The Commodore 64 is the BEST Computer. Change my mind.
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- Опубліковано 7 жов 2023
- Sorry Apple, Sinclair, and Atari fans but you know it's true...
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Fact: The best computers have a "return" key instead of "enter".
My computer says "Field Exit". I guess it's a soccer/football thing?
Convenient when it breaks down and you want your money back. "Return!"
Best computers had both ;)... (C128)
MacBook Pro:)
And yet, despite all its flaws and shortcomings, it became the best-selling computer of all time.
Therre are no flaws or shortcomings, only uniquely personal design choices.
Fact (kinda) Everytime an 8 bit Commodore machine gets turned on , you can hear the faint cries of Bill G in the distance. Either that or a capacitor is about to fry...
I used to have a C64 and an A500. At the time any progress was better because everything was new. Now 35 years later I am more impressed by my C64 that can do so much with so little. Not to minimize the revolution the A500 was at the time, that machine pretty much blew everything out of the water.
I agree, the A500 was an incredible piece of technology, a huge leap in the definition of a home computer in 1987. Unfortunately, I missed that because I was already into the PC universe after my humble ZX Spectrum. It has been 5 years that I got into the retro computer community, and I've only acquired an A500+ recently after many Spectrum and C64 machines. It really managed to amaze me in the year 2023!
MSX computers are not common in many countries, but man... thats a good 8 bit computer.
It was so difficult for me to choose which 8 bit home computer was the best so...i bought them all!
cough, cough, three, cough, grey
You are going to spend eternity with nothing but ZX Spectrums connected to black and white TV's with broken volume knobs cranked up to Max for making this video
Going for looks alone, I would say nothing can beat the ZX Spectrum 128K (Toastrack)! It is a timeless design.
Best? No. And I feel the C128, not the C64, was the best 8-bit machine. However, I consider it to be my favorite since it was my first personal computer. I still remember buying it in June 1983. (Forty years ago! 😮) It taught me so much about programming and using computers in general. It was also my entry point for BBSs and FidoNet. I made friends there and at Commodore clubs. And I’ve never loved a game as much as I loved Impossible Mission on my C64 and later on my C128.
Today I have a MacBook Pro and a Windows tower PC and they’re fine and do what I need them to do. However, I don’t feel any more affection for them than I do for a TV set or a dishwasher. I’m generally anti nostalgic but I am nostalgic about those Commodore computers I had back in the ‘80s.
I just found Impossible Mission on a C128 I aquired today. No idea what to do though, but it looks and sounds cool.
Commodore 64 was awesome from 1984-1990. Now it is the Raspberry PI 400.
Used to have ZX Spectrum 48K at first and C64C later when I was a kid, C64 was a better machine in 8 bit era but I always liked Speccy more, nevertheless I was glad to have them both! ;-)
I love my 64 and now even more with the Ultimate 2+L. I did never own a Amiga or C128 even tho they are great machines also but the Breadbin is a joy. I only need a new joystick - maybe for xmas. ;o)
I owned a ZX Spectrum 48k and then an Amstrad CPC 6128 and the Commodore 64 was always 'the enemy' :-) I loved your video, it was full of wonderful irony 🙂
I am so glad that I didn't throw my CPC 6128 away 😊
It got re-activated with a Gotek, RAM Expansion and some Goodies. Really love that machine 😊
I love my Amiga 500 just as much.
Truth be told, had I gotten my father's C64 (in 2006, when I asked about it), I would have been bored with it after a month.
14 years later, I resurrected an Amiga 500 that literally was waiting for me, and I use it to type up short stories.
Get Amiga 600 (small footprint, easier to upgrade with modern stuff) , add new 1 MB chip RAM (24 EUR), new A608 mini board with 8 MB Fast RAM (50 EUR), buy new 8 GB CF card (10 EUR), feed with few thousands of WHDLoad games (no problems with compatibility at all), IDE44 to CD card adapter (2 EUR) and there you go. You just didn't investigate much.
ZX Spectrum, it dominated here in the UK but it made low cost computing here, really low cost! £399 for a C64 back in the day when a Spectrum 48k was £125. You didn't have to use the proprietory tape deck, loads of 3rd party kit available, games up the wazoo and STILL being made today, and of course the successor which is 100% backwards compatible, the Spectrum Next.
I do like the c64, but the colours with what looks like 2 browns (cat poo and baby sick shades!) let it down for me, but some of the racers on it are way better than on the speccy, but we won't mention Turbo Esprit or Out Run...
