Commodore 64 Highlights - Chips and Bits

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As a followup to Computers of Significant History Part One, here’s some of my favorite Commodore 64 software and doodads, in no particular order:

The Print Shop

Partially responsible for me getting into computer graphics.

Partially responsible for me getting into computer graphics.

I’ve written a very long history of The Print Shop and its influence on computing in an episode of Macinography. The Print Shop is a contender for one of the top ten most influential pieces of eight-bit software, and I spent a lot of time making birthday cards and school banners with it.

Castle Wolfenstein

I’m still playing Wolfenstein games to this day. While Wolfenstein 3D and its follow-ups are very different from Silas Warner’s Castle Wolfenstein, this game cemented my ongoing love for the series at a very young age. Its control scheme was somewhat clunky, especially if you had the wrong kind of joystick, but it’s still mostly playable. The game also taught me my first speedrunning trick—you can glitch doors that are near a wall to short-circuit the normal escape route. As far as the plot and bad guys, I had no context for the game’s setting at the time. No one’s teaching a six year old about Nazis. It wasn’t until years later, when Wolfenstein 3D was available on the Super Nintendo, that I started learning about the series’ World War II inspirations.

Kwik-Write!

I used a lot of word processors on the C64, but Kwik-Write is the most memorable because it’s what I used to craft my childhood letters to Nintendo. To their credit, the game counselors at Nintendo answered every single one of them. Alas, all those letters—both to and from Nintendo—are long gone. It was more like a text editor than more powerful WYSIWYG word processors. It let me type words and send them to the printer, and that’s all I wanted. As a grownup, I’d find its limited formatting and lack of spell check infuriating. At least it had copy and paste.

GEOS

Ah, GEOS. Rarely has so much been made with so little power.

Ah, GEOS. Rarely has so much been made with so little power.

The only application in GEOS that I used for any real amount of time was GeoWrite. Since it was a WYSIWYG word processor, it was much more powerful than programs like Kwik-Write or Bank Street Writer, but it was glacially slow. By the time I had learned about fonts and good typography, I had access to better word processing tools at school, like Microsoft Word. But I still wanted to write things at home, and I tried really hard to make GeoWrite my main word processor. The last thing I ever wrote in GeoWrite was an essay for sixth grade history class, about the Rosetta Stone. I only remember this because it was the same day as the debut of the classic Simpsons episode Summer of 4 Ft. 2—May 19, 1996. I took all day slowly writing the essay, in part because I was a procrastinating thirteen-year-old, and in part because GeoWrite was just so sluggish. I barely finished it in time to catch the episode premiere. From that point forward, any papers or correspondence would be written in something more modern, even if it meant staying after school to write them on a Macintosh. In retrospect, I appreciate the ingenuity required to make a GUI that could run on a C64.

Ghetto Blaster

Here’s another game whose context was completely lost on me as a young child. What can I say, I was five and had no idea about the musical references. All I knew was that it was “the boom box game.” I returned to it over the years, getting better and better at the mechanics, but I never actually finished it. Turns out that was for the best, since the ending’s terrible. Thank God it had one of the best soundtracks ever written for the SID chip—the main theme was a banger. The graphics are very nice too, considering the system’s limitations. I’d take a modern remake of this in a heartbeat.

Tenth Frame and Leader Board

I’m lumping both of these Access Software titles together even though they probably deserve their own entries. They have similar graphical and play styles. These were my dad’s favorite games on the C64. I enjoyed them a lot too—the graphics in Leader Board (and its sequel) were excellent for the time, and there was something fun about printing out your scorecard after a game of bowling in Tenth Frame. All modern golf games owe a debt to Leader Board, which pioneered the dual-meter stroke power system.

Epyx and Quickshot Joysticks

In our household, we had two kinds of joysticks. One was the Epyx 500XJ, and the other was the Spectravideo QuickShot II. The former was designed to be handheld, while the latter attached to the desk via suction cups. Some games just didn’t play well with the Epyx because it required two hands—the aforementioned Castle Wolfenstein was a non-starter—but I don’t think there was anything better for rapid-fire back-and-forth movements required in some titles like Summer Games. The Quickshot wasn’t good for twitchy games, thanks to the longer movements required to engage its microswitches. It had one helpful advantage if you needed to use the keyboard at the same time—the suction cups kept it in one place. Nowadays these joysticks would annoy me due to their terrible build quality. Neither held a candle to an NES pad for responsiveness or toughness.

If you haven’t checked it out already, make sure to read my C64 edition of Computers of Significant History for more Commodore fun..

The Commodore 64 - Computers of Significant History, Part One

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Here in Userlandia, a timeline of computing, through the lens of one person's life—mine.

