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Up please!

You've probably seen this but anyway... apparently adapters exist. First up from a search for "c64 to vga adapter":
http://www.lemon64.com/forum/v...

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/v...

Game construction kits:

Stuart Smith's Adventure Construction Set
Racing Destruction Set
Pinball Construction Set
Arcade Game Construction Kit
Shoot'Em-Up Construction Kit
Garry Kitchen's GameMaker

Run them on a real Commodore 64, or run them in an emulator. Images are available online for all these software titles.

See also: http://www.lemon64.com/?game_i...

It was, essentially, used as a games console by most buyers.

Just like the C64 here, but only after the crash of 84'

and the Atari 2600, which never really took off here.

Well the protectionist UK market and additional tariffs on imported and/or entertainment devices helped.

What made the Spectrum and C64 popular? Well, games cost somewhere between 2GBP and 10GBP, and there were a lot of them. By comparison console games generally started at 15GBP.

In the US, console and computer games has similar pricing. Though sometimes the better technology in the machine, the more they cost. Titles for older hardware were discounted compared to those for newer hardware. For example Atari 800XL and Atari 5200 games cost more than Atari 2600 titles. And since we didn't have import duties affecting console prices...the machines cost less. You could buy the Coleco Gemini 2600 clone for 50 bucks in 1983.

You can see the prices for software and hardware here:

http://192.185.93.157/~wishboo...

Also, in the US, most of the better computer games were on disk, thusly requiring disk drives. The few people I knew who had C64's...had 1541's, it was considered a requirement.

Both home computers also had better hardware than dedicated games consoles,

Depends on "which computer" and "which console". Sure the Spectrum was better than a 2600, but compared to a Colecovision or NES, no. For goodness sake, NES cartridges could hold up to 1MB of data and the thing had hardware sprites that no Spectrum had. And the Spectrum 128 was no SNES.

the only negative was that it took five minutes to load a game.

Don't underestimate that negative. It's one of the reasons that people who had bought a C64 after the crash, went back to the NES. No more 2 minute and 47 second load times, WITH a fast loader. No more disk swapping.

You go take a look at this forum and notice it's the non-americans talking about tapes: http://www.lemon64.com/forum/v...

No, the ability to program home computers had two advantages: it was a selling point to parents,

Hey parents it's your Uncle Clive here, why buy your kid a toy game console when you can buy a Spectrum, which is educational...and they can do homework. Not only that, but thanks to the protectionist tariffs UK government, it costs less than an Atari 2600 or NES. (Aside to kids: WE know you will basically use it as a game console, it's not like you're going to be running a word processor and printing on it, but be quiet and we can get your parents to buy you one. Then you can copy all your friends games in a dual deck boombox.)

Deluxe Paint was the only good thing they ever published, and they didn't even make it. They are the anti-Midas. Everything EA touches turns to shit.

From what I understand, they were generally quite highly-regarded in their early years (take a look at the ratings for their C64 games at Lemon 64). They also placed great importance on giving credit to authors and programmers- which is ironically the antithesis of their later "EA Widow"-era reputation.

My understanding is that it was during the early 1990s when they started concentrating on the 16-bit Mega Drive/Genesis and SNES consoles and becoming more sequel/franchise-focused (i.e. Madden sequels, then FIFA) that they began mutating into the company that people know- and hate- today. Possibly not coincidentally, this was also the point at which founder Trip Hawkins ended his day-to-day involvement with the company in order to get 3DO up and running.

I would avoid Gortek and the Microchips, it is a little aged. Scripting seems to be an easy start and there are a ton of Perl or Python tools ready and available on the internet. I am mentoring a high schooler now and let him chose his language and he is using Perl - easy, tons of tools, lots of flexability. One thing I see with these languages though is that you have to unlearn bad habits unless you have some structured education. Personally I learned Assembler, Basic, C and Pascal as first languages but they will ruin his spirit for programming.

(click the music button). An entire library of computer-generated music, remembered fondly by the ~30 million who owned one of these machines. As soon as I hear these songs it takes me back to my middle and high school years.
http://www.lemon64.com/
http://www.lemonamiga.com/

>>>soundwaves always peak at the maximum floor and ceiling levels

Hardly. The C64 has a volume control. 0 to 255 if I recall correctly, so the music could range from soft to loud (not maxed-out like today's CDs). Ditto other "chip music" produced by Atari 800s or Commodore Amigas.

