the mighty Spectrum. In 1986 I bought a Commodore 64 with 1570 disk drive (yes I know.......) and didn't look back. I learned 6502 machine code (am still learning more!), played games, watched demos and had what can only be described as the greatest time of my life. Even though i bought an Amiga in 1990 and got into business programming om the IBM AS400 the commodore 64 sits in a place that can never be erased, a time when I would stay up until 5am tinkering around with a raster bar bounce effect with multiplex sprites doing weird things in front of it. Squeezing every byte out of that machine was incredibly hard, and incredibly satisfying when you see the results on screen.
I have much respect for anyone that can do any kind of machine code. I still have trouble with BASIC sometimes.
@@userlandia Nothing wrong with that, keep coding and keep learning!
I had the entire C64 unit: Tape player, keyboard, monitor, printer, all of it.
oh yeah? well I still have it 😏
I had a friend who was entering grad school at Colorado in the computer science department when the C64 came out. He bought one for himself because he told me it was the only inexpensive computer with which you could actually do anything serious.
He was right.
That is what I call a true friend
Why has this channel only 423 subscribers? It should have at least a thousand times more.
Thanks! Tell your friends? :)
What really killed them was that the Amiga was unable to run C64 software. There was no incentive to stay with Commodore. There was also many other issues with productivity products which was lacking along with print drivers for the Amiga. So people went to Apple or IBM.
Another point against Commodore was that their computers couldn't really network as well as or even with IBM and Apple. Sure it was hard to get something from a Macintosh to a Windows computer, but it WAS possible. Compare that to a C64 being unable to communicate with anything other than another C64. The fact that two computers from the same company couldn't talk to each other was one more nail against the Chicken Lipped company.
@@Toonrick12 Of course today hooking a C64 to the intertnet is not really a problem, or hooking a 1541 disk drive to a PC.
My home in the 80's and 90's [North America] just had IBM PC clones. Had parent who worked in IT. Didn't get to touch a C64 until about 5 years ago. Have 4 now, 1 not working. 1 is PAL version. Love the little machine.
6:30 the SID is absolutely my favorite sound chip even as of today. I'm using 12 of them in live streams for music these days as I'm writing this comment (2023).
Twelve is impressive.
@@userlandia i don't want to spam here but posted some videos with all the sid chips, if you are interested.
My dad bought a Commodore VIC-20 when I was a kid long before the C64 came out. I was in love with it using it to program and be amazed that it would do what I asked it to do. The C64 was my next with the floppy drive. Felt as if I was in a world of great technology. Programmed budget applications and games with sound. Oddly enough at 64 years of age (retired Industrial PLC Programmer) I now have in my home hobby shop one desktop running Windows, three micro computers running Windows, one of which runs my home built CNC wood router along with an Arduino board running GRBL software, two Raspberry Pi's and more micro-processors boards like the Arduino and ESP-8266 than I can count. To think my obsession all started from a simple VIC-20. My motto.... Never Quit Learning! 😃
I was 22 years old when I got mine. I had a store in original mall. The lady at electronics boutique told me to buy it, so I did. I could knock out a payroll in 12 minutes or less using a 5 1/4 floppy desk.😂
The lady up at Nextel wanted me to pay $3000 for IBM 5055 I think and 2000 for the software that was not guaranteed to run
I bought the one at electronics boutique, and it lasted me over a decade
Best money I ever spent
Good video. 👍 The C64 wasn’t the first computer I ever used (that was a DEC PDP-11), but it was the first one I ever owned. And none since have had as much fondness as I had for my C64.
I particularly like your analysis of Commodore’s last days. I was on a GEnie Amiga roundtable and several Commodore-related BBSs at that time and we had many discussions about it. The one I remember the most was about the sale of office equipment at Commodore’s headquarters. We all a laugh/cry when the last bit of equipment, a floor polisher of all things, finally sold off.
I still lament the day I sold my C64. Back then it was my only option... I needed the money for an Amiga 500.
Years later I bought back a 64... but it just isn't the same. Wish I still had THAT computer :(
I know the feeling, having bought back two examples of old computers I used to own (for upcoming videos, naturally...)
Still have my breadbin C64, C2N tape, 1541 floppy drive and about 300 floppy disk games, and it STILL works! @@userlandia
I got back into the C64 in 2018 and enjoy it more than ever.
Wow. I can’t believe I just discovered this channel. Love the videos👍
Thanks!
