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C64 30 Year Anniversary
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04-01-2012 1:31pm#1God I'm old.....
I got one at Christmas 1983 maybe? May have been my first post-Santa present.
I got Caverns of Khafka, Kokotoni Wilf and Purple Turtles (all dreadful games, with KW being the least dreadful) but I loved them. I've played a bit of C64 on emulators over the years, but its just not the same at all, is it?
Built up a pretty huge collection up to 1992 I'd say.... all were boxed into the attic around then and dumped a few years later in an attic clearout (which I found out about too late). Shame the C64 never really kicked off properly on the Wii Virtual Console - probably the closest I've felt to playing the real thing again.
I was a big Thalamus fan (Creatures 1&2, Summer/Winter Camp, Delta, Armalyte, Quedex, Hunters Moon, etc.). Loved most of their games, apart from maybe Heatseeker.
Anyone want to share their C64 nostalgia?A key part of the computer industry marked its anniversary this week as the Commodore 64 turned 30 years old. The hardware was unveiled at CES in early January 1982 and became one of the longest-lasting computers of its era, with variants in use until the company shuttered in April 1994. The keyboard-sized PC, which shipped in August that year for $595, ran at just 1MHz and with its namesake 64KB of total memory.
The system is widely credited with helping to popularize PCs. Where most systems at the time were sold either in electronics shops or in dedicated computer stores, the C64 was sold at general retailers, exposing many to PCs for the first time.
Equally important were the relatively powerful VIC graphics chip and MOS Tech audio. Although it could only render a 160x200 picture with bitmaps and three-channel sound, these were still much more than alternatives like the Apple II+ or original IBM PC and led to the C64 being a gaming PC for many.
Commodore would ultimately end up shipping as many as 17 million C64s over the system's lifetime, but it was also considered the peak of the company's line. Attempted variants like the office-oriented Plus 4, the SX64 portable, or the Commodore 128 never sold in great numbers. The company officially dropped the regular C64 in 1989, but there were variants up until the company's end five years later, when the Amiga had long since taken over as its main platform.
The brand eventually revived in 2004 through the Dutch company Tulip, which started with the C64DTV retro system directly based on the original. It later shifted the name towards regular computers, most notably gaming PCs. The C64 name survives now with the retro-designed, Intel-based C64x, which can run an emulator of the original Commodore platform as well as behave like a regular Linux or Windows PC.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/01/02/commodore.64.marks.anniversary/2
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I got the Night Moves pack in the late 80's. It was a massive step up from the Atari 2600, & to see stuff like Last Ninja, Midnight Resistance, & Ourtun running on my tv...it was like :eek::cool::eek:
I also wrote my first computer virus on it:
10 GOTO 20
20 GOTO 10
Edit - I still have it all fully boxed & working packed away, with the original receipt! Santa gave receipts back then.0 -
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I was a Spectrum child, 11 years old in '83!
We viewed C64 owners as spoilt, richie rich kids who wouldn't know a good game if it ran up and slapped them in the face.
We have been forced, with time, to revise this position.
We now view C64 owners as spoilt, smug, richie rich kids who wouln't know a good game if it ran up and slapped them in the face!
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One thing which always pissed me off about playing these computer/gaming hybrid machines was everyone always seemed to have **** joystick controllers.
We'd be playing Barbarian on the speccy with a flight stick type joystick. Imagine doing that nowadays with a sidewinder and SF IV
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luas_dublin wrote: »... *who ran a computer games trading day in the Ormonde Hotel every month...
That was down the quays wasn't it? Remember myself and the brother playing in a Sensi Soccer tournament in there once, would've been during the Amiga days so later on in the C64 life cycle.One thing which always pissed me off about playing these computer/gaming hybrid machines was everyone always seemed to have **** joystick controllers.
We'd be playing Barbarian on the speccy with a flight stick type joystick. Imagine doing that nowadays with a sidewinder and SF IV
We had Quickshot joysticks with our C64, think that's what they were called. Two types, a bog standard one which felt like waggling a lump of wood (...) and a newer micro-switch version. Those click click noises were cool. But once we got hold of some Zipsticks (worked on C64 and Amiga iirc) then there was no looking back, brilliant joystick they were.
I have a lot of love for the C64, other than all the more famous and brilliant games mentioned above, I remember Track & Field for brilliant 2 player games - so so competitive trying to beat yer brother's world records etc, or Winter Sports. They were in some sports pack, always remember that as Daley Thompson's Decathlon never loaded.
