This past weekend, over at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. (a short distance away from the Google campus), Woz and other computer luminaries gathered round and discussed the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64, one of the earliest personal computers, which was released in 1982.
As CNET’s Daniel Terdiman points out, it went toe-to-toe with the Apple IIe, back in the day. He argues that the competition between the more expensive Apple computers and the C64 is not unlike the Windows/Mac split of today.
But the tech gurus weren’t buying it:“The only difference was the price,” [former Commodore CEO Jack] Tramiel said. “Because it seems that in this country, if you sell something cheaper, it couldn’t be as good. If it’s more expensive, and it’s the same product, that must be a better product. That didn’t stop me. I still wanted to sell it for a low price. If a person pays three times as much for a computer, he has to be proud of it, because he paid for it.”
Fair enough. But does he agree that there was a culture war, maybe even one akin to today’s Mac/Windows split?
Not really, Tramiel suggested. In fact, how could there be a culture war when one platform has 95 percent of the users, he asked. Never mind that Mac users are probably infinitely more passionate about their machines than Windows users.
Woz chimed in too:Woz didn’t seem to buy it either. In fact, his position was that, secretly, most C64 users really fancied themselves Apple IIe users.
“I talked to young people,” Woz said, “and a lot of Commodore 64 users (told me they) would have gotten an Apple II if they could afford it.”
He added that users felt they could learn more from the Apple’s open system, while the C64’s closed architecture offered only a cheaper price.
I would argue that if anything, this shows (and heck, so does this blog) that Mac users are indeed the most proud users in the industry
AWESOME!
The C64c was my first ever computer-this was around 1984? Or Maybe 1986? I was still in elementary school (8th grade in '86). Not only that but I was rockin' a 1200 bps modem and would connect via Qlink!!!!
Coolio; boy, my Commodore 64c was a nifty machine...I would enter BASIC commands to create games (that I nicked from the magazine).
Love live the Jumpman!
I don't know that the Apple ][ was any more open than the C64. My C64 came with a full circuit diagram of the system, and a manual that explained much the same things the Apple ][ manual did.
I didn't have a C64 (I had an Atari 800), but my best friend did. And watching him play Ultima IV on it hooked me into computer RPGs for life.
I still have a few of my c-64's in storage, and a couple of amigas as well. they are still great to play with occasionally. It really is SLOW though, it never seemed so slow back then, i guess we get spoiled