Commodore 64

In 1981 Commodore released there second home computer, the Vic-20, which despite being somewhat underpowered went on to become the first home computer to sell over a million units. In a period where home computers were released frequently and flopped just as frequently astonishingly Commodore went on from this success to release a machine that would become an even bigger hit and one of the seminal 8-bit machines of the 1980s: the Commodore 64. Before moving on its worth mentioning the main factor in Commdore's early success: William Shatner. How can you fail when you recruit Captain Kirk himself to promote your products?

Shatner! Commodore Business Machines was incorporated in 1962 by its founder Jack Tramiel first manufacturing typewrites and later adding machines. Finding it himself undercut by Japanese manufacturers Jack Tramiel visited that country to understand how to better to compete. While there he saw early electronic calculators and realised that these would soon put an end to the adding machine business. Finding itself again undercut this time by Texas Instruments, one of the main suppliers of calculator parts, bought the struggling startup microprocessor manufacturer MOS Technologies on the condition that Chuck Peddle joined Commodore as its chief engineer. Initially the intent was to use the microprocessors manufactured by MOS to power Commodore's calculators however Chuck Peddle convinced Jack Tramiel and Irving Gould (Commodore's main investor) that the future was in home computers. As a result Commodore launched the Pet and shortly after that the Vic-20.

Commodore 64
Photo by Bill Bertram Following the Vic-20 the intention had been to release a games console and as such MOS had been working on graphics and sound chips. However the console project was cancelled by Jack Tramiel and he proposed instead using the chips in a home computer codenamed the Vic-40 where they would go on to be known as the Vic-II (graphics) and SID (sound) chips. Bob Yannes, Robert Russell and Dave Ziembicki were given less than two months to build a prototype of the new machine that could be shown at the winter CES in 1982. Given the short timescale its surprising that very few components from the Vic-20 were used. The CPU used was the MOS 6510, an updated version of the 6502A used in the Vic-20, but more surprisingly the case was reused. This was initially seen as a way to save time but as the team struggled to fit the new motherboard into the old box it becamse a hinderance. The new machine was given the name C64 the C standing rather obviously for Commodore and the 64 referring to the, for the time, considerable 64k of RAM supplied with the machine.

The team met there deadline and the C64 went on show at the 1982 Winter CES as planned complete with demonstrations of its audio and visual capabilities. As the machine was compatible with Vic-20 peripherals it could also be shown complete with disc drives and printer. Commodore's main competitors were showing nothing substantially new and coupled with its announced pricepoint of $595 the machine was a show stealer.