Somehow I managed to find a boxed C64 grey key with manuals, power supply, and floppy reader for $5 at a yard sale. I was floored. No cable for the floppy drive, though, but the system works great!
My dad picked up a c64 original in box in a car boot in england with the cassette player and a joystick in the 90’s, we still have it now lol. I was born 2005 so obviously way out for it to be nostalgic but i love the thing so much.
I love how the actual quality of your content has stayed pretty consistent all these years, normally I find with some RUclipsrs it's a pain to watch their older content but it's seriously a pleasure to go through your old stuff
In other words you love that unlike other RUclipsrs he has not improved because that means that you are not used to a better format and thus still get satisfied with his older video's.
I just wanted to leave a note here for people who decide to pickup a C64 after this video. Don't use a stock Sega Genesis controller with it. When playing games that require a joystick and the keyboard at the same time, there's a possibility of overloading and breaking the chip that handles controller input. Any other controller should work fine, as long as it's directly wired to the pins, like the Atari 2600 joystick, and doesn't use an internal chip.
Daniel Scott Biehl I was skeptical when I read this. So I dove into the schematics of the Sega controller and there’s and it could potentially sink a wrong combination to ground hard! Yes, this will potentially kill a CIA chip.
I was patient for 4 years, now i got a nearly new c64 with monitor, 1541, printer and mouse all in box with cables, manual and cables in the original plastic wrapping and cable ties for 200 :)
Gee, I got mine for free from my great grandmother with a disk drive, cables, 1541, box, manuals, even some old flyers! She very sadly passed away shortly later. I have 2 64 boxes, that I keep in my room for display purposes, but I only have 1 C64.
Boy you don't know where to shop for mice! I can get 4-6 mice in bulk for under $3! It takes a long time for delivery unless you know someone with problems. Just go to any old house and search for turds in the basement, behind the fridge, along hall walls, etc. Now here comes the money part. For under $3 you can get glue pads at Home Depot, place them by the turds and they will come around someday.
The first computer that I bought with my own money was a C64.. way back in 1986 using money I saved from my paper route. Eventually, I had dual 1541 disk drives, the C64 monitor (model number escapes me) and about 400-500 floppies packed with (mostly pirated) software. In about 1991/92 or so, I traded the whole collection for a brand new car tape deck and a pair of 6x9 car speakers. At the time, I thought I got a great deal... about a $350 value in Kenwood stereo gear at the time when you could buy a brand new C64C at Ward's for like $90... (he was mostly after my software collection tho). That stereo/speaker combo served me well throughout my college years... but damn... I kinda wish I never let it go... so much fun I had with that thing. The "most of the software was from Europe" was never really a problem thanks to NTSC fixes done by release groups... and I'm sure a lot of those versions still survive... if probably a bit harder to find.
It is so refreshing to see somebody from the US who doesn't just equate 8bit with the NES and who is aware of the UK gaming scene of the early 80s. The C64 was an fantastic machine (and my first main computer) and its legacy is completely overlooked stateside whose experience of it was very different to that of Europe's.
I still have two working Commodore 64 computers, 1 joystick for it, a floppy drive, and modem for it, along with plenty of software as well. I even have some of the magazines which came out at the time with the software programs to run on the machines. I purchased my first Commodore 64 from a company in Saginaw, Michigan and got the second one from a guy in Louisiana who was being transferred to another air base and didn't want to bring all the items he had with him. With this purchase I got the floppy drive and plenty of software, and the joy stick, and a modem. I loved much of the software and some was used regularly, and everything worked fine. I had another modem, and a tape drive, but don't know what happened to them.
I grew up with the breadbox version on my bedroom. My great uncle was a porter of games to the Commodore 64 of every variety. So, I had copies of every one of them. I just can't believe I got rid of all of it in the 90s thinking all of it wasn't worth anything anymore. Your channel is robbing me of many hours and I can't complain. Thank You!
Really enjoying your videos man! I'm inspired to dig out, restore, and use the Commodore 128D that I've had since about 1987--still boxed up in the original packaging at my folks house, along with an additional 1571 floppy drive (the amber monochrome monitor I used is long gone).
I’ll never forget when my dad came home with a C64 bread box. Our first monitor was a 9” orange and black atrocity. But about a month later he got the adapter to connect to the TV. Kong was so much fun. The sound is what got us all excited. My dad fed the sound to the stereo and played it loud as hell. Dig dug was fun too.
he obviously shoots these with old SD tape recorders for the nostalgia. Also, how can a review of 1980's gaming tech be showing it's age when posted in 2009? Relax.
Some folks are too critical. Video is fine. At least its not cast in 8mm or 16mm tape. My C64C purchased from Toys Us in 1980 for $385 is still working. I don't play games though.
when i was going to university 89-93 for an astrophysics degree, we had a 3rd year course called 'astrophysics of the sun' where we had to write a computer program detailing the internal structure of the sun - given certain initial conditions... i was flat broke so my only choice was to use my old C64 that i got new as a kid...blew my prof away that it actually worked... while one the other students wrote it in c++, i wrote the program in basic.. it took them seconds to run the program - it took me 45 minutes... it worked perfect...
+asher collier I thought the SID Player progam disks that played al kindsoff songs on the SID chip and showed a synthesizer keyboard that showed the keys played was the shit when I was a kid. :)
It'was I spend hours just listening to the music and wathcing the piano play itself. I catully still have a cassette tape somewhere that I recorded the line out of the C64 on (I had a cable for my C64 that allowed me to connect it to my stereo tower. Think it connected to one of the round connectors at the back.
