Was it really 30 years ago that Commodore introduced the C64 computer?

The CPU, featuring a whopping 64kb of RAM, 16 colours, and an integrated keyboard racked up the all-time highest computer sales figures and an astounding product run for starters.  Between 12.5 and 17 million C64 consoles were sold (estimates vary due to suspect accounting and other factors) between its introduction in 1982 at the amazingly low prince of $595, and the company’s demise 12 years later. In the vanguard of gaming machines, over 10,000 titles were developed for the C64.

Its astounding sales were due to some pretty innovative Commodore engineers and designers, and some spot-on foresight by Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel. The C64 certainly had its faults, however, including a crude-beyond-beleif power supply which tented to overheat and cause the machine to lock up. Its ABS plastic case tented to brown with age, giving it that classic 1980s artifact look, but it made a stunning debut at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 1982.. Attendees, including staff from rival Atari, kept visiting Commodore’s booth to ask by the C64 could sell for only $595, less than half that of Apple’s IIc machine.

The Commodore’s subsidiary MOS Technology started designing graphic and audio chips for a new generation video game console, and had them ready by November 1981. Meanwhile, Bob Russell, a system programmer and architect on Commodore’s earlier VIC-20 game machine, along with VIC-II graphics engineer Bob Yannes, were opposed to the further development of the Commodore PET line of business computers.  Russell and Yannes joined with Al Charpentier, another VIC-II engineer, and Charles Winterble, the manager of MOS Technology, and pitched a new, inexpensive gaming machine as a successor to the VIC-20, to CEP Tramiel.

Tramiel concurred with them, but insisted that this new machine have 64kb of DRAM, costing $100, but Tramiel presciently said that it would drop in price by launch date, given trends at the time, and Commodore’s efficiencies due to vertical integration.

Commodore sold the C64 not only through authorized dealers but mom-and-pop shops, and department and discount stores. Aggresive pricing policies plus a crash in the video game market in 1983 started Commodore on a downward slide which culminated in its backruptcy in 1994.

An entire kiosk was devoted to the C64 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s exhibit called The Art of Video Games, which opened in Washington DC, last march.  Four games were actively displayed.