Some of the first games I had were in the form of cartridges; Gorf, Lazerus and Math Tumblers. Armed with two joysticks and a tape drive I remember spending a lot time with it. The tape drive didn’t last long, too slow to operate and so it was returned for a disk drive.
As time went on, the popularity of the computer found its way into schools. What was nice is my school offered summer classes in learning the Commodore 64. So in the summer of 1986 I enrolled. They were teaching basic programming and LOGO. I also met other kids who had the same computer. With every year that passed I became friends with more and more users and even traded games.
While school projects became involved, the computer proved to be helpful with the use of a word processor called “Paperclip 64”. The program was as barebones as you can get by today’s standards but was a means to making my essay presentable. Although the idea of a home computer had been around for a bit now, only a handful of classmates had access to one to use for their projects.
The real fun came in 1989 with the purchase of a 1200bps modem. I was now able to access bulletin board systems (BBS) via telephone lines. This was a whole new world and allowed me to meet up with other users situated within our ‘local’ calling area which was typically the whole city and part other cities. I even became involved in a user group. In retrospect I was apart of something big and the very early days of the information age to come.
The computer was pretty reliable over the years. The power supply had to be replaced once and disk drive had to be fixed but around 1993 for unknown reasons my Commodore 64 and the disk drive stopped working. While it could have been replaced, the market was clear that it was time to move on to another system which had greater capabilities.
The fun and memories will never be replaced and I owe thanks to Commodore for making it possible for a child to grow up being able to interact with a computer. It set the stage for the years to come. When I realized that Nintendo Game System was an option around the same time I had asked my Dad why he didn’t get that. His reply was that it was only a game system and he wanted me to learn on as well.
I still have the computer, drive, printer and all the games in a box and although they are not as cuddly as a cherished teddy I just don’t want to part with it… yet. So instead I will memorize it through my blog.
I got thinking one day what ever happened to Commodore and why don’t they exist today? I did some searching and found a book titled “Commodore: A Company on the Edge” by Brian Bagnall.
This explains everything and I’ll be giving you all a review on it. Stay tuned.
