It was one of the more feature rich 8 bit systems that “you programmed “ sold en mass quantities at a low price.

Those who grew up with them many times grew up programming software for them. The c64 lifetime was so long that it developed much more of a following.

In terms of making new software for old machines it’s easier to “push the limits” on a known quantity where every machine is identical.

In the Pc world there were so many it’s hard to know who will be nastalgic for what

rmay635703 wrote on 2023-09-25, 14:24:

It was one of the more feature rich 8 bit systems that “you programmed “ sold en mass quantities at a low price. […]
Show full quote

It was one of the more feature rich 8 bit systems that “you programmed “ sold en mass quantities at a low price.

Those who grew up with them many times grew up programming software for them. The c64 lifetime was so long that it developed much more of a following.

In terms of making new software for old machines it’s easier to “push the limits” on a known quantity where every machine is identical.

In the Pc world there were so many it’s hard to know who will be nastalgic for what

Interesting! Thanks!!
Well, you at least partially answered to my inquiries.

What remains unsolved for me is:

• On your last sentence, yes, that's true. But, overally, the sum of all and every nostalgic person for 'something' in the PC world, should at least pass of a few orders of magnitude the initiatives around C64. So, okay, you cannot find a similar amount of followers and magazines or hardware remakes for the Compaq Prolinea 486 DX 33 (just ONE PC over tens of thousands), but if you consider ALL the PCs ever sold, put together, it should be much more. Instead, we don't even have a magazine! C64 people do!

• Okay, you mentioned at least some reasons why the C64 was and still is so popular. But, why isn't there so much initiative around vintage PCs (considered them all together, the whole PC galaxy), that remains unanswered.

There are a lot of projects around the old PC and its hardware/ software.
People build new soundcards,video converters, replace drives with emulators, reverse engineer code in hardware to remove bugs or add more features, repair hardware, or repurpose old stuff, or write new games.
The range of projects is really huge but also sometimes so specific that you have to search for it.

Its also way more difficult to build and maintain a PC with components that are maybe rare or special.
On a C64 everythin is documented. They are easy to repair. Most of the chips are reverse engineered and available as a copy.
If you want a thing that plays some games and is easy to maintain get a c64, or amiga, or atari...
If you want the fun of tinkering and never ending configuration pain get a PC.

DerBaum wrote on 2023-09-25, 14:53:

There are a lot of projects around the old PC and its hardware/ software. People build new soundcards,video converters, replace […]
Show full quote

There are a lot of projects around the old PC and its hardware/ software.
People build new soundcards,video converters, replace drives with emulators, reverse engineer code in hardware to remove bugs or add more features, repair hardware, or repurpose old stuff, or write new games.
The range of projects is really huge but also sometimes so specific that you have to search for it.

Its also way more difficult to build and maintain a PC with components that are maybe rare or special.
On a C64 everythin is documented. They are easy to repair. Most of the chips are reverse engineered and available as a copy.
If you want a thing that plays some games and is easy to maintain get a c64, or amiga, or atari...
If you want the fun of tinkering and never ending configuration pain get a PC.

Mmmm... makes sense!

Still, we should have a magazine!

If you really want to stretch it, there's 4 computers:
The C64 came in a PAL and an NTSC variation, each having slightly different colours and performance characteristics.
Then there's the original model, and the new model (known as the C64C), which also came with a chipset that was built on a newer process... The original had 65xx chips, the newer model had 85xx chips.
Especially the SID chip has quite a different sound, so music is generally targeted to either the original 6581 (but there are variations in between because of inconsistent production), or the new 8580 SID.

So you can have:
PAL + 6581
NTSC + 6581
PAL + 8580
NTSC + 8580

But yea.

Scali wrote on 2023-09-25, 14:59:

If you really want to stretch it, there's 4 computers: The C64 came in a PAL and an NTSC variation, each having slightly differe […]
Show full quote

If you really want to stretch it, there's 4 computers:
The C64 came in a PAL and an NTSC variation, each having slightly different colours and performance characteristics.
Then there's the original model, and the new model (known as the C64C), which also came with a chipset that was built on a newer process... The original had 65xx chips, the newer model had 85xx chips.
Especially the SID chip has quite a different sound, so music is generally targeted to either the original 6581 (but there are variations in between because of inconsistent production), or the new 8580 SID.

