The Commodore C64 Computer

About The Commodore C64 Computer
About The Commodore SX-64 Computer
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).

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)