I've tried sharing 64, amiga, and Super Nintendo music on facebook but most people think it sounds like junk. They don't appreciate that electronic sound. (shrug). BTW http://www.lemon64.com/ let's you hear 64 music directly over the web.

to be a small 1 pointer at the bottom of an old thread, but in case anyone is still mining...

In addition to wasteland which was already mentioned (which finally has WL2 coming!!) I think there was another awesome RPGs not mentioned:
Alternate Reality (the dungeon)

This great game has it all - humor, great music, discovery, tons of monsters and items and a neat story. It's really hard, but worth it.
http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/games/details.php%3FID%3D101

and a modern reboot:
http://www.crpgdev.com/

http://www.cc65.org/ Free compiler for 65xx CPU targets
http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/ Multi-platform emulation of all Commodore 8bit computers

Libraries and repositories
  http://www.gb64.com/index.php
  http://www.lemon64.com/

...and get reminded of this? http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/reviews/view.php%3Fid%3D466

Ah, man, I thought you meant AlleyKat and got excited for nothing.

I'd still prefer Ultima IV out of that list...

Word on that, I drove my entire family insane with the sound track to that game.

That said, was an awesome game, only Ultima V has any claim to being as much fun. That said, I do still remember IV more fondly than any other in the Ultima series

Tau Ceti (ZX Spectrum, C64): just the complexity of the game, in a game that loads completely in 48k memory. I could have screamed when I finally won the game and all the game does it say 'mission accomplished, thank you' - but I did get the authors argument that he would have had to scrap part of the gameplay in order to put in some special effects to end the game...

There was a Gauntlet-esque game I played furiously on the C64 called "Into The Eagle's Nest". It had no save points, and in the style of Gauntlet required you to remember where the health and ammo dumps were, and use them judiciously. After many long months learning this silly game on and off, I finally got to the end, to be told:

"THE CASTLE HAS BEEN DESTRAYED (sic)"

Worst. Ending. Ever.

Flash movie of Battlezone Arcade in action: http://www.thelogbook.com/pdfmedia/1980/battlezone/ - Atarisoft version on C=64: http://www.lemon64.com/games/screenshots/full/b/battlezone_02.gif

Other vector-based games: http://www.thelogbook.com/phosphor/category/arcade/vector/

Personally I prefer the oldSID: http://www.lemon64.com/music/

Recommended starting point: MUSICIANS/H/Huelsbeck Chris/R-Type
Also; MUSICIANS/H/Hubbard Rob

At least they archived all the "under construction" gifs (WARNING: clicking on that link may be dangerous to your mental health.)

Ah, the wonders of a blind text search. I recognize one of them as being not an "under construction" banner, but part of a screenshot from "Ultimate Wizard", presumably extracted for a fansite that wanted to replicate UW's mainpage.

I KNEW all my years before various level editors would eventually come in handy!

>>>But you'd still have a processor. 3000X the clock speed and 77000X the ram, and what do we get?

You get a resume that you can hand-over in an interview, instead of the pixelated dot-matrix mess that a Commodore 64 would produce (okay for schoolwork but NOT acceptable elsewhere). i.e. Now we have professional-quality printers.

You can get music that sounds as good as a CD, instead of 8-bit music that one of my coworkers described as "noise" when I played it for him. (Here take a listen for yourself - http://www.lemon64.com/music )

You get high-speed on-demand SD video which would be impossible over the C64's limited 9.6 kbit/s external bus. Or if you download first and watch later, your modern PC or Mac can display high-definition full-color video just like a television. Even the best 8-bit computer could only do a grainy black-and-white (forget color - the processor is too slow).

I know what my name is, but I also know the things we do today would be impossible on those old machines. Or even a ten-year-old machine. The clock speeds are too slow.

The Hobbit was one of those games for the C64, but it had graphics so I guess it doesn't count... One game that I played as a kid was: African Adventure: In Search of Dr. Livingston.. http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php%3FID%3D4076 About all I can remember is spears being thrown at me!

Well kind of like a cross between Defender and the Goatse picture....Oh wait sorry wrong game that's "butt defender".... let me remember, ah yes "Butt Zappers" is like a cross between the Goatse picture and stroker....

Indeed there was a C64 version of rogue

Graphical, too!

was stroker: http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/reviews/view.php%3Fid%3D142

does this mean that they're likely to reject my stroker port from the commodore 64? http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/reviews/view.php%3Fid%3D142

I enjoy the remix groups like the one you linked, but there's simply nothing as good as the original hardware. Ahhhh nostalgia. ;-) Unfortunately I cannot provide a direct link so you'll have to do a little bit of navigation to Internet Explorer (does not work on firefox) and click here: http://www.lemon64.com/music

Then:
- Click VARIOUS
- Click M-R
- Click Merman
- Click Bohemian Rhapsody

This version of Bohemian Rhapsody is "okay" but I've heard far better music than this coming from the Commodore=64, like the stuff in the 20CC folder (top directory). I like their TV Tunes Mix and 20CC/van_Santen_Edwin/Final_Axel and 20CC/van_Santen_Edwin/Enigma_Intro. Other favorite sidtunes: Galway_Martin/Arkanoid_PSID (songs 1, 2, 3, and 4) and Galway_Martin/Wizball and Galway_Martin/Never_ending_story. The "DEMOS" directory is also worth checking out.

The 1982 SID sound chip uses just 3 voices and primitive Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release (ADSR) sound generation. No samples like in the later Amiga or Super Nintendo machines - just direct manipulation of the "instrument". It was the first home computer that sounded like music instead of a touchtone phone. In later years hackers learned to use the volume control to do voice generation such as in Impossible Mission where it says, "Ahh another visitor. Stay awhile. Staaaaay forever!" Another first for home computers.

Yep computing in the 1980s was definitely not boring.
Always somebody inventing something new and exciting.
More information can be found here:
http://www.exotica.org.uk/mediawiki/index.php?title=Special%3AHVSC&si=0&title=Special%3AHVSC&sr=0&md=qsearch&qs=arkanoid

I've always felt 64k is a good amount, even if the videos are only 1 second long, and the music sounds like crap - http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/music (just click a song title)*. 65535 is plenty of room.

*
* For some dumb reason this only works with Internet Exploder.

I don't remember it too well, but we did play it fairly often. http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/reviews/view.php%3Fid%3D231

This is all you need. Spent countless hours on it. xD

I'd like to see WoW on the commodore 64...

What? The C64 port has been out for ages.

And the Commodore 64 version has you serving Mountain Dew...

I have a computer game box collection from my Commodore 64 days. Go back in time 10 or so years - a website called lemon64.com was just starting up and they were putting box covers online. Turned out I owned some rarities and alternate versions of boxes they already had scans of, so I scanned what I had and my scans are still in use there (see http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/games/details.php%3FID%3D2309%26coverID%3D1370 - that box is sitting on my bookshelf right now).

I consider my boxes to be interesting and nostalgic. Even if they aren't worth any money, I consider them to be important cultural artifacts - after all, was not my entire generation the first to be raised with video games? Most of the games has been preserved through emulation, but the boxes aren't so easily replicated.

For more guitar action, be sure to check out Frets on Fire

With a little bit of google-ing you can apply a 2-player mod and import all the music from Guitar Hero 1, 2, Encore and 3...

Several people have mentioned emulation, I'd recommend a Commodore 64 emulator, there are tons of good 2 (or more) player games, here's a short list of games to try:

• MULE
• Dragonriders of Pern
• Robot Rascals (better if you can get the cards)
• Mail Order Monsters
• Realm of Impossibility
• Demon Stalkers
• Jumpman
• The Goonies (excellent 2-player co-op game)
• Summer Games
• Summer Games 2
• Winter Games
• California Games

Oops, forgot to log in for that comment...

You can find everything you need to play the above here!

My favorite C64 emulator is WinVICE

For more guitar action, be sure to check out Frets on Fire

With a little bit of google-ing you can apply a 2-player mod and import all the music from Guitar Hero 1, 2, Encore and 3...

