The iconic Commodore 64 has marked its 30th anniversary this week, pioneering the concept of home computing and opening the door to the likes of Atari, Microsoft and Apple. This BBC video introduces school children of today to the granddaddy of home computing to see if it still holds appeal to the ‘Facebook generation’.
In August 1982 the Commodore 64 was launched and a legend was born. The C64 went on to become the best selling computer model of all time with nearly 17 million units sold during its lifetime.
The £399 machine helped to encourage personal computing, popularise video games and pioneer homemade computer-created music.
As well as launching with twice the RAM of many rivals the C64 featured advanced graphics and sound chips that gave it capabilities beyond that of many pricier rivals.
The graphics and sound capabilities made it a popular gaming machine and during its lifetime the machine had over 10,000 commercial software titles developed for it, many of them games but also some productivity applications.
The BBC have published a video today of young people in schools being exposed to a C64 and asks them what they think of the machine.
So what would today’s youth make of the C64?
BBC News invited Commodore enthusiast Mat Allen to show schoolchildren his carefully preserved computer, at a primary school and secondary school in London. Most are politely underwhelmed, though a lot of screen time was spend watching games load from the tape drive.
Watch the video from the BBC below:
