A Commodore 64 (C64, CBM 64, C=64) occurs as home computer with 64 kilobytes of RAM that was popular in the 1980s. Discharged to the public inside August 1982 at the price of $595 USD, it offered unprecedented value in healthy & graphics performance. By having figured sales between 17 & 25 million units until discontinuance around 1993, a C64 remains one of a right-selling computer system ever.

Unlike computers that were distributed just across authorised dealers, Commodore Business Machines also targeted department places & toy stores. the unit can be plugged directly into a tv & play compelling games, rendering it lot of the appeal of dedicated video game consoles like the Atari 2600. Aggressive pricing of the C64 is considered to become the major catalyst in the video game crash of 1983.

Some 15,000 software titles were made for the Commodore 64 — this includes development information, professional applications, & games. These are too credited sustaining popularizing a computer demo scene. Though a original devices is at present utilized just by two or three hobbyists, emulators allow anyone with the modern computer to start these software in their desktop.

History

Origins
Within January 1981, MOS Technology, Inc., Commodore's integrated-circuit design subsidiary, initiated a project to design the graphic and audio chips for a next generation video game console. design operate for the chips was completed within November 1981, however the console project was shortly cancelled when a meeting by having Commodore president Jack Tramiel. Tramiel wanted the chips to form a base for a computer by using 64 kB of RAM, which was double the total of RAM numbers of computers contained within late 1981. Although 64 kB of RAM was super expensive, Tramiel knew that DRAM prices were falling, and that it would at length drop to an acceptable level prior to running into fully production.

a project team run less than 2 months to get a image then that it can be displayed at the wintertime Consumer Electronics Show in January 1982. The C64 mass produced an telling debut, when David A. Ziembicki, the previous Production Engineer at Commodore, recalled: "All we saw at our booth were Atari people with their mouths dropping open, saying, 'How can you do that for $595?'". A numbers of building every C64 was approximated at America$135 due to Commodore's vertical integration and more crucially, MOS Technology's integrated-circuit fabrication facilities, allowing the big margin to act by owning.

Winning the market war
the C64 faced a wide range of competing machines fallowing its introduction within August 1982. By owning an telling price point coupled by using a 64's advanced devices, it quickly out-classed numerous of its contender. In the United States a greatest competitors to the C64 were the Atari 800 and Apple II. A Atari 800 was super similar inside devices terms, however it was very expensive to build, which shortly forced Atari to move their production to the Far East. It too forced Atari to redesign their machine to exist as other numbers efficient, following in the 600XL/800XL line. A ageing Apple 2 was clearly there are no match for the C64's devices, however it was super expandable by owning its internal slot, the feature lacking in the 64.

In the United Kingdom, a primary contender to the C64 were the British-built Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC. Discharged two or three months ahead of a C64, & selling for nigh half a price, a Spectrum quickly became the market leader. A C64 would rival a Spectrum around popularity inside a latter half of the Eighties sooner or later outliving the Spectrum once it was discontinued in 1992.

A key to the 64's profits was Commodore's aggressive marketing tactics, selling it around emporium, discounter, & toy places additionally to its network of authoritative dealers. This allowed it, such as its predecessor, a VIC-20, to compete against video game consoles.

Within 1983, Commodore offered the $100 rebate in the United States on the purchase of the C64 upon receipt of any streaming game console or even computer. To require benefit of the $100 rebate, the bit of mail-sequentially dealers & retail merchant offered a Timex Sinclair 1000 for when little as $10 by having choose of a C64 thus a consumer may send a computer to Commodore, collect the rebate, & pocket the difference. Timex Corporation departed the marketplace inside a year. A profits of the VIC-20 & C64 too contributed significantly to the departure of Texas Instruments from the home computer field (see TI-99/4A) and to the ill-famed video game crash of 1983.

C64 successors and the 64C

Around 1984 Commodore freed a SX-64, a personal version of the C64. A SX-64 has a distinction of existence a number one good-color personal computer. the base unit featured a Fin inch (127 millimetre) CRT and an integral 1541 floppy disk drive. Fewer than 10,000 got been sold while it was discontinued around 1986.

