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IN 1985, my parents purchased our first home computer. The Commodore 64 was top of the line. With 64K of RAM, 2400 baud modem, a brilliant display of 16 colours, and amazing sounds from a 3-channel SID chip, there was no comparison. Then, on September 19, 1999, my brother salvaged its dust-covered components from the basement. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that it still works. I was in grade two at the time this amazing piece of technology made its grand entrance to our home. Clearly my priorities were not set on the state of the art word processing and spread sheet functions (which I should point out predated the standard use of "What You See Is What You Get" interfaces, and had a look similar to that of today's HTML coding). Nor was I interested in the ease with which the user could create his or her own programs. It was the countless list of games that caught my attention. Games!! Being such a simple machine to write programs for (most averaged about 170K in size), the Commodore had more games available to the public (licence free and pirated) than anyone could ever play. Legends of having "more games than you could count" was commonplace occurrence. My dad once printed up a catalogue of what games we had and which disks they were on. The last time the list was added to, the number of games in our possession ended somewhere around 950 (we still don't know the exact count). The first game I can recall playing was the infamous "Kickman." In this game, the player controlled a crudely drawn stick man on a unicycle who would frantically kick his legs outward at the press of a button. The object of the game was to kick balloons as they fell to the ground, trying to then catch them on Kickman's head as they bounced around the blocky 2-dimensional city street. Sounds exciting, doesn't it!? And speaking of sound, who could forget the blips, beeps, and squeals that once formed the accompanying soundscape to the games we loved? At the time, these noises provided the sweet sounds that brought the excessively pixilated digital environments to life. Now retired, these sounds are paralleled only by the noise from a modem on dial-up. Though the games themselves are archaic, the concept which made them possible can still be seen today. Look at the set up of the Commodore. Just like today's Nintendo 64, it plugged directly into your television, providing you with joystick ports and a large gap where game cartridges fit. The only obvious difference between the Commodore and modern gaming consoles is that the "console" of the Commodore 64 was a keyboard. Beyond the limits of modern consoles, Commodore game cartridges could be replaced by 5 1/4 inch floppy disks, and peripherals including modems, mice, and printers were all available. It would seem that with improved gaming systems came worse applications of multimedia. With increased file size, games were eventually distributed on CD-ROM, and just now, nearly 15 years after the Commodore 64, Sega has brought back the modem with the release of the new Dreamcast. This adaptation won't be seen in the Sony Playstation until its successor is released next year. Sure. Today's systems have better graphics, and better sound. The games have plots, and goals worth achieving (unlike most of the Commodore classics that just kept going from one level to the next with no change in difficulty or other sign of progress). However, without that embarrassing stage of evolution, we would not be where we are today. The technology is now available to give games life-like visual and audio effects, and although game writers have discovered the concept of plot, there is no doubt where it all came from. It was the Commodore that gave birth to the original 2-Dimensional, static screen, Mario Brothers who now stand as the most predominant characters in the world of Nintendo. Today, the Commodore 64 still lives on. No longer a technological break through, and far from impressive, its now goes by the name of "nostalgia." Just can't let the memories go? Emulators are available on the Net to bring the Commodore 64 experience to your present day computer regardless of the platform you are using. Today's consoles have the previous decade's machines beat hands down, but to me (and most of my generation), a game just isn't a game unless you had to type load"*",8,1 to start it.
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