STACK #162 April 2018

GAMES FEATURE

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It may have looked like a bread bin – and was nicknamed such – but the Commodore 64 home computer was anything but crumby. It revolutionised computing and remains the highest-selling single computer model of all-time. Words Amy Flower

T he main key to the C64’s success was its affordable price, allowing the machine to bring the tech revolution into people's homes like nothing before it. This was 1982, when computers were considered the domain of boffins. To have one in the home that could do everything from keeping household accounts to, of course, playing ace games was like having a slice of the future today. It wasn’t as simple as just being cheap enough for families to hop onto the computing revolution though, as the C64 was a little powerhouse. 64K of RAM (Random Access Memory) may sound piddling now, but back then it was huge – and you could learn to program the thing to do what you wanted it to do right out of the box. With 16 colour graphics, animation capabilities and a killer sound chip added to the mix, it was unstoppable. A catchy Australian-bred ad campaign also helped. What ’80s kid can forget, “Are you keeping up with the Commodore? ‘Cos the Commodore is keeping up with you”? It may sound a bit like a stalker’s anthem, but it – and clever marketing of a one-stop ‘Family Pack’ – opened the doors to hundreds of thousands of homes Australia-wide. Now, some 35 years later, the device that introduced many of today’s programmers to computing is back – and it’s more than just another retro console. Named THEC64 mini, it takes the original bread bin design and shrinks it, packing in an HDMI connection so that you can easily plug it into modern TVs. Built into it are 64 officially licensed games from the Commodore 64’s golden

Has anybody heard old SID? Most people associate 1980s

The “portable” Commodore 64 Why be nailed to a TV at home when you could take your C64 with you? This was the idea behind the SX-64, which combined a C64, disk drive and small monitor into one unit. More luggable than portable – schlep it for too long and your carrying arm would likely end up longer than the other one – it was aimed at the executive market. Be grateful for tech advancements the next time you chuck your super-light and super-powerful Ultrabook into your bag.

era, including many a classic from companies such as Epyx, Gremlin and Hewson. Boulder Dash, California Games, Impossible Mission, Paradroid, Speedball, Uridium and the list goes on. No waiting around for half an hour for a cassette tape to load – bliss! What makes this more than another games machine, however, is the ability to plug in a USB keyboard (as the unit’s so teensy, it only has a pretend keyboard – what is this, a computer for ants?!). Do this and you have a fully functioning, fully programmable Commodore 64 ready to do anything from printing your name endlessly to introducing the basics of programming to a new generation. While this nod to computing’s past won’t sell millions of units like the original – estimates range between 10 and 17 million worldwide – THEC64 mini is sure to spark some of the same inspiration and creativity today that it did all those years ago. Are you keeping up?

computers with bleeps and bloops, rather than full-on synthesized music. The Commodore 64 changed all that though, with a chip as powerful as those found on many commercial synthesizers that helped create genuine game music superstars. What the likes of Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway did with the C64’s SID (Sound Interface Device) chip became the stuff of legend, with their work still popular – and influential via sampling and even new devices with SID chips implanted inside – today.

Hey girl, hey boy, superstar programmers, here we go!

It may be hard to fathom in these days of video games taking hundreds of people to put together, but in the glory days of the C64, most games were crafted by people working solo. Names like Jeff Minter, Andrew Braybrook, Tony Crowther and Jon Hare will be familiar to many, and some of them are represented in the games included with THEC64 mini. Much like recording artists, people would buy a game from the likes of these guys (and back then it was predominantly the domain of guys) without even playing them first, simply as their name was on it.

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APRIL 2018

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