In 1983 when the ZX 48K was £129, the C64 was £229
awesome video mate
The floppy disk being slow is a bug, there's a thing you can buy for fast-loading that fixes the bug or something to that affect
This was funny, but you have to admit, the 6502 was the best processor at the time and its simplicity is why people still play with them. All of the x86 variants are boring by comparison and the only competitor it has for fun is the z80. I guess FPGA's are cool too, but even those are approaching boring.
I was and still am an Amstrad enthusiast for the 8bit era.
Angry comment for what, the video was great.
The Amstrad CPC is one of my three favourite 8-bit computers along with the BBC Master and Atari 130XE. I also like Amstrad's other Z80 based CP/M machines like the 8256. My biggest complaint is the 3" floppy drives. The Amstrad CPC is also missing hardware scrolling and sprites which are important for games. The Plus models added those features but came out too late to get much use. I also really prefer the BASIC on the Amstrad CPC although being able to write assembly like BBC BASIC would be nice.
I didn't have any of these systems growing up in the 80's. I had a VIC-20 and C64 before getting a series of Amigas. Today I'm not as much of a fan of the C64. It had a pretty good video chip (although the colours are drab) and a pretty great sound chip, but outside of that it doesn't really have a real OS like the Atari, BBC Micro and Amstrad have. Today I consider the C64 to be a video game console with a keyboard and disk drive.
@@timlocke3159 Same here. Yes the CPC had no HW support, but in some eras was better, like racing games. Also had no color clash. CP/M was great and was a real all in one computer with 80 columns mode.
@@timlocke3159 The CPC is a marvelous design, super-simple board layout, yet highly capable. I don't care about games, I've a PC Engine and NES for that, so I look at how they function as computer, and in that regard, the CPC is a very capable machine with proper BASIC, 80 column mode, more colours, clear RGB output and nicer keyboard layout.
Some games were terrible. Graphics were usually awful too, even by 1980s standards. Not the most reliable computer either. But... nostalgia aside, the C64 came from a time when new computer technology was genuinely new and exciting, so it holds a lot of good memories for people. And when you did play a good game it was genuinely a great experience for the time. I wasn't too into programming at the time but it was a very good early computer to learn the basics on. Everyone I knew who took the time to do serious programming on the C64 went on to bigger and better things.
Gotta love sonic on c64
The Apple II had clear 80 columns. And Pascal. As a young programmer-to-be, it couldn't be beat.
Apple II is cool.
...Except the IIgs.
@@tetsujin_144 Why are they so friggin expensive? Not that they are rare by any means. The II GS is in fact cool, as it has some of the most crazy sound chips ever made. A 30 voice wavetable chip by Ensoniq.
Fun fact by the time the C64 came out the Commodore Pet had a better Basic but the C64 like the Vic-20 was made to be much cheaper thus used much smaller ROMs.
I really really really wish they would create a computer that works like the Commodore 64 basic that works with C, C++, Java, Python and have the compiler built into it. Turn the system on and the prompt is ready to program and just type couple commands and it compiled it. That would be awesome.
Commander X16 might be close
That would be a modern PC. 8 bit computers with 64kb of RAM simply not up to such tasks. I am doing something like this for my ZX Spectrum NEXT. Setup a development environment for Assembler and C on PC, with all the functions of multi windows, debugger, watcher, and most importantly output via a Cpsect emulator. It is as close to get to work with Assembler and C and getting it running immediately to test. I dont even need to test on the real hardware during development. There is also a Boriel Basic for the ZX Spectrum NEXT which is a BASIC compiler which runs insanely fast. A modern version of Bomb Jack was made for the NEXT using this. Imo, this version is the best BJ i have played and looks even better than the Amiga version, with the playability of the old Spectrum version. You would have thought it's written in Assembly.
Yeah, totally correct. I grew up learning BASIC from books that listed compatibility with a bunch of rando computers I've never heard from plus C64. It apparently was the only computer from that era that didn't suck enough that it made it to the arse end of the world (Australia) so I could actually use it.
Around my area the option was either a cheap C64, or a 10x cost x86 with GW-BASIC (or a shitty non-programmable console) so it almost certainly started way more Australians on the way to programming then any other computer at the time.
Thanks a lot. After showing this video to me my wife and children won't let me spend my hard earned cash on Commodore stuff ever again. What am I to do now? Spend quality time with my son? Go out with my wife? Buy a Playstation for my son? Brrrrrr.
Get a new wife.
Learn right hand dexterity with unique shift cursor keys!
The little breadbin is a true GIANT!!🤩
You think your Commodore 64 is really neato? What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?
I think one of the colours on screen is supposed to be pink, not a second shade of orange. Is the video circuitry broken or is that a weird artefact of VIC-II revision + screen + camera?
Could be NTSC colors vs PAL, or the tint adjustment on the monitor. Never Twice the Same Color 😛
Haha fun video. I had a ZX Spectrum back in the day, now I own a bunch of retro computers. A friend had an Atari 800 though and that (overall) is my favourite 8-bit computer. Twice the CPU speed of the C64, twice the number of joystick ports, twice the number of cartridge slots that were contained internally rather than hanging out of the back, great keyboard, better color palette, great sound, much stronger construction, just less memory 48K vs 64K.
But the games really didn't look better. I find Ataris very weird, i think most games were made to be compatible with early 2600 VCS consoles? I can't seems to find many comparable games to the C64. The C64 does not have the burden to be backward compatible with VIC-20, else all the games would be crap.
I like how you didn't say wrong word about Atari. No need to throw angry comments :)
I started collecting all the C-64 stuff I had when I was young, and things which I had not but wished I had. I cannot find the retail game M.U.L.E., not sure why, maybe it is so rare. I liked the game, but never understood it to be honest, had no manual. And there was a Joystick for C-64, not sure if you remember, which had quicksilver switches, it was maybe the first motion control Joystick, but unpractical. And some other things, but eventually I will find all of them I guess. I was lucky to buy a Commodore in nearly mint package. I am in Europe, so PAL region at the time. Nice work you do, thank you for the nostalgia. Videos of UA-camrs like you are often better than the majority of movies and series today. 😄
To support Matt's theory, every time you turned it on it started almost instantly and was exactly the same as when you turned it off. I had to replay the video to make sure I heard the load times correct. 2 to 3 minutes to load a program ..... :)
What’s with the Bob Marley face at 4:33? Thanks for the laugh!
I don't know, it looks pretty BASIC for me
Black, white and two shades of gray made for some good GUI ang graphics 😊
Atari 8 bit machines were and always will be the best of it's time because they were around long before almost all of them and still managed to outspec most if not all of them even still.
That is, if you are in the US. Outside they did not exist.
Atari 8-bit fan here. We can all agree on the worse alternative. 🙂
It really is unironically the best though
We love the C64 for its flaws... ❤ Great video, fun to watch.
Good old days
Surprised there aren't more comments attempting to correct your little Sonic troll there. Fun video!
Best soundchip, that 's a fact. Most of my music is made with the SID Chip 🎚️🎶🎵🎶🎶
No argument here! Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of this particular video, I have professed my love of the SID often :)
Uhm, it actually had three shades of grey, not two ;)...
yeah pretty much a fact C64 is the best but that wasn't the whole picture of course. The Amiga is also up there as joined best I would personally say. That said I love all the machines from this era as they were all very unique in terms of differences which meant pros and cons with each of them. The 8bits though were pretty special just to be part of regardless of what you had and it's a time I'm very fond of and continue to enjoy because it represented something had arrived that we hadn't seen before. Lucky to be part of it all
DEFCON Level 1 snark, I love it!
Er, isn't the Vic 20 case actually different to the C64? It's a bit taller isn't it? Or is this one of those early model things they changed later?
Just a bit different. Slots are different, height is different on a few models, same on others. It was just easier and cheaper to slightly retool manufacturing equipment rather than start from scratch
Early C64 use the same case as the VIC-20, later models have slightly revised breadbins which is a tad shorter.
This may be Tongue in Cheek... but if you have ever see some of the Artwork on the C64, done with only 16 colors... it will blow your mind. As an Artist myself... when you said that Grays basically dont count... you really proved your Ignorance. To make shadows, buildings, textures, and more... you NEED those other shades. Furthermore, you can alter how other colors look.. by Stippling those other colors next to each other...
The real thing that killed me.. was the poor choice of SID music that you chose. The C64 had some of the most ICONIC music, depending on the game that you chose. In my Childhood.. my favorite was "The Last V8". This game was about a Post Nuclear war event.. and you had to drive your car safely back to base, without getting Melted from invisible Radiation spikes. The music is fantastically "ERRIE" and sets the proper Mood. The game is actually Psychologically Scary. Especially when that Radiation meter starts going off. The game itself had a very difficult control mechanic.. but when Mastered, was a fantastic accomplishment. The downside was the 2nd level.. which IMO, was nowhere near as fun as the first. That, and only having 2 stages period, was a bit limiting. But that game experience, with that insane music.. continues to Haunt my mind, to this very day.
I remember listening to many Sid compositions, including a C64 version of Axel F, and being blown away at what these composers could produce... with such an affordable computer. In many cases, the sounds were far superior to stuff that was being put out by the NES... and the NES was released many years after the C64. I do not think the consoles got FM Synthesis, until the Sega Genesis.
The C64 is clearly not the BEST computer... but it pretty much was the best PC for its Era. It was affordable. There were masses of games that you could buy / pirate for it. There were fantastic Music Tracks, and very cool Graphic + Musical demos. Heck, I believe my Grandfather used his C64 to input company data, into spreadsheets.
One of the Best Consumer computers, was probably the "FM Towns". A Japanese computer, that could run at 720p resolution, had a CD rom drive, and that had near pixel-perfect Arcade Ports on it. A lot of Game Developers used the FM Towns / X68000 to develop games with, for other systems. BUT... that was a Japanese Only PC.. and it was INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE. Maybe 20 times the cost of ANY Commodore PC ..with all of the accessories.
But the C64, was something that the average Joe could pick up for a reasonable price.. and while it certainly had its limitations... people were still able to make some very amazing experiences with it.
So both tape and disk took 2-3 minutes to load a program? :D
Yep
I have this feeling that this video was made after some serious trouble shooting to get a commodore working? 😅
Oh you know, 3 or 4 years of making videos and you accumulate material to work with :P
Great video - the "golden era" of computing was full of computers that had "character" - and the Commodore 64 had it in spades. How did we end up in a world dominated by 2 kinds of computers - the PC and the Mac? There's a story there too, but the outcome is really a boring one. In many ways the market is ready for a third party disruptor that can produce a new computer full of character with superior technology at a low cost - aka the "Jack Tramiel Formula for Success."
I had an Atari 800 back those days and always wondered, why the "C64 boys" so mich preferred their computer. The Atari had better Graphics, was much faster and also the Disk Drive was much much faster. But from todays perspective the C64 also had many advantages: Much more software, better sound (the SID chip had wave forms and filters), a few more sprites and more addons, like custom ROMs... Any over all there were much more freinds who could give you copies of their games...
It is for sure on top of a period, like the Oric Atmos after, then the Atari ST, then the PC (meh)
Fantastic video, I think so too and I also bring Commodore Computer to the channel! (and some atari 2600, recently, hahaha)
I got my old Vic20 and a ton of carts, Commodore cassette decks, etc. I'm in NoVA if you'd be interested.
This may be controversial but the best computer is simply the one that holds the best memories for you. I admit this is just my subjective bias and not at all fact though.
The mighty PC is very hard to think of as "the best" for me, because of it's generic nature; unlike the Amiga... Early computers had definite bottlenecks and it was fun to see programmers trying to seemingly make the impossible possible anyway.
LOL Matt, you made me smile 😁
Damn I had an Amstrad CPC 464, the popular choice in Europe. Also had a zx spectrum at one point, but it never lived up to the Amstrad. Had a friend who had a c64 aswell which was similar in alot of ways to the Amstrad. Good memories!
Erm...The C64 is better in many ways to the Amstrad. Hardware scrolling and hardware sprites. Most Amstrad games scroll jerkily, some even worse than Spectrum version. Basically, any games which is flip screen, will look better on Amstrad than C64, due to better color palette. Any games with scrolling, the C64 is king.
@@ZxSpectrumplus That sounds like you care about games. You know what? My PC Engine destroys the scrolling of a C64, not to mention its palette, and even the wavetable synth eats SIDs for breakfast. So in the end the C64 is a pretty meager home computer, shitty BASIC, really bad text quality on a TV, not so reliable. The CPC on the other hand is a wonderful computer on a TV, with great text, good colours, CP/M, proper BASIC.
Angry comment, eh? Hmmm. Well, I IMMEDIATELY recognized Goonies just from the theme, Goonies 'R' Good Enough! RABBLERABBLERABBLE! That's about as angry as I can get at the good ol' C-64.
wow! That Sonic.... thing..... ough!
There is a better Sonic, but it requires an unusual memory expansion cartridge which performs DMA to scroll fast.
LOL, Welcome to OCTari!
Loved it! Thanks.