I love these old videos of yours. I love the new ones as well, but it's always awesome to come back here and see how much your video/audio has improved.
I believe this was the first computer I ever used. This was a great computer. Oregon Trail was awesome back in the day. The 80s were great for me from a computer standby. I wrote my first program at the age of 7 but I never stuck with it. I regret that move looking back on it.
I remember my highschool had a classroom where there was a huge stack of C64 boxes! Not the actual computers, just the cardboard boxes they came in. I never saw where the actual C64's were...
Back in the 80s the great 8-bit rivalry in Britain was between the Sinclair Spectrum, which I had, and the Commodore 64. One of the best Spectrum games was Uridium, a fast-moving space shooter, which was said to be a poor conversion of the C64 original. Have you tried that?
I had a C64, and my best friend had a Sinclair spectrum. With very few exceptions, the C64 version of everything was better. Everything also loaded a little faster, and far more reliably using the C64's tape deck. We were always hammering the C64, and very rarely used the Spectrum. We always played games at my house, until he got a SNES much later on - the SNES dominated!
You have the best voice on the internet :) ...When all other things are annoying me; your videos are always interesting, informative, and relaxed...it's a true skill :) Thanks for all the hard work (even though you make it look easy ;) ) - huge fan from Ireland :)
Really takes me back to being a kid, this one. Turrican 1 and 2 are legendary, along with the likes of Creatures and Wizball. Don't have the disk drive or any disks anymore, but I've still got the tape drive and all the tapes though the tape drive connector needs fixed. It's not fatal by any means, the plastic bit that holds the connector in place inside the plug has snapped and just needs something like a piece of matchstick glued in as a replacement.
my families first computer was a c64 we bought used. came with boxes upon boxes of pirated games, manuals, etc. i got my computer start there, and gobbled up the programming manuals (which were very well written!). to this day, the SID chip still holds a special place in my heart.
Whilst now I am contemplating buying one because I don't want to buy an new old screen and porting it to a new screen is a bit sketchy. LGR do you know any good converters for newer monitors?
Hahaha. Some kids and even teachers picked on me for having one and being the smartest in computerclass in 1986. I was too far ahead of the rest and that hurt them ;-)
I would say that these days, the most important reason to get a C64 is the demo-scene; it's still as alive and kicking as it was back in the 80's-90's and there's some truly amazing demos being produced for it in annual competitions; pushing the hardware far beyond what we ever imagined possible back in the 80's...
The C64 has s-video output, which if you can get a TV (or adaptor) that supports it, is another order of magnitude clearer than composite video. You would also have to buy/make a special cable for it. They never called it s-video though. It was "luma/chroma" or something. It was only for commodore monitors which supported it. The cable had two RCA cables at the other end, one for luma and one for chroma.
Commodore 64.....that thing is evil....it will consume you....it will steal your time....it will even try to teach you BASIC! Loved that machine, we had a monthly magazine that came out of a demo tape...awesome. Also, I had those paddles you get, but it was for strange bouncy game....and I still have it. My parents were cleaning their house..."You want this or can we through it out?" *calmed myself* Its ok I'll take it... Wish I had the disk though, tapes took forever to load and thats very hard for a kid....
Commodore offered a Z80 cartridge for the 64 that ran the CP/M operating system. I bought the Commodore 64 COBOL package which let me write, compile and execute COBOL programs. It got me into IT and I've been an IBM Mainframe specialist ever since!
+Richard's World YOu can get Archon: Classic on steam. It's a remake of the original and also expands on it. It features other boards you can play on apart from the original one and it even got a campaign. It also has a mode that allows up to 4 players instead of only the original 2. And you can choose between classic graphics and improved graphics. Only shame is that it doesn't include an Archon II Adept mode.
I have 100's of games for my NTSC C-64. I'd paid (@1988) some guy $25 for his whole floppy disk collection of C-64 games. I have cracked versions of UK games like 1942 that run just fine on my NTSC televisions.
crazy how times have changed when this used to be a hobby and passion that was affordable and wasn't near to being an investment. I love the history and overall essence of the 64 and got the chance to use one of my friends awhile back really an amazing computer and would love to have one if I had the opportunity to get one at a reasonable price even if it's rough. I just can't justify spending 150+ on one. Anyways it's great to see how much this channel has grown from these original videos.
I wanted to see more of Commodore's computing power, not just games .... but aw well, this is a gaming channel after all. Love you dude, you're the best
So much memories... I had a commodore 128 with a ram cartridge that i used as a BBS and my 64 was used for games and logging into BBS's. So much good times...
I love this review, as others have said, for 2009 this is actually pretty brilliant stuff in terms of your style, is up there with most modern "youtubers". I've watched most of your vids now in stealth and enjoyed this trip back in time. Love the c64, grew up with it, enjoyed it still have it.
When my brother started his MBA at the U of C he needed a computer and modem to connect to the campus mainframe if he didn't want to spend his entire life downtown so we agreed to split the cost of the new C64 and got MUCH more than we bargained for. I miss my old c-64 especially Radar Rat race and addictive game that John and I played for months on end each trying to top each other's score like two boys born 13 months apart often do. Some of the other games were fantastic and it introduced me to the basics of basic programming after two courses in Fortran (3 & 4). Very helpful when I later had to write SAS jobs for mainframe use. I miss my C 64 but don't know if even for only $25 or $50 I would go back. But thanks for the walk down memory lane! Love the Jack Bauer for President T-Shirt. I have wondered how the world would react to Kiefer Sutherland as our commander in chief!
man I loved my C64. I got one in 1993 for my birthday - with a book on BASIC and a tonne of disks. My uncle and mum wrote a few games for me...mostly ports of board games
Great over all review. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Ironically, growing up in the 80s in the UK, we always assumed the best games came from America on labels such as US Gold.
