8-BIT KIDS

Growing Up With The Commodore 64

There are places I’ll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I’ve loved them all

In My Life – The Beatles

© 2017 Amicom Retro Books & Koen De Brabander

The right of Koen De Brabander to be identified as the Author of this book has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

First published 2017 by Amicom Retro Books – A division of Amicom vzw.

Amicom Retro Books, Frans Liebaertweg 20, BE-8377 Zuienkerke, Belgium.
www.amicom.be / www.8bitkids.co.uk

© Photographs Jan Darthet

© Photographs 80s toys Huis Van Alijn
© Other photographs Creative Commons / Public Domain
© Cartoons Bart Vantieghem
© Zzap!64 artwork Oliver Frey
© Zzap!64 content Roger Kean

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright
material in this book.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of
copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be
grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Note from the author: ‘I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories of them.
In order to maintain their anonymity in some instances I have changed the names of individuals.’

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Written, designed & printed in Brugge, Belgium.

Printed by Die Keure.
ISBN 978-9-0902995-7-0
 8-BIT KIDS
Growing Up With The Commodore 64

Koen De Brabander
Author

Jon Misselyn Jan Darthet

Editor Photographs

Veerle Witdouck Bart Vantieghem

Translation Cartoons

Kevin Bullock & Marian Denolf

Nicole Semplinski Lay-out
Translation editors
 I. Index
II. Foreword by Ben Daglish 7
III. Introduction by Koen De Brabander 9

GROWING UP ... 10
1. 1976 Hottest year of the century 12
Bits From 1976 – 1979 14
2. 1980s 22
Bits From 1980 – 1989 28

... WITH THE COMMODORE 64 44

1. The wonderfull 80s 49
2. Enter the Commodore 64 55
3. Dreaming … 61
4. Hands-on … for KC 67
 5. Meeting Peter … 71
6. … and his Commodore 64 79
7. The hunt for new games 85
8. Tape to disk 89
9. Swapping floppies … or not 95
10. Mike’s list 101
11. Countermove 107
12. The rise and fall of AMICOM 115

8-BIT KIDS 125

1. Loading … 8-BIT KIDS 125
2. Backers 140
3. Thank you 144
Foreword Ben Daglish

To this day, I’m convinced that the internet wouldn’t be anywhere near as large, exciting
and powerful as it is (and to be frank, work at all!) were it not for the generation of kids
that grew up with the micros of the 70’s and 80’s. As I’m often heard saying, those were
the times when you unpacked the computer, turned it on, it went ‘BEEP BEEP’ and you
were presented with a screen that simply said ‘READY’. In order to make anything else
happen, other than (if you were lucky) being able to play the handful of games packaged
with it, you actually had to program the thing. Even if this just meant typing in listings
from magazines, that was enough to show you that in order to get output, you needed
structured input, but for those who decided to go further, it was the start of a journey that
continues to this day.

What the early micros gave you was a base understanding of how computers actually
work. You could even take the top of the case off and identify the chips (based on the
circuit diagram in the back of the manual - how many smartphones come with that these
days?) … “There’s the CPU - that’s the sound chip - those silver lines must be the bus” and
so on.

It speaks to the popularity of these machines that even today, nearly 40 years later,
there are still new games and demos being written, new techniques being discovered,
and ‘retro’ conventions being held all over the world. I don’t think this is purely due to
nostalgia - often, the best ideas come from the creative use of limitations, and I sincerely
believe that today’s games industry could learn a lot by looking more at the vast wealth
of ideas generated off by the ‘bedroom programmers’ of the past. This book is a tribute to
that spirit, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Ben

Moon
© Jason

8-bit kids 7
The Commodore 64: Those Were the Days

‘8-BIT KIDS - Growing Up with the Commodore 64’ is the story I have wanted to share for
years. Finally, here it is …

With the Commodore 64, my childhood and almost of all my teens were magical. I
experienced a very interesting and intense time and befriended my soulmates Peter and
Kristof: a life-long brotherhood was born. It has been an intense friendship that is still
going strong.

My Commodore 64 era barely lasted four or five years but are among the most beautiful
years in my life. Not a day goes by that I don’t remember a story of this exciting time …
It was the discovery of a new world, an adolescent era brimming with revelations and
experiences.

Therefore, it is with pride, and my deepest appreciation of our friendship, that I dedicate
this ‘book of memories’ to my ‘brothers’ Peter Cleenwerck and Kristof Clevers.
Boys, this one is for you. Thank you for the fantastic years I experienced with both of you,
in childhood and since.

These are some of the memories I will continue to treasure forever.

#nostalgiaforever

Koen

Photo: Benny Proot

8-bit kids 9
GROWING UP ...
 1976
Hottest year of the century

This story begins on Tuesday May 25th, 1976, a blistering sunny day, in a spring season
that felt like a heat wave during a tropical summer. Here I was, according to my very
pregnant mom, playing a game of European Cup soccer in the comfort of her womb. ‘He’
or ‘She’ will be a sporty child, probably a soccer player. Two more weeks to go ...
Not a day too soon in these soring temperatures. Not the ideal circumstances to carry
around a highly active unborn infant.
Little did she know that her, already then, highly inquisitive son decided that the present
day was going to be the day to discover greener pastures. There I was, 8 pm local time
ready to take on the world. No doctor or soring temperatures would stop my burning
desire to start exploring my new surroundings. Inquisitiveness, a trait I still have,
wanting to learn and see the other side of things. Authority has little influence on me,
always wanting to go to the bottom of things, proving to myself that it is indeed right. This
attitude has brought me over time in interesting places and confronted me with odd and
fascinating realities. It is unfortunately not the easy way of life but then nobody ever said
that life is a walk in the park!

8-bit kids 13
BITS IN 1976 ...

1976
This year probably sounds like prehistoric Research and Microsoft were approached by
when we talk about the IT and computer IBM about providing an operating system for
world but a lot of exciting progress was made its PC. Microsoft won the competition with its
in this field in this year. Herewith a couple of own operating system, called MS-DOS.
important events happening in that year.
Queen’s First Email
Steve Wozniak completes the Apple-1 Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Designed by Sunnyvale, California native sends out an e-mail on March 26 from the
Steve Wozniak, and marketed by his friend Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE)
Steve Jobs, the Apple-1 is a single-board in Malvern as a part of a demonstration of
computer for hobbyists. With an order for networking technology.
50 assembled systems from Mountain View,
California computer store The Byte Shop
in hand, the pair started a new company,
naming it Apple Computer, Inc. In all, about
200 of the boards were sold before Apple
announced the follow-on Apple II a year later
as a ready-to-use computer for consumers,
a model which sold in the millions for nearly
two decades.

CP/M is developed
Gary Kildall develops the first commercially New microprocessors
successful operating system for microcomput- Intel and Zilog introduced new microproces-
ers, CP/M. He and his wife established sors. Five times faster than its predecessor,
Intergalactic Digital Research (modestly drop- the 8008, the Intel 8080 could address four
ping “Intergalactic” later) to market it. CP/M times as many bytes for a total of 64 kilo-
made it possible for one version of a program bytes. The Zilog Z-80 could run any program
to run on a variety of computers built around written for the 8080 and included twice as
eight-bit microprocessors. At one point Digital many built-in machine instructions.

14 8-bit kids
BITS FROM 1977-1979

1977
Apple II introduced the 1980s. The VCS used the 8-bit MOS
Sold complete with 6507 microprocessor and was designed
a main logic to be connected to a home television set.
board, switching It was one of the first successful consoles
power supply, that used interchangeable cartridges with
keyboard, factory programmed ROM chips to store the
case, manual, software. At first, designers planned to use
game paddles, an internal ROM chip that contained several
and cassette pre-programmed games. This method was
tape contain- used in many predecessor consoles, but
ing the game Atari’s choice on using cartridges in part led
Breakout, the the VCS to becoming one of the most popular
Apple II finds popularity video gaming systems of all time. When the
far beyond the hobbyist community which last of Atari’s 8-bit game consoles were made
made up Apple’s user community until then. in 1990, more than 900 game titles had been
When connected to a colour television set, released.
the Apple II produced brilliant colour graphics
for the time. Millions of Apple IIs were sold
between 1977 and 1993, making it one of
the longest-lived lines of personal computers.
Apple gave away thousands of Apple IIs to
schools, giving a new generation their
first access to personal computers.

Atari launches the Video Computer

System game console
Atari releases its Video Computer
System (VCS) later renamed the
Atari 2600. The VCS was the
first widely successful video
game system, selling more than
twenty million units throughout

16 8-bit kids
 Tandy Radio Shack introduces its TRS-80
Performing far better than the company
projections of 3,000 units for the first year, in
Commodore PET & 1530 Datasette introduced the first month after its release Tandy Radio
The first of several personal computers Shack´s first desktop computer — the TRS-80
released in 1977, the PET comes fully — sells 10,000 units. The TRS-80 was priced
assembled with either 4 or 8 KB of memory, a at $599.95, included a Z80 microprocessor,
built-in cassette tape drive, and a membrane video display, 4 KB of memory, a built-in
keyboard. The PET was popular with schools BASIC programming language interpreter,
and for use as a home computer. It used a cassette storage, and easy-to-understand
MOS Technologies 6502 microprocessor run- manuals that assumed no prior knowledge
ning at 1 MHz. After the success of the PET, on the part of the user. The TRS-80 proved
Commodore remained a major player in the popular with schools, as well as for home use.
personal computer market into the 1990s. The TRS-80 line of computers later included
The built-in Commodore 1530 Datasette colour, portable, and handheld versions
(data+cassette) is the primary storage device before being discontinued in the early 1990s.
for the newly released PET. The device con-
verted digital information from the computer
into analog sound signals which were stored
on compact cassettes. The method was
cost-effective and reliable, but also very slow.

8-bit kids 17
BITS FROM 1977-1979

1978
Shugart 5 ¼-inch flexible disk drive
The 5 ¼-inch flexible disk drive and diskette
are introduced by Shugart Associates in 1976.
This was the result of a request by Wang
Laboratories to produce a disk drive small
enough to use with a desktop computer, since
8-inch floppy drives were considered too
large for that purpose. By 1978, more than
First computers installed in the White House 10 manufacturers were producing 5 ¼-inch
While the US government had funded many floppy drives.
computing projects dating back to the 1940s,
it wasn’t until the Carter administration that LaserDisc
a computer actually was installed in the Laserdisc is introduced as ‘Discovision’ by
White House. Staffers were given terminals MCA and Philips. The first Laserdisc sold
to access a shared Hewlett-Packard HP3000 in North America was the film Jaws. It
computer, and the technology department ac- offered better audio and video quality than
quired a Xerox Alto for the Oval Office. Later, its competitors, but Laserdisc players were
an IBM laser printer was installed, though prohibitively expensive for many consumers.
President Reagan had the Alto removed from That fact, in conjunction with the availability
the Oval Office when he was elected. of only a limited Laserdisc library, helped it
gain significant popularity only in parts
of Asia. Now obsolete, it was the
direct forerunner of the CD
and DVD.

8-bit kids 19
BITS FROM 1977-1979

1979
Trubshaw, two students at the University
of Essex, write a program that allows many
people to play against each other on-line.
MUDs become popular with college students
as a means of adventure gaming and for
socializing. By 1984, there will be more than
100 active MUDs and variants around the
world.

Computing for One: Personal computers vs. Motorola introduces the 68000 microprocessor
Networks The Motorola 68000 microprocessor
Until the late 1970s the momentum in exhibited a processing speed far greater than
computing has been all about togetherness its contemporaries. This high performance
– users first sharing computers, then linking processor found its place in powerful work
over networks and soon networks of net- stations intended for graphics-intensive
works. But the rise of the personal computer programs common in engineering.
from the mid-1970s makes something once
unthinkable an everyday reality: a standalone North America: Rise of Online Services and BBSs
computer for just one person. While the new Personal computers have started to slowly
machines can be connected to networks and take off in North America by the end of the
to each other, a lot of users both at home 1970s, a decade earlier than most other parts
and work don’t bother. They run their own of the world. Connecting them to remote
programs off floppy disks. The ‘personal servers can be a nightmare of endless settings
computer revolution’ begins to push back and false starts, accompanied by the squawks
against the centralized control of network and squeals of an expensive, finicky modem.
system administrators, a trend that won’t fully Most computer owners don’t bother, but by
reverse until the 2000s and the emergence of 1979 a subset of brave or stubborn ones
the ‘cloud.’ are subscribing to early online services like
Micro Net (later CompuServe Information
MUDs Service) and The Source, or connecting to
The first Multi-User Domain (or Dungeon), Bulletin Board Services (BBSs) hosted on
MUD1, goes on-line. Richard Bartle and Roy somebody else’s minicomputer or PC. By

20 8-bit kids
1990 more than two million North Americans
will be online for discussion groups, shopping,
news, chat, e-mail, and more; the early online
services have been joined by AOL, Prodigy,
and others. This dial-up world pioneers much
of what we do on the Web, though in a more
communal setting.