Commodore attempted inside 1984 to replenish a C64 by owning a Commodore Plus/4, which offered the higher-color display, a better implementation of BASIC (V3.5), & built-constitutional computer software. However Commodore committed a major strategical error of making it incompatible by using a immense C64 software program library. To top it wholly hit, a Plus/4 lacked devices sprite capability and got good deal poorer healthy, so seriously underperforming within both of the areas that experienced mass produced the C64 a star. A freshly machine flopped, to there is no a single's surprise except Commodore's, patch a C64 soldiered in.

Commodore was determined does'nt to repeat a equivalent mistake, & make a point that a eventual successors to a C64—the Commodore 128 and 128D computers (1985)—were when practiced when, & fully compatible using, the original, likewise as offering the carrier of long-sought improvements (like a integrated BASIC sustaining graphics & healthy commands, 80-column display capability, & fully CP/M compatibility). When a Commodore 128 & more manufacturers' other advanced computers come onto a market, Commodore placed a 64 when an entry-level computer, lowering a price as necessary.

Inside 1986, Commodore freed a Commodore 64C (C64C) computer, which was functionally monovular to the original, however whose exterior project was remodelled in the spirit of the C128 & more contemporary project trends. In the U.S., the C64C often came bundled with the third-party GEOS GUI-based operating system.

An active demoscene
At a period of its introduction, a C64's graphics & healthy capabilities were rivaled merely per Atari 8-bit family. This was at the period while virtually all IBM PCs & compatibles experienced text-just graphics cards, green screen monitors, & healthy consisting of squeaks and bleep from either a built-constitutional lilliputian, online-quality speaker. Due to its advanced graphics & healthy, a 64 is typically credited by owning starting a computer subculture called a demoscene (see Commodore 64 demos). When of the turn of the millennium, these are however existence actively utilized as a demonstration machine, especially for music (its sound chip even being utilized around favorite healthy cards for PCs). For tons differently die-rock-ribbed enthusiasts, even so, a C64 misused its top position once a 16-bit Atari ST and Commodore Amiga were released in the mid-80s.

A demoscene is far from either existence dead possibly additional than Xx years when a C64 was invented. As well newly games come existence developed (a select few of the right come available across Protovision, view more links). One of a virtually all noteworthy newly games is probably [http://www.newcomer.hu Enhanced Newcomer], the game that took virtually Tenner years of development.

A differences between PAL and NTSC C64s cause compatibility problems between US/Canadian C64s & people from either virtually all more countries. Virtually all demonstratiin redo merely on the Brother machine.

1990s and 2000s hardware
Within 1990 a C64 was re-freed in the form of a games console, known as the C64 Games System (C64GS). It was essentially the C64 motherboard modified to orient the cartridge connexion to a vertical position, to allow cartridges to become inserted from either above. the limited ROM replaced the BASIC interpreter sustaining a boot screen to inform the user to insert a cartridge. Uncalled-for to say, a C64GS was an additional commercial failure for Commodore, & was never potentially freed outside of Europe. Within 1990/91, an advanced designed successor to a C64, the Commodore 65 (also referred to as a "C64DX"), was prototyped, however never freed.

In a summertime of 2004, when an absence from either the marketplace of further than Decade years, PC manufacturer Tulip Computers BV (owners of the Commodore brand since 1997) announced the C64 Direct-to-TV (C64DTV), a joystick-based TV game based on the C64 by owning Xxx games built into ROM. Intentional by Jeri Ellsworth, a self-taught computer designer world health organization got earliest designed a modern C-One C64 implementation, a C64DTV was similar within construct to more mini-consoles according to the Atari 2600 and Intellivision which had gained mild profits earliest in the decade. A product was advertised in QVC in the United States for the 2004 holiday season.

When of 2005 newly devices was however existence developed by enthusiasts, including Ethernet cards, firm disk & Flash player Card interfaces. Normally, fresh devices is available across Protovision (understand more links).

