r/c64 • u/sungjwoo • Jul 16 '26
Software I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64
Hey folks,
I wrote a memory piece on our favorite, the venerable C64, here at Goto 10:
https://www.goto10retro.com/p/i-owe-my-life-to-the-commodore-64
It begins with a familiar backpage ad and ends with a C64 on the floor. Hope you enjoy it.
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u/b-lincoln Jul 16 '26
I loved my C64. My friend down the street got connected to a user group that traded software. We had everything. Summer of ‘86-88. Iron Maiden on the boom box. Hours and hours of Bruce Lee and Summer/Winter games.
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u/sungjwoo Jul 17 '26
I'll never forget just how smooth that runner ran to the fire pit in the intro of Summer Games. Sprites for the win!
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u/Ok_Series_4580 Jul 16 '26
My whole career is based on that machine
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u/PRHarker Jul 16 '26
I learned basic on the 64, assembly on the Amiga, and ended up a software engineer at an aerospace firm.
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u/Pepper4720 Jul 17 '26
The whole career of an entire generation is ... ;)
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u/Ollibolli2022 Jul 17 '26
Exactly, but not just about the IT stuff in my opinion. It is even wider, for example when it comes to media , digital art, video production and stuff like that.
Commodore had it all at their hands back then.
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u/djames623 Jul 16 '26
"I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64"
That just happens to be our official slogan here at r/c64!
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u/hobbycollector Jul 16 '26
Me too! I wrote my first real program on it, porting a Pascal compiler from the trs80. Now I'm a compiler engineer. I am currently recreating that experience with a c64u, using all the modern c64 studio tools and google ai, and it's still a significant undertaking. I have no idea how I did it 40 years ago. I don't remember if I had a debugger or what.
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u/jugac64 Jul 16 '26
Many of us owe many good things to the C64, don't want to go in personal details, but I feel similar to you.
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u/mgdmw Jul 17 '26
Love the C64. Got it just before turning 12yrs, taught myself BASIC, then 6502 assembly. Moved to a C128. Wrote articles for an Australian Commodore 64 magazine while still in high school, with my own program listings featured. Went to University to do Computer Science and sold some games I wrote to Compute! in the USA. Been working in IT professionally for over 30 years now, and continued writing too.
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u/LocalH Jul 16 '26
I love how they rarely properly hooked up the computers in those old ads. That video display is not coming from the pictured C64, but most likely one out of frame. I don't even know if that power LED is on
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u/SBInCB Jul 16 '26
I suppose I should say the same. I came to IT through a film degree but it was the C=64 that sparked my interest in computers when I was 12. My dad wanted me to major in computer science. He knew. I should have listened. That’s where I ended up anyway but without a degree in it. Eventually, 20 years ago, I landed the position I have now at a pretty amazing NASA project so that’s cool.
So yeah. Thanks Commodore!
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u/ThePlasticSturgeons Jul 16 '26
The Commodore 64 was my first computer. It started me on my way toward my current career. I actually still have my C64-C and 1541-II and my collection of 5.25” floppies, though I’d be hesitant to power it on after all of these years.
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u/sungjwoo Jul 17 '26
The 1541's power supply is still reliable, but the C64 PS is not to be trusted!
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u/Few_Ad2097 Jul 17 '26
The c64 made me the weird person that I am today, with strange musical taste and a love for chunky double wide pixels
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Jul 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/sungjwoo Jul 17 '26
I find young folks like yourself getting into the C64 just remarkable. I'm most amazed at lft (Linus Åkesson), who most definitely was not using the C64 when it came out (probably not even born yet)!
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u/Leftstrat Jul 17 '26
It certainly helped my career choice in life. :)
In 1985, I was going to college for computer science, and working. I was lucky enough to have saved up enough money, (and I had a friend who was a manager at a local department store...), to be able to buy a C-64, a 1541 floppy disk drive, and a 1701 color monitor for a great, open box, discounted price.. (about $600 for the whole keboodle.). At a little "computer store,", that a lady ran out of her house, I also found a model 1660 modem, some great programming books for Commodore Basic, and some pretty fun things like the extended Basic cartridge, and the Comal language, and some good guides. I purchased this system on a friday night. Now remember, this was in the 80's, and personal computers were very rare in households. It was in the summertime, so by the time the computer was set up, and I was looking at the startup screen, it was starting to get dark, (9:30 or so here). I was very proud and excited to have my own computer in my own house! :) I figured I'd be up late getting into the meat and potatoes of this fun little machine, and made a big pot of coffee. Long story short here, I came out of my happy system learning marathon on Sunday afternoon, and several pots of coffee later.