Texas Instruments TI-99/4 is released Visicalc is developed

Based around the Texas Instruments TMS Harvard MBA candidate Dan Bricklin and
9900 microprocessor running at 3 MHz, the programmer Bob Frankston develop VisiCalc,
TI-99/4 has one of the fastest CPUs available the program that turned the personal
in a home computer. The TI-99/4 had a wide computer into a business machine. Initially
variety of expansion boards, with an especially developed for the Apple II, whose sales it
popular speech synthesis system that could boosted, VisiCalc automated the recalculation
also be used with TI’s Speak & Spell educa- of spreadsheets, allowing users to ask
tional game. The TI-99/4 sold well and led to “What if?” questions of their financial
a series of TI follow-on machines. information.

Worms
John Shoch and Jon Hupp at the Xerox Palo
Alto Research Center create the computer
‘worm’, a short program that searches a
network for idle processors. Initially
designed to provide more efficient use of
computers and for testing, the worm has the
unintended effect of invading networked
computers, creating a security threat. Shoch
took the term ‘worm’ from the 1976 book
The Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner, in
which an omnipotent ‘tapeworm’ program
runs loose through a network of computers.

8-bit kids 21
PLAYING ...
... AND LISTENING
TO MUSIC
BITS FROM the eighties

1980
Commodore introduces the VIC-20 / VIC-1001 conversation between Alan Shugart and
Commodore releases the VIC-20 home com- Finis Conner, who had worked together at
puter as the successor to the Commodore Memorex. The two men decided to found the
PET personal computer. Intended to be a less company after developing the idea of scaling
expensive alternative to the PET, the VIC-20 down a hard disk drive to the same size as
was highly successful, becoming the first the then-standard 5 ¼-inch floppies. Upon
computer to sell more than a million units. releasing its first product, Seagate quickly
Commodore even used Star Trek television drew such big-name customers as Apple
star William Shatner in advertisements. Computer and IBM. Within a few years, it sold
4 million units.
Seagate ST506 hard disk drive
Seagate Technology creates the first hard disk The Sinclair ZX80 introduced
drive for microcomputers, the ST506. The This very small home computer is available in
disk held 5 megabytes of data, five times as the UK as a kit for £79 or pre-assembled for
much as a standard floppy disk, and fit in the £99. Inside was a Z80 microprocessor and a
space of a floppy disk drive. The hard disk built-in BASIC language interpreter. Output
drive itself was a rigid metallic platter coated was displayed on the user’s home TV screen
on both sides with a thin layer of magnetic through use of an adapter. About 50,000
material that stores digital data. were sold in Britain, primarily to hobbyists.
Seagate Technology grew out of a 1979 A popular computer indeed!

28 8-bit kids
BITS FROM the eighties

1981
3 ½-inch floppy disk drive
Sony introduces the first 3 ½-inch floppy
drives and diskettes in 1981. The first signifi-
cant company to adopt the 3 ½-inch floppy
for general use was Hewlett-Packard in 1982,
an event which was critical in establishing
momentum for the format and which helped
it prevail over the other contenders for the
microfloppy standard, including 3-inch, 3
¼-inch, and 3.9-inch formats.

Apollo Computer unveils its first workstation, its

DN100 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor and used
The DN100 is based on the Motorola 68000 Microsoft´s MS-DOS operating system. The
microprocessor, high-resolution display and IBM PC revolutionized business computing
built-in networking - the three basic features by becoming the first PC to gain widespread
of all workstations. Apollo and its main adoption by industry. The IBM PC was widely
competitor, Sun Microsystems, optimized copied (‘cloned’) and led to the creation of a
their machines to run the computer-intensive vast ‘ecosystem’ of software, peripherals, and
graphics programs common in engineering other commodities for use with the platform.
and scientific applications. Apollo was a
leading innovator in the workstation field for MS-DOS released with the IBM PC
more than a decade, and was acquired by MS-DOS, or Microsoft Disk Operating
Hewlett-Packard in 1989. System, the basic software for the newly
released IBM PC, is the start of a long part-
IBM introduces its Personal Computer (PC) nership between IBM and Microsoft, which
IBM’s brand recognition, along with a massive Bill Gates and Paul Allen had founded only
marketing campaign, ignites the fast growth six years earlier. IBM’s PC inspired hardware
of the personal computer market with the imitators in the 1980s, but for software, most
announcement of its own personal computer licensed MS-DOS. MS-DOS was eventually
(PC). The first IBM PC, formally known as supplanted by Microsoft’s Windows operating
the IBM Model 5150, was based on a 4.77 system.

8-bit kids 29
 BITS FROM the eighties

1982

30 8-bit kids
Commodore introduces the Commodore 64

The C64, as it is better known, sells for $595, comes with 64 KB of RAM and features impres-

sive graphics. Thousands of software titles were released over the lifespan of the C64 and by

the time it was discontinued in 1993, it had sold more than 22 million units. It is recognized by

the Guinness Book of World Records as the greatest selling single computer of all time.

8-bit kids 31
BITS FROM the eighties

1983
Apple introduces the Lisa computer the CD-ROM format in 1984 was Grolier´s
Lisa is the first commercial personal computer Electronic Encyclopedia, which came out in
with a graphical user interface (GUI). It was 1985. The 9 million words in the encyclopedia
thus an important milestone in computing only took up 12 percent of the available
as soon Microsoft Windows and the Apple space. The same year, computer and electron-
Macintosh would adopt the GUI as their ics companies worked together to set a
user interface, making it the new paradigm standard for the disks so any computer would
for personal computing. The Lisa ran on a be able to access the information.
Motorola 68000 microprocessor and came
equipped with 1 MB of RAM, a 12-inch Lucasfilm produces The Road to Point Reyes
black-and-white monitor, dual 5.25-inch One of the most significant static images in
floppy disk drives and a 5 MB ‘Profile’ hard the history of computer graphics, The Road
drive. Lisa itself, and especially its GUI, were to Point Reyes is one of Lucasfilm’s most
inspired by earlier work at the Xerox Palo Alto important early projects. Begun in 1983, Rob
Research Center. Cook directed the image and conceived the
scene, while Alvy Ray Smith, Loren Carpenter,
CD-ROM Tom Porter, Bill Reeves, and David Salesin
Able to hold 550 megabytes of pre-recorded provided various elements including shading,
data, CD-ROMs grew out of music Compact hidden surface routines, and fractals. The
Disks (CDs). The CD was developed by Sony single image, which Smith has described
and Philips in 1982 for distributing music. as a ‘one-frame Movie,’ took a month to
The first general-interest CD-ROM product render, and was eventually displayed at The
released after Philips and Sony announced Computer Museum in Boston.

32 8-bit kids
The Skywalker Ranch where Lucasfilm Games were developed

MIDI and The Age of Intelligent Machines will continue to be used, most music will use
The Musical Instrument Digital Interface sounds with no direct acoustic counterpart
(MIDI) is introduced at the first North … There will not be a sharp division between
American Music Manufacturers (NAMM) the musician and non-musician.”
show in Los Angeles. MIDI is an industry-stan-
dard electronic interface that links computers Microsoft introduces Word
with electronic musical instruments. Microsoft announces Word, originally
Raymond Kurzweil, a pioneer in developing called Multi-Tool Word. In a marketing blitz,
electronic keyboards, predicts MIDI and Microsoft distributed 450,000 disks
other advances will make traditional musical containing a demonstration version of its
instruments obsolete in the future. In the Word program in the November issue of PC
21st century, he writes in his book, The Age World magazine, giving readers a chance to
of Intelligent Machines, “There will still be try the program for free. It competed with
acoustic instruments around, but they will WordPerfect for market share as a word
be primarily of historical interest, much like processing program, and it was not until
harpsichords are today ... While the histori- Microsoft Word for Windows was introduced
cally desirable sounds of pianos and violins in 1989 that it became a global standard.

8-bit kids 33
34 8-bit kids
BITS FROM the eighties

1984
Apple Computer launches the Macintosh IBM releases its PC Jr. and PC/AT
Apple introduces the Macintosh with a The PC Jr. is marketed as a home computer
television commercial during the 1984 Super but is too expensive and limited in perfor-
Bowl, which plays on the theme of totalitari- mance to compete with many of the other
anism in George Orwell´s book 1984. The ad machines in that market. It’s ‘chiclet’ keyboard
featured the destruction of ‘Big Brother’ – a was also criticized for poor ergonomics. While
veiled reference to IBM -- through the power the PC Jr. sold poorly, the PC/AT sold in the
of personal computing found in a Macintosh. millions. It offered increased performance and
The Macintosh was the first successful storage capacity over the original IBM PC and
mouse-driven computer with a graphical user sold for about $4,000. It also included more
interface and was based on the Motorola memory and accommodated high-density
68000 microprocessor. Its price was $2,500. 1.2-megabyte 5 1/4-inch floppy disks.
Applications that came as part of the package
included MacPaint, which made use of the Term ‘cyberspace’ coined
mouse, and MacWrite, which demonstrated In his novel Neuromancer, William Gibson
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) coins the term ‘cyberspace’. Gibson also
word processing. spawned a genre of fiction known as
‘cyberpunk’ in his book, which described a
dark, complex future filled with intelligent
machines, computer viruses, and paranoia.

Gibson introduced cyberspace as: “A consen-

sual hallucination experienced daily by billions of
legitimate operators, in every nation, by children
being taught mathematical concepts...
A graphic representation of data abstracted
from the banks of every computer in the human
system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light
ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and
constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...”

8-bit kids 35
36 8-bit kids
BITS FROM the eighties

1985

Nintendo releases the beyond those found in most other personal

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) computers. It developed a very loyal following
Since 1983, the electronic game market while add-on components allowed it to be
had been depressed due to a glut of poorly upgraded easily. The inside of the Amiga case
performing games and consoles. is engraved with the signatures of the Amiga
That same year, Nintendo released its designers, including Jay Miner as well as the
Famicom gaming system in Japan. Renamed paw print of his dog Mitchy.
the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
when it was released in North America, the The C++ Programming Language is published
NES started to reverse the fortunes of the The C++ programming language emerges as
game industry. The system launched with the dominant object-oriented language in the
eighteen available titles, and was largely computer industry when Bjarne Stroustrup
responsible for turning Mario the Plumber publishes the book The C++ Programming
into one of the most enduring characters in Language. Stroustrup, from AT&T Bell Labs,
the history of video games. said his motivation stemmed from a desire to
create a language that would allow for more
The Amiga 1000 is released complex programs and which combined the
Commodore’s Amiga 1000 is announced low-level features of BCPL with the high-level
with a major event at New York’s Lincoln structures of Simula.
Center featuring celebrities like Andy Warhol According to Stroustrup: “C++ is a general
and Debbie Harry of the musical group purpose programming language designed to
Blondie. The Amiga sold for $1,295 (without make programming more enjoyable for the
monitor) and had audio and video capabilities serious programmer.”

