the picture you see above is the number one best selling computer of all time. why you may ask? well it's simple, sit down chaps and let me tell you a bloody story about the word's best selling computer of all time: the commodore 64
it began in January 1981, commodore started the development of the C64 (commodore 64 for short) commodore already bought MOS technology and they have everything they need to build the next gen 8-Bit home computer. it was code-named the VIC-40 after their previous line computer named the VIC-20 which the name soon be changed to C64. the
the computer has everything it needs to be a champion. the C64 already have a killer ab (excellent software) Microsoft BASIC, an advanced 8-Bit graphics, & an advanced sound chip also known as the SID chip. The C64 made an impressive debut at the January 1982 but oh boy things were about to get crazy
The home computer price war
the year 1982 came along. IBM already dominated the home computer market, Apple released its popular apple II computer and commodore is about to blow those two computers out of the water with the big gun: the commodore 64. as a side note Commodore had a reputation for announcing products that never appeared okay end of the side note. Production began in spring 1982 and volume shipments began in August. In the United States, the greatest competitors were the Atari 8-bit400, the Atari 800, the Apple II, and the IBM computer but commodore is about to spice the competition up.
Then the year 1983 arrived and after some difficulties, commodore is ready for home computer war. do the most genius move ever by cutting the price from $600 to $300, this strategy proved to be very effective because the C64 itself is not a weak computer, it was a powerful computer equipped with powerful graphics and advanced sound not to mention a really low price, all of these advantages pushed the C64 to the top of the computer chain and setting itself to be the number one best selling & most popular home computer of all time.
let's dive in into the technical details of the C64 itself. because Commodore sold the C64 not only through its network of authorized dealers but also through department stores, discount stores, toy stores, and college bookstores it have a major advantage over its competitors, this kind of stuff makes the C64 easier to reach and easier to buy. The C64 had a built-in RF modulator and thus could be plugged into any television set. This allowed it (like its predecessor, the VIC-20) to compete directly against video game consoles such as the Atari 2600. Like the Apple IIe, the C64 could also output a composite video signal, avoiding the RF modulator altogether. This allowed the C64 to be plugged into a specialized monitor for a sharper picture. Unlike the IIe, the C64's NTSC output capability also included separate luminance/chroma signal output equivalent to (and electrically compatible with)S-Video, for connection to the commodore 1702 monitor, providing even better video quality than a composite signal.
and now let us get to the juiciest part of this story, and that is the rising popularity of the C64. Aggressive pricing of the C64 is considered to have been a major catalyst in the North American video game crash of 1983. In January 1983, Commodore offered a $100 rebate in the United States on the purchase of a C64 to anyone that traded in another video game console or computer. To take advantage of this rebate, some mail-order dealers and retailers offered a Timex Sinclair 1000 for as little as $10 with purchase of a C64. This deal meant that the consumer could send the TS1000 to Commodore, collect the rebate, and pocket the difference; Timex Corporation departed the computer market within a year. Commodore's tactics soon led to a price war with the major home computer manufacturers. The success of the VIC-20 and C64 contributed significantly to the exit from the field of Texas Instruments and other smaller competitors.
The price war with Texas Instruments was seen as a personal battle for Commodore president Jack Tramiel. Commodore dropped the C64's list price by $200 within two months after its release. In June 1983 the company lowered the price to $300, and some stores sold the computer for $199. At one point, the company was selling as many C64s as all computers sold by the rest of the industry combined. Meanwhile, the TI lost money by selling the 99/4A for $99. TI's subsequent demise in the home computer industry in October 1983 was seen as revenge for TI's tactics in the electronic calculator market in the mid-1970s, when Commodore was almost bankrupted by TI.
All four machines had similar memory configurations which were standard in 1982–83: 48 KB for the Apple II+ (upgraded within months of C64's release to 64 KB with the Apple IIe) and 48 KB for the Atari 800. At upwards of $1,200, the Apple II was about twice as expensive, while the Atari 800 cost $899. One key to the C64's success was Commodore's aggressive marketing tactics, and they were quick to exploit the relative price/performance divisions between its competitors with a series of television commercials after the C64's launch in late 1982. The company also published detailed documentation to help developers, while Atari initially kept technical information secret.
