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Greed, Zealotry, and the Commodore 64

Posted by Soulskill on from the and-nostalgia-flavored-candy dept.

jira writes "On the occasion of the Commodore 64's rebirth as an Atom-equipped nettop, the Guardian's Jon Blyth remembers what the original Commodore 64 taught him. Among other things: 'But look at it, all brown, ugly and lovely. It taught me so much. The Commodore 64 taught me about zealotry. After upgrading from the inferior ZX Spectrum, I would try to convince the Sinclair loyalists to follow me. I would invite them to my house, and let them see that with just eight colors and a monophonic sound chip, their lives lacked true depth. My evangelism quickly faded into impatience. So, I can now see why American Baptists get so miffy about atheists — it's horrible dealing with people who don't realize how much better you are.'"

4 of 645 comments (clear)

  1. monophonic sound chip? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    there is no ZX spectrum with a "monophonic sound chip"

    the original 16 and 48k machines have no sound chip, the sound is software driven by toggling an I/O bit.
    the 128k machines use the AY which is 3 channel

    so there! :p

  2. Re:The best C64 programs were 1 line long. by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Informative

    The best C64 programs were zero lines long. They tossed the Commodore ROM in the trash, thereby freeing-up all 64 k of memory, and loaded directly from the 1541 (or 71) disk drive.

    "64k should be enough for anybody." With GEOS you can turn your 64k machine into a clone of the original Mac (with WYSIWYG word processing, a trashcan, and everything). My church pastor did all his newsletters on the Commodore=64. And it doesn't cost $4000. More like $400. With music and color! ;-)

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  3. Re:Yeah can't figure the appeal of the Sinclair by 0123456 · · Score: 4, Informative

    If I didn't have a Commodore, I would sooner have an 8-bit Atari or Apple instead, not a Sinclair.

    I'm sure most Spectrum owners would too, considering that those machines were, AFAIR, around three times the price.

    The Spectrum was the cheapest computer that could play half-decent games, and its popularity became self-supporting as it lead more game developers to make games for it.

  4. Re:Goes both ways... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Informative

    “A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.”

    ...and thanked God for her lunch?

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au