Commodore 64

Commodore showed the 64 at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 1982 and shipped it that August for $595. It gave home users 64 kilobytes of memory, colour graphics and a real synthesizer chip, for less than rivals charged for far less.

Inside

• CPU: MOS 6510 at about 1 MHz

• Memory: 64KB RAM

• Graphics: VIC-II chip, 16 colours, 320 x 200, 8 hardware sprites

• Sound: SID 6581, three voices

• Language: Commodore BASIC V2, ready the moment you switch on

How many?

Estimates of total sales run from about 12.5 million to 17 million. Sources disagree, but every count puts it ahead of any other single computer model.

Later models

The C64C of 1986 put the same machine in a slimmer case. Production ended in 1994, when Commodore went bankrupt.

Why it mattered

Jack Tramiel's price cuts put the 64 in department stores and toy shops. A generation learned to program on it, and thousands of games, demos and bulletin boards were built for it.