Commodore was trying to make a cheap computer, which would create some major standards among 8-bit machines. Many tries were made, Commodore 4+ or VIC-20, but when first model of Commodore 64 was introduced, then the things started going into the right direction.

At the time the C64 was released, people were playing clones of Space Invaders and Pac Man on their ZX Spectrums and Amstrad CPCs in Europe, and Atari XL 600 & 800 models in USA, and they didn't know that a new star was born which very shortly would start digging the other 8-bit's graves. Low price, good graphics resolution - 320x200 pixels with a maximum of four colors chosen from a palette of 16, and an extraordinary sound chip called SID, were the strong sides of the C64. SID was a very special "vintage"- sound chip. Nothing similar to this chip was ever made before or after C64. No other machine reached that sound quality among 8-bit computers or even consoles. SID could create very special atmospheric music-moods. Today, there is a special made ISA/PCI SID card for PCs, which can reproduce the original vintage sounds. Nowadays this is of course used for classic synth-effects and not for games.

Anyway, let's go back 20 years in time. When the C64 was about to be introduced to the world market, Commodore planned that it would cost up to USD $1000. But they managed to cut down costs in last minute and first series of C64 cost only $300 -- a wise decision. Many big software companies like Electronic Arts, Cinemaware, Ocean etc, understood the technical and above all economical potential of this machine. Besides the already mentioned Pac Man and Invaders clones, high quality games were soon produced.

Game-classics emerged. "Manic Miner" was one of the first but not the last. "Boulder Dash" and the "Bomb Jack"-series were also among the many must-have games. Freeware- PD- and commercial games were released all across the world in different formats: tape-originals, game-cartridges, floppy disks and the most popular format - bootleg tapes which could contain 50 different games on a single 60-minute cassette. This concept was originally developed by freeware software programmers but later crackers saw potential in it and you soon could get many complete cracked games on one tape, as crackers removed unnecessary data (colorful tape-loaders) from the games which on the tape-original took up a whole side of the tape. Although this information cannot be confirmed, the C64 may as well have the biggest variety of games to date.

Many of the other 8-bits (if not all!) lost their popularity. One of the first was the Atari XL 600. Although this machine was technically better then the C64, Americans were more impressed by Commodore and in almost no time, the C64 became the most widely used 8-bit computer in American households and schools. The Amstrad CPC in Europe lost popularity in a similar fashion. There were some popular games on this computer, but the problem was that Amstrad only had strong marketing in UK, and for that reason, all major companies saw C64 as the logical choice. The C64 however has never been a real competition to the Spectrum. There were not many ZX - users who changed their computer to C64. But technically C64 was much better, and all new computer-users chose C64.

One of the biggest software companies, Ocean, was mainly specialised in making games, which were based upon Hollywood-movies. "Ghostbusters", "Batman", "Back To The Future, "Platoon" in the mid '80s and even "Terminator2: Judgement Day" in early 90s were fine examples of high-quality 8-bit games. Another company, System-3, presented a handful of original and well-designed games to the world for example"International Karate", one of first modern fighting games which in the C64-version looked and sounded much better than poor PC version with 4-colour CGA graphics and internal speaker sound. "Flimbo's Quest" is another game from System-3. This is one of the most beautiful multi-level-platformers released on C64.

Another Commodore computer, which was developed at the same time, was C128, with, as you can easily figure out had 128kb ram. But it was never that popular since there were almost no games that were especially made for this computer. Anybody who bought this computer was forced to use C64 software and type command "GO 64" on their command prompt to switch their computer into C64-mode. For this reason, buying a C128, if you only wanted to play games, was waste of money. Most of C128 users were therefore program developers who needed the C128' extra 64kb of RAM.

In 1986-87, a new version of the C64 was released, called the C64 II. It was basically the same computer, however it's keyboard got a more attractive and modern look. There were also some changes under its case. Several chips were integrated into a single chip, which was actually a bad thing if, for instance, a hardware failure occured, but anyway, it was still the same good old, a bit refreshed Commodore 64. At the same time, System 3 continued releasing their extraordinary games. Another classic was born - "Last Ninja", one of the first modern 3D-games, which even existed on 16-bit computers, but the C64 version was more pleasant to play - thanks to the very beautiful melodies played on its SID chip. The game was so successful that System-3 released two sequels in the following years.

In beginning of the 90s most of the 8-bit computers were dead. The same fate waited for the C64, but some companies like Ocean continued to produce games for the C64. It was hard though, to keep up along side with 16-bit computers. Then, it happened! The previously unknown software company Thalamus wrote the game "CREATURES", and it ended up being the best game ever made on C64 from a technical point of view - a pure state of the art on 64kb RAM. "Creatures II" was released later and according to computer magazines, these two games are the main reasons why C64 managed to stick around in early 90s, since these highly addictive games existed only in C64-versions. Many people in the US actually bought the computer just because of these games. It wasn't until the mid '90s that an Amiga version of "Creatures" was released. It looked nice, but it was still far away from Amiga's possibilities, while the C64 version used all resources and every single byte of memory available. Creatures II remained a C64-only game. These two games, even though they are among the last generation games for the C64 are considered the greatest C64 classics of all time.

Commodore 64 faded away in the mid-90s, but already in the late '80s, Commodore enthusiast knew that the king of 8-bit computers would be replaces by a queen... the queen of the 16-bit machines...

...next month's article is about Amiga500.


Tech Specs (basic model):
64kb ram
Tape Cassette recorder
C64 Basic integrated with ROM-OS
RF-modulator (connection to TV)
Joysticks

Optional equipment:
5,25" Disk Drives
(3,5" was available but no software in this format was released)
Program/Game-cartridges connected to direct access expansion port.
Monitors
Modems, Printers and Mouse