I still have all my C-64 stuff, which includes 3 c64 machines, of which one of them was my first ever 64, bought in 1983. Also includes peripherals (7 impact printers, 7 floppy drives, 2 cassette drives, cartridges, joysticks/paddles, adapters, etc), as well as stacks of floppy disks & related paper (manuals, magazines, books, old printouts). Some of these do need servicing though. Also have a c64 cpu accelerator bought in 1990 that boosts the speed to 4 times faster than stock. There were a few of us that enjoyed a speed-boosted 64 way back then in the late 80s & early 1990s. I used a speed-boosted c64 to write/printout essays (& gaming, heh) during my late 1980s college, as GEOS64 was my main operating system. The SID chip was something I was attracted to & used a lot, as I was also getting into synthesizers by the early 1980s because the SID was a basic subtractive synthesizer on a chip.
Anyway, I have also kept our Coleco Telstar & Atari VCS game consoles from the late 1970s, as well as several typewriters & print calculators of the 70s, several CRT TVs & monitors, & many PC stuff. Commodore & the IBM/Intel PC was where I was most proficient at. I never got into Apple, Tandy Radio Shack (TRS), Atari or Amiga, although I have had some experience with them, most especially the TRS Model 3&4 in highschool (it was the school main computers) & the Apple Mac (now called the classic Mac) during college in the late 1980s. But it was my experience with a Commodore PET in highschool 1983 that introduced me to Commodore & eventually decided to get a c64. I also almost got a free C-128 around 15 years ago but I turned it down.
Radio Shack was my favorite store growing up though, since 1980, as I did also get into electronics, & it was sad when they liquidated across the nation one last time in 2017, although they are still in business today, just not as glorious as they once were. I did get to buy tons of stuff during their liquidation, 40 to 90% off, stuff I would have never bought at regular Shack prices. Also had some good programming experience with a Hewlett-Packard 85 computer during college. I know (or knew) several computer languages (Basic, ForTran, Pascal, ASM, etc), including some formatting languages for medical databases/management software. Also watched Computer Chronicles religiously back then, as short clips of it shown in the video above. Nice reference to Lemon64 as well. The one thing I knew & was aware of way back then as a teen was ... do not throw away, sell or give away stuff, that you might regret doing that later on. That is why I still have all this stuff & they are the originals bought, not replacements. I am hoping to do a C-64 project some day to show on my youtube channel, but I have yet to start, it will be a long while probably, heh.
03/28/24
I also could never throw a away a working computer. My original C64 died in the late 80, I bought a new one in the early 90s, and another used one a few years ago. So I have two C64 setups now, one hooked to a color TFT TV, one to a monochrome CRT monitor. Finally a compurter I can take seriously because it outputs all green on black and can read data from magnetic tape. ;-)
I was not expecting such an insightful commentary on the concept of people's unique experiences driving their actions and beliefs on a Commodore 64 video. Well done!
Well edited and watchable, informed and not snooty. This makes a change from so many.
Agreed with the view, there was no _best_, every PC of the late 1970s and early 1980s had strengths and weaknesses. The problem was some had more weaknesses than others. Part of that democratization of computing was cassette tapes, something not mentioned in the video. Imagine if floppy disks had been the only option in 1979, very few people would have gotten into computing. The home video game market would still have happened, but not home computing.
Your point on tapes isn't lost on me. I have a lot of thoughts about tape as a medium for computing, but I had cut the page-or-so I had in this when I wrote it forever ago because it deserves examination in its own right. Thanks for watching!
Finland had most C64 per capita in the world.
I had one, and about 50% of my friends had one, in 1987.
And SO many crackers and demo crews. Stavros Fasoulas (coder of Sanxion and Delta) was Finnish, plus there were other coders and musicians from that fabled land. Jukka Tapanimaki the coder of Netherworld, Jori Olkonnen the musician to name but two.
@Ninja~KungFu~TV You mean the nightless night? During Summer, the Sun does not set for 80 days in Northern Finland. And even in Southern Finland, it is not dark at nights. On the otherhand, during Winter the Sun does not rise at all for 52 days. Pitch black.
Great history lesson! I wasn't into the 64, but I had relatives that loved the thing, and it's a piece of history.
Quality content! Thank you.
I LOVE the C64! It will always be my favorite computer!!!!
I learnt Basic on my C64, then CC+ programming, that got me on a training course, that taught me all the technical computer information, like Servers and Networking. From this, I had a 35-year career earning up to 6 figure wages, all because of my C64!!