Hardware

Graphics and sound

A C64 utilized an 8-bit MOS Technology 6510 microprocessor (a close derivative of the 6502 with an added 6-bit internal I/O port that in a C64 is utilized for deuce purposes: to bank-switch the machine's ROM in and away from a processor's location space, & to work a datasette tape recorder) and got 64 kilobytes of RAM, of which 38 KB were available to built-in Commodore BASIC 2.0.

A graphics chip, VIC-II, featured 16 colors, eight sprites, scrolling capabilities, and ii electronic image graphics modes. A standard text mode featured Forty columns, rather virtually all Commodore PET models. Computer/video game and demo programmers quickly learned how to exploit quirks in the VIC-II to benefit extra capabilities, such as making extra than Octonary fairy pop up, & move, at the same time.

A healthy chip, SID, had triad trend lines by owning many different waveforms, ring modulation and filter capabilities. It, as well, was super advanced for its instance. It was designed by Bob Yannes, world health organization would down the road co-witnessed synthesizer company Ensoniq. Yannes criticized more contemporary computer healthy chips when "primitive, obviously (...) designed by people who knew nothing about music." Typically the bet on music became a hit of its have among C64 users. Easily-known composers & software engineer of stake music on the C64 were Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway, among many others.

the SID chip has the distinctive healthy which retained a charted of fan. Within 1999, Swedish company Elektron produced the "SID Station" synth module, built in a SID chip, applying left over equities of the chip.

Hardware revisions

Prices reduction was a drive for devices revisions to the C64's motherboard. Reducing manufacturing costs was vitally crucial to Commodore's survival in a period of the price competition & leaner years of the Sixteen-bit era. A C64's original (NMOS based) motherboard would go across 2 major redesigns, (& many sub-revisions) exchanging positions of the VIC-II, SID & PLA chips. At first, a big proportion of the prices was lowered by reducing the total of distinct components utilized, like diodes & resistance.

A VIC-II was made sustaining Phoebe micrometer NMOS technology, clocked at 8 MHz. At such the high clock rate, it generated the great deal of heat, forcing MOS Technology to utilize a ceramic DIL package (called the "CERDIP"). A ceramic pack was extra expensive, however it dissipated heat other profits than polymer.

When a redesign around 1983, the VIC-II was encased inside a thin plastic DIL pack, which reduced costs substantially, however it did non eliminate the heat condition. While forgoing the ceramic pack, a VIC-II compulsory the utilise of a heatsink. To stay away from additional dollars and cents, a metallic RF shielding doubled as a heatsink for the VIC, although non whole units shipped by owning this nature and severity of shielding. Virtually all C64s within Europe shipped using the composition board RF shield, coated with the layer of metallic foil. A effectiveness of the composition board was extremely refutable, & worse however it acted as an nonconductor, blocking flow of air which trapped heat generated per SID, VIC & PLA chips.

A SID was made applying NMOS at Sevener & inside a bit of areas Hexad micrometers. a epitome SID & a few super early production system featured a ceramic DIL pack, however unlike a VIC-II, which are actually highly uncommon once the SID was encased inside disposables when production began inside early 1982.

Within 1986 Commodore freed a endure revision to the "classic" C64 motherboard. It was otherwise monovular to the 198Iv project, except that it currently utilized 2 64 k ×4 DRAM chips rather than a original eight 64 k ×One.

When a release of a C64C, MOS Technology began to reconfigure the C64's chipset to utilize HMOS technology. A independent advantage of utilizing HMOS was that it involved less voltage to cause a IC, which consequently generates less heat. This enhanced a overall dependability of the SID & VIC-II. A freshly chipset was re-numbered to 85xx sequentially to reflect a vary to HMOS.

Around 1987 Commodore freed C64Cs by having the entirely redesigned motherboard unremarkably called the "short board". A recently board utilized a freshly HMOS chipset, featuring fresh 64-pin PLA chip. A freshly "SuperPLA" when it was dubbed, integrated numbers of distinct components & TTL chips. A 2114 colour RAM was integrated into a endure revision of the PLA.