So you can have:
PAL + 6581
NTSC + 6581
PAL + 8580
NTSC + 8580

But yea.

I didn't know that, thanks.

Still, we PC people should at least have a magazine

aries-mu wrote on 2023-09-25, 13:42:

I must admit, I find myself frequently and repeatedly impressed at how passionate, committed, effective, and persistent c64 fans/people are!

I mean, let's be blunt: C64 is just 1 product. It's just it: the Commodore 64.

maybe that's why - 1 product experienced by millions around the world creating a store of shared experience that ignites fans decades later

and it was decidedly a home system, for fun - for games and hobbyists. affordable for many too and often part of people's impressionable childhood

vintage computers cover all sorts of diverse experiences spread among all kinds of diverse people. Expensive at the time and often rather 'serious' with gaming as a small part of the whole, certainly less likely to be the machine a child might be lucky enough to have for themselves in their room, at least back then

Yes, I think that sums it up pretty well.
While I do have a love/hate relationship with the C64 of some sorts, I must admit that it has a fine community, very human.

It values things in a more spiritual way, talks less about money and economics.
That's something I highly admire, the idealistic take. It's rare in this day of consumerism.

That's why I bothered to restore an old C64 I got of a friend long ago.
The humble breadbin meant a lot to said friend.

Because technically, for someone who grew up with Z80 computers and AT PCs, the C64 is a very primitive piece of scrap metal.

It's buggy, slow, unreliable (SID paddle input breaks, PLA often defective, broken serial port, bad PSU, noisy video/RFI issues etc, brutal 1541 drive) and very unprofessional (not suitable for serious work).

And massproduced, cheap, a product made by the worker class for the worker class.
The lower end of society who do repetitive work without stopping by to valuing the beauty of life and the wonders of this world.

But simultaneously, the C64, as a tool, had bern in hands of very fine individuals with lots of optimism and phantasy.

And it was these people who had written fascinating text adventures, very specific/unique software and who had created art.

Due to its affordability, it also had been given in the hands of the youth, which did do experiment with it.
Not just games, but also interfacing electronic construction kits or learning to program.

And I try to respect this, as best as possible. Even though it's no always being easy.
Some people and the press make the C64 a cult, which increases my aversion against the machine.

Here in my country, the C64 fandom sometimes has the intellectual horizon of the ugly Werner comics, Playboy and the Bild magazine.
It's the kind of intellectual/cultural level I really struggle with. I find it gross, in short.

Gratefully, the active C64 community members aren't like that.
They're not compairing the Apollo Guidance Computer or Zuse Z22 with an C64, they know better about history.
It rather consists of tinkerers who can speak in complete sentences and hold an soldering iron. Amen. 🙂🙏

Best regards,
Jo22

Edit: Or in other ways, the C64 was like the Trabant ('Trabi') car from former East Germany.
Or the Yugo/Jugo car from former Yugoslavia.
It was very poor, but it touched the heart of the owners.
It's like an old friend, a family member (like the car in 'Go Trabi Go').
That's why the C64 is more than just a random computer, I believe. 🙂

Edit: The Amiga might be similarly beloved, albeit the community is smaller.
As a more expensive, higher end system that's understandable.
Only the real computer fans could/would afford one at the time, not the lowest caste of society.

Other notable, but more nationally popular home computers maybe were the Apple II/Mac (US schools), TRS 'Trash 80' (US), the BBC Micros (UK), Mupid (Austria) and the Thomson TO/MO series (France), I think. Maybe MSX, too, in Japan/parts of Europe.
By contrast, the C64 was universally known/beloved across the borders.

aries-mu wrote on 2023-09-25, 13:42:

On that one computer, over the many years I've had a retrocomputing passion, I kept seeing more and more and again initiatives, fairs, organizations, gadgets, books, various merchandise, discussions, groups, and, most importantly, even magazines (Reset64 magazine) and even completely new hardware remakes!!

Speaking of, there's an upcoming C64 party at Sternwarte Bochum in Germany, to celebrate the C64's 40th anniversary (party is on October, 21th).

It's Germany's most popular observatory, which also had witnessed things like launch of Sputnik and the Apollo landings..

Details here:

https://www.darc.de/en/der-club/distrikte/y/n … dspruch-372023/

Englisch Translation

The thing with a C64 when I grew up was: almost everyone had one. And it was very easy to copy games. In those days we used cassettes, and many stereo systems had two cassette decks and high-speed dubbing.
Later we moved to disks, and it was easy to pick up your floppy drive and go to a friend, connect both drives, and copy disks quickly.
I even had some friends who originally had a different 8-bit machine, like an Atari 8-bit or an MSX, but eventually got a C64, because it was just the machine to have for games, and they had become very cheap by the late 80s.
I guess it's just part of childhood for my entire generation. EVERYONE has played on a C64, even if they haven't owned one themselves. They were just everywhere. Also in schools and such.

Scali wrote on 2023-09-25, 18:41:

[..]
I guess it's just part of childhood for my entire generation. EVERYONE has played on a C64, even if they haven't owned one themselves. They were just everywhere. Also in schools and such.

They even were known in ex-DDR (GDR, East Germany).
I known someone who remembers C64 advertisements in the Funkamateur magazine.
That someone is still angry about the high prices of the C64.

The Funkamateur was DDR's most popular magazine about radio and electronics (it still exists, but as a radio magazine, again)..
In DDR, the C64 was highly sought after, almost an unobtainium sort of piece.

The legend says some Eastern Germans had advertised requests such as "Who gives an East German a C64 for free?".

Apparently, they believed we were all dirt rich and C64s were worth nothing here (West-Germany was seen as the "Golden West", some sort of "the land of milk and honey"; even Poland and Yugoslavia were seen as rich countries).

Anyway, back to topic. East German kids couldn't afford a C64, because it was extremely expensive (salary worth of a couple of months) and only sold in Intershops for hard West German Mark (D-Mark aka DM). An Amiga costed like 1,5 Trabant cars, I believe (roughly).

That's why gifts by West German relatives were the only way to get hold of a C64.
A kind and generous grandma in the West was their only hope.
Here, the C64 was relatively cheap. The Commodore factory in Braunschweig wasn't far away, either.

Diskettes.. They didn't really exist in DDR, except for business users/party members etc. which used real PCs.
The poor people used musical cassettes, MC, of low quality.
Not even computer cassettes/datasettes with good magnetic material.

The country was so poor that distribution via FM radio was done.
Kids/adults with their cassette recorders did record the programs they wanted via radio cassette recorder (there were a few youth radio shows for KC85/C64 users).

Devices which recorded sine signals as used by music, rather than true computer audio (C64 datasette is digital, TTL with square waves).
So the filter/error correction had a lot to do.

Other way of software distribution was done via computer clubs.
However, the Staatssicherheit ('Stasi', that secret agency) always had an eye on them.

Interestingly, they encouraged the interest in computer use, because they hoped it would turn kids into computer experts, useful for digital warfare and espionage.

In the last years of the country, there even was some kind of recognition as a type of sports, Computersport.

However, some popular games were indexed and renamed beyond recognition (they all got weird German names).
Officially, anything embracing warfare or anti-UdSSR was highly prohibited.
So computer clubs always had to be careful. Spys were everywhere.

That being said, I'm speaking under correction here.
I merely repeat what I read and what I was told.

Here's an article by Spiegel Zeit magazine which has more information about gaming in the GDR.

Englisch article

Edit: Oh, and a Commodore was a "Komodore", a Computer sometimes a "Komputer".
English wasn't exactly a strength over there, I assume. Their English teachers had horrible pronunciation, from what I heard.
A "meeting" was a "meh-ting", "Wednesday" was "Wes-an-day" etc.
Anyway, my (non-existent) Russian isn't any better, so I think we shouldn't judge.
Still strange though how these people germanized the international technical terms.
It feels so weird reading them.

Edit: Typo fixed.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-09-25, 19:27:

The poor people used musical cassettes, MC, of low quality.
Not even computer cassettes/datasettes with good magnetic material.

Lol, nobody used those "computer cassettes".
We considered that a scam.
We just used cheap ('normal/ferro/Type I') music cassettes, usually the 60 minute variety. Longer tapes might be too heavy and cause issues with the belt-driven Datasette.
Like Sony HF, TDK D, BASF LH and such.

My gut feeling was that the C64 community would be larger than the DOS/Win9X one. If you're only interested in playing games, you can get a C64 game running in an emulator pretty quickly. That's not always the case for old DOS and Windows games. Even with DOSBox it can be hard getting certain up and running.

If you compare the Google trends for DOSBox and C64, DOSBox has actually been slightly more popular over time:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date … ox,C64&hl=en-GB

Keep in mind that DOSBox is a more specific search term than C64. It is just a subset of what retro PC gamers are interested in, whereas C64 relates to all things for that computer. Maybe we are underestimating the popularity of our hobby.

Scali wrote on 2023-09-25, 20:17:

Lol, nobody used those "computer cassettes". We considered that a scam. We just used cheap ('normal/ferro/Type I') music cassett […]
Show full quote

Jo22 wrote on 2023-09-25, 19:27:

The poor people used musical cassettes, MC, of low quality.
Not even computer cassettes/datasettes with good magnetic material.

Lol, nobody used those "computer cassettes".
We considered that a scam.
We just used cheap ('normal/ferro/Type I') music cassettes, usually the 60 minute variety. Longer tapes might be too heavy and cause issues with the belt-driven Datasette.
Like Sony HF, TDK D, BASF LH and such.

Hm, I see. My dad mostly had used real datasettes (little tape, but very sturdy) or chromium-dioxide music cassette, for the higher audio quality (signal-noise ratio).

Anyhow, he was a business user, not a gamer. The computer in question, was a Sharp MZ-80K from the 70s.
The datasette system was using 1200 Baud, FSK, quite similar to the later VC-20/64 datasette deck.

In Japan, the MZ-80K/A/C played the role of an early personal computer.
There's an interesting YouTube video about it, still controlling a sewing machine (the Sharp has the patterns stored on real datasette).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWJZFQHklBg

gerry wrote on 2023-09-25, 16:44:

maybe that's why - 1 product experienced by millions around the world creating a store of shared experience that ignites fans decades later

and it was decidedly a home system, for fun - for games and hobbyists. affordable for many too and often part of people's impressionable childhood

vintage computers cover all sorts of diverse experiences spread among all kinds of diverse people. Expensive at the time and often rather 'serious' with gaming as a small part of the whole, certainly less likely to be the machine a child might be lucky enough to have for themselves in their room, at least back then

Very good points!
That must be it. Yes, PCs have a whole galaxy of products behind, as opposed to just that 1 product: the C64. So, theoretically, the sum of that whole galaxy should produce a greater push. But I guess what you're saying is that, due to the broad variety and number of PC products, any possible efforts and energies involved get 'dispersed' through the multitude. Whereas, with C64, everyone is focused on that 1 thing.
That must make it simpler to create initiatives and traction around that 1 product. Plus the price difference and broader popularity of the C64...

Jo22 wrote on 2023-09-25, 17:18:

Yes, I think that sums it up pretty well. While I do have a love/hate relationship with the C64 of some sorts, I must admit that […]
Show full quote

Yes, I think that sums it up pretty well.
While I do have a love/hate relationship with the C64 of some sorts, I must admit that it has a fine community, very human.

It values things in a more spiritual way, talks less about money and economics. [...]

That's something I highly admire, the idealistic take. It's rare in this day of consumerism.

That's why I bothered to restore an old C64 I got of a friend long ago.
The humble breadbin meant a lot to said friend.

Because technically, for someone who grew up with Z80 computers and AT PCs, the C64 is a very primitive piece of scrap metal.

It's buggy, slow, unreliable (SID paddle input breaks, PLA often defective, broken serial port, bad PSU, noisy video/RFI issues etc, brutal 1541 drive) and very unprofessional (not suitable for serious work).

And massproduced, cheap, a product made by the worker class for the worker class.
The lower end of society who do repetitive work without stopping by to valuing the beauty of life and the wonders of this world.

But simultaneously, the C64, as a tool, had bern in hands of very fine individuals with lots of optimism and phantasy.

And it was these people who had written fascinating text adventures, very specific/unique software and who had created art.

Due to its affordability, it also had been given in the hands of the youth, which did do experiment with it.
Not just games, but also interfacing electronic construction kits or learning to program.

And I try to respect this, as best as possible. Even though it's no always being easy.
Some people and the press make the C64 a cult, which increases my aversion against the machine.

Here in my country, the C64 fandom sometimes has the intellectual horizon of the ugly Werner comics, Playboy and the Bild magazine.
It's the kind of intellectual/cultural level I really struggle with. I find it gross, in short.

Gratefully, the active C64 community members aren't like that.
They're not compairing the Apollo Guidance Computer or Zuse Z22 with an C64, they know better about history.
It rather consists of tinkerers who can speak in complete sentences and hold an soldering iron. Amen. 🙂🙏

Best regards,
Jo22

Edit: Or in other ways, the C64 was like the Trabant ('Trabi') car from former East Germany.
Or the Yugo/Jugo car from former Yugoslavia.
It was very poor, but it touched the heart of the owners.
It's like an old friend, a family member (like the car in 'Go Trabi Go').
That's why the C64 is more than just a random computer, I believe. 🙂

Edit: The Amiga might be similarly beloved, albeit the community is smaller.
As a more expensive, higher end system that's understandable.
Only the real computer fans could/would afford one at the time, not the lowest caste of society.

Other notable, but more nationally popular home computers maybe were the Apple II/Mac (US schools), TRS 'Trash 80' (US), the BBC Micros (UK), Mupid (Austria) and the Thomson TO/MO series (France), I think. Maybe MSX, too, in Japan/parts of Europe.
By contrast, the C64 was universally known/beloved across the borders.

Indeed, very good points yours as well.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-09-25, 18:39:

Speaking of, there's an upcoming C64 party at Sternwarte Bochum in Germany, to celebrate the C64's 40th anniversary (party is on […]
Show full quote

Speaking of, there's an upcoming C64 party at Sternwarte Bochum in Germany, to celebrate the C64's 40th anniversary (party is on October, 21th).

It's Germany's most popular observatory, which also had witnessed things like launch of Sputnik and the Apollo landings..

Details here:

https://www.darc.de/en/der-club/distrikte/y/n … dspruch-372023/

Englisch Translation

😳 Speaking of which indeed!

Scali wrote on 2023-09-25, 18:41:

The thing with a C64 when I grew up was: almost everyone had one. And it was very easy to copy games. In those days we used cass […]
Show full quote

The thing with a C64 when I grew up was: almost everyone had one. And it was very easy to copy games. In those days we used cassettes, and many stereo systems had two cassette decks and high-speed dubbing.
Later we moved to disks, and it was easy to pick up your floppy drive and go to a friend, connect both drives, and copy disks quickly.
I even had some friends who originally had a different 8-bit machine, like an Atari 8-bit or an MSX, but eventually got a C64, because it was just the machine to have for games, and they had become very cheap by the late 80s.
I guess it's just part of childhood for my entire generation. EVERYONE has played on a C64, even if they haven't owned one themselves. They were just everywhere. Also in schools and such.

Yeah, that must be too.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-09-25, 19:27:

They even were known in ex-DDR (GDR, East Germany). [...]

I known someone who remembers C64 advertisements in the Funkamateur magazine.
That someone is still angry about the high prices of the C64.

The Funkamateur was DDR's most popular magazine about radio and electronics (it still exists, but as a radio magazine, again)..
In DDR, the C64 was highly sought after, almost an unobtainium sort of piece.

The legend says some Eastern Germans had advertised requests such as "Who gives an East German a C64 for free?".

Apparently, they believed we were all dirt rich and C64s were worth nothing here (West-Germany was seen as the "Golden West", some sort of "the land of milk and honey"; even Poland and Yugoslavia were seen as rich countries).

Anyway, back to topic. East German kids couldn't afford a C64, because it was extremely expensive (salary worth of a couple of months) and only sold in Intershops for hard West German Mark (D-Mark aka DM). An Amiga costed like 1,5 Trabant cars, I believe (roughly).

That's why gifts by West German relatives were the only way to get hold of a C64.
A kind and generous grandma in the West was their only hope.
Here, the C64 was relatively cheap. The Commodore factory in Braunschweig wasn't far away, either.

Diskettes.. They didn't really exist in DDR, except for business users/party members etc. which used real PCs.
The poor people used musical cassettes, MC, of low quality.
Not even computer cassettes/datasettes with good magnetic material.

The country was so poor that distribution via FM radio was done.
Kids/adults with their cassette recorders did record the programs they wanted via radio cassette recorder (there were a few youth radio shows for KC85/C64 users).

Devices which recorded sine signals as used by music, rather than true computer audio (C64 datasette is digital, TTL with square waves).
So the filter/error correction had a lot to do.

Other way of software distribution was done via computer clubs.
However, the Staatssicherheit ('Stasi', that secret agency) always had an eye on them.

Interestingly, they encouraged the interest in computer use, because they hoped it would turn kids into computer experts, useful for digital warfare and espionage.

In the last years of the country, there even was some kind of recognition as a type of sports, Computersport.

However, some popular games were indexed and renamed beyond recognition (they all got weird German names).
Officially, anything embracing warfare or anti-UdSSR was highly prohibited.
So computer clubs always had to be careful. Spys were everywhere.

That being said, I'm speaking under correction here.
I merely repeat what I read and what I was told.

Here's an article by Spiegel Zeit magazine which has more information about gaming in the GDR.

Englisch article

Edit: Oh, and a Commodore was a "Komodore", a Computer sometimes a "Komputer".
English wasn't exactly a strength over there, I assume. Their English teachers had horrible pronunciation, from what I heard.
A "meeting" was a "meh-ting", "Wednesday" was "Wes-an-day" etc.
Anyway, my (non-existent) Russian isn't any better, so I think we shouldn't judge.
Still strange though how these people germanized the international technical terms.
It feels so weird reading them.

Edit: Typo fixed.

Wow! Your detailed story is fascinating. And also sad, seeing how low the standards of living can fall, for millions of people, because of the incapacity of a bunch, few dozens politicians, to manage any nation. How vulnerable we all are, in the hands of idiots (I'm not referring to any country exclusively, but the the entire world).

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2023-09-25, 20:26:

My gut feeling was that the C64 community would be larger than the DOS/Win9X one. If you're only interested in playing games, yo […]
Show full quote

My gut feeling was that the C64 community would be larger than the DOS/Win9X one. If you're only interested in playing games, you can get a C64 game running in an emulator pretty quickly. That's not always the case for old DOS and Windows games. Even with DOSBox it can be hard getting certain up and running.

If you compare the Google trends for DOSBox and C64, DOSBox has actually been slightly more popular over time:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date … ox,C64&hl=en-GB

Keep in mind that DOSBox is a more specific search term than C64. It is just a subset of what retro PC gamers are interested in, whereas C64 relates to all things for that computer. Maybe we are underestimating the popularity of our hobby.

mmm.... this makes me think...
Still, let's assume our PC-hobby is more popular. We must be less 'effective' or less 'committed' (or probably both) in creating something out of it!

Jo22 wrote on 2023-09-25, 20:37:

In Japan, the MZ-80K/A/C played the role of an early personal computer.
There's an interesting YouTube video about it, still controlling a sewing machine (the Sharp has the patterns stored on real datasette).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWJZFQHklBg

Yea, and they do exactly what we did:
Standard cheap audio tape.
In this case you see them inserting a Maxell UR-90 tape.
(There really was no point to using chromium or better, as the signal quality or signal-to-noise were pretty much irrelevant given the crude encoding used... High quality tape generally was also heavier, which was only a downside for the cheap and simple decks used for computers).

aries-mu wrote on 2023-09-25, 20:44:

Still, let's assume our PC-hobby is more popular. We must be less 'effective' or less 'committed' (or probably both) in creating something out of it!

I don't think it is.
PC's are rather boring, generic machines.
Many people may have used them in the past, but they are not likely to feel as nostalgic about it as the C64.
It's like with classic cars. Some cars are exciting, like old Ferrari's, Jaguars, Aston Martins and what-have-you.
Most cars were just transportation back in the day, and nobody really cared about them, even though there were many more of these generic cars than the few 'classics' that everyone is so excited about.