8-bit kids 37
38 8-bit kids
BITS FROM the eighties

1986
Pixar is founded IBM releases the first commercial RISC-based
Pixar was originally called the Special Effects workstation
Computer Group at Lucasfilm (launched in Reduced instruction set computers (RISC)
1979). The group created the computer- grow out of the observation that the simplest
animated segments of films such as Star Trek 20 percent of a computer´s instruction
II: The Wrath of Khan and Young Sherlock set does 80 percent of the work. The IBM
Holmes. In 1986, Apple Computer co-founder PC-RT had 1 MB of RAM, a 1.2-megabyte
Steve Jobs paid 10 million dollars to Lucasfilm floppy disk drive, and a 40 MB hard drive. It
to purchase the Group and renamed it Pixar. performed 2 million instructions per second,
Over the next decade, Pixar made highly but other RISC-based computers worked
successful (and Oscar-winning) animated significantly faster.
films. It was bought by Disney in 2006.
SCSI-1 standard
The SCSI-1 standard is adopted, and formal-
izes the interface that had its roots in SASI,
which was introduced by Shugart Associates
several years earlier. Before SCSI, external
devices such as hard drives had specific and
non-standardized interfaces for connecting to
computers. SCSI introduced a common, single
adapter for all of these devices. Commonly
used in tape drives and hard disks, the SCSI
interface allowed for multi-tasking when
processing commands at a high speed.

8-bit kids 39
BITS FROM the eighties

1987
Nokia 1011, first common GSM phone IBM introduces its Personal System/2 (PS/2)
GSM standard formally agreed machines
Digital mobile networks had been pioneered The first IBM system to include Intel´s
by ARPA from the early 1970s for military use, 80386 chip, the company ships more than 1
but early cell phone networks for consumers million units by the end of the first year. IBM
are analog. They use traditional telephone released a new operating system, OS/2, at
circuit-switching, where there is a connection the same time, allowing the use of a mouse
(circuit) between caller and recipient for the with IBM PCs for the first time. Many credit
duration of the call. The connection seam- the PS/2 for making the 3.5-inch floppy disk
lessly switches from cell to cell as the phone drive and video graphics array (VGA) standard
moves. In 1987, the European Community for IBM computers. The system was IBM’s
formally agrees on the GSM (‘Groupe Spécial response to losing control of the PC market
Mobile’ in French) standard for digital mobile with the rise of widespread copying of the
telephony, including text messaging (SMS). original IBM PC design by ‘clone’ makers.
Development work had begun five years
earlier with major input from Ericsson, Movemaster RM-501 Gripper
Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom and a The Mitsubishi Movemaster RM-501 Gripper
number of others. GSM will reach customers is introduced. This robot gripper and arm
in the early 1990s. was a small, commercially available industrial
robot. It was used for tasks such as assem-
Acorn Archimedes is released bling products or handling chemicals.
Acorn’s ARM RISC microprocessor is first The arm, including the gripper, had six
used in the company’s Archimedes computer degrees of freedom and was driven by electric
system. One of Britain’s leading computer motors connected to the joints by belts. The
companies, Acorn, continued the Archimedes arm could move fifteen inches per second,
line, which grew to nearly twenty different could lift 2.7 pounds, and was accurate within
models, into the 1990s. Acorn spun off ARM .02 of an inch.
as its own company to license microprocessor The man-machine battle was introduced in
designs, which in turn has transformed mobile the reality of factory workers.
computing with ARM’s low power, high-
performance processors and systems-on-chip William Atkinson designs HyperCard
(SoC). Apple engineer William Atkinson designs

40 8-bit kids
HyperCard, a software tool that simplifies to create his own stacks, linked together as a
development of in-house applications. In sort of slide show.
HyperCard, programmers built ‘stacks’ of Apple distributed the program free with
information with the concept of hypertext Macintosh computers until 1992. Hypercard
links between stacks of pages. As a stack influenced the creation on the Internet
author, a programmer employed various tools protocol HTTP and JavaScript.

© Ulrich Häßler / Creative Commons © Jan Peter Kasper / Creative Commons

© Thomas Uhlemann / Creative Commons Public Domain

Berlin, 4 July 1987: The delegation of the Erfurt district in the big
parade through the city center to mark the 750th anniversary of
Berlin. Here, the capital is celebrated with a presentation of desktop
computers from Sömmerda.

8-bit kids 41
BITS FROM the eighties

1988
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs unveils the NeXT The Morris Worm
Cube 23 year old Robert T. Morris, the son of a
Steve Jobs, forced out of Apple in 1985, computer security expert for the National
founds a new company – NeXT. Security Agency, sends a nondestructive
The computer he created, an all-black cube worm through the Internet causing major
was an important innovation. The NeXT had problems for days for about 6,000 of the
three Motorola microprocessors and 8 MB of 60,000 hosts linked to the network. The
RAM. Its base price was $6,500. result is widespread outages. This is the first
Some of its other innovations were the worm to have a major effect on real-world
inclusion of a magneto-optical (MO) disk computer systems, and publicizes the impor-
drive, a digital signal processor and the tance of network security. Morris will be the
NeXTSTEP programming environment (later first person convicted under the ‘Computer
released as OPENSTEP). Fraud and Abuse Act.’ He will apologize in
This object-oriented multitasking operating 2008, saying he’d sought to estimate the
system was groundbreaking in its ability to Internet’s size, not cause harm.
foster rapid development of software applica-
tions. OPENSTEP was used as one of the Tin Toy wins Oscar
foundations for the new Mac OS operating Pixar´s Tin Toy becomes the first computer-
system soon after NeXT was acquired by animated film to win an Academy Award,
Apple in 1996. taking the Oscar for Best Animated Short
Film. In it, a wind-up toy first encountered
Sound Blaster 1.0 a boisterous baby and then deals with the
Creative Arts releases the first SoundBlaster. consequences. To illustrate the baby´s facial
The demand for improved graphics and sound expressions, programmers defined more than
for personal computer games encourages 40 facial muscles on the computer controlled
companies to build add-on sound cards for by the animator.
the IBM PC, with the SoundBlaster family of One of Pixar´s primary projects involved a
sound cards becoming the industry standard. rendering program called Renderman, which
Many of these competing cards were similar, became a universal standard for describing
but since the SoundBlaster had an additional 3D scenes. Renderman describes objects,
game port, within a year it had become the light sources, cameras, and atmospheric
best-selling expansion card for the IBM PC. effects such as fog or clouds.

42 8-bit kids
BITS FROM the eighties

1989
Nintendo releases the Game Boy handheld game
console
Handheld electronic games had been popular
for more than a decade by the time Nintendo
introduces the Game Boy. The system used
removable game cartridges to play on its
2.9-inch black and white screen. Game Boy’s
popularity was helped by its major release
title, the puzzle game Tetris. Computer defeats master chess player
Over nearly twenty years, more than one David Levy is the first master chess player
hundred million Game Boys were sold, to be defeated by a computer. The program
making it one of the all-time, top-selling game Deep Thought defeats Levy who had beaten
systems. all other previous computer counterparts
since 1968.
Intel introduces the 80486 microprocessor
Intel released the 80486 microprocessor James Cameron’s The Abyss is released
and the i860 RISC/coprocessor chip, each of Director James Cameron’s films The
which contained more than 1 million transis- Terminator and Aliens were major science fic-
tors. The RISC microprocessor had a 32-bit tion successes. His follow-up film, The Abyss,
integer arithmetic and logic unit (the part of stands as one of the most significant science
the CPU that performs operations such as fiction films of the 1980s. Telling the story
addition and subtraction), a 64-bit floating- of an oil rig team and their encounter with
point unit, and a clock rate of 33 MHz. aliens, The Abyss featured impressive graphics
The 486 chips remained similar in structure for the time, but also introduced a new tool to
to their predecessors, the 386 chips. the effects supervisor’s tool chest, Photoshop.
What set the 486 apart was its optimized Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) used Photoshop
instruction set, with an on-chip unified extensively while doing the post-production
instruction and data cache and an optional work on The Abyss, including being used
on-chip floating-point unit. Combined with an in the creation of the film’s most famous
enhanced bus interface unit, the microproces- effect – the Alien Pseudopod. The Abyss won
sor doubled the performance of the 386 the Academy Award for Best Special Effects
without increasing the clock rate. in 1990.

8-bit kids 43
 ...WITH THE

Sebastien Hehn
COMMODORE 64
SKOOL DAZE
1. The wonderful 80s
First day of high school, unknown terrain, no allies except a
school case filled with sharp pencils and virgin white exercise
books … and exciting times ahead.

I soon realized that I was dropped in a place with strict rules,

where back chatting was not an option, let alone winning an
argument with a teacher. So in hindsight, it was not the most
ideal place for a teenager with an open mind and plenty of
ambitions.

I suppose this scenery was no different than in most Western

European high schools. To top it all off, my school was also a
convent run by nuns.

Rock-‘n-roll? Not a chance!

© Huis Van Alijn – 1982

8-bit kids 49
After the first few lessons that day, it became clear that I had
a lot in common with one fellow classmate: Kristof, nickname
‘KC’. We both agreed that we had landed in the most boring
environment and that we would have to provide our own fun.

Our sense of humor, along with our passion for bits and bytes
drew us together. Very fast, we were inseparable. In the early
80s, IT and computer sciences were unknown subjects. There
wasn’t anything comparable to a microchip in sight.

The only keyboard that we were confronted

with was that of a typewriter catapulted from
the stone age.

We were drilled in touch typing. This, we realize now, would

be ideal for BASIC programming.
But at that time it seemed like the lessons were as useful as
selling ice to an Inuit.

As it is the norm in Belgium, there is no school on a Wednesday

afternoon. We both stayed in school those afternoons to study.
We had made it a habit of going to the City Library in Bruges
afterward.

In the Library we found a wealth of information! We spent

hours reading and reading, again and again, the many com-
puter magazines. We wore the magazines to the thread.

8-bit kids 51
52 8-bit kids
8-bit kids 53
2. Enter The Commodore 64
On one these Wednesday afternoons in the Library, we dis-
covered a fantastic article that praised the ‘Commodore 64
Home Computer’ to the moon and back. The pictures didn’t
leave anything to our imagination. The screenshots, although
in black and white, showed us a completely new, exciting
world that we didn’t know existed. To put some oil on the fire,
the magazine named it “the most affordable home computer
for all”.

We went berserk!
The words ‘affordable’ and ‘for everybody’
echoed through our heads.

I rushed home and lost no time explaining to my

parents the advantages of this ‘affordable com-
puter for all.’ I tried to convince my dad that our
family life would become much more fun and
exciting.

This would solve all

the household budget-
keeping problems.
Shopping lists would
be more accurate and
always up-to-date. We could write
letters, print them AND …

PLAY GAMES!

8-bit kids 55
 To my dismay, the definition of ‘affordable’ was not the same
for my dad as for Commodore. He listened patiently to my ar-
guments but assured me that we didn’t need one of these home
computers and that our family life was fun enough without
this machine. Mainly, he didn’t see what this computer could
do for us as more than what we already had.
That was it - case closed!

In hindsight, it was a logical decision given the fact that there

was no talk about Internet yet. We even didn’t own a color TV
yet, let alone a video recorder.
Before this home computer was going to be a part of our fam-
ily, we needed to cross other bridges in technical evolution.
After all, this ‘affordable’ price tag amounted to one month’s
salary ...

And this only to ‘play some games’ …

56 8-bit kids
8-bit kids 57
58 8-bit kids
8-bit kids 59
60 8-bit kids
 3. Dreaming…

The next day at school it became clear that Kristof’s parents

had the same reaction as mine. Can you remember that feel-
ing as a teenager, wanting something so much and seeing no
way to finance that dream?

That day, lunchtime came and went without either one of us

having an appetite.

That prior night, Kristof, frustrated that he couldn’t get through

to his parents, went back to his local library. He wanted to find
out more information on the Commodore home computer. He
told me that they had books about the Commodore program-
ming language, BASIC. He told me that one can write your own
programs with such a personal computer. This was completely
new to me. All I had thought about was playing games. Kristof,
the more scientific and mathematical guy, was intrigued by
this new technology.

He was wildly enthusiastic

about all the fantastic possi-
bilities this technology offered.
He continued telling me how
you could write a program to
store all your friends and fam-
ily’s birthdays, or even better to
program music or scrolling texts
like in the shop windows.

His enthusiasm sparked a flame

in me for this BASIC language of
the Commodore.

To my surprise, he pushed some

scribbled papers under my nose
and rattled on how he sat until
late into the night, trying to write a
Original hand program that calculates the interest
written progra
m by Kristof

8-bit kids 61
 repayments of a loan. To me it looked like Chinese and I felt
none the wiser. One thing I knew was that he couldn’t test his
program because we had no Commodore!

