The Commodore C64 Computer

About The Commodore C64 Computer
About The Commodore SX-64 Computer
About The DTV Joystick (C64 30-in-1 games joystick)
C64 Specs
My 10 Most Favourite Games (screenshots), and some Runners Up
Some of the first games I wrote.
My collection of books and magazines related to the C64.
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About The Commodore C64 Computer

The games shown below were the games I enjoyed the most, and were inspirational to me, back in the days of the C64. These games were created in the 80's on a computer which was 1Mhz, had 16 predefined colors and had a display resolution of 160x200 typically, or 320x200 max, and had 8 hardware sprites (something even present day video cards omit). It had 3 audio channels which could play predefined samples, such as square wave, sawtooth, triangle, or noise waveforms.

About The Commodore SX-64 Computer

I FINALLY own one of these little gems. This is a "portable" C64. It's basically a suitcase sized device, complete with detatchable keyboard, internal floppy drive, full color TV screen, and speaker, and C64 all rolled into one big "luggable" computer. I would have killed to own one of these back in high school (80's).

About The Commodore DTV 30-in-1 Joystick

Well, the SX-64 wasn't quite portable enough for you? Then maybe this one will be. Of course, this version of the C64 was not available until around 2003, but look what they managed to do! Cram an entire C64 and floppy disk drive + 30 games, and batteries to power it, all into one little joystick. It plugs directly into the TV, and features a C64-on-a-chip inside. It also contains a 2meg flash chip that can be re-programmed to contain whatever filesystem / kernel ROM you wish. wow. AND, it sports some new features the original C64 did not have, such as 256 color video, DMA commands, and a CPU burst mode. Oh, and if that's not enough, you can solder any-old PS/2 keyboard onto the PCB inside, and gain access to the BASIC interpreter.

C64 Specs

System
- 6502 8-bit CPU
  - 3 Registers (A, X, Y), plus PC, SP, and flags.
  - 56 Instructions
  - 64K Address Space
- 64K RAM (available through banking out the following ROM's from the address space)
- 8K Basic ROM
- 8K Kernel ROM
Display
- Character Map Mode
  - Each character is 8x8. The screen is made of 40x25 characters.
  - Character Set Source: ROM (predefined), or RAM (programmable)
  - Standard Character Mode: Any one color, or the screen background color
  - Multicolor Character Mode: Any one color, two pre-selected colors, or the screen background color
  - Extended Background Color Mode: Any two colors.
- Bitmapped Graphics Mode
  - HiRes Mode: 320x200 pixels, any one color per character-cell, and the background color
  - Multocolor Mode: 160x200 pixels, 3 pre-selected colors, any one color per character-cell, and the background color
- Sprites
  - 8 sprites available, 24x21 pixels per sprite.
  - Standard Mode: Any one color overlayed on the background display.
  - Multicolor Mode: Any one color, plus 2 pre-selected colors overlayed on the background color.
- Other Features
  - Smooth scrolling (both horizontal and vertical)
  - Selectable Display Border Color
- Output
  - NTSC (to a TV)
  - Luma/Chroma (to a monitor)
Sound
- 3 voices mixed at one master volume.
- Available waveforms
  - Sawtooth
  - Triangle
  - Square Wave
  - Noise Waveform
- Envelope Control
  - Attack
  - Decay
  - Sustain
  - Release
- Filtering
  - High-pass
  - Bandpass
  - Low-pass
  - Notch reject
- Other Features
  - Vibrato
  - Ring Modulation
I/O
- Built-in
  - Keyboard
- Options
  - Cassette Drive
  - Floppy Disk Drives (5.25" - 1541/1571)
  - Hard Drives (MFM)
  - Joysticks (Atari 7-pin standard)
  - Cartridge Port (direct access to CPU bus)