The C64 was my very first computer that I got around 1987 or so, and I still have it in fully working condition. That little guy introduced me the concept of programming, and I played some nice games like Elite and Gunship on it. Still, I almost never use it nowadays.

While I do have some good memories with the C64, waiting 5-10 minutes for larger games to load from tape is something I'm not too keen on re-living. In the early '90s, I quickly dropped the C64 in favor of the (then new) SNES and Sega Mega Drive which could provide graphics and sound that more closely (but not perfectly) matched arcade games.

A few years later, I got my first PC and the experience was so much better than what I had on the C64. Been a PC gamer ever since, while still using consoles on the side. Funny thing is, I don't really have much nostalgia for the C64, while I'm very fond of retro PCs and consoles. Not sure why exactly, maybe I was too young to fully appreciate the C64 at that time, and my interest in it has only diminished further over the years.

Scali wrote on 2023-09-26, 07:05:

I don't think it is. PC's are rather boring, generic machines. Many people may have used them in the past, but they are not like […]
Show full quote

I don't think it is.
PC's are rather boring, generic machines.
Many people may have used them in the past, but they are not likely to feel as nostalgic about it as the C64.
It's like with classic cars. Some cars are exciting, like old Ferrari's, Jaguars, Aston Martins and what-have-you.
Most cars were just transportation back in the day, and nobody really cared about them, even though there were many more of these generic cars than the few 'classics' that everyone is so excited about.

Scali, your analogy, although interesting and clear, might not be applicable to the topic at hand. Because, in the end, a car is just a car. Yes, you can put some music in it, but it only does ONE thing: it carries you around.

Computers, on the other hand, can do many different things, such as (but not only): write, read, play games, program, do math, watch pictures, video, etc... And each one of these things can be done using countless different tools, programs, etc. Countless different games...

So, actually, your analogy might even be used to prove the opposite point!

While cars are fundamentally boring / tiring, because they can only do 1 thing (carry you), computers can let you do many different things... So, in a comparison of C64 with PCs, since you can do many more things with PCs than with C64s, the C64 might be closer to the 'boring cars' of your analogy, whereas PCs might feel closer to the 'fun cars' of your analogy...

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-09-26, 08:12:

The C64 was my very first computer that I got around 1987 or so, and I still have it in fully working condition. That little guy introduced me the concept of programming, and I played some nice games like Elite and Gunship on it. Still, I almost never use it nowadays.

While I do have some good memories with the C64, waiting 5-10 minutes for larger games to load from tape is something I'm not too keen on re-living. In the early '90s, I quickly dropped the C64 in favor of the (then new) SNES and Sega Mega Drive which could provide graphics and sound that more closely (but not perfectly) matched arcade games.

A few years later, I got my first PC and the experience was so much better than what I had on the C64. Been a PC gamer ever since, while still using consoles on the side. Funny thing is, I don't really have much nostalgia for the C64, while I'm very fond of retro PCs and consoles. Not sure why exactly, maybe I was too young to fully appreciate the C64 at that time, and my interest in it has only diminished further over the years.

What you said is very important! You made me realize something I never really noticed: I too had childhood experiences with a piece of tech much earlier than my first PC: it was the NES. Oh so many games, fond memories, adventures, meeting with friends playing together, trying to solve absurd riddles... I think the NES experience might feel similar to the C64 experience in childhood. And yet, what you made me realize is that I am more fond and attached to retro PCs than to NES.
If I have a moment of free time and I google somthing, or I search something on eBay, it's about retro PCs, not about NES and related.

I don't think it's an early age issue. I suspect it has something to do with the broadness of the experiences we had with some products. The experience with PCs was MUCH broader. On the NES I could only play games. On PCs, besides playing games (and waaaay more games), I could do a lot of other things. There were so many more products (hardware too) that I could crave for, desire, but never buy, which made my passion for PC burn higher and higher for years... it's a whole universe to explore the one of PCs, and it never ends. Whereas, the C64 experience is limited.

Still, I see much more passion coming from the C64 people than from the retro PCs people.