I found this video interesting. A friend of mine has a "breadbox grey keyed" Commodore 64. What I found amazing was that he also had a commodore color monitor and a 5 1/4" floppy drive with a Monopoly floppy disk. There was also a commodore joystick in the items. I got real interested when I saw the machine, so I went to look for videos on it. (Adding on) he also had a cartridge for "paintbrush".
I got a bare system at a garage sale for $12. I thought for sure it was broken but I jerry rigged a power supply and plugged the modulator into my tv and it worked flawlessly! #score
The C64 is where I learned to program in BASIC. I loved learning to use that machine. The best game I played on it would either be raid over moscow (more than 7 minutes to load on tape) or Ghostbusters. I loved the sound on Ghostbusters. My Jr. High school had C64s in the computer room, and I became good friends with the computer teacher. I even got to help teach a few classes (pretty cool for a grade 8 and 9 student). I kind of wonder if I could get back into programming the thing if I got one on ebay...
From 1988Up until the 2000`s the C64 was my Main Gamingstation. sure there was a dreamcast and a PS1, but i somehow always keep finding amazing games for the old Brotkasten. I remember a 6 Week "Die Fugger" play with a bunch of neighbours. 6 weeks! the machine was on and working!
I never owned one of these but lots of my friends had one, my uncle had one with Summer Games and I played the piss out of it lol. I sure would like to pick one up one day soon since I never had one myself. Was a very cool system back in the day. The 80's were so ground breaking I'm glad I got to grow up during that.
I have *very* fond memories of this machine. That said, while I do kind of wish I'd kept mine (original "breadbox" version) for nostalgia purposes, the truth is I just don't have enough storage space for all the vintage computers I'd like to have kept over the years. So, I settle for watching this channel instead. Thank you. One of these days you'll have to do a video that explains where you keep all this stuff!!
Best reviewer ever!! I made the natural progression (in the DK at least) from a Speccy to a C64 to an Amiga 500 (got the ram upgrade within a few months). I never really thought of the privileges of living in PAL zone. Now I'm really glad in retrospect (-:
SID sound is allays great. I still remember the first game I ever played on C64, I bought a C64 from a car boot sale, it came with loads of games, I loaded up sanxion and I was just stunned by the music I heard.
I have a C64C, bought it brand new in 1986, nothing “cost reduced” about it. It has the same motherboard as the C64 bread bin models, it does not have the newer SID and VIC chips. The graphic symbols are on the sides of the keys on the keyboard. At the time when I bought it it was a bit more than the C64s still in stock but I wanted the C64C because I had read an article on GEOs that made it sound awesome and they bundled GEOs with the C64C. A couple years later my good friend had a C128 but it died after the warranty expired, they were selling C64Cs so cheap he just bought one of those rather than repair the C128. The keyboard on his new C64C had graphic characters on the top of the keys below the letters, the case looked like mine but the plastic was thinner, the whole unit was lighter. We cracked it open and compared it to mine, the motherboard was about 3/4 the size. His C64C is what I would I would cost reduced. The original intent of the C64C was not cost reduction, just a new case to make the C64 look more like the C128 and upcoming Amiga 500. Now my younger cousin had the weirdest C64 I’d ever seen, it was the old style bread bin case but more like the color of the VIC20 then the C64 and the keyboard was the same one as my friends C64C and when we cracked it open it had that same smaller motherboard. I’ve never seen another one like it in person before or since. I found out years later it’s known as the C64G, not to be confused with the Aldi 64. The C64G was assembled in Germany using left over parts and motherboards built for the failed C64 keyboard-less game console the C64GS. They were all over the place in Europe but somehow my cousin got one of the very few that made it to the USA.
I spent so many hours programming my C64 and I got through college on it, typing my papers on a word processing program. My profs were impressed to get papers from me on dot matrix print.
+LGR, Clint what have you done to me? BTW I love this intro from 0:05 to the Ahhh at 0:07. Seriously I don't know why but those lips are so reminiscent of something cartoonish that I've watched it over and over. AND I DON'T KNOW WHY! Love it.
Back then Commodore 64 was THE machine in Finland. We even called it as The Computer of Republic. Almoust everybody had C64. My family had this machine & it was the very first game machine I ever played. I was somewhere like 3-5 years old & it was something amazing. Even today I play C64 games & LOVE them very much.
I've never owned a Commodore because I was born WAY after it was discontinued (late 1997). But after going through the internet, it must have been a great computer for people living in the 80s... I'm going to get one of these machines for my birthday!
My c64 ran for 12 years - 12 f'm years of great games (and a few clunkers). I have Winvice and CCS64, but I'm this close to buying one on Ebay and hooking it up to the 52" TV in the living room. YOur video made my decision even easier!
My dad had a 64,which I broke.Grew up with the Amiga,NES,Genesis.Certainly as a kid I had alot of fun with the consoles,but watching him play games like Pirates or Civilization,it amazed me how much there was in those games.Your right the 64 can't handle the big games like the Amiga,but often times they were designed on the 64,many people loved them even with the loading time.But yes if its on the Amiga,I go with that version almost every time.1982-1994,with the 64 you got your moneys worth.