Over the course of four decades I’ve owned many computers, used many more. Most of them are ordinary. Some of them are legendary! These are Computers of Significant History. The timeline starts in October 1982, when the Commodore 64—my first computer, and maybe yours too—was released. I came along six months later.

The Classic Breadbin Commodore 64 - via Wikipedia

The Classic Breadbin Commodore 64 - via Wikipedia

Writing about the C64 is always a little intimidating. There’s an ocean of blog posts, videos, and podcasts out there about the world’s best-selling eight-bit micro—and even more will come next year in celebration of its fortieth birthday. Programmers, geeks, and retro enthusiasts across the globe credit the C64 for giving them their starts. Its sales totaled twelve to seventeen million units depending on who you ask, and with that many out there it’s easy to find someone with ties to the Little Computer That Could.

Commodore founder Jack Tramiel could count the Vincent family among the millions who bought one of his computers for the masses. You can say a lot about old Jack—not all of it nice—but he was right about the power of computing in the hands of the everyman. My lower-middle class family couldn’t afford an extravagance like an IBM PC, so affordable microcomputers like the Commodore 64 gave us an opportunity to join the computer revolution. When I was a small child, my dad taught me commands to load Frogger from the READY prompt. I was four and had no idea what "load star comma eight comma one" meant, except that it was a fun game about crossing the street. Shades of my four year old nephew playing Crossy Road on his mom’s phone. With over a decade in our home, it was like part of the family. It let me play games, print greeting cards, make my homework all tidy, and did my parents' taxes, whatever that meant. It hung around for all that time because of our inability to afford an IBM PC, a Macintosh, or even an Amiga. We accumulated various C64s and accessories over the years—our home seemed to be a dumping ground for retired units. This came to an end in 1997, when my uncle gave me his Compaq 486. A Windows machine meant no more need for a Commodore, and I tossed the C64 aside like Monty Burns ditching Bobo the bear. And like Burns, I’ve also realized the error in my ways.

The Commodore 64 wasn’t the only computer in my youth, of course—but it was the most influential. A C64 was just enough computer to let a curious user learn just enough to be dangerous. It came with a built-in BASIC language interpreter in ROM, and there’s color graphics and sound capabilities, and it’s got enough IO to interface with pretty much anything. That doesn't sound like anything particularly amazing today, but its more expensive competitors needed add-in cards for some of these features. They were also easy to fix and maintain, which, regrettably, was something they needed rather often. If that wasn't enough for you, its expandability meant that the massive userbase was able to generate some truly legendary add-ons, allowing it to do pretty much anything. All the ingredients to entice your hidden—or not-so-hidden—geek.

If packaged software didn't fill your needs, you could always try The Scene, with a capital S. My neighbor up the street ran the local Commodore Users Group, and every now and then, my dad would go to a copy party, and bring home amazing loot. Scenesters were trading diskettes at local user groups, downloading kickin’ SID soundtracks from bulletin boards, and watching—or writing—mind-blowing demo screens when launching cracked games. By the time I was old enough to know about The Scene, Commodore was in its death throes. If ten years is the minimum for something to be retro, then I was a retro enthusiast in 1994 when I discovered my family’s multi-year archive of Compute!’s Gazette. Long past their sell-by dates, those magazines were nevertheless still gripping reads for an eleven-year-old hungry for anything to do with a computer. I even tried my hand at compiling some of the programs included in the magazines. Since we didn’t have the magazine’s optional floppies, this meant typing every line of printed source code from the magazine into the computer. Thanks to bugs or their limited utility, these type-in programs usually ended with type-in disappointment. Old mags wouldn’t sate the hunger for long—I discovered Macintoshes with CD-ROMs later that year, and every trip to the library resulted in a bigger pile of books about IBM compatibles and Macs. Pretty soon I was buying PC/Computing magazine at the drugstore and fully able to explain the benefits of Windows 95. I hadn’t just kept up with the Commodore—I left it in the dust.

Today, the C64 is undergoing a bit of a revival. You can buy new software and hardware accessories for a computer that’s spent more years being obsolete than useful. SID emulators are available as plugins for major digital audio workstations to generate smooth retro grooves. Thanks to bloggers and Youtubers creating step-by-step fixit guides, once-forgotten machines are being restored to their former glory. You can even buy a plug-and-play mini-C64 to get an eight-bit fix on a modern TV without the complications of decades-old hardware. Commodore may be dead, but the machine lives on.

I’ve got my share of C64 hot takes, for whatever that's worth. Its sound chip, for instance—the SID. Revered for its power, flexibility, and quality, its creators went on to found synthesizer powerhouse Ensoniq—but I wouldn’t rank it as my favorite synthesizer of the 8-bit era. If I never hear a generic modulated SID square wave again—you know the sound—I’ll count myself lucky. Not every C64 game was blessed enough to have a Rob Hubbard or Follin Brothers masterpiece for a soundtrack. The SID had its fair share of pedestrian and clunker tunes just like the NES, and forgettable music tends to be, well… forgotten. I think I prefer the aesthetics of most NES soundtracks, and that’s not accounting for carts with add-on sound chips. If push came to shove, I’d have to side with the NES.