LOL! this video says all! yeah... I touched my C64 joystick port by accident and boom! it is gonner :(
You're doing stand-up now? LOL
Just this once. Probably.
The C-16 is better because the best computers are antracite. And also, it has a very capable and useful BASIC.
They were all great.......and they were all terrible......and i loved them all......
Yeah, cool! I also had a ZX Spectrum and my father had a C64 (which I could use sometimes). It was a lot of fun! It took over 30 minutes to load Rambo Part II from cassette, and you would still get load errors sometimes. Oh, the joy! And yes, it was a LOT better with a disk drive, a cartridge or rom replacement loader (16x faster with the serial bus). But yes, weirdly, the C64 IS the best computer. The Spectrum and the Amiga were losers!
Couldn't agree more
Funny! Do more like this!!
*popcorn gif* for the comments. Let's see who is too serious here. 😄 Fun one!
Best Computer? Ever sat down and programmed on it? No, not "10 PRINT "Hello World" | 20 GOTO 10"
I wrote video games for the Commodore Computers in the 1980s and had to work with Atari, Apple and other systems. I'll admit to being a Commodore Boy at the time. But takes just a few lines of code on an Atari 800 takes a lot of code on the C64 to implement. And the Atari 800 used a 1.75MHz 6502 compared to the 1MHz 6510 on the C64 so the Atari beats it on Speed, and Graphics.And the Pokey Chip, though not a SID, can give the Sid a run for its money. Plus there were several Synthesizers that used the SID as well and the Commodore B-Machines also used the SID. As a Programmer's machine, it was a nightmare.
To do anything a little complex is Peek and Poke, Peke and Poke,.............
Nice try, but actually C128D is the best
NO. Actually the C128DCR 😂
This is brilliant - loved it. What is that Sonic game lol....
Thanks! It was an unfinished tech demo from 2011 - csdb.dk/release/?id=101631
A tape game didn't take 2-3 minutes. Try at least 10 minutes (but from memory often more).
I AM OFFENDED, SIR! Like so many others you failed to mention the tiny little C116 with its horrible rubber keyboard and failing chips just like its TED-based brothers. Ok it was only sold in Europe, but still, It exists, gosh darn it!!! #JusticeForTheC116
Here here! #tedgang 😂
Classic sh!t post. Love your work, never stop. I like Bil Herd's perspective on how Commodore made chips with the expectation they only had to last 5 years.
Hi Matt, here is my angry comment:
..
..
It seems everything is written for now 😁 Thank you very much for your short clip. Thumbs up!
Terry Davis approves
That was fantastico! :)
I would say Amiga 500 is the best with the same philosophy
Not the same genre though, 8 bits vs 16 bits is a huge difference.
@@borayurt66 In 8bit era, C64 was the best for me.
fax!
The best (8-bit) computer has decent BASIC, a decent video ouput signal (RGB+80-column), looks cool, has common interfaces, has room for internal expansion and has a proper (built in) power supply. C64 does not fit any of those criteria. How can it be best?
Nice video! just...
Commodore 64 Longplay [158] Sonic the Hedgehog (Homebrew/NTSC Mode) -> search on youtube!
I covered Sonic when it first came out as well! ua-cam.com/video/NRnDbxvxi-o/v-deo.html
Lol, nice work Matt, that made me chuckle 😂 There would defo be far less C64 repair videos if MOS hadn't been so fast and loose with their quality control that's for sure!
lol Matt, brilliant! Loved the whole tongue in cheek vibe 👍
😂... this is so funny....
I was told to leave an angry comment grrrrrr
Angry!
Oric atmos will never be beaten! Sacrilege!
the best is imho the Mega65 🙂
Angry comment: Angry comment
👍👍👍👍🕹🕹
Don't MSX much??
50 Shades of Brown.
You talk about the colour palette I assume? Not about the plastic.
Second best before Amigas
Pffft.... The c64 wasn't even the best c64... gimme the c128 any day!
Just got one, but man it is a truly weird machine. The 3 modes of operation with 3 incompatible flavours of basic, the crazy dual video port that is unable to render 80 character on the RF/DIN plug, and not able to run classic C64 graphics on RGB. The fact that 80-char is a cripled video mode not suitable for games. Also it has a deep dark dungeon with a chained MSX inside that can do some CP/M wannabe once in a century. It does look neat though, that's why I bought it. But that humongous power brick..... It could run off the average 5x4x2,5cm USB-C charger nowadays.
I agree, but nevertheless, I’m writing an angry comment.