Reminiscing About Retro

Prompted by the recent announcement of a Commodore revival of sorts by YouTuber Perifractic (Retro Recipes), the Mac tech blogosphere was abuzz with some reminiscing about retro computers.

I love it when I see retro computing going a little “mainstream”!

I suppose it is worth starting with the announcement that kicked things off, the two-part Retro Recipes series where Perifractic (Christian Simpson), a noted Commodore fan, sort of accidentally stumbles upon a way to acquire the licensing to many Commodore trademarks as a way to revive the Commodore brand and introduce some new products.

His video style can be overly dramatic and a bit too cheesy at times, but these videos are entertaining and worth watching.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball mentioned this Commodore announcement and the resulting Commodore 64 Ultimate with his short post REBORN COMMODORE IS TAKING PRE-ORDERS FOR NEW COMMODORE 64 MODELS.

Jason Snell at Six Colors ran with that and added additional thought in his post COMMODORE, APPLE, AND THE EARLY COMPUTER DAYS.

I saw the Daring Fireball post and replied to a Mastodon thread on it with the note “Don’t sleep on the Atari computers, which were groundbreaking in many ways and priced between the C64 and Apple II.” I think I slightly offended Jason Snell with that comment, since he had mentioned Atari in his post.

Greg Knauss wrote the occasional article for some Atari magazines back in the 80s.

However, a couple days later John Gruber did a follow-up post titled DON’T FORGET ABOUT ATARI, in which he linked to a post called Atari All the Way at Cory.news. John did also link to Goto 10 within his post, but did not otherwise mention it¹. Even with just a link, traffic here spiked a bit, which I certainly appreciate!

I think the main thing to take from all this is that people fondly remember their 8-bit 80s computing days. There is common ground, regardless of whether you used a Commodore, Apple or Atari. Some, like Gruber and Snell, feel that the Apple II was the predominant one from that era and both have “no affection for the Commodore 64”, or Atari for that matter. Others will prefer the C64 or one of the many Atari 8-bits.

I’m an Atari guy, of course, but I was still acutely aware of the other 8-bit computers. The Commodore 64 was used by nearly everyone back then as it was affordable and had great games. The Atari was the first great gaming PC, release a couple years earlier, but it took longer to become as affordable, so it never caught on as much as the Commodore 64.

It does appear the Atari computers did outsell the Apple II for a brief period around 1980, however.

Source: Ars Technica

The C64 and Atari especially excelled at games and while there were undoubtedly some great games introduced on the Apple II², I don’t think anyone would call it a great game computer with its comparatively poor sound, lack of sprites and limited color graphics. Still, the Apple II was a amazing computer and in many ways was more advanced than an Atari or Commodore (e.g., it had 80-column displays, faster drives, practical expandability and a better BASIC), but it also cost a lot more. By the mid-80s you could get an Atari or C64 and disk drive for around $300 (about $900 in 2025). An equivalent Apple II would have been over $1,000 ($3,000 in 2025). The price difference was substantial.

I used the Apple II in high school in some “BASIC Programming” classes, but I didn’t know anyone who had one at home; they were just too expensive for most people that were not using a computer in a more serious fashion. An Atari or C64 would often be the family computer, attached to the TV in the living room. I think an Apple II would be more likely to have its own desk and monitor in a den or bedroom.

Also in high school, I was able to use an Apple IIgs for a Pascal programming class and that was an amazing computer. It was like a color Mac, but could run other Apple II software. If I were to get an Apple II today, that would be the one I’d get.

I think that high price ultimately helped Apple and the Apple II survive. By not succumbing to the price wars of the 80s, Apple II sales (and profits) were able to keep Apple afloat as it introduced the Macintosh and while it worked on improving it throughout the years. Commodore and Atari, with their prices cut to the bone, rarely had enough working capital to properly support their computers, which became an even bigger problem with the 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST³.

If I had to break things down based on my experience, I’d say it was 70% C64 and 30% some form of Atari computer (usually 800XL or 600XL). Like I said earlier I knew nobody with an Apple II at home. The Apple II may have been “made by hippies for hippies”, but it sure felt like you had to be a somewhat affluent hippie to actually have one.

Going back to the original topic, the newly formed Commodore group has released the Commodore 64 Ultra, which you can learn more about at commodore.net. It looks pretty cool, but I already have a Commodore 128. I sure wish Atari would put out something similar for either the 8-bit or ST computers. They did introduce the Atari 400 mini, but it’s not really equivalent.

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1. John Gruber is not a fan of Substack, so I’m honored he even linked to Goto 10.

2. Offhand, Choplifter and Karateka come to mind.

3. Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 and Atari effectively disappeared in 1996.