| Posted By
Spector
on 2004-12-18
08:11:57
|  Commodore 16 memories: 1984
As we are now in the Christmas period and we cast our minds back to Christmases past, I find myself looking back at one in particular - Christmas 1984. I can't believe that 20 years have passed since that day. But why was it memorable? Because that was the Christmas that I got a Commodore 16.
I had an Atari 2600 from a couple of years before, but this was my first real introduction to computers. The excitement I felt running up to Xmas day was enormous, greater than any christmas before. I remember watching the advert several times on TV for the C16 with the two schoolkids going into the shop and buying it over the counter (and being stopped so that the shop owner could give them the penny change!). I also remember the chart songs of the time - Band Aid, Last Christmas and The Power Of Love by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. They can still remind me of that hyperactive anticipation I had the weeks before Xmas came.
Christmas Day finally arrived, and I mean finally, because I had been awake since about 3AM. We went down to the living room and there it was. There were loads of presents, but there was no doubt about what mattered the most. After opening it and setting it up, we stupidly didn't know how to load a game. We kept typing LOAD ' ' using single quotes rather than double. How stupid can you get? It wasn't until someone came round that afternoon and noticed the error we were making that we finally managed to load a bloody game. I can't believe we could have been so dumb, really I can't. The first game we played was, of course "Punchy". And it was played for hours. As a shoot-em-up fan, I liked Xzap. Okay it's not R-Type, but it had neat strategy, and I still like it today. The rest of the holiday was spent playing those games and typing in programs from the basic programming book by Professor Andrew Colin.
I'm sure back in 1984 I never wondered what I would make of all in twenty years time. When I was young I only thought about today and tomorrow. The older I get, the more sense that way of living seems to make.
If I had however thought of the future, I would probably have thought that it would be meaningless to me in 2004, that I would struggle to even remember the name of the computer. But these memories are stronger than ever now, and gain meaning as they become more distant.
I have to admit though that had it not been for this website, some of the memories and feelings would have been lost forever. Games that I thought I would never see again, as well as homebrews and hidden gems made it possible for me to rediscover the great things this sadly neglected machine has to offer. So I want to thank Lando and Csabo for helping me go forward by taking me back. Because of your work, as well as the other posters on the forum that have answered my questions, you have made the C16/Plus4 experience possible, and these machines will always matter to me. This is a great site.
This isn't really a topic, just a thank you to everyone involved here which I feel I needed to give with the twentieth anninversary of my Commodore 16 Christmas coming up. So to those memories of a very special Xmas morning all those years ago (including the stupid LOAD ' ' problem) I salute you! 
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Posted By
JamesC
on 2004-12-18
12:41:07
| Re: Commodore 16 memories: 1984
As well, I remember Christmas 1984. My parents had taken my little brother and myself shopping in October, and at the local Montgomery Ward store we saw the Commodore line of computers. The Commodore 64 was displayed, turned on, running in BASIC mode (that's all that most stores did, they didn't bother showing the capabilities), and there was some VIC stuff on clearance. On its own desk was a Commodore Plus/4 with a hand-out brochure for the store to send home with customers. The Plus/4 wasn't hooked up, let alone turned on, so my parents couldn't see exactly what 3+1 was.
I was asked my opinion, and I voiced the 64 because (gesturing with my arm to the shelves of software) "look at all the games for it". Naturally there wasn't much for the Plus/4, and what little there was was business stuff and at full retail price.
The local KMart had the Plus/4 and the C16 for $299.95 and $99.95 respectively, but KMart had no software selection for these machines. KMart salespeople probably believed that all Commodores were compatiable (a lot of people seem to think this even now) and that C64 software will work on any Commodore ever built.
Christmas Day 1984, I awake to unwrap a Commodore Plus/4 complete with a Sears & Roebuck (Sears & Sampson to you, Lando!) sticker on it. My parents didn't even buy from the salesperson who devoted almost an hour to them..... they bought down the street for $5 less.
After Christmas, I quickly learned that Plus/4 stuff is unique to itself by searching the local stores for additional software and hardware. I found the 1341 joystick complete with a sticker on the box "for the Commodore Plus/4 and 16 only", quickly reduced to a clearance price of $7, originally $14.99. I bought a non-Commodore tape deck (Data Master, sometimes one of those will pop up on Ebay) complete with Plus/4 adapter for $9, originally $20. My father threw a fit about that cause he planned on giving me a disk drive the following Christmas..... in the meantime, without a disk drive or cassette, all I could do was type in everything over and over again, or leave the computer on for days at a time. 
The 1541 did arrive in time for Christmas 1985. By then I was pretty good at opening and closing packages without my parents knowing, so I had already gone through the 1541 manual and messed with the Test/Demo diskette three weeks prior. 
My father's reasoning for buying the Plus/4 over the 64, even though the Plus/4 was $100 more? "The Plus/4 came with a typing program and you can draw with it. The other one could only play games." What a salesman that guy from Wards was!
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Posted By
Rachy
on 2004-12-19
04:54:17
| Re: Commodore 16 memories: 1984
Now I remembered how I got my C16 back in 1986. My parents travelled to an other city to buy it (because in our city there were no such shops). I was in school, and I was preparing my very first own program on my own computer, because I knew there would be no programs at the beginning. (I wonder why Punchy left out from the package...)
Then the afternoon came and I just can't do anything else than waiting and repeating the lines of the program as my mantra. Finally my parents arrived and brought the little baby of mine...
We plugged it together with the TV and started it up. My father just looked at me because he knew almost nothing about computers but I already educated myself a while. So I started to typing in my program, and it worked at the first start!
It was really nothing special, only a ball character what I could move on the screen with the cursor keys. How could I ever forget?