Although many early C64 games were inferior Atari 8-bit ports, by late 1983 the growing installed base caused developers to create new software with better graphics and sound. It was the only non-discontinued, widely available home computer by then, with more than 500,000 sold during the Christmas season; because of production problems in Atari's supply chain, by the start of 1984 "the Commodore 64 largely has [the low-end] market to itself right now", The Washington Post reported
1984-1987 | commodore 64's golden age
With sales booming and the early reliability issues with the hardware addressed, software for the C64 began to grow in size and ambition during 1984. This growth shifted to the primary focus of most US game developers. The two holdouts were Sierra, who largely skipped over the C64 in favor of Apple and PC compatible machines, and Broderbund, who were heavily invested in educational software and developed primarily around the Apple II. In the North American market, the disk format had become nearly universal while cassette and cartridge-based software all-but disappeared. So most US-developed games by this point grew large enough to require multi-loading.
By 1985, games were an estimated 60 to 70% of Commodore 64 software. The year, UK-based Gremlin Graphics released the game Monty on the Run, which was noteworthy for marking a turning point in music composition for the SID chip as musician Rob Hubbard discovered a method of "over driving" the SID to produce music more advanced than the default sound envelopes. The revolution that Hubbard started quickly spread to most European developers, although more conservative American programmers seldom composed SID music with anything other than the default envelopes. At a mid-1984 conference of game developers and experts at Origins Game Fair, Dan Bunten, Sid Meier), and a representative of Avalon Hill said that they were developing games for the C64 first as the most promising market. Computer Gaming World stated in January 1985 that companies such as Epyx that survived the video game crash did so because they "jumped on the Commodore bandwagon early."Over 35% of SSI's 1986 sales were for the C64, ten points higher than for the Apple II. The C64 was even more important for other companies, which often found that more than half the sales for a title ported to six platforms came from the C64 version. That year, Computer Gaming World published a survey of ten game publishers that found that they planned to release forty-three Commodore 64 games that year, compared to nineteen for Atari and forty-eight for Apple II, and Alan Miller stated that Accolade developed first for the C64 because "it will sell the most on that system".
In Europe, the primary competitors to the C64 were British-built computers: the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the BBC Micro and the Amstrad CPC 464. In the UK, the 48K Spectrum had not only been released a few months ahead of the C64's early 1983 debut, but it was also selling for £175, less than half the C64's £399 price. The Spectrum quickly became the market leader and Commodore had an uphill struggle against it in the marketplace. The C64 did however go on to rival the Spectrum in popularity in the latter half of the 1980s. Adjusted to the size of population, the popularity of Commodore 64 was the highest in Finland at roughly 3 units per 100 inhabitants, where it was subsequently marketed as "the Computer of the Republic".
Rumors spread in late 1983 that Commodore would discontinue the C64. By early 1985 the C64's price was $149; with an estimated production cost of $35–50, its profitability was still within the industry-standard markup of two to three times. Commodore sold about one million C64s in 1985 and a total of 3.5 million by mid-1986. Although the company reportedly attempted to discontinue the C64 more than once in favor of more expensive computers such as the Commodore 128, demand remained strong. In 1986, Commodore introduced the 64C, a redesigned 64, which Compute! saw as evidence that—contrary to C64 owners' fears that the company would abandon them in favor of the Amiga and 128—"the 64 refuses to die". Its introduction also meant that Commodore raised the price of the C64 for the first time, which the magazine cited as the end of the home-computer price war.[47] Software sales also remained strong; MicroProse, for example, in 1987 cited the Commodore and IBM PC markets as its top priorities.
1988–1994 | the last glory of commodore 64
in 1988 to 1991 commodore 64's golden age is about to end. 1991 is where the C64's golden age really ended. 1991-1994 is when things begin to change, the C64 begins to die a slow but graceful death, while competitors starting to rise up against commodore's dominance. commodore 64 sold as a whopping 17 million units, it managed to outsold IBM computer and apple II computer and it will always remain that way. no other computer has managed to beat commodore 64 selling point and that just shows you how much of a legend the C64 was.
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