Ah, the Commodore 64. The best selling computer of all time, one that most anyone involved in the classic gaming scene is aware of, and those into old computers certainly must have at least tried to experience.
What a better way to do this holiday than to go back to 1982/1983 and experience the in-store demonstration that was intended to sell the machine, showing off both its graphics capabilities (in petscii characters no less, rather than the more advanced graphics modes the computer would become known for) and also its music capabilities via the SID chip – those too being somewhat simply demonstrated here in the early days of the computers life.
Here we have what is actually my own recording last night of my Commodore 128 (the successor to the 64) running the demo. The recording quality isn’t the best, since I had to run a standard definition TV signal from the Commodore to a VCR to connect it to my video capture device, but it was still worth showing a bit of my system in operation and getting such raw video of the demo in action.
That being said, enjoy the video, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, or whatever it is you do, and stick around for more.
As a bonus, here’s the video by 8-bit guy which alerted me to the existence of this demo. It might be worth checking out for some of you and talks about it in more detail!