Peripheral units

Floppy and tape drives
Although non universally furnished with a machine, floppy disk drives of the 5¼ inch (Commodore 1541 and 1571) and, late, Trio½ inch (1581) variety were available. the 1541 was agonizingly slow within loading software download because of the ill enforced serial bus, a bequest of the Commodore VIC-20. It used to be the commons joke to 'last attach to a cup of coffee or even hot chocolate' when typing the command to bucket a program on the C64, when in the resulting lesson, in which '*' designates a go program loaded, or even a 1st program on the disk, 'Octonary' is a disk cause device total, & the 'Single' signifies that a file is to exist as loaded does'nt to the standard memory address, but to the location in which its program header says—this commonly signifies an executable file, as opposed to the BASIC program.

Bucket "*",8,1

But, it appeared that a notoriously slow floppy cause operation can be overcome by the piece of clever software package that took all over control of the serial bus signal lines & implemented a better transport protocol between the computer & floppy cause. The company known as Epyx released their FastLoad cartridge for the C64 which replaced some of the 1541's slow routines by using its have customised code, so letting users to bucket software online at the fraction of the instance (~ 1/5th). a cartridge was thus easily-received by thankful C64 owners that numerous Commodore dealers began selling a Epyx cartridge as a standard item whenever selling a recently C64 by owning the 1541.

As a loose choice to FastLoad cartridges, many pure software package turbo-loader computer software were too created that were loaded to RAM both period fallowing a computer was reset. a right one turbo-loaders were a cappella to accelerate a period called upon for loading a program from either the floppy cause as much as a super remarkable factor of 20x, demonstrating how else bad the default bus implementation was. whilst turbo-loader computer program were comparatively little software, it was green to place a single in just about both floppy disk thus that it can be quickly loaded to RAM when a computer got been restarted.

the 1541 floppy cause contained a MOS 6502 chip acting when the cause controller, along by using a built-integral Disk Operating Formulas (DOS). Since this chip was a fully capable CPU, it was conceivable to write your computers have custom controller routines & machine load the children into the cause's in-board RAM, so making a cause function independently of the C64 machine. As a matter of fact, there were numbers of software program packages that took benefit of this, for example back up software that allowed you to produce multiple disk copies directly between daisy-chained causes while forgoing potentially getting to attach the two to the C64.

Around Europe, a C64 was typically utilized by having cassette tape drives (Datassettes), which were tremendously inexpensive, however likewise much slower than floppy causes. Several European software package developers wrote their have convenient tape loaders which replaced a internal kernel code in the C64 & offered loading days typically sooner than standard-speed floppy disc. Novaload was a virtually all popular tape loader utilized per majority of British & Western software package developers. In a United States, the floppy causes were tremendously other green.

Commodore sold an IEEE-488-standard parallel bus converter for a C64 which plugged into the machine's expansion port, however couple C64 owners took benefit of this & a incidental IEEE hardware that Commodore sold (a SFD-1001 1-megabyte 5¼ inch floppy disk cause, & a computer peripheral originally wreak the IEEE equipped PET computers, such as a 4040 & 8050 causes & a 9060/9090 hard disk drives). Because a 1541 was therefore slow intrinsically & a IEEE convertor even (& causes) and so expensive, a total of aftermarket causes became available, offering better dependableness, quietly operation, or just a moo price, than the 1541, although typically at the expense of compatibility.

A single benefit a serial bus did offer was a ability to daisy chain hardware together - that is, one device (disk cause or even printer) was attached to a Commodore 64 & the others were attached to every more. This led to Commodore producing (via a third person) the Commodore 4015, or even VIC-switch. This device (okay, seldom seen) allowed as much as Viii Commodore 64s to exist as attached to a device along by having the string of computer peripheral, leaving every Commodore to part the attached devices. It was likewise imaginable, forgoing requiring the VIC-switch, to attach deuce Commodore 64s to of these 1541 diskette cause to simulate an elementary network, allowing them computers to part informatiin on of these disk (in case them computers manufactured pan requests, a 1541 laudably handled one when giving an error to a more, which surprised several humans world health organization required the 1541's to a lesser degree star cause controller to crash or hang). This trick besides worked using mixed combinations of PET, VIC-20 and other selected Commodore 8-bit computers.