I had a VIC 20, TI99/4a, and a Atari 800 before getting a Commodore 64. The real appeal for the Commodore 64 for me, was it had a real synthesizer, the SID chip. I can play music on the Commodore 64, and jam with in on my Yamaha PSS, and accoustic Guitar. All those other previous computer can generate 3-4 voices with square eave. No filter, and no ADSR. Also they didn't play real notes, so weren't in tune with real scales. The Commodore 64 did all of that.
I used to have an original breadbin and loved it as a teenager. I can't remember what happened to it. I either sold it or its still in my fathers loft. Anyway I reached the age of 50 about 4 years ago and realised i really missed the the old box so i bought a Commodore 64C and a SD2IDE with fastloader. That old feeling still comes over me when i plug it it. You can keep your NES, my nostalgia is for the C64. Hey BTW i loved your video on the IBM PS/2, great informative vid.
Nice video about one of my favorite computers of all time. But you must be one of the only people in the world prefering Nintendos very limited sound chip to the SID - yes there was crap tunes on the SID as well... but ... The Last Ninja, Last Ninja 2, One man and his droid, International Karate, ... I mean there was nothing even NEAR those soundscapes on the NES ;)...
Hey, I said it was a hot take. ;) The SID may be a superior chip in several technical ways, but that doesn't mean the 2A03 wasn't capable of "soundscapes." Silver Surfer can hang with any top-flight SID soundtrack. My opinion of sound chips is that you get out of them what you put into them. I appreciate both chips' aural qualities and if I was a programmer I'd probably prefer developing for the SID, but the SID isn't always superior from an aesthetic or melodic standpoint. I bet you'd take the NES Bionic Commando soundtrack over the C64 version. And I'm being fair by excluding carts with expansion audio since we didn't get them here in the states, or VRC6 Castlevania 3 would trounce them all. ;)
This is fantastic, I love the personal bent. I had a very similar route, got the C64 only in 1992 (former Soviet bloc country) and it sustained me all the way to 1998 when I got my first Cyrix 200 MMX PC :)
Immediately subbed!
I find it peculiar that the Commodore logo is the speed of light.
It might interest you to know that there is a recent “Commodore” episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme called Toast. They do a deep dive into failed businesses and products, and they get hold of people with some involvement at the time.
Probably the first computer I used besides the terminal my dad got from the NSA. My dad was telecomputing in 1980.
Without Jay Miner's 8bit computer creation (1979) the C64 might never existed as we know it(that would make a great "computer of significant history " episode).
I do agree with your aesthetic preference. I prefer the revised case plus it tends to enclose far more reliable rev boards from those found in bread bins.
I think it's meaningless to compare consoles and computers based on game performance alone. Micros were a completely different beast that inspired many owners to create while most console users didn't have the chance to experience the same stimuli. On the other hand many computer owners with ...rich parents(loads of games) did probably miss that aspect of micros all together.
Most computer users (on a budget) , at some point they were bored of their limited gaming library, so they got curious on what else they could do with their machines. I remember gaming ending up as a side dish after discovering programming, drawing, animating and composing music,.
Micros had the ability to satisfy a larger number of interests than just gaming. A gamer and a user had(have) different "needs" so ts like comparing apple to oranges.
Hey! Looks like I made it into your video!
Great video. Commodore had an appalling reputation for the way it treated those who went into business with it or sold its machines. It's hard to understand how even bad leadership would make that kind of mistake.
I also like the 64C over the Breadbin after they switched to the updated motherboard.
Great vid! Enjoyed it!
Thanks!
Nice video essay, as I sit in a digital basement, as it were, full of multiple Commodores (C64s, C128, PET, VIC, Amiga), Apple systems from 1980-20xx, TRS-80s, DOS and Windows machines and more.... but I have to ask... at ~14:10. what is the project that needs rebuilding a Jazzmaster, an old corporate Dell (yes, I know, funny I consider the Dell old, considering...), apparently a mid-to-late-2000s Mac, and I guess some external device, maybe a drive enclosure? Aaaah, stock footage lol.
I'm guessing that's not a 100% official Jazzmaster body there. ;) I think the kid on the left is actually working on a guitar pedal or some kind of effects box. Check the knobs and the 1/8th input/output jacks...
@@userlandia good catch. Still an odd assortment of projects to be at the same bench position...
got an atari 130xe at 11 (1985) - a couple of friends had the c64
I have a c64c and i use the kung fu flash cartridge which loads games in seconds.I love these old commodore computers..
Very good content, Thank You. Regarding the console vs. computer topic, I think that retro enthusiasts these days, share a love for both types of machines equally :)
A large amount do, yes. Things have gotten progressively better over the years. But it's still something I encounter often enough to comment on. Also, youtube and other things show people things they didn't know about (like me with British computers) and our appreciation starts to change.