Kristof just laughed it off and told me it is just like math or

a foreign language. You can write a sentence in French and
know that it makes sense. To prove it, you don’t have to say it
out loud.

I found it a strange comparison but was fascinated by the new

world my friend had discovered. I let it all sink in a bit and we
both shouted out at nearly the same time:

Damn it, we need to get hold of one of those

Commodore 64s!

62 8-bit kids
4. Hands-on… for KC
The weeks flew by, and still the only keyboard in
sight was one of the miserable typewriters. But
something had changed. We had entered the won-
derful world of BASIC programming. Every single
article, magazine and paper we could lay our hands on that
mentioned the word BASIC passed through our hands. We
absorbed the knowledge like sponges.

It wasn’t long before we started writing somewhat more dif-

ficult programs. Oh yes, on paper … for now.

It was soon very clear that Kristof had the brain of a program-
mer. There I was, stuck on the basic level. He just flew through
the levels. I was still at the stage of using, with great difficulty,
‘IF’ and ‘THEN’. Meanwhile he was using ‘PEEK’ and ‘POKE’
with ease. He secretly even dreamt of programming directly
in Assembly language.

One evening while studying Advanced Commodore BASIC

instead of my school subject, I got a call from Kristof.

He was beside himself! After letting me guess in vain, he an-

nounced that while he was visiting his uncle he discovered
that the boy living next door had a Commodore 64! He was
even allowed to take a peek and to program. The boy was
completely baffled and let him test his interest calculator
and journal programs out. THEY WORKED! He was overjoyed
because he had known they had to work!

Although I was a little jealous, I was very

happy for my friend.

That evening though, I didn’t have the courage or strength to

continue studying BASIC in theory any longer. I wanted the
real-life version. All of a sudden my enthusiasm for BASIC dis-
appeared. Without a Commodore 64, the desire was missing.

8-bit kids 67
68 ZZAP! 64 October 1985 THE/HC
0
o
0

ZZAP! 64 October 1985 69

5. Meeting Peter…
Winter turned into spring. If it weren’t for the blue skies and
enthusiastic swallows, I would have missed the whole sea-
son. I wasn’t interested in anything. Soon after the call, Kristof
didn’t join me anymore on Wednesday afternoons. He was
spending more and more time now with his new friend – or
better, that friend’s Commodore 64. I was lost …

Not only did I lose my close friend, but I was also assigned to
a different table at school. There I was, listless at a table full of
new faces. All were boys of other classes: full of themselves,
Top Gun and how cool Tom Cruise was. I found it all childish
and immature.

One boy, Peter, noticed my sullen look and recognized me as

being Kristof’s friend. He knew Kristof because he lived in the
same neighborhood as him and they sometimes cycled to and
from school together.

I told him Kristof was no longer interested in me because of

his new-found hobby.

We shook hands. While talking, we discovered that both of us

loved the music of the Beatles. This made us both outsiders
because most youngsters in the 80s didn’t like The Beatles.

8-bit kids 71
72 8-bit kids
Weeks passed and our friendship grew. We had good conver-
sations and enjoyed our Wednesday afternoons.

And then came the moment of a lifetime -

a moment that you remember the rest of your
life as though it was carved in stone.

During one of our conversations, I told Peter why Kristof had

dropped me like a hot potato; how we both studied the BASIC
program language; how we both longed to own a Commodore
64. How he now had found a friend where he could practice all
of this on the real thing on Wednesday afternoons, and how
we had grown apart because of this.

Peter looked at me stupefied, that I actually wanted to ex-

periment on a Commodore 64. I explained to him how I really
wanted to play these cool games, like the ones in the gaming
arcades.

Peter just laughed. He told me he had one of those Commodore

64s at his home! It was in his bedroom! All he did was play
games on this machine, every night and every weekend! I was
astonished that after all these months being friends he was
telling me this now. How ironic!

8-bit kids 73
I couldn’t believe my luck!
Life, all of sudden, looked
much prettier and rosier.
78 8-bit kids
6. … AND HIS Commodore 64
A little after the revelation, I saw Kristof and told him about
Peter’s treasure! He was also very surprised because they had
biked often, to and from school, and had never discovered
their mutual interest in the Commodore 64.

From that moment Kristof, Peter, and myself

became inseparable friends.

We three were connected through our love for the Commodore

64 and lack of interest in girls. Lots of our classmates followed
the evolution of the computer but had other ‘female’ interests.

It was not long before we were known as The Three Musketeers.

We secretly loved that name. It was as if we were knighted
and were the only ones that knew the secrets of the whole
Commodore bit and byte happenings. This was unlike others
around us, who were wandering and blind in the dark.

It became apparent that we knew more of this new technology

than our teacher. Our teacher tried to teach us, with switch-
boards, the ‘And, Or, and Not‘ principle. Actually, she did not
understand the matter completely herself.

Dare I say, there is no need to explain to you how this boosted

our self-confidence and how we put ourselves on pedestals.

8-bit kids 79
The Wednesday afternoons and soon the
Saturday afternoons became the highlight
of my universe. In hindsight, they are the
moments I remember now with the greatest
nostalgia. We were young, carefree and our
innocent friendship grew through our common
interests.

Peter had already amassed a lovely collection of

games, which continued to grow on a regular basis.
We soon learned that a stunning, attractive game
cover didn’t necessarily mean a brilliant game. The catch
phrases on the cover “stunning graphics” and “a thrilling ex-
perience” were not always so stunning and thrilling on-screen.

But we were 8-BIT KIDS, members of the elite club, and

we didn’t complain.

We were the pioneers of a new era

and we were on top of the world!

8-bit kids 81
7. THE HUNT FOR NEW gaMES
We explored every way and fashion to get our hands on new
games. We obviously didn’t want to miss any opportunity to
obtain a new game and adventure. Because the digital era
stood in its baby shoes, we had to look in every nook and
cranny to get new games.

Back then there was no internet or designated TV channels to

satisfy the hunger of gaming fanatics like us.

We compared ourselves to the Beatles, who survived hours

of bus rides to visit guitarists who had mastered new chords
which they could use in their music.
We, like the Fabulous Four, also trekked through hours of bike
rides to the neighboring country, the Netherlands. Specifically
we searched Sluis to look for new games.

Not only the games caught our young and innocent eyes in
Sluis, which was well known for its sex shops. I don’t think
any cartoon is needed here to explain that in detail.

Glorious times ... Our lives completely revolved around the

new technology.

Nothing was more exciting and fulfilling than

loading a game cassette into the datasette ...
and waiting ... and waiting ...

We watched the screen with anticipation - each time prepar-

ing to enter a new world of challenges with new adventures.
We stepped in the shoes of our heroes to fight their battles, to
conquer, and ultimately be the best.

8-bit kids 85
loading ... loading ... loading ...
loading ... still loading ... ERROR
8. Tape to disk
Thanks to his home computer and the growing popularity
of gaming, Peter became the hero of the neighbour-
hood. Nearly every new movie now also had a
game version; a game in which we would
become our heroes!

We exchanged games and

copied them as well.
Games were
copied in
the
same
way as
making
duplicates
of music
tapes. Some
disadvan-
tages were
that it took ages
to load the data
into the memory of
the Commodore 64;
often something would
go wrong during the long
load; or sometimes the
game itself was worthless!
Precious time was wasted.
Thus, it became very important
to distinguish the good from
the bad games before the copying
commenced.

8-bit kids 89
I can clearly remember the day Peter showed me the local
supermarket advertisement selling an improved disk drive
for the Commodore 64 at half the price. We were both very
excited because this meant that we could play more sophis-
ticated games on floppies. It also meant that the copy process
would take less time and effort.

We concocted a plan for Peter to convince his parents that this

disk drive was of ‘capital importance to the progress of his
education’. The floppy drive was needed to play important, ed-
ucational programs resulting in a vast increase of knowledge.

Victory was sweet when Peter proudly showed us the brand

new Commodore 1541-II disk drive.

Upon his success, I can vaguely remember the

first ‘educational’ program Peter got on disk:
Samantha Fox Strip Poker …
That was quite the learning ‘curve’!

8-bit kids 91
We inspected the new device from all sides and angles. All
old cassettes were replaced with a series of new, shining
diskettes. News spread like wildfire and in no time Peter had
copied about ten brilliant, new games on a floppy.

The ten games didn’t suffice for long.

We wanted more … and more …

While Choplifter and River Raid had intrigued us and kept us

busy for hours, they quickly became boring and uninterest-
ing. We wanted new, more complex games, like Ghostbusters.
Unfortunately, we hadn’t figured out yet how to obtain them.

Then, a new source of supply came into our lives. Now this
was another ball game. The new exchange of games would not
be, as before, a walk in the park.

8-bit kids 93
9. SWAPPING FLOPPIES …
OR NOT
The new source had a name: Mike.
He wasn’t exactly the sweetest new kid on the block. He was a
short tempered, no-nonsense type of guy; full of himself and
acting like the king of the jungle. It was bad news indeed.

The ‘jungle’ was the area where Peter and Kristof grew up, on
the outskirts of Brugge. This area had been converted to ac-
commodate dockworkers and their families when the harbor
became a sea and inland harbor.
With the restructuring came two big soccer fields where
the kids could play and hang out: a meeting place for the
youngsters.

A gang of teenagers had claimed part of this suburb as their

territory. It was crucial to belong to the right ‘crowd’ at the
right time!

Mike didn’t follow these social rules or regu-

lations. Armed with a big bag of sweets and
E.T. game cards, he confronted the leader of
the youth gang and gave him the message
that his days were numbered!

The leader, somewhat baffled, tried to fight him. Mike was not
afraid of anything, and instead made buddies with all of the
leader’s friends by bribing them with sweets and game cards.

Soon, Mike was THE man - the newly chosen ‘king’. Before the
leader could wipe out his eyes, he was old news! He had to
make space for Mike.

After just two days, new kid on the block was

already lord and master of the most renowned
youth gang in the area.
This was Mike … he only asked once.

8-bit kids 95
 “Look who’s there!
The Commodore boys!”

96 8-bit kids
 One Saturday afternoon, Peter and I were doing
our usual bit trying to finish the The Last Ninja 2
game, when the doorbell rang.
Fangio, Mike’s messenger, ordained Peter to go
and see Mike on the soccer field. Peter wasn’t re-
ally keen to belong to their gang and tried to deny
the request.

When Fangio mentioned that Mike also had a

Commodore 64 and plenty of new games, that he
wanted to copy for us, his mood turned. We had never pedaled
faster on our bikes all the way to that soccer field.
What a sight it was! Picture this: on the soccer field - Mike: sit-
ting in a tent, surrounded by a wall of old, dilapidated pallets,
shouting orders to his subordinates who were separated
from the ‘common’ people. It was Mike’s H.Q., and
without the right password, nobody got into
the camp - not even Fangio!

Mike, his lordship, seated on a heap

of cushions with on either side a
guard.

Only a cigar in his mouth and a golden ring on his finger

could have completed the picture.
Instead this was a bottle of Coke and a bag of Paprika Crisps,
and his gaze as he chewed the day away. His lips had an or-
ange glow and the Coke dripped from his chin on his Puma
tracksuit.
He noticed us and quickly swallowed, gesturing wildly that
we could be seated. He wiped his mouth clean with the back
of his hand.

A big grin spread across on his face as he growled: “Look who’s

there! The Commodore boys!”.
There was no time to figure out if he was laughing in our faces
because he continued telling us that he had loads of games

8-bit kids 97
- hundreds! Peter and I just needed one glance at each other to
understand that we hit the jackpot! Mike’s uncle lived in the
UK and worked in the IT sector. Nearly every day he received
brand new games through his BBS.
A BBS (bulletin board system) in our country was pure sci-
ence fiction. We were light years behind compared to the UK
and US.

In those parts of the world the national landline calls were

already free of charge. But in our country, not even every
household had a phone. To imagine, we could let our phones
off the hook for a night while leaving the disk drive on, to dis-
cover the next morning a game was downloaded on the disk!
Peter didn’t get the equation of the exchange at first. Mike had
hundreds of games where he only had a tenth of this amount.