So wish we all could go back to the good old Commodore 64 days...Some of the best times in my life. Worst mistake I made back then was selling it for the Commodore Amiga!...1 Video game (Earl Weavers Baseball) made me wanna get the Amiga. Had no idea NONE of the 64 programs would be compatible
Not sure where you’re looking but nowhere I’ve seen are they that expensive. The most recent ones on eBay have sold for about a hundred dollars. Still more than they used to be but nowhere near a PS5. Unless you know of some REALLY cheap PS5s ;)
The reason behind the orange keys is they were originally used on a Vic-20. Jack Tramiel, known for his cost saving techniques, used the left over Vic-20 keys until they were out and then moved on to the more common gray ones. Unless you are a collector, go with the gray as there are known bugs with the earlier versions.
I grew up in a newly built city in England and my secondary school was kind of almost futuristic compared to the schools in London etc. We had a computer studies lab which was unheard of back then. If I remember correctly they were Acorn computers running BBC Basic. They would give us snippets of code in books and just let us see what we could do. Was fun. Then the C64 appeared at the local shopping center. Everybody wanted one. kids would be crowding around them in the shop. There was another one everybody liked called a Sinclair with these crappy rubber key pads, but it could do good stuff. it was exciting times. i also remember the late 70s in NZ before we moved to England. the neighbor worked for IBM and brought home a computer for us to check out. it could play tennis with two dashes and a dot. I had never seen a computer before that. Neighbors all packed into that living room playing tennis on a monochrome screen and being amazed by it. i was 8 years old.
Great review! I finally got another one after someone disposed of mine while I was away. I haven't had a chance to get it working yet as it is in another hemisphere, but I've got my fingers crossed!
And thus I get nostalgia tingles remembering all the hours spent playing Giana Sisters on this thing. Our C64 worked perfectly aside from the monitor that didn't always show the color. But of course, we had to get that new home computer and thus the C64 went to a bingo hall and the disks were all tucked away to the Goodwill. T_T
Somehow I managed to find a boxed C64 grey key with manuals, power supply, and floppy reader for $5 at a yard sale. I was floored. No cable for the floppy drive, though, but the system works great!
sweet
My dad picked up a c64 original in box in a car boot in england with the cassette player and a joystick in the 90’s, we still have it now lol. I was born 2005 so obviously way out for it to be nostalgic but i love the thing so much.
No cable? Should've haggled them down to $4
2009..... when PCs still had parallel ports.....
High speed serial is the new punk.
I got a 2015 server PC in 2018 with parallel and serial ports on it, as well as a bunch of other reports that aren't around anymore.
And floppy drive connectors on the motherboard.
And IDE and (sometimes) floppy drive connectors. My 2008 nForce 780i mobo has both but my 2009 P55 has only an IDE connector
Me whose computer is even older than that
I love how the actual quality of your content has stayed pretty consistent all these years, normally I find with some RUclipsrs it's a pain to watch their older content but it's seriously a pleasure to go through your old stuff
In other words you love that unlike other RUclipsrs he has not improved because that means that you are not used to a better format and thus still get satisfied with his older video's.
@@oneheckofabanana2016 Good English skills.
@@oneheckofabanana2016 I fail to see how this is an issue
vhs quality so orgasmicly nostalgic
👍
And no deepfakes, just deepthroats.
Gross
And the moving parts in the machines, you don't get that feel with a usb stick
I just wanted to leave a note here for people who decide to pickup a C64 after this video. Don't use a stock Sega Genesis controller with it. When playing games that require a joystick and the keyboard at the same time, there's a possibility of overloading and breaking the chip that handles controller input. Any other controller should work fine, as long as it's directly wired to the pins, like the Atari 2600 joystick, and doesn't use an internal chip.
This comment should be stickied.
Daniel Scott Biehl I was skeptical when I read this. So I dove into the schematics of the Sega controller and there’s and it could potentially sink a wrong combination to ground hard! Yes, this will potentially kill a CIA chip.
Just buy an Atari 800XL 😁
$40-50? My how the times have changed. Now you're lucky to find a good Commodore 64 for $100. Even the mouse goes for $40.
I was patient for 4 years, now i got a nearly new c64 with monitor, 1541, printer and mouse all in box with cables, manual and cables in the original plastic wrapping and cable ties for 200 :)
Gee, I got mine for free from my great grandmother with a disk drive, cables, 1541, box, manuals, even some old flyers! She very sadly passed away shortly later. I have 2 64 boxes, that I keep in my room for display purposes, but I only have 1 C64.
Boy you don't know where to shop for mice! I can get 4-6 mice in bulk for under $3! It takes a long time for delivery unless you know someone with problems.
Just go to any old house and search for turds in the basement, behind the fridge, along hall walls, etc. Now here comes the money part. For under $3 you can get glue pads at Home Depot, place them by the turds and they will come around someday.
I remember back in the mid 90s people were practically giving these away
The first computer that I bought with my own money was a C64.. way back in 1986 using money I saved from my paper route. Eventually, I had dual 1541 disk drives, the C64 monitor (model number escapes me) and about 400-500 floppies packed with (mostly pirated) software. In about 1991/92 or so, I traded the whole collection for a brand new car tape deck and a pair of 6x9 car speakers. At the time, I thought I got a great deal... about a $350 value in Kenwood stereo gear at the time when you could buy a brand new C64C at Ward's for like $90... (he was mostly after my software collection tho). That stereo/speaker combo served me well throughout my college years... but damn... I kinda wish I never let it go... so much fun I had with that thing. The "most of the software was from Europe" was never really a problem thanks to NTSC fixes done by release groups... and I'm sure a lot of those versions still survive... if probably a bit harder to find.
