Facts about Commodore 64
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Users could type and execute programs directly in Commodore 64 BASIC without any disk or cartridge, making it one of the first home computers to ship with built-in programming capability accessible from startup.
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Booting a Commodore 64 displayed a startup screen featuring a animated rainbow pattern that took approximately 3 seconds to fully load before users could access the BASIC programming environment.
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Beneath the Commodore 64's beige plastic case, a MOS Technology 6510 microprocessor consumed only 1 watt of power while competing with computers costing three times as much in 1982.
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Approximately 10,000 commercial game titles were developed for the Commodore 64 during its lifetime, more than any other single computer platform of that era.
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Cartridge games for the Commodore 64 could load in seconds because the computer featured a built-in 1541 disk drive that used a proprietary fast-load protocol instead of standard Commodore serial speeds.
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Jack Tramiel's 1982 Commodore 64 featured a MOS Technology 6581 sound chip that became so legendary for chiptune music production that video game composers used it throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
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Commodore 64 users could expand the computer's 64 kilobytes of RAM to 256 kilobytes using third-party cartridges like the REU in the 1980s.
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In 1983, Commodore released SID, a dedicated sound synthesis chip in the Commodore 64 that could generate three independent voices simultaneously with advanced envelope controls.
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The Commodore 64's 6510 processor ran at 1.023 megahertz, yet its custom graphics chip could display 16 colors simultaneously from a palette of 256 possibilities.
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Over 17 million units of the Commodore 64 were sold between 1982 and 1994, making it the best-selling single computer model in history.