Your Commodore 64 memories

The Commodore 64 was my first ever computer of any description. I’d used the BBC computers in ‘computing’ lessons at school and I’d envied all of my friends who had Atari games consoles and Nintendo Gameboys (as well as coveting their Lego, which I was never bought, on the basis that I was a girl). I was adamant that I wanted a C64 when I became aware of them, although how that happened I have no idea, because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t due to TV advertising, which was so much less aggressively targeted at kids back then.

Anyway, my parents bought me a C64 for my 12th birthday in February 1983. I was SO excited when I opened the wrapping paper and revealed the box that held within the beautiful brown plastic treasure. Dad (then, and still now, a technophobe) and I somehow managed to set it up without really knowing what we were doing. And then we tried to get the only game they’d bought with it – Frogger – working. As any C64 owner will know, this was no mean feat. The cassette player took forever to load the game, frequently crashing and requiring you to start the process again…and again…and again… In frustration, Dad called the shop where we bought it – John Lewis in Southampton I believe – and they told him that it was completely normal and we just had to be patient. When it did finally load up, though, I was overjoyed, and I spent hours getting my frog to jump across the screen from log to log, using the keyboard (no controller or even joystick), avoiding the crocodiles masquerading as logs and the water. Friends came to visit me so they too could play with my marvellous new toy.

Over the years I accumulated more games, all of which had the same problems loading, equally rubbish graphics and tinny electronic music. My favourites were perhaps Ghostbusters and BMX Racers, which I used to spend hour after hour playing while listening to Big Country’s The Seer album on loop (you had to listen to music while playing because the C64’s sound effects and music were so bad). The trick with the games was to play them repeatedly, because every level was exactly the same every time you played it, so you could learn how to time every move precisely.

That C64 was my only source of games right up until 1993, when I purchased an Amiga 600 from a games shop in Walthamstow, using the earnings from one of my first full-time pay packets after leaving uni. The C64 is in its original box on a shelf high up in my Dad’s home office and the Amiga 600 in a box in our garage.