It is so refreshing to see somebody from the US who doesn't just equate 8bit with the NES and who is aware of the UK gaming scene of the early 80s.
The C64 was an fantastic machine (and my first main computer) and its legacy is completely overlooked stateside whose experience of it was very different to that of Europe's.
inphanta Retrocomputing has really taken off in the past couple of years, c64s are far from overlooked now ;)
This is just a fantastic, high quality review! Excellent!
@2080 what the hell
It’s been 1 decade
fk off u cringe fuck
You've come a long way my friend!
Thank you, I've tried my best!
Your best is great, and even your worst is still pretty good!
It's time to do an updated C64 review, Clint.
Just out of curiosity, was this shot on a VHS camera?
Nick Shomos Yes it was, I used one for the first couple years of LGR!
Lazy Game Reviews I had a Commodore 64 and a 1541-II disk drive and it read Commodore 64 game disks just find oh man the good old days of Load "*",8,1
Lazy Game Reviews Why not do a review about VHS? :) It's tech-related enough.. :)
Lazy Game Reviews the opening just secretes avng
+Nick Shomos I think the VHS camera helps with the nostalgia of the whole thing
I still have two working Commodore 64 computers, 1 joystick for it, a floppy drive, and modem for it, along with plenty of software as well. I even have some of the magazines which came out at the time with the software programs to run on the machines. I purchased my first Commodore 64 from a company in Saginaw, Michigan and got the second one from a guy in Louisiana who was being transferred to another air base and didn't want to bring all the items he had with him. With this purchase I got the floppy drive and plenty of software, and the joy stick, and a modem. I loved much of the software and some was used regularly, and everything worked fine. I had another modem, and a tape drive, but don't know what happened to them.
Just like all my PET games; I still have all my C-64 games/programs!
*Happy times!*
I grew up with the breadbox version on my bedroom. My great uncle was a porter of games to the Commodore 64 of every variety. So, I had copies of every one of them. I just can't believe I got rid of all of it in the 90s thinking all of it wasn't worth anything anymore. Your channel is robbing me of many hours and I can't complain. Thank You!
Wow, Prehistoric LGR, cool! You came a long way, man!
Love these older LGR reviews. Cool to see how cheap some of this stuff was ten years ago. Wish it was still the same price today :)
Really enjoying your videos man! I'm inspired to dig out, restore, and use the Commodore 128D that I've had since about 1987--still boxed up in the original packaging at my folks house, along with an additional 1571 floppy drive (the amber monochrome monitor I used is long gone).
I’ll never forget when my dad came home with a C64 bread box. Our first monitor was a 9” orange and black atrocity. But about a month later he got the adapter to connect to the TV. Kong was so much fun.
The sound is what got us all excited. My dad fed the sound to the stereo and played it loud as hell. Dig dug was fun too.
Man, you've come a long ways with this channel.
this review is showing it's age....maybe you should do a re-reivew series of videos? I would love to see this again in higher quality.
Wat why
he obviously shoots these with old SD tape recorders for the nostalgia. Also, how can a review of 1980's gaming tech be showing it's age when posted in 2009? Relax.
No, I'm with you. As someone who only started watching LGR in the past year this is really difficult to watch.
Some folks are too critical. Video is fine. At least its not cast in 8mm or 16mm tape. My C64C purchased from Toys Us in 1980 for $385 is still working. I don't play games though.
He hits on everything - it's fine trust me! It may not look as neat as newer reviews, but it's all there.
Memories! When i was about 7-8 years old, and we used screwdriver to install games! ;)
Putting in ROM chips?
just realized the original video was published in 2009. I'm watching it in 2019. great review! some good old days
I wanted one for Christmas in 1983 when I was 11. Trouble was, I couldn't get my parents to even fathom the concept of buying a personal computer
when i was going to university 89-93 for an astrophysics degree, we had a 3rd year course called 'astrophysics of the sun' where we had to write a computer program detailing the internal structure of the sun - given certain initial conditions...
i was flat broke so my only choice was to use my old C64 that i got new as a kid...blew my prof away that it actually worked...
while one the other students wrote it in c++, i wrote the program in basic..
it took them seconds to run the program - it took me 45 minutes...
it worked perfect...
I freaking love the SID chip. (Well, when used properly)
lol
+asher collier I thought the SID Player progam disks that played al kindsoff songs on the SID chip and showed a synthesizer keyboard that showed the keys played was the shit when I was a kid. :)
+Robert Phoenix That must've been awesome :)
It'was I spend hours just listening to the music and wathcing the piano play itself. I catully still have a cassette tape somewhere that I recorded the line out of the C64 on (I had a cable for my C64 that allowed me to connect it to my stereo tower. Think it connected to one of the round connectors at the back.
Robert Phoenix
I see...
I love these old videos of yours.
I love the new ones as well, but it's always awesome to come back here and see how much your video/audio has improved.
It's time to revisit a Commodore 64 review in the LGR style of today!
I believe this was the first computer I ever used. This was a great computer. Oregon Trail was awesome back in the day. The 80s were great for me from a computer standby. I wrote my first program at the age of 7 but I never stuck with it. I regret that move looking back on it.
I remember my highschool had a classroom where there was a huge stack of C64 boxes! Not the actual computers, just the cardboard boxes they came in. I never saw where the actual C64's were...
