The Commodore 64 turns 30 this week

Last year the BBC Micro turned 30 and this week its the Commodore 64′s turn. 30 years ago this week Commodore previewed the replacement for the Vic 20 at CES and it was a hit with gamers due to its sound (the SID sound generator chip) and graphics capabilities. The 64 went on to sell nearly 17 million units until it was replaced by the Amiga in the 90′s.

I never owned a C64 as I was a ZX Spectrum guy but I did go on to have a few Amiga’s

Details from Wikipedia:

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by the now defunct manufacturer Commodore International in January 1982. Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595.^[2][3] Preceded by the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore PET machines, the C64 features 64 kilobytes (65,536 bytes) of RAM, hence the name, and had favourable sound and graphical specifications when compared to well-known contemporary systems such as the Apple II, particularly as the price was well below that demanded by Apple. It is commonly known as the C64 or C=64 (after the graphic logo on the case) and occasionally as the CBM 64 (for Commodore Business Machines), or VIC-64.^[4] It has also been nicknamed the “breadbox” and “bullnose” due to the shape and color of its initial casing.^{[citation needed]}

During the C64′s lifetime, sales totalled between 12.5 and 17 million units, making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time.^[5][6] For a substantial period of time (1983–1986), the C64 dominated the market with between 30% and 40% share and 2 million units sold per year,^[7] outselling the IBM PC clones, Apple Inc. computers, and Atari 8-bit family computers. Sam Tramiel, a later Atari president and the son of Commodore’s founder, said in a 1989 interview “When I was at Commodore we were building 400,000 C64s a month for a couple of years.”^[8]