The Commodore 64 turns the Swedes into a gaming people
In the year 1982 the Commodore 64 is a hot new item in computer stores. It will become the best selling computer of all times.
During the first years the market share is 40 percent, mainly because the computer is marketed to regular people at places where they regularly shop: department stores and toy stores. The price tag is considered very low: $595. If that's still too much, the computer can be rented in video stores. You don't need a new monitor, just connect the home computer to your regular TV.
For many, the C64 is the first road in to a computer age. For others, this is the way to enter the demo scene, where young hackers spend time cracking video game protection to pirate the games, and wanted to gain accolades by adding a short message on the opening screen.
It's fair to say that the current Swedish video game business owes it all to the Commodore 64. Arne Fernlund makes the game Space Action, only 4 kilobytes in sice, and it becomes very popular in Italy, netting him hundreds of dollars.
In later years, many of Sweden's IT entrepreneurs say that the Commodore 64 was what opened their eyes to computing. One of them is the Minecraft founder Markus "Notch" Persson.
If you miss your C-64 you don't have to fret. There are lots of emulators around, among others CCS64 by Per Håkan Sundell.
Commercial for the Commodore 64 from 1982. "Introduce your family to the world of the future."
100 commodore games in 10 minutes:
