Posts Tagged ‘Commodore’
Friday at the Movies: Cloak & Dagger
The 1980s was a weird time for movies. It seems like during this time period that younger kids between the ages of 8-14 were a demographic that was heavily marketed to. While I concede that films of today like anything animated by Pixar or even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are marketed to kids, it doesn’t seem like the movies are specifically created to speak to them. Cloak & Dagger is a film I can’t imagine was marketed for anyone other than young boys that were into G.I. Joe, played video games, and struggled with their parents. So, yeah, every young boy. It tells the tale of an 11-year-old Texas boy named Davey (played by Henry Thomas just after his big debut in E.T.) that is obsessed with a spy role playing game Cloak & Dagger starring a James Bond type named Jack Flack. One day Davey witnesses real terrorists trying to deliver confidential government materials in an Atari 5200 video game cart and of course the world doesn’t believe him because he’s already annoyed them profusely with his imaginary spy nonsense. What I love about this movie is that it speaks to kids at their level and, believe it or not, sneaks in plenty of after school lessons that will hopefully better equip them for handling the real world. If you are into brand marketing the way we all were in the 80s, you won’t be able to ignore the glut of Atari references. This film released in the summer of 1984, which is quite an ironic time to have a film engulfed in Atari marketing since the crash of 1983 was in full effect. I’m sure when it was filming and when the deals were signed, this was at least a year earlier when Atari ruled supreme. Nowadays you will want to watch this film not because of its entertainment merit per se, it is still a movie made for and talking to pre-teens, but more because of the hybrid of going back to your youth and nostalgia for the time period.
Podcast: The Keyboard is the Computer
Microcomputers were a significant part of gaming in the world for the better part of the 80s and early 90s. In the United States, they were more of a hobby at lower price points or only for those willing to shell out large sums. That all changed in 1982 when the Commodore 64 hit the market. In other countries, the C64 was present and significant, but not quite to the degree as in the US. In a time when the console world was crashing, the C64 became the go-to gaming platform for the early to mid 80s. Special guest Eric Bouchard from Everyday Gamers joins Fred to discuss their childhood microcomputer with a plethora of great games.
Lost Treasures of Gaming: U-Boat
For this week’s Lost Treasures of Gaming podcast Sean and Syd were talking to Vic-20 programmer Mark Vittek. Fred shows you what the original program from 1983’s article of Compute! looked like and then plays a few rounds to show off just how much muscle the Commodore Vic-20 had in only 4K of RAM.
This was captured in conjunction with the Lost Treasures of Gaming podcast on OMG Nexus. Lost Treasures of Gaming on Gaming History 101’s Twitch channel can be watched live every Friday night at 11:30 pm EST.
Podcast: Ready (Blinking Cursor)
This week Fred is joined by two special guests: EZ Mode Unlocked hostess Dana (@canadiandana) and listener Xenocore to discuss the illustrious Commodore 64, the only microcomputer to truly catch on the United States. After a few stories of everyone’s introduction to the C64 they go on to discuss the development, history, and of course mountain of innovative and unique titles available for computer/console hybrid.
Hardware Profile: Commodore 64
Release Date: August 1982
Manufacturer: Commodore
Retail Price: $595.00 (approx $1400 with inflation rates today)
Units Sold: Over 12 million (conflicting reports of 12-17 million)
Not So Humble Beginnings
Before personalized computers were called “PCs” (or MACs for all you Apple people), they were better known as “microcomputers”. The name derives from the relatively small size and price of a computer with a microprocessor as the CPU and the same basic input/output structure for data and information. Much like PCs of today, this allowed software and game programmers to design a title all around one basic data flow and configuration and then optimize each specific microcomputer release for the specifications of that computer. American consumers even today are used to much lower prices than other countries and were slow to embrace the cost and concept of a microcomputer. That is, until the Commodore 64. At the time of its release the only major competitors in the US were the Apple II and Atari 800, boasting hefty price tags of $1200 and $900 respectively. With most game consoles priced at the time around $200 and some, like the ColecoVision, having computer add-ons for $400, the price endured for a microcomputer was restricted to certain households of higher income (and this doesn’t even include the cost for a monitor and desk to put it all in). Commodore had a different plan and thanks to vertical manufacturing and two strong chips to handle graphics and audio, the company went about making a microcomputer that could compete with the Apple II and less than half the price.
Gaming History 101 