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Posted By
Mosh
on 2004-12-19
07:23:44
| Re: Commodore 16 memories: 1984
Rachy, this program of yours, is it in the database???
I remember Xmas '84 when I got my C16. I wasn't even expecting it, and was a little disappointed when I realised it wasn't a C64. Never fear, that disappointment disappeared soon after hooking it up and playing Jack Attack (which would bring me back to the C16 almost 20 years later in 2000 when I bought a replacement machine to play, yup, Jack Attack). I was rapt with the little machine. I never became a programming guru or anything because of it, but just as a games machine, my C16 blew everything away as far as I was concerned. Every week or so I'd look forward to getting a new Mastertronic or Gremlin game (we didn't get much else in Australia), and spent much time monopolising the TV.
Being as I was about the only person I knew who had a C16 (much less a +4, those things were expensive), I didn't have anyone else to learn from or bounce ideas off. There must have been other owner, because the games sold ok here.
Spector said it all as far as I'm concerned. There isn't a day that goes by now that I don't load some game on my current machine. Cheers!
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Posted By
Drpepper99uk
on 2004-12-19
18:41:55
| Re: Commodore 16 memories: 1984
Well it's mad that it's 20 years on from first getting my +4.I can remember vaguely opening it with my sisters(as it was a main present for all of us(£200 was a lot of money back then compared to now) and first playing Treasure Island. I had experianced nothing quitelike this before.
We always used to fight over who's turn it was to play on it that's half the reason why my mum and dad wouldn't buy us one in the first place.The excitement of loading a game and typing in LOAD..........oh what memories.I used to love programming in the +4 organ thing even though is used it take a good hour or so. Another classic was Icicle Works I used to hate the noise of when they loaded up but I loved the coloured bars that go across the screen.The thing I really liked the most was popping down to my local Tandy shop and getting new games for it.They always used to have a huge row of Commodore 64 games and then a piddley little row of +4 one's!!!!!!!!!
I really regretted giving it away back in the very late eighties only to make way for a NES which compared to the +4 was heaven(instant loading games for a start) But it's only this year I have managed to purchase a fully working and mint condition +4 with all the games that come with it under the Commodore label and the joystick too.
To sum up I'd recommend anyone reading this who once owned a +4 to consider purchasing one.My kids haven't a clue as to what it is and they laugh at the thought of loading cassette games and not cd's like you do with the Playstation but this is what has amazed them and they too are getting to enjoy using it because it's simple and the games are effective and not like today's multi graphic and all singing and dancing games.
Long live the +4!!!!!!!!!!
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Posted By
MIK
on 2004-12-20
05:10:39
 | Re: Commodore 16 memories: 1984
Yeah its funny when you think back. I've known my best friend 20 years, well almost the day we all went back to school which would of been January 1985. As you did you found out what people had for xmas and also found out who got a Plus/4.
I think I bought Mission Mars around 20 years to the day from Super Drug. I bought a game from my paper round money before the machine was opened. I had already tested the game because I went back to the shop where the Plus/4 was bought from and loaded it on their demo machine.
I'd already taken an intrest in computers long before. Had 2 school friends who had Vic20, 2 who has C64's and 1 who had a ZX spectrum. I had a couple of years head start and already knew "LOAD" was the key word even on ZX although that has some stupid key/shift on the wrong letter to get something loaded. Remember the old classic line even one used to do on Commodors in the shops?
10 print"mike ";
20 run
Later once I was deep into the plus/4 I'd go into the shops using the same basic lines but also used a poke to disable the run/stop key so the only way to stop it was to turn it off! I got the Poke out of some mag and can't remember it for the life of me haha!
I wanted to do it all and was frusrated I could not do machine code! I hunted for books and info but could not find anything grrrr! I tryed so hard to get my little basic programes to auto run once loaded. It was years later before I got a turbo save but before then I did it cheap by doing a two part loader where the first program was just a basic LOAD line, so you still had to type RUN to get that working.
Anyways I also remember the C16 advert and although I wanted a C64 that C16 looked so cool in its dark shade of grey. I think the TV advert was shown so much for a good number of months leading up to xmas that you almost believed that was the machine you had to own, Commodore was brain washing people. I knew my oldies didn't have much money so I started to look at a C16 in hope of getting a computer... When we went to the shop in early December 1984 there it was, but stat next to a Plus/4. The thing was I'd never seen a Plus/4 until then. It was also around £30 cheaper than the C16 next to it. The plus4 came with a tape deck where the C16 did not, plus4 also had 11 games and 2 joysticks and again the C16 did not. The thing I can't not remember is that so home I knew they were the same machine, what would load on the C16 would do so on the Plus/4. Maybe it was once I'd bought Mission Mars acouple of weeks later maybe, because it was here it said RUNS ON THE C16/Plus4. The machine lable on the tapes was the reason we all called the machine C16/Plus4 and I still do.
Treasure Island was my first game I loaded. I think Fire Ant was the most abused game of them all that xmas because it was at the time a hard little game which kept me coming back for more. When you think back Treasure Island, Icicle Works, Fire Ant and Invaders were the most perfect games that could of ever been released. They looked like C64 games yet it would be some time later before we saw anything of the same quality!! Early 1985 came Sword of Destiny and this must of been the 1st 3rd party title that had the same polished quality as the Commodore releases! Sword of Destiny was something special, great GFX and sound! I also remember BMX Racers which was such a cool game to have owned in the early days of the machine!!
C16/Plus4 nostalgia from 20 or so years ago will never die. When ever I'm about in the City where I live the thought of where I bought each game comes back every time I'm in that area. Things have changed like building, shops ect but its like going back in time and I feel like I'm in 1985. Very stange. There is some enegry from the past that has been with me all these years. I guess these were happy times and my mind wants to got back to the C16/Plus4 era as to why these thoughts never go away.
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