When it released, it cost $595 (back then, not in today's money), considering the price dropped to just $229 the following year, that was not a good buy when it came out.

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noir_lord 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not unusual in that era though, home computers were evolving ridiculously fast.

There was only 5 years between the C64 and the Amiga 500 which launched for $699 (adjusted for inflation, using https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ $595 comes out to $700), it was a wild time to be into computers, I didn't start til 1987 (I was 7) and the pace of progress was crazy to grow up through.

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TacticalCoder 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It's even a bit crazier than that: the Commodore Amiga 1000 came out in 1985, a bit less than three years after the C64, in july 1985.

A friend of mine, whose father was an art teacher, had an Amiga 1000 at home. Mind blown (I'm super lucky for later on another friend had an early SGI Indy at home for his stepfather was president of SGI Benelux). So I got to see and salivate on those mythic machines early on.

Of course I was stuck on the C64 until the Amiga 500, way more affordable, came out.

Still have my C128 and it was still working last time I cleaned it/tried it (when I was locked inside during Covid) and a few floppy disks were still reading fine (so I took a NOS --new old stock-- pack of 5"1/4 floppies and made a copy of Fast Hack'em and a copy of the Commando game): pure time capsule.

Fetched two C64s too: I know the PSU is tricky on the C64 and I don't know if those work or not. I've got floppy disk readers too.

But reading that headline is bittersweet: I was nine in 1982, I'm now 53. Where have all those years gone? Don't get me wrong, I had a great life (so far) and I'd replay it just the same but... It's still bittersweet to think about my mates and I learning to code on those 8-bit machines. And the games. So many games...

	▲	noir_lord 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> I'm now 53. Where have all those years gone? Feel that way every time I see a YT video on a "retro" computer I would have been able to play while having a beer legally (18 in the UK so 1998), it's then a shock to realise that was nearly 30 years ago. > Don't get me wrong, I had a great life (so far) and I'd replay it just the same. So would I and I didn't have a great life but if I alter the past I don't meet my missus/have my family so as much as it did suck, I'm happy now and don't want to change anything. > And the games. So many games... Still a gamer, there are three constants in my life, programming, reading and video games (roughly in that order).
	▲	mgkimsal 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> But reading that headline is bittersweet: I was nine in 1982, I'm now 53. Where have all those years gone? Don't get me wrong, I had a great life (so far) and I'd replay it just the same but... It's still bittersweet to think about my mates and I learning to code on those 8-bit machines. And the games. So many games... Yep. 10 here. A lot of the same feelings.

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vintermann 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's one of the more popular retro-computers, but cheap to get into, there are a lot of them around: it's still always cheaper than its original sticker price! I think I paid more for the replacement power supply (the original ones haven't aged well, and have been known to fry them).

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mgkimsal 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It was a good buy for folks who got in early to build software/games for it. Friend of family was building games in 1982/1983 and had some early clones of games out (pacman, centipede, frogger clones, etc) and... while there were a lot of early publishers, it was fairly cheap to do in the early days, and they made more than enough to justify the $595 price (multiple units, IIRC).

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roter 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We ordered one of the first batch in Canada. $$$. They gave us a Vic20 loaner until it arrived. We didn't time it well but the family had a history of that. In fact, my accountant dad bought a Wang mainframe for a small fortune right before everyone was switching to ibm clone desktops.

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msabalau 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

But if you pre-ordered, you got a tape drive, which was, like, a $75 value!