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Commodore 64 Still Beloved After All These Years

Posted by Zonk on from the feel-the-love-from-the-cathode dept.

techsoldaten writes "CNN is running a story about the Commodore 64 and how people are still devoted to it after all these years. "Like a first love or a first car, a first computer can hold a special place in people's hearts. For millions of kids who grew up in the 1980s, that first computer was the Commodore 64. Twenty-five years later, that first brush with computer addiction is as strong as ever.'"

13 of 463 comments (clear)

  1. Junis from Afghanistan agrees. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    He still loves his C64 years after being liberated from the Taliban.

  2. It's like a first wife by explosivejared · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Commodore was a dependable old faithful friend. Your first true love. It had your kids. It supported you through tough times. But then came the time when you needed to upgrade to a trophy wife/super gaming rig. It saw it coming. You wanted ultra raw performance, and it just couldn't deliver it anymore. Still it thinks about you in quiet dignity, though reminiscing about love lost.

    --
    I got a catholic block.
  3. Re:Nostalgia by gad_zuki! · · Score: 4, Funny

    Because its the 25th anniversary (did you bother to read the article before complaining>) and some people care about such things. Normal humans have these things called emotions. I know an ubermensch like yourself can stand us and our reflections on the past.

    >Nostalgia is of limited interest, almost by definition.

    Thanks for the heads-up. I think I originally read that in a fortune cookie. Except when I read it I said "Nostalgia is of limited interest, almost by definition. IN BED!" Its more fun that way. Wait, an ubermencsh like yourself cant stand fun things. I forgot.

  4. The most atrocious program ever. by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Pseudo Code:
    10 Randomize timer
    20 x=Random Number
    20 Poke x
    30 Print x
    40 Goto 20

    You can't do this on today's machines or your hard drive may fail and your OS not boot up. With a C64, its the equivalent of giving your computer drugs and watching it trip. Once I had the screen in 4 sections with some scrolling up and some scrolling down.

    --
    God spoke to me.
    1. Re:The most atrocious program ever. by hazem · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yah, you need two random arguments to poke. And what does it do? It does something different every time you run it.

      Is there NOTHING that Microsoft hasn't copied? Vista makes so much more sense to me now.

    2. Re:The most atrocious program ever. by smellsofbikes · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, I did something similar, only on a modern machine, coz I'm not very bright. I was trying to get the modem configured on my first debian machine. It worked on the windows partition, after all, but I just couldn't find where it was located... so I typed something like:
      for x in /dev; do echo $x; echo "ATDT5000" >> /dev/$x; done

      I figured I could *hear* the modem when it got to the right dev.

      The modem was at /dev/ttyS1. Unfortunately, there were some other things it found before that, most notably /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, /dev/hdb1... boy did it take me a long time to fix that.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
  5. I, for one... by Debello · · Score: 4, Funny

    Welcome back our former computer overlords!

  6. Re:C=64 Music by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Am I the only one that thinks PEEKing and POKEing are kind of dirty abstraction labels for a programming language written for kids?

    I used to think that was funny as hell when I was one myself...

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth
  7. Re:Still working? by bzipitidoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hear, hear. The C64 was pretty good except for those horribly slow disk drives. Who could possibly love that?

    One shareware emulator used that to nag you to pay. Don't pay, and you'd get faithful emulation of the disk drive speed. Pay up to get faster emulated disks.

    --
    Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
  8. Re:Still working? by sm62704 · · Score: 2, Funny

    See, the intarwebs is made of tubes. Like your old radio and TV and record player back in 1958 when I was a kid, see. So since your XP computer is hooked to these tubes, it has to warm up, just like your old record player, TV, and radio. Just unhook it from the intarwebs and it will start up as fast as a new car.

    Yeah, it took longer for cars to start back then too, but it was the radio's fault. See, the radios back then used tubes. And not just the radios but the tires had tubes, too. That made them start even slower, 'specially in winter.

    -mcgrew
    Today's journal is NSFW

    PS: They called it "XP" for the same reason they call former policemen "ex-cops"

    --
    mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
  9. "The Great Giana Sisters." Hmm. by whuddafugger · · Score: 2, Funny

    Anyone else parse that as "Giant Vagina Sisters"?

    --
    http://www.whuddafug.com
  10. Re:C64 - 3rd PC - Most loved. by Major+Blud · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Back then, you just picked a side and defended it."

    Back then? I'm sorry, you must be new here.... ;-)

    --
    If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
  11. Veteran of the Computer Wars by deathy_epl+ccs · · Score: 4, Funny

    You see me now, a veteran,
    Of the old computer wars.
    I've been waiting on this load so long,
    But my sound chip's better than yours.
    And my raster tricks are nifty,
    But I sure could use more RAM
    The demoscene will last forever...
    I've got so much more that there's left to play!