@@userlandia Yes, you are right about that, we are learning new things :) Keep up with excellent content!
What exactly was the point in consoles as soon as full-blown computers also running games became affordable?
Great video.
Awesome video. But seriously impressive editing.
What you feel about the C64.... (or the 64C, as it may be), is what I feel having grown up with the Color Computer series.
My family uad a breadbin for the majority of our C64 ownership, although we did acquire two (!) 64Cs later in life. I'd love to see a video like this about the CoCo, honestly, as my knowledge of Tandy products is mostly on the PC compatible side. Been trying to do more learning about the TRS-80...
@@userlandia I agree. Several of the retro channels have a 'Sep-Tandy' that they do sometimes, so maybe searching on that will get you a few hits.
I need to spend more time with the C64. Because my dad worked at Tandy, I spent zero time with the Commodore products until I got back into retro computing in the last four years. I don't understand the depth of the love people have for the platform.
Great video. My one critique would be the random stock footage was a bit jarring/unnecessary
Thanks for enjoying the video. By stock footage I'm assuming you're referring to the few actual stock footage clips and not illustrative photos/documents/screengrabs/contemporary video clips (commercials)/etc. I'm aware of that critique, and I try to minimize its usage as much as possible. The footage itself isn't random-I specifically look for something appropriate to illustrate a point. Perhaps it's too subtle, or I'm not easing the transition enough. That being said, in future videos I use more gradual transitions which helps, I think. Having coverage for everything written in the script is a bit difficult, and there's only so many focus pulls/pans/tilts/zooms you can film before that gets repetitive. Especially when talking about things that aren't specifically the computer. I also try to avoid the use of encumbered materials and minimize them when I do.
I'm a writer/voiceover person primarily, and this was originally written as a podcast a year before it was made into a video. I produce this in my spare time in my office room in a small apartment which has very little space to film. Its acoustics are terrible, so I have treatments I put up to minimize reflections and bad frequencies. I also care a lot about the timing of my delivery, so the narration is precisely edited before putting any video together.
If I was a talking head, I could just use shots of me narrating instead, which would certainly make things easier. But it would also make my audio markedly worse, because my room treatments wouldn't work without showing up on film. The narration wouldn't be as tightly edited, because you can't do that with a talking head without being jarring in its own way. Then again, it would be written differently if I knew I was doing a talking head type thing.
I realize not being on camera is me fighting against what RUclips (and probably the general audience) wants, but given my current reality I'm working the best within the bounds that I can. I'm not a video person (despite literally helping invent video lets plays back in 2007), so I'm learning this as I go. I hope this response gives some more context to the production side. Any feedback is welcome, and I will continue to try to minimize the need to go to the well of stock footage. Thanks for watching!
Oh yeah, you know, I probably should leave one of them comments on this here video to appease the machines in control. A++ Video, even better Brit Impression. My prefered shade of beige #ECEBBD
Looks more yellowish to me (or on my monitor?)
Only so many will get that. I thought it was cleaver.
the nostalgia is gone! full video youtube !!commodore everyone has access to a commodore now they are everywhere easy to buy ! , I still have my 80 and 90 'amiga, 64,128, vic 20 consoles. i just got a hard drive 122,000 games and my old consoles will go! time to let it all go! and great video good job !
Appreciate your esthetics analysis, but breadbin is THE C64, for me.
Hey, it’s all subjective. The breadbin has its own appeal, and I can appreciate that it’s somebody else’s fave!
I agree with you, but it is easier to type on C64C, that is for sure...
Thanks.
There is no comparison a Commodore 64 and an NES. The first is a fully fledged computer and the latter simply a game console. Also NES was really popular in the US and Japan only. And the SID is waayyyy better than the NES sound.
9:35 - I can't speak for any but myself but I feel that part of that sentiment is less console VS computer and more NTSC vs PAL. I've lost count of the discussions which end up devolving into "we never used tapes in the US" and "the Amiga was a failure". For me, the discovery of emulation was also the discovery of just how /good/ NTSC users had it, what with their Mario RPGs, Final Fantasy III/VIs and their Chrono Crosses and so on.
So I do feel a little justified in the vitriol I feel towards NTSC users who speak like their experience was the only valid one and I have to fight to keep my hands away from the keyboard whenever I head a NTSC user complain that a new game or piece of hardware is, GASP, not NTSC compatible.
Fortunately things are getting better, slowly. Unfortunately the majority still think that Nintendo resurrected gaming and that Apple invented the personal computer.
