commodore 64

It may be 29 years later, but I can still remember looking at what was about to be my Commodore 64, up on a shelf at a Long’s Drugs near my father’s house.

This wasn’t my first computer–that had been a Commodore Vic-20, a machine with the same body as the C64 but with just 2 kilobytes of memory. I can recall using that little machine with my old friend to write the most elementary little BASIC programs:

10 print “hello”

20 goto 10

But then it was time to upgrade. I’d inherited a tiny bit of money, and off to the drugstore I went. I knew what I wanted. Commodore’s all-new C64 was on every geek’s wish list, and I was no different. What would I do with it? I wasn’t sure. But I had to have it.

And have it I did. Bringing the beige machine home–along with its fantastic innovation, the stand-alone floppy disc drive–was one of the best days of my childhood, and over the years, I used that computer for everything: homework, playing games, joining my first bulletin board systems and, yes, downloading pirated games at what I think must have been 300-baud speeds.

Now, a new version of Commodore, the company, seems ready to re-introduce the Commodore 64. At least, it’s putting out a modern computer built inside the familiar-looking plastic case. It has an all-new operating system, yet the company promises that the OS is backward-compatible, meaning that if you still have a copy of “Pooyan” or “Kilowatt,” you might be able to run it.

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