Several people have mentioned emulation, I'd recommend a Commodore 64 emulator, there are tons of good 2 (or more) player games, here's a short list of games to try:

• MULE
• Dragonriders of Pern
• Robot Rascals (better if you can get the cards)
• Mail Order Monsters
• Realm of Impossibility
• Demon Stalkers
• Jumpman
• The Goonies (excellent 2-player co-op game)
• Summer Games
• Summer Games 2
• Winter Games
• California Games

Here's a screenshot from the main UI.

I'm actually more partial to this one.

Seriously, this game still is one of the deepest, most engrossing games I've ever played. =) Especially fun when you're trying to out-compete an opponent's station. This game cries for a modern remake. =)

Anyone remember this gem of a game? I played it for the C64 but the PC screenshots bear a pretty close resemblance.

Yeah so! I was four. It came with a special controller for the Atari.

C64 - My first game was a little cooler One on One: Julius Erving and Larry Bird You could even break the backboard in 1984.

It was around 1985, and we had just gotten a Commodore 64. The game was Donald Duck's Playground http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/reviews/view.php%3Fid%3D588

You worked as Donald Duck to get money, and then you bought playground pieces for his nephews to play on. This, and Burger Time.

Fun fact, I just found out this game was in color. We had a black and white monitor for the C64, I had always assumed the game had no color. Amazing, thanks Slashdot!

dude.

Night Trap

Kriss Kross: Make My Video

Custer's Revenge

Stroker

I could go on...

http://www.lemon64.com/games/view_cover.php?gameID =3309

How can one forget Cock'in in a list like this? It's like David Cronenburg and David Lynch had a baby.

-Isaac

The high-end XX packs enough grunt to make an Alienware machine run to its deformed alien mum.

Commodore uses what it calls a 'revolutionary painting process' to make them look pretty damn gorgeous.

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

I consider it something of a personal mission to push back the wave of stupidity that we deal with in our daily lives these days. If I've helped even a slight bit, then it's worth it.

If you want a C64, try searching your local area for a Commodore club. They're usually easy to find, and you can almost always find someone to sell you a machine for cheap. The best place to start your search is Lemon64.

Works for me.

Hey, they didn't mention the Aliens game on the C64 neighter, let's face it, we're *OLD*

See here: http://www.lemon64.com/reviews/view.php?id=6

Maybe http://www.lemon64.com/ will spark a few memories.

This has nearly EVERYTHING you want to know. Scans of original packaging, game manuals ... used to have all the roms too but I think that stopped a long time ago because of law suits.

Where is Aztec Challenge?????

Best music and gameplay, like.. evaahhh

You-know-who was also suggesting "suicide simulators" as a category.

In this game, most of the scenes in Episodes 2-3 are fatal unless you manage to kill the bandit on the one and only exact frame - usually, from the device that was used to try to kill the bandit.

I suggest the letter 'S' - although it will be confused with "Super" in the same way 'M' gets confused with "Masterful".

These concepts go a bit further back than Tamogachi, i.e. David Crane's Little Computer People, which today would be something akin to a cross between Tamogachi and Sims, as you could interact with some little dude who lived in your C64. I thought it was a bizzare idea when I first saw in in development at Activision in Mountain View, back in 1985 (that's twenty years ago!) and it runs in only 64K of memory. Imagine David Crane coming out of retirement or someone else picking this old nut back up and injecting it with new life. IIRC the main fault of LCP was the limited repetoire of the character, which Nintendogs seems to take advantage of technology (i.e. lots of cheap memory) to hold more behaviour and possible courses of action.

I'd probably lean toward some other animal than a dog. A cat would be easy, it just eats and sleeps most of the time, though you could enjoy the thrill of virtual litterbox cleaning and dragging a string around while the cat chases, or even give it a brown paper shopping bag to hide in.

What animal would really make for an ideal pet? I've tried spiders, which are actually fascinating pets and that might be cool in a virtual way.

It would be sad for Darwinia to be overlooked simply because it plays originally.

The sequel to the classic Last Ninja series from the 80s was first supposed to be released in 2000. The releasedate has since been pushed about 6 months at a time and been shifted from "cancelled" to "not cancelled" several times... Only time will tell if we'll ever see this game on the shelves. I've been waiting forever...

Info and beta screenshots at the unofficial Last Ninja 4 page

No matter what anyone else says is the worst box art ever, Cock'in has the worst art ever. Ever. Ever, ever.

Must go wash my eyes now...