Watching this in 2022 with the hissing and 4:3 screen aspect. Great review!
Its mandatory to do the 'Shatner' on a Commodore keyboard.
@TheMentalRelapse:
ruclips.net/video/ajj4fhCSiIM/видео.html
I'm rewatching this in 2022. I can't believe how far video quality online has come!
Back in the 80s the great 8-bit rivalry in Britain was between the Sinclair Spectrum, which I had, and the Commodore 64. One of the best Spectrum games was Uridium, a fast-moving space shooter, which was said to be a poor conversion of the C64 original. Have you tried that?
zh84 make that pentapled
I had a C64, and my best friend had a Sinclair spectrum. With very few exceptions, the C64 version of everything was better. Everything also loaded a little faster, and far more reliably using the C64's tape deck.
We were always hammering the C64, and very rarely used the Spectrum. We always played games at my house, until he got a SNES much later on - the SNES dominated!
Young LGR. It feels weird to watch his old videos, but on the other hand it is fun seeing him slowly grow over time.
You have the best voice on the internet :) ...When all other things are annoying me; your videos are always interesting, informative, and relaxed...it's a true skill :) Thanks for all the hard work (even though you make it look easy ;) ) - huge fan from Ireland :)
LGR sounds very similar to AVN - voice and accent :-)
We've just gotta teach him how to say com POS ite ;-)
Really takes me back to being a kid, this one. Turrican 1 and 2 are legendary, along with the likes of Creatures and Wizball.
Don't have the disk drive or any disks anymore, but I've still got the tape drive and all the tapes though the tape drive connector needs fixed. It's not fatal by any means, the plastic bit that holds the connector in place inside the plug has snapped and just needs something like a piece of matchstick glued in as a replacement.
Im from the UK and wasnt even aware the C64 had a floppy drive .
Cassettes all the way.
For me it was the other way 'round: my cousin had a cassette deck while I had a floppy drive. I was baffled.
my families first computer was a c64 we bought used. came with boxes upon boxes of pirated games, manuals, etc. i got my computer start there, and gobbled up the programming manuals (which were very well written!). to this day, the SID chip still holds a special place in my heart.
What's the soundtrack in the background?
+Clinton Hogan Macrocosm - Beyond The Macrocosm (Second Voyage 2005) that's the song, enjoy =)
Thank you! :)
I go back and watch all of LGR and 8-bit guys videos every year and they never get old
if you had one of those growing up in my neighborhood, you were the man. I used to hallicinate holding it a few times when i was young lol
Whilst now I am contemplating buying one because I don't want to buy an new old screen and porting it to a new screen is a bit sketchy. LGR do you know any good converters for newer monitors?
Hahaha.
Some kids and even teachers picked on me for having one and being the smartest in computerclass in 1986.
I was too far ahead of the rest and that hurt them ;-)
I would say that these days, the most important reason to get a C64 is the demo-scene; it's still as alive and kicking as it was back in the 80's-90's and there's some truly amazing demos being produced for it in annual competitions; pushing the hardware far beyond what we ever imagined possible back in the 80's...
Young Clint! 😬
THE PRECIOUS! I still have one of these babies, the old transformer that melted out now functions as a doorstop. Bless this vid!
The C64 has s-video output, which if you can get a TV (or adaptor) that supports it, is another order of magnitude clearer than composite video. You would also have to buy/make a special cable for it.
They never called it s-video though. It was "luma/chroma" or something. It was only for commodore monitors which supported it. The cable had two RCA cables at the other end, one for luma and one for chroma.
doesn't c64 support RGB? even the NES did (well the playchoice arcade board)
Would love to see a #throwback-style episode from you, filmed on VHS a bit like this! The soundtrack is great, too .)
Hey LGR could you do little computer people for C64?
Dude, I love these videos. They're like short documentaries on iconic hardware. Be seeing ya in the next video.
Commodore 64.....that thing is evil....it will consume you....it will steal your time....it will even try to teach you BASIC!
Loved that machine, we had a monthly magazine that came out of a demo tape...awesome.
Also, I had those paddles you get, but it was for strange bouncy game....and I still have it. My parents were cleaning their house..."You want this or can we through it out?"
*calmed myself*
Its ok I'll take it...
Wish I had the disk though, tapes took forever to load and thats very hard for a kid....
Commodore offered a Z80 cartridge for the 64 that ran the CP/M operating system. I bought the Commodore 64 COBOL package which let me write, compile and execute COBOL programs. It got me into IT and I've been an IBM Mainframe specialist ever since!
What is that rad music in the background?
+AustinofEarth Macrocosm - Beyond The Macrocosm (Second Voyage 2005) That's the song, Enjoy =)
Wow... those games bring back memories. I used to love that Archon game. And I remember the Summer Games also. Damn! A remake of Arcon might do well.
+Richard's World YOu can get Archon: Classic on steam. It's a remake of the original and also expands on it. It features other boards you can play on apart from the original one and it even got a campaign. It also has a mode that allows up to 4 players instead of only the original 2. And you can choose between classic graphics and improved graphics. Only shame is that it doesn't include an Archon II Adept mode.
5:26 So that's where the tit Phil Fish got the idea for Fez from.
That computer gave me a lot of happy childhood memories.
It was my 2nd real computer (I had a VIC-20 first).
I have 100's of games for my NTSC C-64. I'd paid (@1988) some guy $25 for his whole floppy disk collection of C-64 games. I have cracked versions of UK games like 1942 that run just fine on my NTSC televisions.
druid 2 was the most amazing game I had on the c64. that one really blew me away. gauntlet was also surprisingly close to the arcade version
I am looking for a good gaming rig to play GTA 5. Should I buy this?
