Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Commodore 64, that ’80s computer icon, lives again
May 09, 2011|By Brandon Griggs, CNN
It was chunky, a hideous tan color, and, by today’s standards, ridiculously feeble.
It was limited to 64 kilobytes of memory — about the equivalent of one long e-mail.
And yet 25 years ago, almost everyone seemed to have one.
It was the Commodore 64, an 8-bit, mass-produced machine that brought personal computing into the home for millions of users in the early- and mid-1980s. People used their C64s, as they were known, for everything from basic office functions to primitive games like “Impossible Mission.”
Commodore sold more than 17 million of its C64 systems, according to the company. The Guinness Book of World Records lists the Commodore 64 as the best-selling single computer model of all time.
“Spent hours and hours writing little programs for my then very young kids …. happy days,” wrote Ian Mumby last month on a Commodore 64 Facebook page. “Still have the c64 in the loft, may have to go dig it out and play.”
Now, nearly three decades after it debuted in 1982, the Commodore 64 is making a comeback. The company that built it, Commodore International, went bankrupt in 1994. But a revived outfit, Commodore USA, plans to release a line of retro-looking Commodore computers this month that have modern components inside.