Our first destination is 1976. That was the year when, with my wife's encouragement, I bought my first "real computer." It was an MOS Technology KIM-1 single-board microcomputer, and it turned out to be one of the most beneficial decisions of my life. 40 years ago, this was really cool!
Thanks to oppressive governments, both spouses in most families have had to work to make ends meet. However, acquiring the KIM-1 computer bootstrapped a career for me that has made it possible to single-handedly provide for my family. For this, I'll always be grateful to the God I worship, Jesus Christ.
Since buying that KIM-1, I've been bought and used assorted computers whenever I could get a good deal. And so, it takes no stretch of the imagination to understand why I would snap up a Commodore 64 when, in 1983, the retail price dropped to $199.
This was my wife's standard question when I'd come home with another computer. It was sort of a standing joke in our family that I'd get the next computer to go on sale, whether I needed it or not.
The C-64 was particularly cool because it had an amazing, built in sound and music synthesis chip. In order to understand how important that was, try playing just a little of this YouTube video:
As you can readily hear, prior to C-64, computer "music" was essentially a series of reedy/raspy sounding square-wave tones generated by toggling a single-bit I/O port and piping that through a simple circuit into a speaker. Of course, we all loved it at the time! I remember a friend of mine actually hand-building what may have been the first musical birthday card, using an RCA 1802 "Cosmac" computer chip.
However, the Commodore 64 contained a true audio-synthesis chip, the amazing S.I.D. chip designed by Bob Yannes. This was a revolutionary development for its time, the most advanced sound chip available in the computers of that day.
And so, I was beyond delighted to be able to set up the C-64 in the living room at Christmas time and have it playing lovely Christmas carols to "wow" the family and visiting guests. No longer were computers mere "geek toys;" they were now capable of producing musical-sounding music that everyone could relate to! You can enjoy the snowfall, holiday season images, and original musical ambiance in this video:
Imagine this lovely visual and audio display, playing in the corner of the living room during Christmas, 1983, filling the house with beautiful music.
While you're listening to and enjoying these C-64 Christmas Carols, tell us about your own experiences with the Commodore 64 in the comments below!
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