Serial communications
Also, because Commodore offered the total of cheap modems for a C64, the machine too helped popularize the utilize of connections for telecommunications. In the United States, Quantum Computer Services (later on America Online) offered an online service known as Quantum Link for the C64 that featured chat, downloads, and low games. In the UK, Compunet was a super popular on the internet service for C64 users (requiring favorite Compunet connections) from either 1984 to the early Nineties. Around Germany a very restictive system of the state-owned phone system prevented far flung have of connections, prompting the have of inferior acoustic couplers instead.

Rather a VIC-20, the C64 lacked the really UART chip such as a 6551 and used the software program emulation. This limited a maximal speed to astir 2400bps. Third person cartridges by owning UART chips offered better performance.

Other peripherals
A Commodore 1701 was a Baker's dozen inch (330 millimeter) colour monitor for the C64, which accepted analogue composite video when input, as well as separate chrominance & brightness level signals (in todays world you call for this S-Video) for superior performance with a C64.

Prefer a Apple II family, third-party acceleration units providing the sooner CPU appeared late in the C64's life. Due to timing issues by owning a VIC-II chip, still, C64 accelerators were great deal supplementary complex & expensive to implement than their counterparts for more computers. And so spell accelerators according to a Western Design Center 65C02, usually heading at Quaternary MHz, & on the 65816 at up to Xx MHz appeared, it appeared as well late & at the price of United states$199 or even higher were as well expensive to benefit far flung utilise.

A other interesting peripheral device were by skilled Third person producers, like CMD world health organization produced a SuperCPU that gives a C64 Xx MHz (instead of beneath One MHz) & as much as Sixteen MB of RAM if you as well had a SuperRamCard for it. Yet, there exists non lot software program tailored for the SuperCPU, however there is the Browser known as the Wave, a unix/QNX-alike graphic OS known as Wings, a select few demonstration & a shooter in the old Katakis-style known as Metal Dust (available across Protovision, watch more links). Besides, when of 2005, recently peripheral device come however existence developed, mostly for even mass storage or networking purposes, however an MP3 streaming video player is as well in the making.

Software

the C64 amassed a big software system library of about 10,000 commercial titles, rivaled inside its day lone per Apple II family (an Apple II+ emulator known as A Spartan, made by Mimic Systems Inc., was available for the C-64 however never gained good deal popularity).

BASIC
Regrettably, a onboard BASIC programming language offered no easily way to tap a machine's advanced graphics & healthy capabilities. Accessing these associated memory addresses to make apply of the advanced features called upon using the PEEK and POKE commands, third party BASIC extensions, like Simons' BASIC, or to program inside assembly language. Commodore experienced a better implementation of BASIC however chose to ship a C64 by having the equivalent BASIC Two.Cipher utilized in the VIC-20 to minimize cost. This, notwithstanding, did non prevent myriad humans making hundreds to thousands of software inside the BASIC V2 language, & teaching population their foremost steps in computer programing.

Development tools
Aside from either games & professional applications like word processors, spreadsheets, and database programs, the C64 wwhen swell equipped by having development information from either Commodore likewise as third-person marketer. Various assembler solutions were available, though perhaps a Rolls-Royce one was a MIKRO assembly program, which come around cartridge form and integrated seamlessly by using a standard BASIC screen editor. Many corporations sold BASIC compilers, C compilers & Pascal compilers, and the subset of ADA, to mention but two or three popular languages available for the machine.

Forgoing a doubt, a virtually all popular amusement orientated development suite was the Shoot'Em-Up Construction Kit, affectionately known as SEUCK. SEUCK allowed victims non-skilled around programming to produce original, agent-searching shooting games. Text risky venture punt information involved The Quill and "Graphic Adventure Creator" development suites. A Pinball Construction Set gave users a pin table to project. Meanwhile "Gary Kitchen's Gamemaker" & a "Arcade Game Construction Kit" allowed non-programmers to produce elementary games by using little effort.

