The Commodore 1541 is a floppy disk drive which was made by Commodore International for the Commodore 64 (C64), Commodore's most popular home computer. The best-known floppy disk drive for the C64, the 1541 is a single-sided 170-kilobyte drive for 5¼" disks. The 1541 directly followed the Commodore 1540.
The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International. It has been listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single computer model of all time, with independent estimates placing the number sold between 12.5 and 17 million units. Volume production started in early 1982, marketing in August for US$595. Preceded by the VIC-20 and Commodore PET, the C64 took its name from its 64 kilobytes(65,536 bytes) of RAM. With support for multicolor sprites and a custom chip for waveform generation, the C64 could create superior visuals and audio compared to systems without such custom hardware.
The VIC-20 is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET. The VIC-20 was the first computer of any description to sell one million units. It was described as "one of the first anti-spectatorial, non-esoteric computers by design...no longer relegated to hobbyist/enthusiasts or those with money, the computer Commodore developed was the computer of the future."
The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, and, in early models, a cassette deck.
The Commodore Plus/4 is a home computer released by Commodore International in 1984. The "Plus/4" name refers to the four-application ROM-resident office suite ; it was billed as "the productivity computer with software built in".
Commodore BASIC, also known as PET BASIC or CBM-BASIC, is the dialect of the BASIC programming language used in Commodore International's 8-bit home computer line, stretching from the PET (1977) to the Commodore 128 (1985).
The Commodore 1530 (C2N) Datasette, later also Datassette, is Commodore's dedicated magnetic-tape data storage device. Using compact cassettes as the storage medium, it provides inexpensive storage to Commodore's 8-bit computers, including the PET, VIC-20, and Commodore 64. A physically similar model, Commodore 1531, was made for the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 series computers.
Temple of Apshai is a dungeon crawl role-playing video game developed and published by Automated Simulations in 1979. Originating on the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, it was followed by several updated versions for other computers between 1980 and 1986.
A type-in program or type-in listing was computer source code printed in a home computer magazine or book. It was meant to be entered via the keyboard by the reader and then saved to cassette tape or floppy disk. The result was a usable game, utility, or application program.
The Commodore 64 amassed a large software library of nearly 10,000 commercial titles, covering most genres from games to business applications, and many others.
A disk magazine, colloquially known as a diskmag or diskzine, is a magazine that is distributed in electronic form to be read using computers. These had some popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as periodicals distributed on floppy disk, hence their name. The rise of the Internet in the late 1990s caused them to be superseded almost entirely by online publications, which are sometimes still called "diskmags" despite the lack of physical disks.
The Commodore 64 home computer used various external peripherals. Due to the backwards compatibility of the Commodore 128, most peripherals would also work on that system. There is also some compatibility with the VIC-20 and Commodore PET.
A fast loader is a software program for a home computer, such as the Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum, that accelerates the speed of file loading from floppy disk or compact cassette.
Barbarian is a 1987 platform game by Psygnosis. It was first developed for the Atari ST, and was ported to the Amiga, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, MSX, Amstrad CPC, and ZX Spectrum. The Amiga port was released in 1987; the others were released in 1988. The cover artwork is by fantasy artist Roger Dean.
A cassette magazine, or tapezine, is a publication contained entirely on computer-readable media, specifically on cassette. Its content consists of some combination of text, graphics, multimedia, and executable programs, and it is normally specific to one particular computer platform or operating system. The successor to the cassette magazine was the disk magazine.
Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single, non-technical user. These computers were a distinct market segment that typically cost much less than business, scientific, or engineering-oriented computers of the time, such as those running CP/M or the IBM PC, and were generally less powerful in terms of memory and expandability. However, a home computer often had better graphics and sound than contemporary business computers. Their most common uses were word processing, playing video games, and programming.
A loading screen is a screen shown by a computer program, very often a video game, while the program is loading or initializing.
Where in Europe Is Carmen Sandiego? is a 1988 European geography-based educational computer game in the Carmen Sandiego detective mystery franchise. It was originally published by Broderbund in 1988 for Apple II, Commodore 64, and DOS, and ported to the Amiga and Macintosh in 1989. It is the third Carmen Sandiego title, after Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1985) and Where in the USA Is Carmen Sandiego? (1986). Under the guidance of The Acme Agency's chief, the player completes cases to catch Carmen's henchmen; they accomplish this by traveling to European cities to find clues relating to the crook's last known whereabouts, and by gaining enough character data to issue a warrant of arrest. Once the player has captured all 15 thieves, they can pursue Carmen herself.
The Thompson Twins Adventure is a 1984 graphic adventure game that was distributed by Computer and Video Games magazine as a promotional 7" flexi disc "freebie" along with its October 1984 issue. The game is based on the Thompson Twins' single "Doctor! Doctor!", and features the Thompson Twins band members as the protagonists. The unusual storage format of the game showcases an experimental technique pioneered by the London-based Flexi Records label, and places the game alongside a small handful of other games distributed on grooved disks. This format never became established and The Thompson Twins Adventure is today valued more for its nostalgic and artifactual value than for its ludological aspects which have been uniformly panned by critics.