After a couple of minutes and a replenishment of crisps with

a gulp of Coke, Mike’s vision became clear to us. Peter could
copy every single game he wanted for free, but for each copy
he made he needed to give Mike five copies. In other words,
six copies were made by Peter: one for him and five for Mike.
Peter was also to provide the disks. This was the ‘Deal’.

Peter needed to think this over. Our young and innocent minds
didn’t worry yet about the illegal side of copying. That problem
would come many moons later. For now, the main concern was
the extra cost of five disks each time we wanted a game. Peter
asked for some time to make up his mind. Fangio was going to
deliver a list of all games the next day and by Saturday Mike
wanted an answer.

It seemed like an offer we couldn’t refuse.

8-bit kids 99
AMSTRAD CBM 6 4 128

Gremlin Graphks Software Limited, Alpha House, 10 Carver Street, Sheffield SI 4FS T e l : 0742 753423
10. mike’s list
Peter wasn’t exactly one who follows the crowd. Always ‘on
the one hand yes but on the other hand no’, in most cases a
master in hesitation.
Mike of course had found our weak spot, having access to
each and every game we were dreaming of. Although being
a nice offer we fully realized that we would only do him a big
favor by accepting the deal.

The spoiled brat got the games thrown in his lap, we would
copy them for free for him so he could buy lots of sweets and
get even more power over his peers in the neighborhood.
It wasn’t really the ideal situation, not much to our liking …

So we asked Kristof’s advice. He was the realist of us and an

analyst at heart. He listened to our story, frowned his fore-
head and shortly after said he wouldn’t accept the deal. In my
mind, this was the sign that Mike’s story would end there and
then. Only the fact that Kristof saw no advantage at all in the
deal for us, made up my mind that I wouldn’t spend another
second thinking about Mike’s proposal.

But I saw the doubt in Peter’s eyes ...

That Wednesday afternoon we cycled along to Peter’s house.

Once there, his mother told us there was ‘mail’ for Peter.
“Mikes list!”, we shouted in excitement. Kristof, Peter and I ran
to his room, tore open the envelope and devoured all the little
matrix printed lines with our 6 eyes.

8-bit kids 101

 \ I I T S T H E 4 T H |T INTO THE COMPARENT CALM OF THE
EdTmrcTTrrn I JULY AND WHITE HOUSE BURSTS THE MANIC
V

& - J THE NAT/ON

IS SET FOR AN /
DR. MEGALOMANN. "STEP DOWN MR
PRESIDENT; SUBMIT TO MY RULE OR TODAY
u
ALMIGHTY AMERICA WILL KNOW A PLAGUE FROM WHICH
CELEBRATION. \ ^ DEATH WILL SEEM A HAPPY RELEASE".

^
HI KIDS! NO TIME TO
LOSE. C I A . SAY
. THERE'S AN
UNIDENTIFIED MISSILE
LOCATED IN AN
UNDERGROUND SILO IN
THE MIDDLE OF THE
CALIFORNIA^ DESERT.
MUST BE THE ONE!
CLIMB ABOARD THE SKY
CYCLE. TOGETHER WE
n

,
CAN SAVE THE FREE
WORLD. GOD SAVE
'AMERICA! m
CBM 64/128
' £ 9 9 9 £1199
a
J
TAPE DISK
j
AMSTRAD
. £9 99 £14-99
• TAPE DISK

SPECTRUM £8 99
ATARI ST £19 99

- r v ^ v ^ v v i * ^ b b b

M/MedbMaV/ngsiM. i/n/tsP/S. Ho/torcTU/Ju Ho/fordff/rm/ngtesr?06 7/7X. r£L 0P/S56SJ0&

o a i M M M r a
c 1977 by Marvel Comics Group. All righu reserved
C 1987 by Marvel Entertainment* Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Pages and pages of game titles, this was better
than we ever expected!

Summer games, Winter games, Maniac Mansion, Ghost-

busters, The Great Giana Sisters, Impossible Mission,
Infiltrator, Pirates!, Raid Over Moscow … only to name a few,
the list was endless. We could have never even dreamt of
owning these games. I saw the hunger and glittering in Peter’s
eyes. Kristof also saw what I saw and repeated immediately
what he had said before at school:

“Friends, this seems all very nice and cool but my gut feeling
is to stay away from it: it is spelled B.A.D. N.E.W.S.! Another
problem, Peter, would be where would you all of a sudden get
those extra diskettes to copy the games for Mike? He isn’t to
be trusted, walk away from it all …”

We decided to leave the subject and played a couple of games.

That day Mike’s deal wasn’t brought up again. At night in bed
when I thought back about that Wednesday I felt good about
the decision I took. Kristof’s wise words reinforced my deci-
sion, for my part there was no deal.

8-bit kids 103

 throughexperience.
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tainment, stop off at Maniac Mansion and look around. look around.

1212 ZZAP!
ZZAP!6464December
December1987
1987
 T he packaging on Lucasfilm's iatest is drab t o say the least,
but the game is far f r o m that. After a suitably spooky intro-
ductory sequence, the action quickly gets into full swing. Man-
iac Mansion feels very m u c h like an interactive Scooby-Doo type
cartoon, and I particularly like the way that the game 'cuts*
from scene to scene to show the evil plotting of the mad Doctor.
The humour works well - read the notice on the nuclear reactor
in the basement and it says 'Made in Chernobyl'! The charac-
ters are pleasantly animated and all the locations are neatly
presented, with plenty of clever touches and sound effects -
especially the scratchy old record on the gramophone. The
unusual menu system is easy to use and progress is initially
easy, but Maniac Mansion will certainly take a fair amount of
solving - anyone with adventuring tendencies and a disk drive
should go straight out and get it.

I f you've ever thought that the

arcade adventure genre was
getting a little tired, take a look
• Two of the rescuing team take a look at part of Dr Fred's art collection

the latest product from

Lucasfilm and think again.
Maniac Mansion combines
arcade action, visual clues,
perplexing puzzles and a great
sense of humour to create one
of the best arcade adventures
I've seen. The control method
is incredibly easy t o use, and
guiding the three intrepid
explorers around the mysteri-
ous residence is highly enjoy-
able. Discovering new loca-
tions and objects is always
rewarding, and some logical
thinking is required to prog-
ress deeper into the adven-
ture. The player interaction is
tremendous, and gives the
action a wonderful feel.
Although the graphics and
sound don't push back any
barriers, they work together
perfectly to create a believa-
ble, almost film-like atmos-
phere. Maniac Mansion
definitely ranks as a 'must buy'
- it's a shame that it's only
available on disk.

• The exterior of the creepy old

house from Maniac Mansion

PRESENTATION 95%
Brilliantly constructed and sup-
erbly implemented.
GRAPHICS 80%
Large, cartoon-style spntes and
nicely drawn backdrops.
SOUND 79%
Not outstanding, but the effects
help to create a wonderful
atmosphere.
HOOKABILITY 93%
The excellent control method
makes the adventure easy to get
into, and the action is addictive
from the start.
INSTABILITY 86%
When the adventure is solved,
return to the mansion with a new
gang.

OVERALL 93%
An innovative and polished
arcade adventure which
shouldn't be missed.

ZZAP! 64 December 1987 13

11. Countermove
Days passed, nobody mentioned the Mike saga, day to day life
continued as usual.

Peter and I decided to finally crack the Samantha Fox Strip

Poker game on Saturday. That day, an hour early, I eagerly
placed my bike in front of his house and rang the doorbell.

Peter’s mother told me that Peter was out on his bike but would
be back by the time I would arrive. As usual I was welcome to
wait, sat down, was offered a glass of coke and a chocolate and
watch an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie with Peter’s parents
and younger brother.

The atmosphere in Peter’s house was always relaxed, easy go-

ing and full of humour. At my place there were always chores
to be done, and seldom we had coke or candy in the house and
never got to watch tv before seven o’clock at night. Coming to
Peter’s house, except for the fact that he had a Commodore 64
and was one of my two best friends, was always a treat and
felt like going on holiday!

Two o’clock came and went and Peter’s mom started to get
worried seen the fact her son was always on time. And espe-
cially knowing one of his best friends would be coming.

A little after three everybody got really worried, so worried

that Peter’s dad and brother decided to go look for him.

I asked Peter’s mom if he told her where he would go that

afternoon. She didn’t know,

All she knew was that he had two boxes of

new diskettes with him that he bought the day
before in the supermarket ...

8-bit kids 107

 Diskettes … of course! Peter was gone to Mike! My gut feel-
ing was right, he couldn’t resist the temptation of Mike’s
offer. I asked Peter’s mom if I could load something on his
Commodore 64, which she said was fine.

Peter had entrusted me once in a candid moment that he kept

a diary on a disk. In time of need, this info came in handy.

In his room I immediately searched through his diskettes: the

biggest mistake I could ever make. Nobody ever was even al-
lowed to stare too long at his diskette container.

His diskettes, all in different colours, neatly numbered were

accompanied by a notebook in which he kept meticulously
what game or program was on each disk.

After some browsing I found what I was looking for: DIARY, a

program nota bene written by Kristof so that all he had to do
was fill in a date and start writing.

I started the Commodore 64 and loaded the

DIARY programme. It was of course safe-
guarded by a password. Luckily I also knew
a little about programming in Commodore
BASIC. I interrupted the programme and
looked up the code. I figured out that INPUT
A$ should be equal to JESSICA to continue. I
chuckled, so Jessica, a girl in my class, was the
Jessica secret love of Peter…

I really felt like entering never explored territory, an old grave-

stone in some dark never entered pyramid. My main drive and
motivation came from the fact of wanting to help Peter out of
trouble. “Peter mate, I really do this to help you,” I whispered.
I loaded his diary input from yesterday and began to read.

108 8-bit kids

Dear diary,
Fangio stopped me while I was cycling home and told me that
I had till tomorrow to accept Mike’s deal. I am hesitating …
Nevertheless, I told him I would go tomorrow. I saved enough
money to buy two boxes of diskettes.
I am going to take the plunge. I seriously want Maniac Mansion
and Zak McKracken … Koen will quickly forget Kristof’s argu-
ments when he sees that we can now play those 2 games! Ihii!
Peter

I switched off the Commodore 64 and made sure everything

went back exactly in the same spot where I found it. I told
Peter’s mom I knew where he was and would go and have a
look.

When I arrived at Mike’s camp, there was plenty of commo-

tion. People in heavy discussions, waving, hands in the air,
youngsters but also adults. Peter’s brother Mario also clearly
found the way to the soccer field. When he saw me, he ran
towards me.

“What is happening here?”, I asked him

in surprise.

Mario explained that Mike, the

rising star wanting more power
and merchandise, exchanged a
copied Commodore 64 game for a
boy’s BMX bike!
Alijn – 1982
© Huis Van

Obviously, when the boy came home without bike, the parents
wasted no time to go and look for Mike.
They wanted their son’s bike back!
They were seemingly not the only parents there who wanted
to reclaim goods from their children.

It looked like Mike had a lot of angry parents on his case!

8-bit kids 109

 This was the last we saw of Mike, he was kept on the leash inside ...

112 8-bit kids

All hell broke loose when it came to light that there was no
‘uncle in the UK’ who provided the Commodore 64 games!
Mike had copied the whole games collection from his neigh-
bour’s son!

The bastard!!! I immediately reminded myself of Kristof’s

comments, he was -again- right …

Mario continued that a couple of people, including Peter and

his dad, had forced Mike to go to his parents. Apparently Mike
had walked head down, red of shame. “You should have seen
Mike, Koen!”, Mario laughed. “He was totally humiliated!”
‘Serves him right!”, I chuckled.

We saw a beaten Fangio at what remained of Mikes HQ. He

looked at us shyly, and then quickly ran away.

Mario and I returned to Peter’s house. A little later, a beaming

Peter and his dad also returned.

Mike’s parents, in compensation of all stress and commotion

their son caused, had given the complete collection of his
games to Peter to take home and copy at his leisure.

Mike had to return all exchanged goods back to the lawful

owners and the master himself had a month’s house arrest.
It seemed that although Mike was a spoiled kid, his parents
were very strict.

This was the last we saw of Mike, he was kept on the leash
inside ...

Everything returned back to normal.

But there was one big difference …

8-bit kids 113

 z.
Beatle-Qui
of AMICOM’s
ftware disk
Original so

Background: Cover of the first AMICOM magazine with the orginal hand drawn AMICOM logo
12. The rise and fall of
AMICOM
We now had access to a gigantic collection of more than a
hundred of the most fantastic games!

Everything had fallen into place. Then, my neighbour con-

verted to Apple and gave me unlimited use of his Commodore
64. The gates of heaven had miraculously opened! My dad al-
lowed me to install the C64 in his office and Peter let me copy
all the new games.

Oh, glorious summer holidays. There were some exciting

months ahead!
I had my own C64. It gave me the freedom to study BASIC in
depth. All the hours I would normally spend at Peter’s house
were now put into increasing my knowledge of this sacred
language. Kristof also challenged us in the language on a
regular basis. This kept a healthy competition going and we
pulled each other’s knowledge to greater and greater levels.

We were soon writing programs that helped our friends with

their day to day lives. Kristof’s ‘interest repayment’ program
was even used in our house and one classmate ordered a fam-
ily quiz.

We decided to start a ‘software’ company ...

AMICOM was born!

8-bit kids 115

 “Well Frank, it seems
your wife prepared
the wrong bread bin ...”
118
8-bit kids
Original cartoon drawn by Peter about our computer adventures, which appeared in AMICOM magazine.
AMI came from AMI-ga, the newest Commodore PC (that my
uncle had coincidentally just purchased) the most futuristic
machine I had ever seen. ‘COM’ came from COM-modore, of
course. AMICOM was also popular in the teacher’s room at
school: we published a magazine that gave tips about the use
of the Commodore 64 and its programs. Info the teachers could
use! Kristof wrote a little programme to add to each edition of
the magazine and Peter started drawing a cartoon about us. A
lot of teachers took a subscription of this magazine. With the
teachers, we scored points. It’s a pity we didn’t make impres-
sion on any of the girls with our magazine! To score with the
girls, you had to be a cool dude, playing the guitar, which we
did but later …

By 1991, AMICOM declared bankruptcy. I, as the treasurer,

spent most of the petty cash money on pizzas after school and
not on copying the magazine for the subscribers. The sales of
our software titles had also gone downhill. Everything evolved
so fast in the PC world. Our school bought newer computers
and preached with passion DOS SHELL and GW BASIC.

Especially one new and young teacher, Mr. Ronny Millet,

who had bits and bytes in his DNA. He became our first real
computer science teacher and couldn’t have come at a better
moment for us. To this day he has our sympathy for being
our first ‘modern’ teacher who understood the ‘language’ us
youngsters spoke back then.

My Commodore 64 became old fashioned and outdated. I

realized I was the only one still using this machine. Peter had
just bought a Commodore PC-10-III and had discovered more
advanced games and programming in GW-BASIC.

When my dad purchased an XT-PC for his company use,

I was officially the last of the Mohicans …

8-bit kids 119

 Not all video game franchises were faithful to the concept on which they
were based.

120 8-bit kids

The whole Commodore-64 story had lasted a mere 4 years.
In hindsight, they were the most important years of my life.
Nothing has ever topped the friendship and the shared inter-
ests, especially at the teenage stage of life. Friends like this
become your ‘partners in crime’ for life! This era lives on my
mind and brings a smile on my face, every single day. Today,
Peter, Kristof and I are still the best of friends. Peter lives in
the States, but we speak nearly every other week and chat
daily. Kristof and I were witness at each other’s weddings. Our
children just happen to be the same ages. We are still three
brothers - a bond that remains to this day. A kinship based on
memories unique to our childhood.
This has been the source of inspiration for this very book.
All of this is because of one, now very old, but once-futuristic
machine: the Commodore 64.

When the time came to search a publishing company

name for this book, you’ll understand it quickly became
clear that AMICOM stood a good chance ...

8-bit kids 121

 A NEW GENERATION OF
8-BIT KIDS IS READY ...

Koen with his kids Warre and Rilke

Warre off-roading

Kristof with his kids Ine and Robbe Warre with ‘his’ C64

Mario, Peter’s brother with

Peter and his son Jackson his kids Thomas and Evelien

122 8-bit kids

 GOING BACK IN TIME
IN 2017

Our school ... Here anno 2016

Kristof and I with our computer science teacher Ronny Millet

Stéphane Ghenne - 8-BIT KID Godfather in his Commodore Castle

8-bit kids 123

 **** COMMODORE 64 BACKERS V1 ****

64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE

READY

LOAD''8-BIT KIDS'',8

SEARCHING FOR 8-BIT KIDS

LOADING
READY.
RUN

8-bit kids 125

 **** 8-BIT KID V1: EDUARDO ****
FIRST TIME I SAW A COMMODORE 64
One day in 1984 I happened to visit my cousin he was
surrounded by a lot of his neighbours in the base-
ment, all looking at a TV with what seemed to be
animations. At first I thought it was a movie but
then I saw the breadbox and a small joystick con-
nected to the TV. Can’t remember exactly what game
they were playing, but I then knew I wanted to get
me one of those.

MY FIRST OWN COMMODORE 64

It took me time and an achievement as good grades
in 4th grade to convince my parents to buy me one.
I must also confess that I had to hack the grades
report to make it look even better that what it
was, but it wasn’t with POKEs, just adding extra
brilliant notes to the report before showing it to
my parents. Very dangerous move considering I had
the same teacher the year after and imagine how I
felt when my parents went to meet with her after ‘the
hack’… every time they came back from the interview I thought
the worst was about to happen … it never did, the feeling was
terrible, but it was TOTALLY WORTH IT!

OPENING THE BOX

Like if it was yesterday, when I open the box at home I re-
alised it was not the breadbox but the C64C model and had all
this crazy thoughts of compatibility or not being the same. I
liked the breadbox better, but they didn’t sell it anymore…
The C64C included some games: Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Green Beret, Ping
Pong, Hyper Sports and Basketball.
And yeah, the first cassette didn’t work as it didn’t load the
games properly so had to wait another 3 or 4 days to start
playing the games. After some months I found out that a little
screwdriver would have done the trick.

ALL-TIME FAVOURITE GAME ON THE COMMODORE 64

The Last Ninja 1. To me it was really a next generation game.
The music, the ambience and the game play were just awesome.
There was nothing like that in the market and it was only for
the Commodore, so I shoved it to my friends’ face every single
time they came over to play.

BEST EVER C64 MEMORY

So many of them I could write an entire book, but since I only
have this spread I will name a few …
Recording the music from Last Ninja 1 and 2 and some others
with a microphone on tape so I could play it in my Walkman while
going to school.
The first double deck cassette player that I got as a present
and trying to copy all my friend’s games.
The whole family playing competitively to Leaderboard, even my
parents!
The countless hours spent with my brother playing Last Ninja on
a very bad weather weekend, and waking up early to play some
more …
Buying microcomputer magazines that only had three or four
pages of Commodore games.
Copying Basic programs from magazines to cheat on many games
with those endless poke lists … READ, DATA, READ, DATA, POKE …

BUT THE BEST MEMORY BY FAR was finding where my parents

hid the Commodore during the week. Their intention was for
me to play only during the holidays or weekends, hahaha, they
failed.

126 8-bit kids

 8-B
Edua IT KID
rdo
Urib
e

THE COMMODORE 64 IS THE GREATEST COMPUTER OF ALL TIME!

To me it was the introduction to computers, music, pro-
gramming, etc. Probably one of the biggest milestones in
my life, while playing and discovering programming with it
I made the decision to dedicate my life to computers. Now
I’m 39 and work for a major IT Company.

8-bit kids 127

 **** 8-BIT KID V2: ANDREAS ****
FIRST TIME I SAW A COMMODORE 64
The year was 1984. Without notice, my father brought home the
C64, disk drive, tape deck, printer and five budget games from
Mastertronic. The family CBS Colecovision became obsolete over
night. At first, I could only use the C64 during weekends be-
cause my parents didn’t want it to interfere with school. Little
did they know that their sneaky son brought friends home during
lunch breaks to play games.

MY FIRST OWN COMMODORE 64

My dad worked as a spare parts manager at Toyota, and as far as
I can remember, the way they did business in those days was “if
you fix my car for a good price, I’ll bring some stuff from my
work with a heavy discount.”

Me and my dad took a BASIC course in 1985, but for most part, I
had to figure things out myself. I didn’t use the disk drive for
over a year because the games I had were on tape and I at that
time didn’t own any disks that I could save my BASIC experi-
ments on. My cousin got a job at Digital and he gave me 10 disks
which I then handed over to a guy I got to know at summer camp.
He filled five of the disks with various copied games. Through
friends of friends, I got to know about turbo tapes and that
was a real eye-opener. I’m not proud of the fact that I copied
games back in those days, but I was young and it was very in-
nocent and very accessable. It wasn’t even illegal in Sweden at
the time. I bought games though, and especially the Epyx
titles.

ALL-TIME FAVOURITE GAME ON THE COMMODORE 64

The hardest question of all time! I would have to say
Winter Games because I love the Hot Dog, Biathlon and
Ski Jump events so much. Other games I played a lot
were Uridium, Combat School, California Games, Boulder
Dash, Defender of the Crown, Bomb Jack, International
Karate, Duotris, Kikstart II and Slicks.

TREASURED COMMODORE 64 MEMORIES

* I drew my first logo and font on the C64 when I was
14 years old. Little did I know that you could do that
stuff for a living ... But here I am 29 years later,
doing just that. Best education I’ve ever had!
* The memories I have of going into toy stores in the 80’s to
check out the latest games are all great. So many titles, so
little money ...
* We had computing as a subject in school, and yes, we used
C64’s. I remember one day when I ran a program that was print-
ing text on the screen while playing a noisy typewriter sound
effect. I really wanted to know how this sorcery was done so
I loaded the program again, typed ‘list’, and was met by “SYS
2064” and not the BASIC commands I was expecting. My brain was
going: “What the hell is going on here?” Needless to say, this
triggered my curiosity to find out more about how to do cool
stuff beyond what BASIC could offer.
* Getting recognized in the demo scene for doing cool graphics
and being part of a great demo group is a huge highlight.
* Playing live with Ben Daglish in our retro band SID’80s is
great. I love the other guys in the band as well, but I’ve been
a fan of Ben for a very, very long time.
* Hearing from Rob Hubbard, Chris Hülsbeck and Matt Gray that
they like my drumming was a “Woooaahh!!” moment.
* All the friendships I’ve had throughout the years mean a great
deal to me.

128 8-bit kids

 Andr 8-BI
eas T
W all KID
stro
m C6
4.C OM

OLD Star and Jordan of Antic, The Spy and Morpheus

of Flash Inc.

THE COMMODORE 64 IS MORE THAN JUST A HOME COMPUTER

There’s the games, the demos, the music, the friends, the
old heroes, all the stories ... It’s there and I just
happen to love it all.
 **** 8-BIT KID V3: MARK ****
FIRST TIME I SAW A COMMODORE 64
During a long wait for Christmas to come round, I’d chosen and
set my heart on the Commodore VIC-20. It was mid 1983. Then
something caught my eye in a magazine.” That’s not a VIC-20”,
I thought, “It’s the wrong colour! That’s better than the Vic!
I need that! An easy decision for a 13 year old …”

MY FIRST OWN COMMODORE 64

Christmas 1983! Thank goodness for Christmas. It’s the only way
as a child or young teenager to own your otherwise out of reach
dreams. Thanks Mum and Dad!

OPENING THE BOX

I opened my Commodore 64’s box with trembling excitement on the
morning of Christmas day in 1983. My parents didn’t know that
I’d need a tape deck too, in fact they didn’t know that the C64
played games either. So unfortunately they didn’t get me one
until a few weeks later, so type in listings were a saviour.
Losing everything at the power off moment was so hard to take
during those first few weeks though.

FIRST EVER GAME ON THE COMMODORE 64

My first game on the Commodore 64 was ‘Attack of the Mutant
Camels’ by Llamasoft, followed by Super Blitz by Commodore.
Camels was £8 and Super Blitz was £5. I had just enough money
left to pay for the bus fare home.

ALL-TIME FAVOURITE GAME ON THE

COMMODORE 64
I love everything Llamasoft produced. If I want
to play and feel spoiled for choice I know I
can always pick up Gridrunner, any ‘Camels’,
Sheep in Space and be as thrilled playing
now as I was thirty years ago.
It has to be said however,
I’ll never stop playing Super
Pipeline & Jammin by TaskSet as
long as I can hold a joystick!

TREASURED COMMODORE 64
MEMORIES
Discovering the ‘other side’
of the C64 probably is my
greatest memory. The demo
scene totally blew me away.
I loved everything about it.
The friendships of talented indi-
vidual 64 owners that collected together to
form ‘groups’ that worked together to create
musical & graphical pieces of ‘coded’ machine.
Coded magic that let imagination show you
exactly what the Commodore 64 could do.

To me, the Commodore 64 is the greatest home com-

puter ever. No hyper powered PC or console could
ever replace it in my home.
THE PC IS A TOOL. THE COMMODORE 64 IS A FRIEND!

130 8-bit kids

 8-B
M ark IT KID
Hell
ew el
l
Jeff Minter and me - 1985

“The PC is a tool.
The Commodore 64 is a friend!”
 **** 8-BIT KID V4: MATTHIJS ****
FIRST TIME I SAW A COMMODORE 64
One of my neighbours, David, was a good friend and a few years
older. He owned a Commodore 64. I was amazed the first time I
saw it.

MY FIRST OWN COMMODORE 64

Not really easy, I asked my parent a million times, finally I
got a second hand Spectrum Sinclair a nightmare. Finally my
parents decided if I would save half of the Commodore 64 they
would pay the rest. I think it took me a year.

FIRST EVER GAME ON THE COMMODORE 64

Wonderboy … Magic!

ALL-TIME FAVOURITE GAME ON THE COMMODORE 64

Wizard of Word because of the co-op and multiplayer.

TREASURED COMMODORE 64 MEMORIES

Winter days, long playing, programming with friends.

WHAT WAS THE COMPUTER YOU USED AFTER THE C64

Super Nintendo, but I sold that one after a year.

To me, the Commodore 64 is the greatest home com-

puter ever. For a lot of reasons. But one of them
is the homebrew scene. So many great games and
endless fun nights. I still play games today on a
PS4, but in my memories I had the most fun with the
Commodore 64! Mind you, I kept it and still have it!

132 8-bit kids

M att 8-
hijs BIT KID
Van
Sche
ndel
en

8-bit kids 133

 **** 8-BIT KID V5: MARK ****
FIRST TIME I SAW A COMMODORE 64
I was about 7 years, it was Christmas in the still very early
80s, and friends showed me their prized present: a Commodore
VIC-20, or “VC 20” as it was called in Germany, reportedly to
make it stand for “Volks-Computer” - but maybe just to steer
clear of a suggestive homonym that “VIC” has in German. While I
had some experience with video games , that did not prepare me
for this machine: not only could you get game cartridges for it,
so you weren’t restricted to a fixed set of internal games. But
what was more - it had a keyboard!

MY FIRST OWN COMMODORE 64

I scraped together all the piggybank money I had accumulated
over many a birthday and Christmas, now finally having found
the something I truly wished for. But before I got to spend
it, things got even better: The Commodore 64 made its appear-
ance and replaced the VIC-20 in the stores and on my wish list.
From all the rumours you heard about it, it seemed to be a real
miracle machine. But it also carried a hefty price tag of about
one and a half thousand Deutsche Mark. Not a chance. What to do?
Wait for even more Christmases and more birthdays? Just when it
seemed I might grow up and old waiting for that miraculous ma-
chine to find its way to my room, Commodore decided to present
all the tech-hungry kids a miracle of their own: in one of their
now-(and I think even back then)-legendary pricing tactics, they
cut the amount in half over night, bringing it in reach.

OPENING THE BOX

At home, I rushed to my room, and carefully
removed the colourful cardboard sleeve to
uncover the white polystyrene box. Therein,
next to a huge paperweight which turned out
to be a power supply that could also double
as a room heater, rested the mystery machine
itself. A dark brown keyboard in a beige box.
I ran my hands across the keys. Most of them
I knew from my typewriter, of course. But many
of them featured strange symbols on their front in
addition to the usual letters on top. And then there were extra
keys with cryptic words on them - CTRL, CLR HOME, INST DEL, RUN
STOP, RESTORE, CRSR and more. One had the Commodore logo. What
did these words and markings mean? What would the machine do if
you pressed those keys?

TREASURED COMMODORE 64 MEMORIES

Experiencing the fun with your friends was what video games
were all about back then. It was already cool when you took
turns at the computer and watched your friends play, see them
try their best and root for them to get further and further
in the game, maybe even make it to the next level and then
the next. Even cooler was when the game offered the chance to
compete against each other for points and glamour, hoping to be
the first to uncover the games’ next secrets before the waiting
eyes of your pals. But for me, the Commodore’s biggest and, as
it would turn out, life defining revelation was when I happened
across a little program called VizaWrite. It was like my old
typewriter - on steroids! I wrote and wrote and wrote, filling
disk upon disk with text. And I have not stopped yet.

134 8-bit kids

 M ark 8-BIT K
Torb ID
en R
udol
p h

When I was eight, my whole life was sent into a new direction!
A beige-brown breadbox adorned with a clunky chocolate-coloured
keyboard appeared and soon earned itself the spotlight in my
room. I never would have guessed the influence that friendly
little machine proved to have. Not only did it become an in-
tegral part of my youth, focal point and facilitator of many
relaxed-yet-exciting afternoons with friends joined in a quest
to vanquish an evil wizard, a sword fight in a secret samurai
temple, or competing in the Olympics ... What was more, it set
me on a track that would lead me through fun and business in
technology and publishing all through my later school years and
up to the millennium and beyond.
 **** 8-BIT KID V6: DAG ****
MY FIRST COMMODORE 64
I first saw a Commodore 64 when my parents bought one. It must
have been somewhere in 1983 (I was 7 years old). They acquired
one for doing stock-management and bookkeeping, but was never
really used for it. My parents had a few books about program-
ming in BASIC and I remember that we did have tapes with some
software on it for ‘professional’ use (like bookkeeping) but I
never saw it being used for it.

MY FIRST GAME ON THE COMMODORE 64

It must have been one of those early games that came on car-
tridges. I still remember we had cartridges with International
Soccer and Dig Dug.

ALL-TIME FAVOURITE GAME ON THE COMMODORE 64

It is hard to give a single one all-time favourite game be-
cause there have been many over time that we used to play
a lot. Like River Raid, Galaxy, Wizards of Wor, Arkanoid,
Out Run, Impossible Mission, The Great Giana Sisters, Druid,
International Karate, Caveman Ugh-lympics, Bruce Lee.

One thing did change the way we played games:

the Final Cartridge III. It not only allowed us
to continue playing a game, even after we’d be
called for dinner, it also allowed us to modify
games to our own wishes and experiment with the
Commodore 64.

BEST EVER C64 MEMORY

During the summer vacation we often spend
weeks at the seaside, which in my case meant,
weeks away from the Commodore 64. It don’t
know whether it was compassion from my par-
ents, or the only way to get me out of the
house, but they agreed the Commodore 64 could
join us. The only problem was that at that
time they didn’t want me to take the TV set
with me. So in the end a friend of the family
got a hold of an old black-and-white TV set,
but not just your normal TV set, this one
was *huge*. It filled most of the trunk, so
we had to drive for hours with stuff on our
laps, but that was definitely worth it because we
finished Impossible Mission that same vacation!

THE COMMODORE 64 IS THE GREATEST COMPUTER OF ALL

TIME It most definitely was the greatest computer
of my time as it introduced me into programming and
is the main motivator to pursue a career in IT. As
a freelance Open Source and Linux consultant I still
believe in sharing and learning from peers and the
Commodore 64 was what made this possible as an 8
year old. I am convinced that it shaped me and many
others to what we are today.

136 8-bit kids

 8-BI
T KI
Dag D
Wiee
rs
 **** 8-BIT KID V7: KEVIN ****
FIRST TIME I SAW A COMMODORE 64
I saw commercials on television regarding the Commodore 64.
I was immediately attracted to a technology that allowed one
to be the master of their microcosm – this was me in a rural,
American, small town.

MY FIRST OWN COMMODORE 64

I immediately told my parents of this amazing technology that
I must possess. My mother, at first chance, went to her credit
union to take out the $200 for the initial down payment for
K-Mart lay-a-way.

OPENING THE BOX

I knew it was coming. Every time we went to town I would play
with K-Mart’s Commodore 64 that was on display. I would use new
BASIC code that I learned from magazines I had bought to pre-
pare for the moment I received my new personal computer.
10 PRINT “HELLO”
20 GOTO 10
RUN
Ah, the power … the ecstasy! Wait! What? Someone figured how to
run-stop!? I quickly researched the ‘peek-poke’ codes to disable
RUN-STOP. I was once again the master of personal computing!

FIRST GAME I PLAYED ON THE COMMODORE 64

The first game I remembering playing was Telengard. The fighter
from the game is going to be part of my next tattoo (seriously –
this is my next tat).

ALL-TIME FAVOURITE GAME ON THE COMMODORE 64

Telengard. It was written in BASIC and I had learned
BASIC as part of my elementary school’s gifted pro-
gram. Knowing BASIC and loving Telengard gave me the
prowess to RUN-STOP the game, edit the code, and give
me unlimited weapons and gold. Well, this is where I
learned about overflow errors. HA!

THE LUCKY ONE

No one I knew in my village of population 500 had
a Commodore 64. I was 1337! I had a buddy with an
Atari 5200, one with an Intellivision, and another
with a Colecovision. Weekends would be filled with
a pal, with a golf cart driving us nerds to each other’s
homes to play our unique gaming systems.

BEST EVER COMMODORE 64 MEMORY

Ah … my best Commodore 64 memories are ones of me realizing
when and where a game could be improved (RUN-STOP, FTW [for the
win, newbs]) – and if I was able, writing new code to make this
happen. Also, when I learned how to connect my VCR to the C64
and create an introduction to a movie I had recorded was an-
other amazing development. Another great memory was receiving a
parcel in the mail of a box of disks.

GOODBYE ...
1993 … I finished my B.S. in Special Education. Up to that time,
I was using my C64 ‘Bankstreet Writer’ program as a spreadsheet
to keep my students’ grades. I moved to the ‘big city’ (Chicago)
and discovered the GEOS operating system – an actual GUI
(graphical user interface) - my life changed. I had never seen
‘Windows’, or ‘a mouse.’ What the hell?!

138 8-bit kids

This was my 8th grade classroom teacher, gifted
teacher, and Scholar Bowl coach, Fred Lowery. He
changed my life for the better as well as taught me
BASIC programming.