Now that’s a classy computer. Via Christian Hart.

Now that’s a classy computer. Via Christian Hart.

Another controversial preference is my fondness for the revised 64C over the classic breadbin design. I remember liking the feel of typing on the 64C’s keyboard, though I admit I haven’t punched a key on either in years. Keyboard mechanics aside, the 64C is just a better-looking machine. If there is a design language that came to define Commodore, it’s the wedge. Starting with the Commodore 128 and reaching perfection with the Amiga 1200, the wedge brought some much-needed style to Commodore products. Now, Commodore didn’t exactly invent the wedge—computers with integrated keyboards were popular at the time. What set Commodore’s wedge apart was the two-tier design—the keyboard slope was taller than the back half of the machine, creating a multi-level arrowhead profile. Of all the wedges, the 64C hits the Goldilocks zone. There’s just enough height for comfortable typing, the rectangular part is not too deep, and the proportions of the keyboard to the case itself are perfectly balanced. Most appealing to me is the particular shade of almond beige shared between the 128 and 64C—and yes, I do hear myself saying these words. It’s a soothing, pleasant shade that I prefer over the brownish tint of the breadbin. The choice of a 64C or a breadbin is like deciding to buy a Chevy Camaro Z28 or a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. They’re largely the same car, but the Pontiac’s style will sway me every time.

Yet what bothers me more than differences between chips and cases is an attitude bubbling around the retro community. I keep seeing posts by people—usually from Europe or the UK, but not always—proclaiming the “superiority” of home computers over game consoles, or more precisely, the owners of those consoles. “Why, those sheltered Americans with their Nintendos didn’t know what they were missing! Micros just weren’t a thing in the States, you know. Besides, consoles couldn't teach you how to program. Anyone with a C64 or ZX Spectrum could code in their bedroom and make the next big hit! Oh, by the way, have you heard the good news about the Amiga?”

Now before I’m pelted with a hail of DIP chips, I know that’s an uncharitable characterization. I’m sure most people across the pond don’t think that way, but I’ve seen enough comments like these that I start to worry. I don’t think they’re being malicious—but they are oversimplifying the complicated reality of both markets. Home computers of all price points existed here in the States! Millions of computers sold by Apple, Radio Shack, Atari, and more just don’t count, I guess. Commodore was an American company, with products designed by American engineers, manufactured and distributed worldwide. Some Europeans seem to think that the American demoscene just… didn't exist. Lastly, Eurogamers loved consoles just as much as we did. Sega’s Megadrive—known as the Genesis here in the States—was immensely popular in Europe.

1983’s video game market crash gave Americans a healthy skepticism of both console and computer makers. Computer companies weathered the crash largely on the back of productivity applications. Americans were obsessed with computers being Legitimate Tools for Businesses to Business™, even though demand for computer games was a shadow driver of hardware improvements. Companies like Commodore had strong graphics and sound capabilities that could benefit markets like professional video or desktop publishing, but they feared what would happen if the Amiga was labeled as just another video game machine. Ironically, this fear kept them from advertising the Amiga’s multimedia prowess, a costly mistake that squandered a decade-long head start. Nintendo had no such fears and their American subsidiary gleefully kicked the stumbling Atari into its waiting grave. The Nintendo Entertainment System brought legitimacy back to video games thanks to hit franchises with a cool factor that computer makers like Commodore lacked, fueled by dumptrucks full of money poured into the maw of an unstoppable marketing juggernaut.

When your competitor is able to license their hit franchises out for toys, Saturday morning cartoons, and even breakfast cereal, you’re not just in different leagues—you’re not even playing the same game. Atari’s time in the limelight had passed. They just couldn't recover their pre-crash magic, and Commodore never had any to begin with. By 1988, when the NES captured the hearts and minds of American video gamers, the fight was over. Computers wouldn’t capture the mainstream American gaming spotlight again until affordable multimedia CD-ROMs and id Software’s Doom upended the PC gaming narrative.

That said, computer gaming in America didn’t just disappear for a decade after 1983. Americans still had computer games, just like Europeans still had consoles. After all, there’s plenty of veterans of computer and console wars that raged on American soil. It's the same old partisan mentality that you can still find rehashing decades-old arguments in the aisles of computer shops. There's a lot of memory wrapped up in these computers—and I don't just mean what's inside them. When questions like “why wasn’t the NES as popular in Europe compared to America” or “why was the Amiga exceptional” come up, people want to argue about made their systems special.