You're not wrong. It would have been too in the weeds to go into the complete European/North American experience. NTSC/PAL as a divide seems to be within specific communities more than in the general regional divide, at least by my observations. But our observations are, of course, colored by our environments. There's definitely an NTSC/PAL divide in the C64 (and Amiga) community, but that's adjacent to the kind of overall divide we faced as computer users.
And of course we have our share of annoying users on our side of the ocean. But I'm hopeful that we'll grow to understand each other better. We've already made a lot of progress, IMO, but of course there's always work to be done.
I have to compliment you for your surprisingly decent British accent!
That particular one is based on someone I knew from Sheffield, though I don't think it's a Sheffield accent specifically. As you know, there's many "British" accents, just like we have many "Boston" accents. ;)
The EU/US split in terms of historical perspective is largely down to "crash of '83" simply not registering in Europe. The main thing being that there never was a gap in the market in UK/Europe to be filled after Atari collapsed, because the home computer scene had it covered since 1982. I think a lot of EU/UK people old enough to be around at the time often feel insulted by the whole "great crash" narrative, especially in regards to how Nintendo "saved" the market. Their lived experience being that as the NES didn't launch in the UK until 1987... basically after 16-bit computer systems were gaining in popularity.
Its just a different historical perspective to that presented across the gaming media, which generally takes the US-centric view as the ground truth "history". Ironic really as the machines that the EU scene was built on were American, just more popular overseas than in their homeland!
Yes, although I think a lot of people both in America and Europe forget the general downturn in the computer market that happened from 84 into 85. It wasn't as precipitous of a crash as Atari's in 1983, but it was still a factor in the market. Acorn and Sinclair didn't make it out of 1985 and '86 as independent concerns (respectively, but the market weathered the dip. I was careful to say how the crash affected American perspectives and outcomes, but maybe I needed to include something about how Europe wasn't affected more directly.
I think the mood I was trying to convey is that I hear a lot of "you guys didn't have home computers" when yes, we absolutely did, and they were quite often used for playing games! Or that systems (and ergo their games) were inferior because they weren't programmable. I'm sure it's just as irritating to my counterparts across the pond who have to hear about '83 or the snubbing of their contributions to history. I think we have more in common than we realize and we should embrace and celebrate those differences instead of trying to gatekeep.
I REALY LOVE MY C64 ❤❤❤FOREVER ❤❤❤
You really shouldn't talk about eras you never really experienced. The great video game crash of 83/84 was a market shakeout that did not strongly affect computers, either professional or home. In 1983, there were probably more than a dozen incompatible video game consoles. Most people know the big 4, Atari (2600/5200), Mattel and Coleco, but most do not know all the others and there were many. On top of all those consoles, you had low priced computers, most of which were better than the consoles and whose games could be sold on tape or disk far cheaper than cartridges. This is simply an impossible market to service. The competition was fierce which drove down profits. The number of 3rd parties for software was growing exponentially.
Another problem is people didn't really know if video game consoles was the new hoola hoop (fad) or the new Model T (a new industry). The video game was barely 8 years old and completely mainstream for maybe 4 years at that point. So when the sector started to experiences losses, people just assumed video games were the new hoola-hoop and started abandoning the stocks. Between the huge losses the companies were having and stock price losses, it didn't just shake out the weakest players, it shook out all of the players. The video game console died in late 83 early 84. But the computers didn't. The C64 was still around. The Atari 8bits were still around. Apple was still around. The Vic 20 was still around, though getting old.
The NES came back into the market a few years later with a major weapon, encryption and the Nintendo "seal of quality" with virtually all cartridges looking the same and sold by Nintendo, even with 3rd parties. They also had an illegal strategy of locking up 3rd parties with NES only releases keeping competitors out of the market.
I severely disagree with your opinion on the looks of the C64c (it's a beige bore!), but I will defend to the death your right to say it
The keyboard could use some differently colored keys, sure.
@userlandia disagreement on aesthetics aside, this is an excellent video. Happy to have had it recommended to me!
Hey, I said it was a hot take. ;) Glad you liked it, hope you stick around!
C64 has never been not useful.
I demand you take that comment back.
You may have ditched the Commodore at one point. But I never did. I only stopped for a decade because mine got stolen. Where I live they are not easy to find, so it took me from 2006 to 2018 to find another set.
Since then it is hooked up and ready to go. I never forgot my roots, I had to suffer with emulators for a long time. Now I am back at the dance with the real hardware and with the so so Maxi
What, saying I learned the error of my ways wasn't enough? ;)