Type-ins, bulletin boards, and disk magazines
Besides prepacked commercial software package, the C64, rather a VIC prior to it, experienced a big library of type-in programs. Many computer magazines offered type-witharound software download, normally written in BASIC or even even assembly language or the combination of the ii. Because of its vast popularity, numbers of general-all-purpose magazines that supported more computers offered C64 nature and severity-ins (Compute! was one of these), and at its peak, there were numerous magazines within Northerly United states of america (Ahoy!, Commodore Magazine, ''Compute!'s Gazette, Power/Play, RUN and Transactor [http://cbm.csbruce.com/~csbruce/cbm/transactor/]) dedicated to Commodore computers exclusively. These magazines periodically experienced disk companiaround subscriptions available at additional dollars and cents using a computer program stored on disk to keep away from a require to nature and severity the two in. A disk magazine Loadstar'' offered fairly elaborate ready-to-process software download, music, & graphics. Books of nature and severity-ins were likewise most common, especially in the machine's early times. The big library of public domain and freeware programs, distributed by online services such as Q-Link & CompuServe, BBSs, and user groups too emerged.

Possibly because of its moo dollars & cents and real life availableness of cheap connections, a C64 experienced far flung problems by having software piracy. Several BBSs offered cracked commercial package, another time requiring favorite access & normally requiring users to maintain an upload/download ratio. The heavy total of warez groups existed, including Fairlight, which continued to exist to a higher degree a decade when the C64's death. Occasionally members one groups turned to telephone phreaking and credit card or calling card fraud to make long-few feet away calls, either to download fresh titles non eventually available locally, or even to upload newly cracked titles freed per class action.

Retrocomputing efforts
A magnetic tapes & disks upon which personal softwcome program were stored are decaying at an alarming rate. Sequentially to preserve stake softwcome program & trading tools, efforts are afoot to copy from either these degrading media onto recently media which will help assure an extended life for the computer software & produce it available for emulation & archiving. Additionally, there are more efforts to archive Commodore 64 documentation, computer software system manuals, magazine articles, & more nostalgia (like software packaging graphics, bet on screenshots, & Commodore 64 TV commercial message).

A GameBase 64 (GB64) organization (look at external hyperlink following) has an on the net database of facts, which at version Tercet holds data for 17,450 unique gage titles. A database is however growing when recently tools comes to weak. A GoodGB64 variant of Cowering's Good Tools allows users to audit their C64 game collections using a GameBase64 database (the Ii.02 version of GoodGB64 lists 15,712 "ROM"s).

Whenever somebody wants to transport his have, home discs to or even from either a PC, there are extra information available. For instance, [http://sta.c64.org/sc.html The Star Commander] occurs as DOS-depending convienence, [http://www.lb.shuttle.de/puffin/cbm4linux/ cbm4linux] occurs as Linux thing, & [http://www.trikaliotis.net/cbm4win cbm4win] is the Windows convienence to transport information from either an original floppy cause to the PC, or even contrariwise, utilizing a elementary [http://sta.c64.org/xcables.html X-cable].

Additionally, there exists today a growing total of copycat available, which allow the apply of an emulated C64 in modern computing devices. A virtually all popular & compatible are VICE, which is free and runs on most modern as well as some older platforms; [http://www.computerbrains.com CCS64], which is a shareware program available for Windows; and [http://www.infinite-loop.at/Power64/index.html Power64], which has versions for Mac OS X and OS 9.

Besides a Quantum Link service has been reconstructed as Quantum Link Reloaded. It may be accessed by having the rattling Commodore 64, or even through the VICE aper.

Representative screenshots
Image:C64_Multiplan.png|Multiplan
Microsoft (1983) Image:C64_Koala_Painter.png|Koala Painter
Koala/Audio Weak (1983) Image:C64_GEOS.png|GEOS (desktop)
Berkeley Softworks (1986) Image:C64_Geowrite.png|geoWrite
Berkeley Softworks (1987) Image:C64_Donkey_Kong.png|Donkey Kong
Nintendo (1983) Image:C64_Winter_Games.png|Winter Games
Epyx (1985) Image:C64_IKPlus.png|International Karate+
System 3 (1987) Image:C64_Creatures_II.png|Creatures II
Thalamus/Apex (1993)

Extra screenshots may be noticed on the Commodore 64 software page.

Specifications

Internal hardware
Microprocessor CPU: MOS Technology 6510/8500 (the 6510/8500 existence the limited 6502 with an integrated 6-bit I/O port) Clock speed: One.023 MHz (NTSC) or Zero.985 MHz (PAL)

Video: MOS Technology VIC-II 6567/8567 (NTSC), 6569/8569 (PAL) 16 colors Text mode: 40×25 characters; 256 user-defined chars (8×8 pixels, or Little joe×8 around multi-coloured mode); 4-bit colour RAM defines foreground color Bitmap modes: 320×200 (Two color both 8×8 prevent), 160×200 (Threesome colors + background around every 4×8 prevent) 8 devices sprites of 24×21 pixels (12×21 within multicolored mode) Smooth scrolling, raster interrupts

Sound: MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID 3-channel synthesizer with programmable ADSR envelope 4 waveforms: triangle, sawtooth, variable pulse, noise Oscillator synchronization, ring modulation Programmable purification: high pass, low pass, band pass, notch filter

RAM: 64 kB (65,536 bytes), of which 38 kB minus Unity byte (38911 bytes) were available for BASIC programs Cipher.Five kB color RAM (I k nybbles) Expandable to 320 kB by having Commodore 1764 256 kB RAM Expansion Unit (REU); although only 64 kB directly accessible; REU mostly arranged for GEOS. REUs of 128 kB & 512 kB, originally designed for a C128, were too available, however mandatory the user to find a stronger power supply from either occasionally third person provider; by having the 1764 this was involved.

ROM: Xx kB (Ennead kB BASIC 2.0, 7 kB KERNAL, 4 kB character generator providing two 2 KB character sets)

I/O ports and power supply
I/O ports: High-quality Y/C (S-Video) (8-pin DIN plug) using chroma/luma retired & healthy inside + out, utilized using a few Commodore cd monitors (DIN-to-phono plug convertor delivered with monitor). This was non available on the earliest units, which utilized the Quint pin DIN. A today-standard Quartet-pin Mini-DIN S-Cd plug didn't however survive back so, however adapters come real life to build. Composite video (one-signal streaming video output to monitor involved within afore mentioned Ogdoad-pin DIN plug, & separate integrated RF modulator antenna output, which also carries healthy, to TV in an RCA socket) Ii × screwless DE9M game controller ports (Atari 2600 de facto standard, supporting one digital joystick and/or one pair of parallel paddles each; one of the babies as well supports the light pen. Late the C64-specific computer mouse was released by Commodore that (ab)utilizes a paddle diaper pins to transmit its signals) Cartridge expansion slot (slot for edge connector with 6510 CPU address/data bus lines & control signals, besides when GND & voltage diaper pins; utilized for program modules and memory expansions, among others) PET-type Datassette 300 baud tape interface (edge connector by having cassette drive/read/write/sense signals & GND & +5 5 diaper pins; a motor pin is powered to directly supply a motor) User port (edge connecter by using TTL-level RS-232 signals, for modems, etc; & byte-parallel signals which may be utilized to cause third-person parallel printers, among more items; by owning Xvii logic signals, Vii GND & voltage diaper pins, including Nine V AC voltage) Serial bus (serial version of IEEE-488, 6-pin DIN plug) for CBM printers & disk drives

Power supply: Cinque V DC & Niner V AC from either external "monolithic power brick", bound to computer's Vii-pin female DIN-connector

Trivia
The Commodore 64's startup screen was spoofed in the startup sequence of the 2002 computer/video stake Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. "[http://www.homestarrunner.com/pop_tire.html Population: Tire], a game from animated flash site [http://www.homestarrunner.com HomestarRunner.com], also starts up with a spoofed screen of the Commodore 64, called "Compydore 64" The Commodore 64's BASIC V2, the programming language which came built-in the computer, could be crashed by executing PRINT0""+-0