Me and Tom ‘The Doctor’ Baker

8-BIT
Kevin KID
Bulloc
k

THE COMMODORE 64 IS THE GREATEST COMPUTER OF ALL

TIME! The Commodore 64, in my opinion, was the
first personal and affordable computer that gave us
proto-nerds a way to have ownership of our alterna-
tive existances. Rather than being made to feel stu-
pid for saying clever things, we finally understood
that we were in charge. The future was ours.
Without the support of all these wonderful backers, this story
would’ve stayed history …

Aaron Mathews Chris Nelson

Aaron Schnuth Chris Traill
Adam F. Goldberg Chris Wilkins
Adam Sheik Christian ‘CMR’ Riley
Alain Bougenière Christian Boettcher
Alessandro Valenti Christian Liendo
Alex Goldblat Christian Vogelgsang
Alex Hahn Christian Wavik
Alex Stevenson Christian Woltz
Alex Vakkas Christophe
Anders Selander Christopher Frackiewicz
Anders Stryhn-Johnsen Christopher Wood
Andrea Manini cnuke
Andreas Aulin Coby Randquist
Andreas Feese Colin Lawlor
Andreas Kassel Colin O’Brien
Andreas Kersten Corin Hamilton
Andy Jenkinson Craig Henderson
Andy Lockett Crister Xiny6581 Ekstrand
Annelies Poppe Dag Wieers
Anthony M. Olver Damien Thorn
Antti Itälinna Dan Crone
Arto Saari Daniël
Ashley P Dawson Daniel Auger
Astrid & Sander Scheerman Daniel Gonzalez
Attila Pinter Danijel Klemencic
Axel Bürkle Darren Whiting
Baris Erdosan Dave Bulwer
Bart Cardoen David Barnett
Bastiaan Winde David Belson
Baz Smith David Di Troia
Ben Squibb David Isherwood
Benjamien De Vos David Klco
Bernd Quermann David Major
Bernhard Lukas David Martin
Bieno David Motowylak
Biesmans Stefan David T. Jorge
Bill M. Aber David Vanhove
Bjoern Bartels David Youd
Björn Schweitzer De Mugge Van Brugge
Brian Jeffery Dean Froley
Brian K. Perry Dennis ‘Cydo’ Spreen
Brian Mora Dennis H.
Bruce Brooking Dennis T.
Bruce Canu Dieter Marchsreiter
Bryan Pope Dion Guy
Byron Jenssen Dirk Vael
C.J. Navas Dirk Wartmann
Cameron Alexander Dominique Bongard
Carlo Luciano Bianco Dr. Dimitris Gourlis, MD, EHS
Carsten Bärmann Eduardo Uribe
Carsten Michael Petersen Edward Fitzpatrick
Carsten Olsen Els De Vogelaere
Cemil ‘Jim’ Tasdemir Eric Schätzlein
Ceri Stagg Evelien Cleenwerck
CHABROL Simon Fabrizio Pedrazzini
Chand Svare Ghei FallOutBOY
Charles Atencio Federico Pasquini
Charlotte Redfern Florian Hallberg
Chelle Destefano Fox of C.B. int.
Chris Abbott Frank Arlt

140 8-bit kids

Frank Eivind Rundholt Jay Loring
Franck Martin Jeffrey Wittenhagen
Frank Ridders Jens Mankel
Frankey Landon Jeroen Stabel
FRaNKy / RBBS / ACC / SDS / DSS Jim Evers
G. Jason Head Joerg ‘Nafcom’ Droege
Gareth ‘GAZCBM’ Darby Johan Bentzen
Gareth Robinson Johan Van den Brande (act^otl)
Gary W Daley Johan Van Mensel
Geert ‘Chesko’ Vandekerkhof John B. Træholt
Geert Bonte John ‘DaddyHoggy’ Hoggard
Gene Lane John Kavanagh
George Couch John Myron
Giacomo Vernoni John Rorland
Gisle Martin von Hafenbrädl John Tomic
Glen McNamee John Watson
Glenn Larsson Johnnie Wallgren
Gold of ROLE / Lemming Jon Provencher
Graham Dawes Jon Ward
Graham Turner Jonas Jacobsson
Greg Alekel Jonathan Bentley
Hakon Dale Sporck Jonathan Garcia
Hans Rakers Jonathan Lean
Harry Venema Jordi Escobar Bonet
Heather Kent Jörg Weese
Henning Rieche Jorge Guia
Henrik Lindhe Jörn Kierstein
Henry and Eva Hancock Jose Luis Sanchez De Gabriel
Henry Negron Jr Josh Kelly, W0HC
herdware Juha Alaniemi
Hilf Justin Kee
Holtzweg Kai Engelbrecht
Howard Knibbs Kai Göing
Hugh W. Cowan Kai-Oliver Dierich ( Bit4Bit_
Ian ‘C45E’ Cunningham Reload )
Ihiiii Kari-Pekka Koljonen
Ine Clevers Karl Anders Rostrup
Inge Strand Karl Todd
Ingmar Bauer Karol Sarnacki
Ioannis Pachnis Keith Day
Issa Game keithbuswell
Ivan Bersanetti Kevin Bullock
Ivan Wheelwright Kevin Rombaux
J.W. Wahlbrinck Kirk Bauer
Jaakko Nikunen Klaus Mehofer
Jacob Honig Klaus Timmermann
Jackson Cleenwerck Klein Maar Fijn
Jade Pearce Klemens Franz
Jakob Kjøller Kolja Sennack
James Burrows Kristian A. Bjørkelo
James Ezell Kristian Giil
James Isaac MacFarlane Kristof Clevers
James L Hevener Kuba Tyszko
James L. Peters Kyle Good
James S Lee Kyle Of Salford
James Thomson Laszlo Grath Benyi
Jan Dehoorne Leron Culbreath
Jan Hering Les Orchard
Jan Palsbom Lore Martens
Jan-Hendrik Willms Luca Ceccarelli
Jani Suhonen Maciej Korzeniowski
Janne Alapeteri Mads Troest
Jari Avelin Madusch
Jarkko Lehtola Manu ‘Kolva’ Coulier
Jarno Paananen Manu De Gersem
Jay ‘Jazzy_J’ Theriot Manuel Hermida Ruido

8-bit kids 141

Manuel Sagra de Diego Oliver Rennie
Marcel Schön Oliver Sons
Marcel Van Steenlandt Pablo Varela Pet
Marcin Segit Pasi Ylinen
Marco Bonadonna Patric Beckereit
Marco Breddin Patrice PELISSIER
Marco Iannaccone Patrice Scheidt
Marco van de Meulenhof Patrick Vermeersch
Marco van de Water Paul Craddy
Marcospn Paul Deluce
Margaret St. John Paul Desender
Maria Engström Paul Kitching
Marian Denolf Paul Moore
Mario Cleenwerck Paul Newport
Mario Ramirez-Gurria Paul S Cook
Mark Hellewell Paul ‘underwulde ‘ Martin
Mark Huber Pengan Zhou
Mark Robin Peter ‘LeZip’ De Vlieghe
Mark Rosten Peter ‘Zmürf’ Mattsson
Mark Torben Rudolph Peter Blenkinsopp
Markku Reunanen Peter Cleenwerck
Marko Döring Peter Hall *FroggyMe*
Markos Themelidis XSF 5 Vigil
Marshall Erling Peter J. Badrick
Martin Lehmann Peter K.
Martin Stoeppler Peter Mattsson
Martine Matthys Peter Scoles
Marvin ‘Joshua5’ Droogsma Petr Andel
Mathieu Fichefet Petri Lehtinen
Matt Ferguson Petri Maaninka
Matt Shively Petter ‘680xx / AmiDORE64’
Matthias Lamm Lindh
Matthijs ‘Slater’ van der Klip Philip Reed
Matthijs van Schendelen Philipp Dopichaj
Mauricio Vives Pierre Mengal
Maurizio ‘dukeemu’ Pistelli Rabih Ghandour
Mayhem Rafael Torres Lopez
Michael Bootz Raffaele Sclafani
Michael Higbee Randy Padawer
Michael Johansson Randy Smith
Michael Kuppinger René Bastrup Andersen
Michael Lirko Rene Mat
Michal Taszycki RetroGmr
Mijn Naam Is Haas Rex Dylan van Coller
Mikael Smedbäck Richard Potts
Mike De Greef Richard Sheller
Mike Lonesky Rienk Harkema
Mike Mitchell TG Miker Rilke De Brabander
Mike Parker Ringo Harms
Mo Ahhadour Rob Clarke
Morten Langwadt Christensen Rob Lockhorst
Morten Steen Robbe Clevers
Myrryspeikko Robert ‘Raistlin (G*P)’
Nancy Bodice Troughton
Nate Lawson Robert Sprokholt
Nate Spencer Rocco Di Leo
Nick kimberley Rocky Bergen
Nick Lines Rodolfo Martell
Nicolas Dupont Roger Isaac
Niklas Ekengren Roland Evers
Niklas Nordgren Rolf Scheimann
Nikolas Engström Rolf Schillinger
Nivedita Rom
Oivind Ekeberg Ron Kinney
Ola Löfberg Ronny Martinsen
Oliver Knagge Ronny Wagener

142 8-bit kids

Ross Taylor Thejok
Samuel Favre Thierry Clavel
Santeri Honkavuori Thomas [Viscid] Findeisen
Sascha ‘Lizard’ Glade Thomas Beck
Schuchti Thomas Conté
Scott Drake Thomas Dorf Nielsen
Sean Smith Thomas Finnerup
Seb Vizzacchero Thomas Rønne Viborg
Sebastian Bergmann Thomas Shields
Sebastián Gavilán Gurvitsch Thomas Woldiderich
Sebastian Hehn Thorsten Pohl
Sebastien Clavet ThunderBuild
Seppo Seppälä Tieg Zaharia
Serge Becelaere Tim ‘Avatar’ Bartel
Severin Stefan Kittl Tim Koch
Shaf Tim Peters
Shaun Harvey Tim Prue
Shaun noble Timothy ‘Simple’ De Groote
Shaun Stephenson Thomas Cleenwerck
Silvio Aaron Krvaric Tobias Hultman
Simon Hadlington Tom Eben Pedersen
Simon James Tom Maes
Simon Stewart Tom Wells
Simon Stokes Tom Vandenberghe
Simon Vergauwen Tomas Matys
Simun Pauli Hansen Tommi Äijälä
Spencer Skett Toni Kurkimäki
Stan Van Stechelman trb
Stefaan Cappelle Trees Nollet
Stefan Berghuis Truls Rostrup
Stefan Hammarstedt turbochris
Stefan Lütjen Tuur en Gunther Tisseghem
Stefan Riemer Valentine Donegan
Stefano Emiliozzi Vanja Utne
Stefano Tognon Vasco Matias
Stéphane Ghenne Veerle Witdouck
Stéphane Godefroid Vesa Mikkola
Stephen Answer Vesko Gavrilov
Stephen Bate Vi & Lesty
Stephen Preston Volker Lerch
Stevan Rankic Volker Rust
Steve Barrett Warre De Brabander
Steve Sharples Warren Lapworth
Steven Craig Taylor Wayne Keenan
Steven Edward Millward Werner Parzmayr
Steven Feurer Werner Rott
Steven Gailey Wes Rowlands
Steven Schutter Wesley Hobday
Steven van der Wolf William Prince
Steven Warren Merrill Wim Buddaert
Stirring Dragon Games Wim Rosendahl
Stuart McVicar Wojtek Sal
Stuart Nichols Wout Rosseel
Stuart Polkamp Wouter Snijders
Sven Eckhardt Xavier Bodénand
Sven Teuber Xavier HUGONET
SWE/YC Yann Louët
Sylvain Here Yannick Solan
Sylvain Rousseau Zberno
Sylvain Swimer Zoomi Protocol
Sylvia De Craemer
T.A. Crossley Jr.
Tamás Mechle A BIG THANK YOU to
Tapio Koivuniemi
Terje Høiback
each and every one
The Bajus Family of you!

8-bit kids 143

A big 8-BIT THANK YOU
to everyone who made this book – and my dream – come true!

Keep an eye on www.amicomretrobooks.be for our future titles.

All my bits and bytes go to …

All Kickstarter and Megafounder backers / All 8-BIT KIDS out there / Chris
Wilkins for sharing my project with his readers, giving me support & advice
and introducing me to Roger Kean and Oliver Frey / Roger Kean and Oliver
Frey for giving me permission to use original Zzap!64 content and artwork and
for being so supportive / Sam Dyer for inspiring me and showing there is a
world out there for Commodore memories / Andreas Wallström for keeping the
spirit alive on C64.com and beyond / Richard Lagendijk for the scans of the
original Commodore 64 specs flyer / Jon Misselyn for his editorial work / Veerle
Witdouck for the wonderful translation / Kevin Bullock & Nicole Semplinski
for the splendid editorial work of the translation / Jan Darthet for the great
photographs of my 80s stuff / Bart Vantieghem for his great cartoons /
Marian Denolf for the superb coffee / Oh yes, and GREAT artwork of course
/ Huis Van Alijn for providing me with their 80s pictures / Dirk ‘Eagle Eye’
Vael for proofreading the manuscript / Giacomo Vernoni for processing the
Zzap!64 ad scans and giving them their orginal beauty / All great friends of
www.c64club.be & www.amigaclub.be / And of course Kristof Clevers & Peter
Cleenwerck for being Kristof Clevers & Peter Cleenwerck!