Commodore 64

In 1982, Commodore released the most popular model of home computer ever built: The Commodore 64. Estimates have placed sales between 17-22 million units sold worldwide, during a production lifespan that lasted until 1992!

The Commodore 64 sports 64K of memory, a leading edge video chip capable of producing images at 320 X 200 from a pallette of 16 colors, a text mode that displays 40 characters and 25 rows in upper/lowercase as well as Commodore's PETSCII graphics set, a fully programmable parallel IO port, and a high quality 3-voice, 8-octive additive synthesizer sound chip also capable of 8-bit PCM audio samples.

The Commodore 64 was largely purchased to take advantage of the amazing library of ingenious game and leisure programs produced. The Commodore 64 also introduced millions to word processing, spreadsheet accounting, tax preparation, MIDI music development, data filing and mining through databases, and computer programming.

The Commodore 64 is also known for its simplicity. The box it came in welcomes the user to "the world of friendly computing". The keyboard casing (called a "breadbox") is as charming and unintimidating as it is hard on the wrists. More than any other, the "C64" is both the quintessential home computer, and a trademark "Commodore" product.

Statistics and features:

Personal Note: Like most Commies, this was my first Commodore computer, acquired as a Christmas present in 1983. In 1986, I upgraded to a C128 and never looked back. The 64s I have now were both acquired from Good Will Computerworks here in Austin.