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Newer page: version 5 Last edited on Friday, August 15, 2003 5:41:30 pm by AristotlePagaltzis
Older page: version 4 Last edited on Sunday, August 10, 2003 5:23:05 pm by CraigBox Revert
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 The [Commodore] 64 is the best selling personal computer of all time. Over 10,000+ programs were written for it, both commerically and in public domain circles. Sold between 20-25 million units during its remarkable lifetime (1982-1992). 
  
 http://www.commodore.ca/products/c64/commodore_64.htm 
  
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+The hardware was quite capable, but the BASIC dialect was relatively limited. To really take exploit the machine's power, you had to write machine code. This was in stark contrast with the [Acorn] [BBC].  
  
-I have no idea what the bit below is meant to mean:  
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-The graphics and sound on the Commodore were hopeless through BASIC, whereas the BBC32K BASIC had PLOT functions that were really functional in producing graphics and the sound system had an envelope command that was similarly distinguished. The design feature that really set the BBC32K apart from the mob across the Atlantic was its use of interrupts and the modularity of its operating system. It had a buffered keyboard and sound system and a MOS that did all the basic functions like video graphics, buffered keyboard, vectored interrupts, buffered sound, and then happily serviced 16k ROMs that could equally carry networking (yes THE computer and THE feature in the 70's that Bill was surprised to know even existed), BASIC, LOGO, PASCAL, FORTH etc. It took another 10 years until Linux came along before saw a similar level of network/OS integration. The Commodore had to use machine code to beat it, but then that's not BASIC!  
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 CategoryOldComputers