But not being part of the scene or not creating your own games doesn’t mean your formative gaming experience was illegitimate. The suffering we endured from our old, slow, and sometimes unreliable computers didn’t make us superior. My skills as a programmer are subpar at best, and I loved both my C64 and NES. Fact is, they both cemented an enduring enthusiasm for video games and technology. There’s enough room in our computing lives to let consoles and microcomputers coexist on their own merits. As enthusiasts on both sides of the Atlantic learn about each others’ histories, I think we’ll find out that we have more in common than we realize—like our shared love for the Commodore 64.

I don’t think the C64 itself was the only possible trigger for my love of computing—my hunch is that if we were an Apple or Atari family I still would have been curious enough to learn more about computing, although barring a time machine we'll never know for sure. If not for where I was born, my fondness for the NES, Super Nintendo, and C64 might be for the BBC Micro and the Sega Megadrive. The Commodore 64’s bargain price created new opportunities for me and for millions around the globe. You see the same spirit today in products like the Raspberry Pi—small, inexpensive computers built for simple tasks, easily expandable, with a barrier to entry so low that children can master them.

Years after our C64 shuffled off to the old computer’s home, my curiosity turned to Commodore’s history. I learned about young Jack Tramiel’s life as a holocaust survivor—how he endured the Nazi occupation of Poland, joined the US Army after being rescued from a concentration camp, and parlayed that Army experience into a typewriter business called Commodore Business Machines. From there it went on to calculators, and eventually computers. Jack’s one of the few who managed to get one over on Bill Gates. Tramiel negotiated a deal for BASIC that was so lopsided in Commodore’s favor that Gates retaliated by inserting passive-aggressive easter eggs in Microsoft’s BASIC source code.*

*A note from future Dan: it turns out that the story of Bill’s easter egg is much more complicated, and this story might just be myth. Former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer has a great video on the origin of the egg. Spoiler alert: Gates put it in BASIC before Commodore made their deal. Of course, this wasn’t available at the time I wrote this, but I’d like to correct my mistaken repetition of common myths.

But even in good times, Jack Tramiel’s leadership style was best described as slash-and-burn. Commodore’s culture during the C64’s heyday was chaotic because Jack always tried to squeeze more out of less. Commodore didn’t have many friends, and products seemed to succeed in spite of Jack’s leadership, not because of it.

Jack wasn’t the only catalyst for Commodore’s successes or failures—the show still went on even after he left the company in 1984 after an explosive boardroom fight with Irving Gould, Commodore’s chairman and financier. He found a new home later that year at Atari. With or without Jack, it was clear that Commodore’s worst enemy wasn’t Apple or IBM, it was itself. Amazing engineering accomplishments by Chuck Peddle, Bill Herd, Dave Haynie, and more created innovative products that changed the world, but good product and engineering accomplishments can’t save you from bad marketing and management. For those in the upper echelons of Commodore, it seemed like selling computers was just a means to an end—and they didn’t agree on what the end was. Apple and IBM wanted to change the world. Irving Gould only wanted to fund his private jet and lavish lifestyle. And Jack—well, Jack cared about quality products, but wasn't willing to pay what things actually cost. On the other hand, Commodore continued driving into this wall even after he left.

Being outside Silicon Valley and the west coast computer circle also blunted Commodore’s impact on popular culture. Both its MOS foundry and company HQ were located in West Chester—not Westchester—Pennsylvania. Nestled in the provincial fields west of Philadelphia, Commodore had more in common with the Rust Belt than with its competitors in Silicon Valley or Route 128. This explains so much about Commodore and its products—its fall mirrored the decline of the northeast’s industrial base. That “get it out the door no matter what” manufacturing ethos sacrificed long-term customer satisfaction on the altar of short-term profit. As the eighties turned into the nineties, desperation and malaise seeped into a slowly failing enterprise, polluting its culture like the Superfund site around the MOS foundry. Questioning Gould or his lackeys was a quick way to get shoved out the door.

Commodore kept pushing the 64 until the day it shuttered in April 1994, mirroring small-time celebrities who kept coasting on their fifteen minutes of fame. Even though the Amiga had been the headline driver for Commodore in its later days, the eight-bit machine kept overstaying its welcome because it was easy money. It was a sad death—the 64 should have had a proper retirement, with new products to carry the mantle of “computers for the masses, not for the classes.” If Commodore had addressed the managerial bankruptcy that allowed the 64 to still be sold as a new product in 1994 while the Amiga’s proposed AAA chipset starved to death, maybe they could have avoided actual bankruptcy. Today, Commodore’s intellectual property sits in limbo, slowly withering as various companies squabble over the rights to various bits of Jack Tramiel’s legacy. But we’ll always have the games, and the memories, and the accomplishments from people inspired by Commodore products. A computer is just a thing—it’s what we do with it that matters. So long as technology is accessible to the masses, the spirit of the Commodore 64 lives on.