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In the days before videogame consoles, home computers ruled the roost, and probably the most popular was the Commodore 64. Released in 1982, and somehow managing to stay on sale until 1994, it sold a massive 17 million units across the world! In the UK there were several home computers to choose from, but most kids allegiances would be to either the Commodore 64 or the ZX Spectrum, and whilst the Spectrum was more affordable, the Commodore 64 was technically more advanced.
The Commodore 64 could display 16 colours on screen and had a three channel sound synthesiser chip (named SID) which gave it some of the best audio capabilities of the time. It also had a proper sprung keyboard (unlike the Spectrum’s rubber keyed variety) and had two built in joystick ports.
Programs were stored on audio cassette tapes, and loaded using a dedicated tape player. The average game could take 10 minutes or more to load. You could also get a floppy disk drive, but to be honest it wasn’t an awful lot faster than cassette. It also cost the same price as the Commodore 64 itself, so it wasn’t as popular as tape. A third option was the games could also come on cartridges which plugged into a slot at the back of the computer. These were generally more expensive, and there weren’t very many of them either.
Most kids had convinced their parents that a home computer would be great to have because it would help them with their homework, and Dad could use it to do his accounts. The trick worked though, and many a happy hour was then spent playing games such as Uridium, Paradroid, International Soccer, The Last Ninja, World Games and countless others.
Fancy reliving some of the those happy hours? There are several emulators for the Commodore 64, and you can also download images of many classic games, with the added benefit of instant loading! One site with several useful links is The Videogame Archive. Be warned though, whilst you may have fond memories of these old games, don’t be surprised if they aren’t quite as good as you remember them!
August 25th, 2007 at 2:46 am
about the Ninja i recommend this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdGIaIimK-Y
August 25th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Nice video (some International Karate in there too I think!).
I believe there’s supposed to be a PS2 version of The Last Ninja in the works as well. Somehow I doubt it will be isometric though…
September 4th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
[...] that up, but the fact that it was both British made and less expensive than it’s rival the Commodore 64 would suggest it had the edge in this country. It was created by Sir Clive Sinclair, who had [...]
February 7th, 2008 at 11:42 am
[...] Commodore Vic-20 was the precursor to the massively popular Commodore 64, and indeed you can see the family resemblance as the two machines look outwardly identical, with [...]
June 6th, 2008 at 10:12 am
[...] and were one of the “main three” home computers of the mid 1980’s along with the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, at least as far as videogames were concerned anyway. If a game was [...]
October 6th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
[...] the magazine first appeared, this was a pretty tall order, given that you had the Commodore Vic 20, Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX81, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Oric 1, Dragon 32, Jupiter Ace, MSX and a great [...]
February 20th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
[...] If you went to school during the 1980’s the chances are your school computers would have been the big beige slab that was the BBC Micro. This home computer was incredibly popular with schools due to it’s incredibly sturdy construction, and the fact that the British Broadcasting Corporation put their name to it which led to it being adopted as the default computer on any BBC produced show about computers. This then meant that all the posh kids at school got a BBC Micro instead of a Spectrum or Commodore 64. [...]
July 4th, 2009 at 9:02 am
[...] I wanted to do something with computers when I grew up from a very early age, so my old Vic-20 and Commodore 64 helped me on my way to achieving that [...]
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:02 am
[...] variety of home computers available, but arguably the most popular in the UK were the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. OK, the BBC Micro was popular too, but when it came to playing videogames, those [...]