Remember some others like Eagles Nest (top down Gauntlet style game?) and Hawkeye (side scrolling platform/shooting type), Target Renegade, Platoon and so on. Actually there was a sh1t hard horizontal shooter I played alot but can't remember the name, must go find it.
Some of the music during the loading screens were cool too. Such a great machine. That flash cart Waveform linked recently is very tempting.0 -
yup that was the one
Ah spectrum owners , the colourblind gamers of the eighties!
Hope you enjoyed those weird pastel colours/seethrough sprites cider!;)
Well at least you had joystick ports that were compatible with everything so you didnt need weird interfaces or expensive sticks..oh hang on...;)
I'm sure all that playing with keys was a valuable life lesson eh? 0 -
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Yikes. 30 years old... I feel a bit conned that I got a Vic-20 thirty years ago now.
But when I finally got a C64 it was the Light Fantastic pack:
There's a hat on the box and everything!
It was a great pack. Huge amount of stuff in there... although the light gun was a bit naff (looked cool though)0 -
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yep thats it computer city, haha.. loved that place when i was younger.
Did they have a shop on or near the corner of Capel St too? At the Liffey end. I remember a shop there that had a downstairs section with tons of games, think you could rent from there also. QTH in Dun Laoghaire was our local for new C64 games, hmm that was on a corner too.
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Did they have a shop on or near the corner of Capel St too? At the Liffey end. I remember a shop there that had a downstairs section with tons of games, think you could rent from there also. QTH in Dun Laoghaire was our local for new C64 games, hmm that was on a corner too.
That was a different crowd on Capel Street... Think they were called Capital or Central or something.
Computer City was amazing though. So many found memories of excitingly picking up games from there.0 -
But but but!! Chasehq was AWFUL! (and worse still the speccy version is great!)bobbytables wrote: »
I had that one also. It was fantastic. I stayed up day & night after I got it.It was i think "light fantastic" pack or something? with Ganster, Rambo\platoon, combat school etc all the light gun games.
My favourite games on the 64 were: Dragon Slayer, OutRun, SpyHunter, ChaseHQ, Way of the Exploding Fist, IK+, Last Ninja series (I remember my jaw dropping during the intro for the 3rd one), Outlaw, Dizzy, etc
Upgraded to an Amiga 600 after that, Xmas '92. Lemmings pack, but also picked up Street Fighter 2 from Software Terminal upstairs in the Eyre Square centre in Galway.
I picked up a copy for a quid last year.
Heres me playing it ..(and crying ...as its that terribad)
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Got my C64 at christmas 1991 I think. Had good times with the machine but was so jealous of all my friends that had Megadrives, SNES's and Amigas. I got it a bit too late to appreciate it fully but did enjoy a lot of games on it, at the end of it's lifecycle when my parents finally caved in and got me a computer there were a lot of very impressive games coming out on the platform. The Rowland brothers when gods to me.
Also Chase HQ was **** but Turbo Charge made up for it.
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I got the Night Moves pack for Christmas and Birthday many years ago from an old chain store called Tandy.
My fondest memory of the C64 (and I was a Rowlands fan too by the way) was the infinite lives cheat for Creatures 2. None of my mates at school believed me until I had to actually show them how it worked.
What was it again? I remember the creatures 1 one was to lick your finger and run it across the joystick port at the high score screen.
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Retr0gamer wrote: »What was it again? I remember the creatures 1 one was to lick your finger and run it across the joystick port at the high score screen.
That's the one.
I thought that was for Creatures 2 though?0 -
I was probably a bit of a late starter as I didn't get my C-64 until Christmas 1987. I loved the C-64 and I still occasionally break out an emulator for a bash at the likes of Sanxion, Creatures, Paradroid, Retrograde and of course Turrican I and II. My father still like to tell the story about how the two of us were playing Ghosts N' Goblins. There we were, happily slaughtering zombies on the first screen before one of us accidentally jumped up and over a gravestone and we realised that there was a whole game waiting for us.
I definitely don't miss the loading times. Sitting there for ten minutes or more watching the flashing colours and hoping the process didn't fail for some unknown reason? No thanks!
Anyone interested in C-64 music would do well to check out The High Voltage SID Collection.0 -
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That's what I remember too but I could be wrong. As I recall Creatures 1 had a cheat where you had to wait until the title screen music stopped and then waggle the joystick back and forth until the little mice turned grey.That's the one.
I thought that was for Creatures 2 though?
Edit: It seems I was nearly right (see here). 0 -
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Buggy boy was good but my favourite car game was
POWERDRIFT
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8SmmovJ87k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLdRK8pTnCg
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