Comments on: The man behind the Commodore 64

Commodore founder Jack Tramiel gives rare interview at 25th anniversary event for his signature creation, on which he still plays Pac-Man.
Video: Commodore 64's silver anniversary

[Goodbye Helicopter]

C=64

Yeah, I had a C=64, my first pc. It was THE machine that
actually kept the home video game industry alive until the later
80's more powerful computers and more splintered market and
8-bit Nintendo (famicom) appeared.

I'll never ever forget trying to load the game Crush, Crumble &
Chomp from the tape drive, only to have it take over an hour to
load (both 30 min sides of the tape) and then have it fail to
properly load about 60-70% of the time...
We bought the floppy drive, that shoebox that would overheat
and cease functioning after an hour. Use it too often, and the
alignment crystal would be out of whack.
The old trick was to take the poorly designed case's top off to
make the drive run cooler, problem then was dust.

Even had the (then) revolutionary GEOS operating system, a GUI
for C=64 and C=128 computers. Trouble is, it took forever just
to get it up and running and then, nobody knew what to do with
it back then.

me I have a vague nostalgia for the old C=64, but I don't really
miss it. To0 unreliable a machine.

Commodore was doomed. Not future thinking enough.
Amiga was fabulous, but I could never afford one.
By the time the prices came down enough on those, they world
had unfortunately gone to the pc xt/at

It's difficult to believe, but true that those Amigas were not to far
off from where NeXT would eventually go and later become this
wonderful OS X....

[Goodbye Helicopter]

C=64

Yeah, I had a C=64, my first pc. It was THE machine that
actually kept the home video game industry alive until the later
80's more powerful computers and more splintered market and
8-bit Nintendo (famicom) appeared.

I'll never ever forget trying to load the game Crush, Crumble &
Chomp from the tape drive, only to have it take over an hour to
load (both 30 min sides of the tape) and then have it fail to
properly load about 60-70% of the time...
We bought the floppy drive, that shoebox that would overheat
and cease functioning after an hour. Use it too often, and the
alignment crystal would be out of whack.
The old trick was to take the poorly designed case's top off to
make the drive run cooler, problem then was dust.

Even had the (then) revolutionary GEOS operating system, a GUI
for C=64 and C=128 computers. Trouble is, it took forever just
to get it up and running and then, nobody knew what to do with
it back then.

me I have a vague nostalgia for the old C=64, but I don't really
miss it. To0 unreliable a machine.

Commodore was doomed. Not future thinking enough.
Amiga was fabulous, but I could never afford one.
By the time the prices came down enough on those, they world
had unfortunately gone to the pc xt/at

It's difficult to believe, but true that those Amigas were not to far
off from where NeXT would eventually go and later become this
wonderful OS X....

[waveboy]

actual designers: Russell and Yannes

Jack's ego doesn't allow any credit for the guys that actually designed the thing. It was brilliant and brilliantly cheap!

See the whole story on c64 site:
http://www.c64.com/articles/spectacular_rise_and_fall_of_commodore_the.html

"With such a tight schedule, Bob Yannes and Bob Russell began laying out the architecture of the computer. "Bob [Yannes] and I sat down and came up with the hardware architecture," recalls Russell. Yannes was an assiduous engineer by nature. For two short days, Yannes worked in his office and the drafting area to design the architecture for the VIC-40. "It was a pretty easy architecture," says Yannes. "I just designed the most minimal system I could with the fewest number of components. There's not a whole lot of stuff in there. There's the VIC chip, the SID chip, and there's 64K of DRAM."

[waveboy]

actual designers: Russell and Yannes

Jack's ego doesn't allow any credit for the guys that actually designed the thing. It was brilliant and brilliantly cheap!

See the whole story on c64 site:
http://www.c64.com/articles/spectacular_rise_and_fall_of_commodore_the.html

"With such a tight schedule, Bob Yannes and Bob Russell began laying out the architecture of the computer. "Bob [Yannes] and I sat down and came up with the hardware architecture," recalls Russell. Yannes was an assiduous engineer by nature. For two short days, Yannes worked in his office and the drafting area to design the architecture for the VIC-40. "It was a pretty easy architecture," says Yannes. "I just designed the most minimal system I could with the fewest number of components. There's not a whole lot of stuff in there. There's the VIC chip, the SID chip, and there's 64K of DRAM."

[zxcv1234zxcv]

What "culture war"?

Maybe it's because of where I lived, but no one I knew (among Apple and C64 owners) looked down their nose at the other's computer. Both groups knew the other machine's value: the Commodore was a multimedia machine (before the word was coined) and the Apple was a tweaking/machine language computer with its open architecture. Each had its strengths and weaknesses. What gave the Apple the edge was its superior disk drive system.

Many people I knew did not like (but did not put down) the Atari 800 because of its perception as a "games only" machine (and the awful membrane keyboard of the 400), but looking back, it was a worthy machine.

Pity me, though: my old man refused to listen in 1981 and bought a TI-99 instead of an Apple or C64. It gathered dust for two years before he listened and bought an Apple II+ clone.

[zxcv1234zxcv]

What "culture war"?

Maybe it's because of where I lived, but no one I knew (among Apple and C64 owners) looked down their nose at the other's computer. Both groups knew the other machine's value: the Commodore was a multimedia machine (before the word was coined) and the Apple was a tweaking/machine language computer with its open architecture. Each had its strengths and weaknesses. What gave the Apple the edge was its superior disk drive system.

Many people I knew did not like (but did not put down) the Atari 800 because of its perception as a "games only" machine (and the awful membrane keyboard of the 400), but looking back, it was a worthy machine.

Pity me, though: my old man refused to listen in 1981 and bought a TI-99 instead of an Apple or C64. It gathered dust for two years before he listened and bought an Apple II+ clone.

[Just_Buch]

lets not forget ...

While I agree that C64 was influential (had one, and c128, and amigas), let's be fair and give credit also to some people and computers that should have been given credit in the article. (perhaps the author is too young?):
Clive Sinclair - ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum;
BBC-B
Alan Sugar - Amstrad CPC 464 (later in the game between Spectrum and C64)

Jack Tramiel, and his son Sam: Atari ST 520 (counterpart for Amiga)

[Just_Buch]

lets not forget ...

While I agree that C64 was influential (had one, and c128, and amigas), let's be fair and give credit also to some people and computers that should have been given credit in the article. (perhaps the author is too young?):
Clive Sinclair - ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum;
BBC-B
Alan Sugar - Amstrad CPC 464 (later in the game between Spectrum and C64)

Jack Tramiel, and his son Sam: Atari ST 520 (counterpart for Amiga)

[jcassara]

Hundreds of admirers of Commodore, Jack, and the C64 -- of all ages, not just "grey beards", attended.