+Jerome Eliezer I can't be sure, but I believe it is a little underpowered.
Yes this can even run crysis
Yea but you might have to turn the settings to medium.
Get LGR's Altair, it can run Crysis ;)
crazy how times have changed when this used to be a hobby and passion that was affordable and wasn't near to being an investment. I love the history and overall essence of the 64 and got the chance to use one of my friends awhile back really an amazing computer and would love to have one if I had the opportunity to get one at a reasonable price even if it's rough. I just can't justify spending 150+ on one. Anyways it's great to see how much this channel has grown from these original videos.
I got a C64 when it came out and used it till 1994 when the keyboard buffer chip died. Think I got my money's worth...
I wanted to see more of Commodore's computing power, not just games .... but aw well, this is a gaming channel after all.
Love you dude, you're the best
"Only $50"
When was the last time you went on eBay?
2009
Well, keep in mind, this was made 10 years ago, so...
@@ilexgarodan I guess stuff+time=$$$
So much memories... I had a commodore 128 with a ram cartridge that i used as a BBS and my 64 was used for games and logging into BBS's. So much good times...
who's watching this in 2017?
I am
Guilty as charged. The C64 and VIC-20 where my first computers.
Yes, been catching up on all the old hardware vids, fantastic stuff and so nostalgic. I had a BBC B but always lusted after a C64!!
How times changed.
2018
I love this review, as others have said, for 2009 this is actually pretty brilliant stuff in terms of your style, is up there with most modern "youtubers". I've watched most of your vids now in stealth and enjoyed this trip back in time. Love the c64, grew up with it, enjoyed it still have it.
Good ol' LGR Review in VHS style about C64.
Just perfect!
When my brother started his MBA at the U of C he needed a computer and modem to connect to the campus mainframe if he didn't want to spend his entire life downtown so we agreed to split the cost of the new C64 and got MUCH more than we bargained for.
I miss my old c-64 especially Radar Rat race and addictive game that John and I played for months on end each trying to top each other's score like two boys born 13 months apart often do. Some of the other games were fantastic and it introduced me to the basics of basic programming after two courses in Fortran (3 & 4). Very helpful when I later had to write SAS jobs for mainframe use.
I miss my C 64 but don't know if even for only $25 or $50 I would go back. But thanks for the walk down memory lane!
Love the Jack Bauer for President T-Shirt. I have wondered how the world would react to Kiefer Sutherland as our commander in chief!
man I loved my C64. I got one in 1993 for my birthday - with a book on BASIC and a tonne of disks. My uncle and mum wrote a few games for me...mostly ports of board games
Great over all review. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Ironically, growing up in the 80s in the UK, we always assumed the best games came from America on labels such as US Gold.
I found this video interesting. A friend of mine has a "breadbox grey keyed" Commodore 64. What I found amazing was that he also had a commodore color monitor and a 5 1/4" floppy drive with a Monopoly floppy disk. There was also a commodore joystick in the items. I got real interested when I saw the machine, so I went to look for videos on it. (Adding on) he also had a cartridge for "paintbrush".
I got a bare system at a garage sale for $12. I thought for sure it was broken but I jerry rigged a power supply and plugged the modulator into my tv and it worked flawlessly! #score
My older cousin had a Commodore 64, and I distinctly remember "Leaderboard" and "Summer Games."
From these humble, but endearing, beginnings, over a million subscribers 💪
The UK says hello and thank you for the praise :) just got a c64 for £40 with a dud 1541-2 and tape drive but loving it already :D
I'd love a return review :)
The C64 is where I learned to program in BASIC. I loved learning to use that machine. The best game I played on it would either be raid over moscow (more than 7 minutes to load on tape) or Ghostbusters. I loved the sound on Ghostbusters. My Jr. High school had C64s in the computer room, and I became good friends with the computer teacher. I even got to help teach a few classes (pretty cool for a grade 8 and 9 student). I kind of wonder if I could get back into programming the thing if I got one on ebay...
From 1988Up until the 2000`s the C64 was my Main Gamingstation. sure there was a dreamcast and a PS1, but i somehow always keep finding amazing games for the old Brotkasten. I remember a 6 Week "Die Fugger" play with a bunch of neighbours. 6 weeks! the machine was on and working!
I never owned one of these but lots of my friends had one, my uncle had one with Summer Games and I played the piss out of it lol. I sure would like to pick one up one day soon since I never had one myself. Was a very cool system back in the day. The 80's were so ground breaking I'm glad I got to grow up during that.
I have *very* fond memories of this machine.
That said, while I do kind of wish I'd kept mine (original "breadbox" version) for nostalgia purposes, the truth is I just don't have enough storage space for all the vintage computers I'd like to have kept over the years.
So, I settle for watching this channel instead. Thank you.
One of these days you'll have to do a video that explains where you keep all this stuff!!
Best reviewer ever!! I made the natural progression (in the DK at least) from a Speccy to a C64 to an Amiga 500 (got the ram upgrade within a few months). I never really thought of the privileges of living in PAL zone. Now I'm really glad in retrospect (-:
I absolutely love the retro music of your intro!
As a C64 fanboy, I say you did a great job here! You've got yourself a subscriber!
I used to write my own games on this puppy. Ah, the memories. Thank you LGR
SID sound is allays great. I still remember the first game I ever played on C64, I bought a C64 from a car boot sale, it came with loads of games, I loaded up sanxion and I was just stunned by the music I heard.