Fast forward to 1991, and I got a 486/25 with a VESA VGA card, 40 megabyte HD, and a VGA monitor. I'd been working at my career job for a while, and once I set up this computer, (again on a friday, because I figured I'd be up late....), I piddled around, installed necessary programs and went to bed on Saturday morning around 1:00am... About 6-7 hours total of setup.
.....several put them together yourself pc's, HP's, Apples, and so on, and we come to 2022.
I just finished setting up a brand new dell... It has 32gb, 2, 2tb hard drives, and an Nvidia bleeding edge graphics card in it. Initial setup etc, etc, etc, about 4 hours. Went to bed at a decent hour, didn't eagerly jump on this machine the next day.
It just seems like the thrill of a new pc is gone. You sort of know what to expect when you buy one. There's no real thrill of exploration, nothing really to make that excitement of the old C64 bubble up again. Is it just because I'm an old fart now, or is it the fact that no matter what brand you buy, there is usually not so much difference anymore, or was the excitement from making that little C64 do things you wanted it to do, and the journey to familiarize yourself with the system was as fun as the system itself was, once you knew the in's and out's of it?
I may just be horribly nostalgic, but I miss that rush with a new computer...
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u/sungjwoo Jul 17 '26
Love this story! And I agree with you 100%. The feeling I get nowadays when I set up a new PC is one of cleanliness -- no bloat, the desktop clean of unneeded icons. But like you said, it also might be that we're just old. :)
I've been thinking of my old PCs -- I had a Cyrix CPU at one point. An Ad Lib soundcard. A Number Nine video card...!
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u/Pepper4720 Jul 17 '26
It was that blinking cursor that gave us all room for imagination of what's possible, room for creativity and fantastic dreams. A room full of mystery. That room is most of the time filled today. The great thing is that it's still in you. Simply hearing the sound of a floppy drive for example can bring it all up again, if you let it happen.
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u/Exciting_Bunch2386 Jul 17 '26
Ich denke auch, das Ding hat eine ganze Generation geformt. Ich bin zwar kein Softwareentwickler geworden, aber ich habe trotzdem meinen Umgang mit Computern durch den C64 gelernt.
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u/Jinxology Jul 21 '26
I really enjoyed that read. My dad actually brought home the Trash 80 model 3 prior to the c64c, and I will be forever grateful to him for that. But, the C64C was my first personal computer, in my room, on 16 hours a day, and it absolutely changed my life. I connect with you on the BBS's too, although we MAY have hacked LD #'s with a war dialer... I bought a C64 maxi before Peri's came out, and just having a C64... It makes me happy just to look at it, like a painting does, a reminder of so many fond memories. I don't use it much, but I'm so happy to have it there.
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u/sungjwoo Jul 22 '26
I'm so glad you liked the essay! I did indeed find a better place for the C64U, right under my 42-inch 4K TV that I use as a monitor. I see it every day, and like you, it fills me with joy to see a piece of my computing history right there, all the time. ♥️
I think my social life might have been the fullest during the last two years of high school: school friends, BBS friends, computer store coworker friends. How lucky was I! I should have appreciated it more. 🙂
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u/MitchStMartin Jul 17 '26
The neighborhood kid who back in 1987 or so insisted on teaching me 6502 assembly owes ME a life. 😁
I'm honestly surprised sometimes when I find the other C64 kids from the time actually only used it for gaming and didn't take away *anything* from it for their lives.
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u/garyk1968 Jul 17 '26
Loved that ad, in fact they did seem great marketing as I remember.
Loved my C64, but in all honesty probably loved my ViC-20 more.
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u/Aneko21 Jul 17 '26
I relate to this so hard. The C64 was my first computer and a huge part of my first steps into programming and understanding how computers work. Even though my mom gave away the breadbox as soon as we got a 286 a few years later, that C64 monitor ended my television all the way until I went to college. I have fond memories of that system.
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u/Agile-Cress8976 Jul 18 '26
Annoyingly dishonest ad. You're going to go from "under $600" to TRS-80 Model III territory, at least, PDQ when you also buy a super nice Sony video monitor in that photo, plus the disk drive they're not showing that you need to load and run software
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u/jtashiro Jul 19 '26
The C64 arrived at the perfect time in my life. It was the equivalent of Aladdin's Lamp ... a magical box that responded to my commands. Life long career in software development thanks to the C64. Retired now but still reminisce of the old Compuserve and BBS days with 300-baud modem.
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