Commodore 64
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| Revision as of 22:41, 5 September 2007 (edit) Datasette Dave (Talk | contribs) (Expanded Legacy section, mentioned chiptune communities) ← Previous diff |
Current revision (09:14, 11 September 2007) (edit) (undo) SpriteWrangler64 (Talk | contribs) (Added note on Commodore 64 Games System derivative) |
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| * The '''SX-64''' (1984), a portable "luggable" version with a built-in 5-inch colour screen and a 1541 drive. | * The '''SX-64''' (1984), a portable "luggable" version with a built-in 5-inch colour screen and a 1541 drive. | ||
| * The '''Commodore 64C''' (1986), with a lighter, wedge-shaped case matching the [[Commodore 128]]. It was usually sold with the [[GEOS]] graphical operating system. | * The '''Commodore 64C''' (1986), with a lighter, wedge-shaped case matching the [[Commodore 128]]. It was usually sold with the [[GEOS]] graphical operating system. | ||
| + | * The '''Commodore 64 Games System''' (1990), a games-only console derivative with no keyboard, sold mainly in Europe. It was not a success. | ||
| Production of the 64 ended when Commodore went bankrupt in April 1994. By then it had been on the market, in substantially the same form, for over eleven years, an unusually long run for a computing platform. | Production of the 64 ended when Commodore went bankrupt in April 1994. By then it had been on the market, in substantially the same form, for over eleven years, an unusually long run for a computing platform. | ||
Current revision
| Commodore 64 | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Commodore International |
| Type | Home computer |
| Released | August 1982 |
| Introductory price | US$595 |
| Discontinued | April 1994 |
| CPU | MOS Technology 6510 at 1.02 MHz (NTSC) / 0.99 MHz (PAL) |
| Memory | 64 KB RAM, 20 KB ROM |
| Storage | Datasette cassette, 1541 floppy disk drive |
| Display | VIC-II; 320 × 200, 16 colours, 8 hardware sprites |
| Sound | SID 6581, three voices |
| Operating system | Commodore BASIC 2.0 and KERNAL in ROM |
The Commodore 64, commonly abbreviated as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in August 1982. Built around the MOS Technology 6510 microprocessor and 64 kilobytes of RAM, it was aggressively priced for its specifications and sold through department stores and discount retailers rather than exclusively through computer shops, a distribution strategy championed by company president Jack Tramiel.
The machine's audio and graphics capabilities were considered advanced for a mass-market computer of its era. Its SID sound chip gave rise to an enduring tradition of chiptune music, and the VIC-II graphics chip supported hardware sprites and smooth scrolling, features that made the platform a favourite among game developers throughout the 1980s.
Contents |
[edit] History
The 64 was designed in the second half of 1981 by a small team at MOS Technology, Commodore's own chip-making subsidiary in Pennsylvania. The engineers had just finished a pair of new chips, a video chip and a sound chip, originally intended for a games console. Instead, Commodore decided to put them in a home computer that would replace the VIC-20. A working prototype was shown at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 1982, and the machine went on sale that August for $595.
Because Commodore owned MOS Technology, it could build the computer from its own chips far more cheaply than its competitors could buy theirs. This allowed Tramiel to cut the price repeatedly during the home computer price war of 1983, in which the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A and several other machines were driven off the market. By the end of 1983 the 64 was selling for under $300 in many stores, and it could be found in toy shops and supermarkets as well as computer dealers.
Tramiel left Commodore in January 1984 after a disagreement with chairman Irving Gould. The 64 continued to sell well without him, and Commodore produced a number of variants:
- The SX-64 (1984), a portable "luggable" version with a built-in 5-inch colour screen and a 1541 drive.
- The Commodore 64C (1986), with a lighter, wedge-shaped case matching the Commodore 128. It was usually sold with the GEOS graphical operating system.
- The Commodore 64 Games System (1990), a games-only console derivative with no keyboard, sold mainly in Europe. It was not a success.
Production of the 64 ended when Commodore went bankrupt in April 1994. By then it had been on the market, in substantially the same form, for over eleven years, an unusually long run for a computing platform.
[edit] Hardware
[edit] Processor and memory
The MOS Technology 6510 is a version of the 6502 with a built-in six-bit I/O port. The 64 uses this port to switch the BASIC and KERNAL ROMs and the I/O area in and out of the address space, which means that nearly all of the 64 KB of RAM can be used by machine language programs. BASIC programs only see 38,911 bytes, which is the number printed on the start-up screen.
[edit] Graphics
The VIC-II (MOS 6567 in NTSC machines, 6569 in PAL machines) produces a 40 × 25 character text screen and a 320 × 200 bitmap mode, with a fixed palette of 16 colours. It also handles eight hardware sprites of 24 × 21 pixels, raster interrupts and fine scrolling. Programmers soon found ways to push it beyond its documented limits, such as opening the top and bottom borders or showing more than eight sprites by reusing them further down the screen.
[edit] Sound
The SID (Sound Interface Device) was designed by Bob Yannes. It has three voices, each with its own ADSR envelope and a choice of four waveforms, as well as a programmable filter. At a time when most home computers could only beep, the SID made the 64 a real musical instrument, and composers such as Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway and Ben Daglish became well known through their game soundtracks.
[edit] Peripherals
The 64 has a cartridge port, a user port, two joystick ports compatible with Atari joysticks, a cassette port and a serial bus for disk drives and printers. The 1541 disk drive is notoriously slow over this serial bus, at around 400 bytes per second, so "fast loader" cartridges such as the Epyx FastLoad and the Action Replay were among the most popular add-ons.
[edit] Software
Thousands of commercial titles were released for the 64, most of them games. Well-known examples include Impossible Mission, Paradroid, Bruce Lee, Maniac Mansion and The Last Ninja. Productivity software was also available, including word processors such as Paperclip and Easy Script, and Berkeley Softworks' GEOS, which gave the 64 a windowed desktop in 1986.
The machine boots straight into Commodore BASIC version 2.0, a Microsoft-derived BASIC with no commands for graphics or sound. Users had to POKE values directly into the chip registers, which is one reason so many 64 owners ended up learning machine language.
[edit] Sales
The Commodore 64 is often called the best-selling single computer model of all time. Figures between 17 and 30 million have been quoted over the years, but the true number is not known, as Commodore never published official totals. Most estimates by people who have looked at the production records put it somewhere between 12 and 17 million units. See the talk page for discussion.
[edit] Legacy
Collectors and emulation enthusiasts have kept the platform active well past its commercial lifetime. Emulators such as VICE and CCS64 run on modern PCs, and in 2004 the C64 Direct-to-TV, a joystick with a complete 64 and 30 games built in, sold well in the United States.
The 64 was also home to one of the first large demoscene communities, and new demos, games and music are still being released for it, on disk as well as on cartridge. SID tunes are collected in the High Voltage SID Collection, which has over 30,000 entries, and chiptune musicians still use real SID chips on stage.