Nebulus looks amazing! love that little pixel trick, i don't think i have seen that before!
I have a C64C, bought it brand new in 1986, nothing “cost reduced” about it. It has the same motherboard as the C64 bread bin models, it does not have the newer SID and VIC chips. The graphic symbols are on the sides of the keys on the keyboard. At the time when I bought it it was a bit more than the C64s still in stock but I wanted the C64C because I had read an article on GEOs that made it sound awesome and they bundled GEOs with the C64C. A couple years later my good friend had a C128 but it died after the warranty expired, they were selling C64Cs so cheap he just bought one of those rather than repair the C128. The keyboard on his new C64C had graphic characters on the top of the keys below the letters, the case looked like mine but the plastic was thinner, the whole unit was lighter. We cracked it open and compared it to mine, the motherboard was about 3/4 the size. His C64C is what I would I would cost reduced. The original intent of the C64C was not cost reduction, just a new case to make the C64 look more like the C128 and upcoming Amiga 500. Now my younger cousin had the weirdest C64 I’d ever seen, it was the old style bread bin case but more like the color of the VIC20 then the C64 and the keyboard was the same one as my friends C64C and when we cracked it open it had that same smaller motherboard. I’ve never seen another one like it in person before or since. I found out years later it’s known as the C64G, not to be confused with the Aldi 64. The C64G was assembled in Germany using left over parts and motherboards built for the failed C64 keyboard-less game console the C64GS. They were all over the place in Europe but somehow my cousin got one of the very few that made it to the USA.
I spent so many hours programming my C64 and I got through college on it, typing my papers on a word processing program. My profs were impressed to get papers from me on dot matrix print.
Greetings and welcome to the LGR thing 10 years ago!
+LGR, Clint what have you done to me? BTW I love this intro from 0:05 to the Ahhh at 0:07. Seriously I don't know why but those lips are so reminiscent of something cartoonish that I've watched it over and over. AND I DON'T KNOW WHY! Love it.
Still have my C-64 from 1983 and it all still works also have a nice collection of games, loved the video.
Back then Commodore 64 was THE machine in Finland.
We even called it as The Computer of Republic.
Almoust everybody had C64.
My family had this machine & it was the very first game machine I ever played.
I was somewhere like 3-5 years old & it was something amazing.
Even today I play C64 games & LOVE them very much.
I wish he still used the nostalgic VHS camera, I don't know why I just love the look of it.
3:00 spent soooo many hours staring at that cassette player praying it would actually load the game properly this time :p nice review !
I've never owned a Commodore because I was born WAY after it was discontinued (late 1997). But after going through the internet, it must have been a great computer for people living in the 80s... I'm going to get one of these machines for my birthday!
My c64 ran for 12 years - 12 f'm years of great games (and a few clunkers). I have Winvice and CCS64, but I'm this close to buying one on Ebay and hooking it up to the 52" TV in the living room. YOur video made my decision even easier!
My dad had a 64,which I broke.Grew up with the Amiga,NES,Genesis.Certainly as a kid I had alot of fun with the consoles,but watching him play games like Pirates or Civilization,it amazed me how much there was in those games.Your right the 64 can't handle the big games like the Amiga,but often times they were designed on the 64,many people loved them even with the loading time.But yes if its on the Amiga,I go with that version almost every time.1982-1994,with the 64 you got your moneys worth.
So wish we all could go back to the good old Commodore 64 days...Some of the best times in my life. Worst mistake I made back then was selling it for the Commodore Amiga!...1 Video game (Earl Weavers Baseball) made me wanna get the Amiga. Had no idea NONE of the 64 programs would be compatible
2 years later, and I'm watching this video again, wishing I could afford a Commodore 64, which now costs as much as a PlayStation 5...
Not sure where you’re looking but nowhere I’ve seen are they that expensive.
The most recent ones on eBay have sold for about a hundred dollars. Still more than they used to be but nowhere near a PS5. Unless you know of some REALLY cheap PS5s ;)
The reason behind the orange keys is they were originally used on a Vic-20. Jack Tramiel, known for his cost saving techniques, used the left over Vic-20 keys until they were out and then moved on to the more common gray ones. Unless you are a collector, go with the gray as there are known bugs with the earlier versions.
I grew up in a newly built city in England and my secondary school was kind of almost futuristic compared to the schools in London etc. We had a computer studies lab which was unheard of back then. If I remember correctly they were Acorn computers running BBC Basic. They would give us snippets of code in books and just let us see what we could do. Was fun. Then the C64 appeared at the local shopping center. Everybody wanted one. kids would be crowding around them in the shop. There was another one everybody liked called a Sinclair with these crappy rubber key pads, but it could do good stuff. it was exciting times. i also remember the late 70s in NZ before we moved to England. the neighbor worked for IBM and brought home a computer for us to check out. it could play tennis with two dashes and a dot. I had never seen a computer before that. Neighbors all packed into that living room playing tennis on a monochrome screen and being amazed by it. i was 8 years old.
Great review! I finally got another one after someone disposed of mine while I was away. I haven't had a chance to get it working yet as it is in another hemisphere, but I've got my fingers crossed!
And thus I get nostalgia tingles remembering all the hours spent playing Giana Sisters on this thing. Our C64 worked perfectly aside from the monitor that didn't always show the color. But of course, we had to get that new home computer and thus the C64 went to a bingo hall and the disks were all tucked away to the Goodwill. T_T