Commodore 64
An 8-bit home computer with dedicated sound and graphics chips.
The Commodore 64 was Amir Husain’s first encounter with a computer. The museum also demonstrates John Walker’s associative-memory program on this platform.
All photographs of this object
Running here
Photographed off the screen of the machine in this collection.
Commodore 64
| Maker | Commodore Business Machines |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 1982 |
| Processor | MOS 6510 |
| Sound | MOS 6581 SID |
| Distinction | Best selling single computer model in history |
| Personal significance | The collector's first computer |
The VIC-II gives the 64 eight hardware sprites, each moved by writing a coordinate rather than by redrawing the screen, and it can raise an interrupt on a chosen scanline. Together those two facts are why the machine's games look the way they do: change the sprite registers partway down the frame and you get more than eight, change the border colour mid-line and the border stops existing. The SID alongside it is a three-voice subtractive synthesiser with a real filter, closer to an instrument than to a beeper, which is why its music is still played.
Record & provenance
The Commodore 64 was Amir Husain’s first encounter with a computer. The museum also demonstrates John Walker’s associative-memory program on this platform.
Reference: ATX-OBJ-COMMODORE-64
Source: collection inventory, photographs, and notes accompanying Serious Machines (Amir Husain, 2024).